Dimension Films
.
Welcome back to This Week in Blockbuster History, the column that celebrates some of our favorite movies that were released in theaters for the first time during this same week in previous years. It’s a retrospective series that won’t all the time, but it will take a look back at some of our favorite blockbusters and examine their impact then, now, and more. This week, we’ll be glancing back in time to Scary Movie (2000), Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgandy (2004), and Fantastic Four (2005). Let the nostalgic trip begin!

.
The tagline for Scary Movie was “No mercy. No shame. No sequel.” Well, we all know that the last part wasn’t true since the franchise has grown so large now that a fifth movie is coming in 2013. But looking back on the first film in the series, it was hard to know how bad things would get in the years to follow. I remember seeing the first Scary Movie when it came out hot on the heels of the 90s scream queen generation of movies like Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer. It was funny in a dumb sort of way, and with “Family Guy” just having hit the small screen the year before, audiences weren’t yet tired of the “random” jokes that would populate this series. Unfortunately for everyone, it inspired co-writers Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg to go on to make movies like Meet the Spartans, Epic Movie, and other terrible films that simply throw pop culture references together one after the other and pass them off as comedy. There’s a lot of bad stuff that came in the wake of Scary Movie, but the original film isn’t nearly as bad as the films that came after it.
.

Disney
.
The main thing I remember from my first viewing of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was walking out and saying, “what a nice surprise!” A movie based on a theme park ride can actually turn out great when you have a fantastic director and a superb cast attached to a fun script. This movie obviously introduced us to Captain Jack Sparrow, the best character Johnny Depp has ever inhabited and easily one of Disney’s greatest characters of all time. Director Gore Verbinski made swashbuckling cool again, and breathed some fresh air into the pirate genre (which had, in the years leading up to this movie, been mostly reserved for direct-to-DVD awfulness and little-seen horror flicks), and the chemistry between The Lord of the Rings actor Orlando Bloom and the fresh-faced Keira Knightley made both of them household names. Of course, they probably should have left things alone at the end of the first film (which is damn near perfect) instead of drawing out this story across a trilogy and then tacking on a forgettable fourth film to the franchise and probably adding another couple onto the end before all is said and done. The Curse of the Black Pearl is a perfect example of how a movie can be great and proves that not EVERYTHING has to be turned into a franchise.
.

DreamWorks/Paramount
.
One of my favorite comedies of all time, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgandy is just as hilarious today as it was when it hit theaters this week back in 2004. That summer saw the release of both Anchorman and the Vince Vaughn/Ben Stiller sports comedy Dodgeball, and I’m ashamed to say that I thought Dodgeball was funnier at the time. But multiple viewings has opened my eyes to the genius of Will Ferrell and the rest of the Channel 4 news crew, including a then-not-quite-as-famous Paul Rudd, David Koechner, Steve Carell, and even a cameo by Seth Rogen as Veronica Corningstone’s cameraman. I literally have not gone one week since Anchorman’s 2004 release without hearing at least one person quote the film in some capacity. A lot of purists are upset about the upcoming sequel (which will hopefully hit theaters around Christmas of 2013), but I couldn’t be more excited to revisit this world filled with all of these crazy characters.
.

20th Century Fox
.
Fantastic Four was released in 2005, right in the middle of the unofficial Decade of the Superhero. From Bryan Singer’s X-Men in 2000 to Matthew Vaughn’s Kick-Ass in 2010, we pretty much ran the gamut of superhero movies from the blockbuster to the obscure. The Fantastic Four are some of the more recognizable comic book characters out there, but it’s fitting that the film was released in the middle of the decade because its overall quality is pretty much right in the middle of the pack of superhero films. It’s got a cool look to it, and stars Jessica Alba and Chris Evans (who would go on to play Captain America in the Marvel Universe) brought the hotness factor through the roof, but a lackluster villain and an anticlimactic ending left audiences wanting more from their superhero flicks. Luckily, we were only a few years away from Iron Man and The Dark Knight, which transformed the genre as we know it into the behemoth it is today. There are definitely some good elements to Fantastic Four, and hey – at least it wasn’t as bad as its sequel, Rise of the Silver Surfer, right?
.
That’s all for this week. Sound off with your memories of Scary Movie, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Anchorman, and Fantastic Four in the comments below!