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QUIZ

Block Party

Test your knowledge of big-screen blockbusters

By Matthew McKinnon

Blockbuster as a Hollywood term began in the 1920s, coined to describe any film whose line of customers could not be contained on a single city block. Ever since 1975’s Jaws, a low-budget thriller that earned a whopping half-billion dollars in theatrical release, the word has come to represent movies that gross more than $100-million US in North American box office sales. That broad definition includes everything from 8 Mile to The Passion of the Christ; in most cases, though, the modern blockbuster is a summer diversion saturated with special effects, schmaltzy storylines and/or Will Smith.

1. What movie is the all-time leader in worldwide box office sales?
	Independence Day
	Battlefield Earth
	Titanic
	The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
	Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone

2. What comedy — barely a blockbuster, having totalled $105.5 million US in U.S. box office sales — is the highest-grossing film ever made in Canada?
	The Adventures of Bob & Doug MacKenzie: Strange Brew
	Ding et Dong, le film
	Meatballs
	Porky’s
	Nuit de Noces

3. What did Steven Spielberg nickname the mechanical shark he used to film Jaws?
	Benji
	Bruce
	Sparkplug
	Stevie
	Payday

4. What scene appeared in a trailer for Spider-Man but was removed from the final feature?
	Spider-Man battles the Sandman at Coney Island
	Spider-Man loses his mask stopping a runaway subway train
	Peter Parker uses his “Spider Sense” to choose lottery tickets
	Aunt May discovers her nephew’s Spider-Man costume in his laundry hamper
	A helicopter is caught in a web between the World Trade Center’s twin towers

5. Fill in the blank: Lethal Weapon 4 (1998) was the last time ________.
	Joe Pesci acted in a Hollywood movie
	Jet Li played a character who dies
	Mel Gibson played a character named Martin
	Mel Gibson starred in a movie that surpassed the $100-million US blockbuster barrier
	A Van Halen song was heard in a blockbuster

6. Disney paid approximately $2 million US to purchase the script for 2001’s Pearl Harbor. What was it originally titled?
	Air Raid
	Infamous
	Bombs Over Banzai
	From Affleck to Eternity
	Tennessee

7. How did Alfonso Cuarón, director of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, prepare Daniel Radcliffe (Potter) for a scene that required the actor to look awestruck?
	“Imagine you’re in Baghdad when the planes came in.”
	“You’re Jodie Foster, it’s Contact — GO!”
	“Pretend you’re seeing Cameron Diaz in a G-string.”
	“Remember the first time you opened a cheque for Sorceror’s Stone.”
	“Look at camera four, Danny, and make believe it’s a dancing panda.”

8. What summer spectacle, filmed at an estimated cost of $170 million US, was both the most expensive movie released in 1999 and a five-time “winner” at the 20th annual Razzie Awards, a mock celebration of Hollywood’s worst movies?
	Godzilla
	The Mummy
	Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace
	Wild Wild West
	Armageddon

9. The contract of what star for what blockbuster provided a $29.25-million US fixed salary, $1.5-million US perk package (including a fully equipped gym trailer, round-the-clock limousines and personal bodyguards) and 20 per cent of gross receipts from all sources of worldwide revenue?
	Keanu Reeves, The Matrix Revolutions
	Mike Myers, Austin Powers in Goldmember
	Arnold Schwarzenegger, Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machines
	Julia Roberts, Runaway Bride
	Bill Murray, Charlie’s Angels

10. According to Edward Jay Epstein, author of The Big Picture: The New Logic of Money and Power in Hollywood, what is Tinsel Town’s “sexopoly”?
	The six actors (Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts, Tom Hanks, Jim Carrey, Will Smith and Harrison Ford) who are virtual locks for blockbuster box office business
	The six media companies that control motion picture entertainment
	The seven blockbusters, including Forrest Gump, Star Wars and Titanic, that have won six or more Oscars since 1977
	The secret casting-couch sessions that rule blockbuster roles
	A game played by movie crew members; basically a betting pool on star-trailer Twister