That's nearly $500,000 today, and twice the bounty for Jesse James.

..."The Right Stuff", and "Saving Private Ryan", to name but a few historically based films that did well in theaters?

"Saving Private Ryan" was intense, as was "Apollo 13" - both with Tom Hanks. I haven't seen "Lincoln", "Pearl Harbor", or "Lawrence of Arabia" yet. But my point was that the majority of what Hollywood does is action films with little if any plot. That's particularly true of the "shoot everything that moves" movies. Some of those are good entertainment, but they're not in the class of "Ordinary People" or "Thelma and Louise".

and young adult films, the YA films based largely on massive best selling books. 6 out of 20 are animated children's films, one is a musical based on Victor Hugo, one is Lincoln, one is an adult comedy, one is The Hobbit, that makes 12 of 20. The Hunger Games counts as action, but it is gun free action and both book and film have very strong character driven narratives that I am personally glad are popular with young adults and others.
That leaves 6 Batman, Spiderman, Avengers, James Bond Skyfall. Django Unchained and Men In Black, which is a comedy with action.
Last week's top 5 had Jack thje Giantslayer at #1 by a long margin, two comedies, one horror movie and one action movie.
What dominates is material for children and young adults. This has been the case for sometime now.
The majority of 'Hollywood' films are not action films devoid of plot. Some are that, of course, but far, far from the majority.
Anyone drawing breath should see Lawrence of Arabia, an all time classic and one of the world's great true stories.

For example, "Speed Racer" was targeted at those of us who were old enough to have watched it as a TV cartoon. It sucked as a movie, well, other than John Goodman as "Pops". There seriously was no plot. It was all CGI car tricks. The cartoon was more realistic. They used the jump jacks about every 30 seconds in the race scene and that's silly because at the speeds they were going the things would have broken off.

The Batman movies have plots as well as action. I'll give them a pass there. The new generation of "Star Trek" is also good. I'm looking forward to the next movie.

"Hunger Games" was a damn good movie. "The Expendables" was garbage. I only saw the first "Spiderman" and it was okay. I like what'shisface from "Tomb Raider", Alex West or something, who plays the new Bond, but I haven't seen the film. We just watched "Brave" last night, a CGI animated Disney film. That was AWESOME! It's basically all action with little violence and they did a great job with facial expressions. The horses were incredible.

I remember counting clicks on a cell-animation camera for my dad when I was like six. I'd stop the machine when it hit a certain number and he'd come in and change cells. It took days to make a short clip. Yes, I'm old enough to remember that era.

As for "The Hobbit", I can write in the runes. I also know the Elvish script from studying the back section of the leather-bound edition of "Lord of the Rings". I've always been a geek. While I haven't seen "The Hobbit" movie (one of three I heard), I have watched the LOTR movies a few times and I thought they did an excellent job with them. New Zealand was a perfect setting.

All of that said, I'm disappointed with the offerings of the past decade. There are some gems lurking in the sand, but most of it is sand. The kid's movies are the exception. I can't think of one I didn't like (and we watch a lot of those even though our children are adults now). I've got the most recent "Ice Age" movie waiting for a good time to watch. Probably not tonight. My wife has work to do. We like comedy and drama and space fiction movies. There just aren't many good ones anymore. Unless it involves automatic weapons and a lot of blood, an adult movie doesn't seem to have an audience now.

This stuff is all subject to lots of real world figures and facts. Action films have been outperformed by dramas and comedies and youth fare for years now. The top genres, money wise, 95-2013:
http://www.the-numbers.com/market/Genres/

During that time, 6 of the year's #1 films were 'for kids'. Each of the 'action' films that hit #1 were 'comic book' Spiders, Bats, Darth Vader. Not one single #1 film of the year in that period was a gun oriented film set in a current 'reality'. Not one.

In terms of quality, shitty movies are always more common that actual 'gems'. This has always been the case. Always.
I just get sick of folks repeating that 'all the movies are gun violence' when that is simply not the case. The vast majority of films do not fit that description at all.
Now, if a person says 'I hate every movie I see' that is just fine and dandy. Most of them suck. But, most of them are not 'mindless action without a plot'. They just are not. Some are. Most are not. If we 'leave out' the vast majority of the films because they are for youth just to say 'all the films are mindless and violent' we are spinning the facts to fit a predetermined opinion. Some would say it is best to look up the facts and go from there. Few facts are easier to find that 'which films made the most' or 'which made the least'.
Biggest Box Office flop of this current cycle so far Arnold Schwartzeneger's action 'come back' The Last Stand which took in just 6.6 million opening weekend, the horror film Mama pulled well over 30 million on the same days. We can all agree that Arnold flopping is good for Democrats and for the film business. That same weekend Silver Linings Playbook made $10,752,836 in it's 10th week of release, for comparison.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/?yr=2013&wknd=03&p=.htm
Facts never hurt.

I think they keep making them for the rental and bargain barrel markets. There are few good movies that actually perform with respect to revenue, and despite the pyrotechnics in the action films, the quality movies are generally more expensive to make because they are reality-based. Special effects are comparatively inexpensive.

Speaking of which, I don't know if you saw the third Terminator movie, but they constructed an entire building just so the crane could tear through it. It was even rigged with explosives and designed to self-destruct. The crane flipping over was all CGI. Just a little trivia there.

And face it, a lot of comedy films don't have much (if any) plot either. They can be funny, but that doesn't imply a plot. We recently saw "American Reunion". It did a good job of factoring in jokes from the American Pie series, but there really wasn't a plot at all. It was just what it was named, a reunion, and they got damn near everyone to come back for the movie. Yes, it was funny, but as I said, no plot. If you've seen all of the other ones (including "Band Camp&quot then I'd recommend it for a mindless popcorn munchfest. Along similar lines, "Blues Brothers 2000" didn't have a plot. They got back everyone from the original movie who was still alive, and it was funny, but there wasn't a plot other than car chases.

And you will find that most of the offerings are crude comedies, mindless "action movies," and maybe a vampire movie or two or a SFX extravaganza that looks more like a video game. But Lowry's story has all the elements I would think Hollywood would love: Action, adventure, romance, heroism -- what more could they ask?

It's funny. While Danny Elfman did the music and voice for Jack, someone else did the singing for Jack. Still, it was a good movie with excellent music. So was "Corpse Bride".

this year's Les Miz is pretty good, worth seeing particularly if you have not seen it on stage. Sounds to me like Sweeny Todd is the one for you to start with...hard to go wrong with Sondheim.

Didn't like it at all. It looked like a video game.

visual style. Could not stand it.