Invincible takes an original idea and rides it to box office gold.

I just checked the box office numbers and it seems that Marky-Mark’s movie Invincible is the box office champ this week with a modest $17 million take. I remember telling Bratch the other day, that a good idea for a movie would be a sports movie, perhaps a football movie. The movie should have some sort of underdog scenario, like a hardnosed guy trying to make the team and persevering, or a team of misfits that are horrible as a team, but they come together when it counts and win the championship. It would also help, and make compelling movie watching, if there were a few players who hated each other for a stupid reason and then in the end, one helps the other out and they become friends.

It also helps if there is a certain team that is just a bunch of dirty creeps who like to cheat and like to do despicable things to win. This will set things up for a great ending, speaking of which, one thing you definitely need is a feel good ending. People do not want to see a downbeat ending to a sports movie, this is America, dammit. The hero should make the team and help the team win at a most opportune time, or the underdog team should win the championship. I want to be uplifted when I watch a sports movie.

I just realized when I saw the trailer for Invincible, that we have never seen an uplifting sports movie before, at least not about football. In fact, I must not be the only one to think that because we have another football movie called the Gridiron Gang, starring the Rock, that will be coming out soon. It is about kids who are in juvenile detention and the Rock teaches them to play football. It also appears that kids from rival neighborhoods hate each other at first, but learn to love each other as they overcome an insurmountable obstacle. It is just what I have been looking for, you know, something original.

As much as I think I will love this brand new genre I will call inspirational sports movies, I hope Hollywood doesn’t start to exploit this formula and put out two or three inspirational sports movies a year. That would be sad and would kill any goodwill I had toward these types of movies. Hopefully, we won’t have to worry about an over saturation of inspirational sports movies with the exact same storyline and the same stereotypical characters. Ahh, what am I talking about; I am sure Hollywood is full of smart writers who have plenty of original ideas.