More Excuses For Mediocre Numbers
Pamela McClintock at Variety is smart enough, but this story is misleading. (Pamela ends up posting some of the same stats I am bouncing around below… but leads and continues the lie of overcrowding as an issue. It doesn’t pass the smell test.)
Why does every event in movie history have to become a trend story… and why are 90% of them wrong on the face of them?
In the first place, both of the last two Mays had MORE movies in the market place.
Second, films released in the month of May have generated between $900m – $1.17 billion every year in the last five years… pretty consistent. And the threequel year is not the biggest year of May releases… last year was, with two $300 million movies and six releases that ended up over $50 million while the threequel year had only those three movies grossing over $50 million.
Third, this May has set a new record with seven releases grossing more than $50 million. Never happened before.
So what’s wrong with this summer? It’s not overcrowding (which, btw, is a chant that distributors and exhibitors love to make and is almost always irrelevant). It’s the movies, stupid.
Star Trek, the biggest hit (for now… UP may well pass it when all is said and done) will end up at least $80 million behind last May’s top draw, Iron Man. Current #2 Wolverine will be at least $130 million behind last year’s #2, Indiana Jones.
Night at The Museum and Angels & Demons may match Sex & The City and Prince Caspian.
The last three Over $50m titles are Terminator Salvation, Up, And Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, which have already grossed about $50 million more than last May’s 5-6-7 with Up good for another $100m – $150m.
So in the end, thanks to UP being in May, the final results for May may look a lot like years past… in fact, it may become a record for movies released this month.
Here’s another whopper of a stat… the Top 7 openings this May opened to MORE than the top 8 openings last May!
And how about this… the top opener of May, Wolverine, looks like it will be in the bottom 3 all-time for multiple of opening weekend, currently at about 2.03x opening, just recently passing Watchmen.
What we haven’t been is a supersmash run with supersmash openings. And you know what… Hollywood pushed the issue of opening weekend long and hard… and this summer, when it didn’t work as dramatically as they liked, boo hoo hoo.
And thus, Variety dips its toe into the waters of “SLUMP!” first… a dumb trend that should be stopped before it gets out of hand. Year after year after year we learn… it’s the movies… not the trendlines. 2%… 4%… okay. I’ll buy that some years. But not this year… because it’s no true.
They didn’t stay away from Terminator Salvation or Angels & Demons on opening weekend – and thus, through the runs – because of too many films. If 3 of the films were massive hits, okay… there is a giant sucking sound that comes from that. But there are no true mega-hits this summer so far. There is one blockbuster, in Star Trek.
If you give them the movies they want… they will come. “They” have been good with audiences this summer… but not smashing. And that’s what they want. And that is going to be the story of this summer in the end. Numbers will not be off by much from last year’s second-ever $4 billion summer. But it looks like there are only two movies left with a shot at $300 million.
Nice piece…I also wonder if the critics have actually had a major impact this year, because for once they either reaaaaally like the movies coming out or reeaaaally dislike them (of the nine wide releases in May, six are below 45% on Rotten Tomatoes while the other three are above 90%).
You could lay it down to other factors, but I think it IS about the movies, and the buzz/reviews resulted in “Wolverine,” “A&D,* “Night at the Museum 2” and “T4” coming in well below initial expectations. Even “Ghosts of Girlfriends” past, though a solid midlevel hit, pales next to recent Matthew Mc. rom-coms (20 million less than “Fool’s Gold” and almost 40 million less than “Failure to Launch” even those films had direct competition upon release…only 7 million more than “Made of Honor” last year and that film had “What Happens in Vegas” hot on its heels), while “Dance Flick” will be a low for a Wayans flick.
On the other hand, like you said, “Star Trek” is the top grossing film of the summer, “Up” will probably end up as Pixar’s highest grossing film since “The Incredibles” (it will end the weekend about $15 million ahead of Cars’ pace and was released about ten days earlier in the summer meaning more kids are still in school), while “Drag Me to Hell” while much more modest, will still outperform the vast majority of horror flicks released in the summer, and will end as the top grossing horror-comedy of all time (I count “Mamma Mia” as a horror musical).
So maybe…just maybe…critics/buzz are starting to matter more??? We’ll see this weekend how much an R-rated, no-name sex comedy with great reviews does against a big-budget action-comedy toplined by one of Hollywood’s biggest stars that has generally shit reviews…
For now I think the only trend Hollywood can take stock in is that the 2nd weekend of May (Star Trek) isn’t the worst weekend of the summer for movies that it seemed to be…it really IS about the movies as DP said.
Perhaps it’s just that this year, seemingly unlike many others, critics and audiences seem to be in agreement. Yes, Wolverine opened huge in the face of dire reviews, but its legs prove that it is not popular. And the numbers for T4, N@tM2 and A&D speak for themselves, while the same is said for Star Trek and Up the two big releases with overwhelmingly positive notices (leaving out Drag Me to Hell, which was never aiming for a mega opening).
The only thing with that, Kami, is that Trek will still be around or under 3x opening. Museum 2 will do that or better and A&D and T4 may well do it as well.
Hey, Kam: You OK?
Who were the geniuses that decided to clump four big budget sci-fi action pictures (hello anti-matter bomb) together?
Wolverine / Star Trek / Angels & Demons / Terminator?
Museum / Up / Land of the Lost / Imagine That?
Wolverine was going for the Marvel opening slot. Star Trek was pushed back, but space sci-fi works better in the late-spring / summer. Angels & Demons was also pushed back, and followed its predecessor’s schedule. Terminator? Would have been best to leave in July, but Warner Brothers pushed back Potter into that slot they (rightfully) love so much, and didn’t want Terminator running as an also-ran to Transformers.
So… Star Trek could have waited, and yet topped them all.
Museum should have released a week earlier. If not six months earlier. Land of the Lost could have waited another week, but Universal hasn’t known what to do with June since… Jurassic Park? Imagine That seems to simply be meeting some odd quota for releasing Murphy flicks in a crowded market.
Note, missed adding the line
“And four family flicks one after another too?”
It’s easier to get better gross/opening ratios if you don’t open that impressive. And considering it’s summer that ratio is usually far more impressive.
Joe, I am thanks. Sore though. I’ve been filling myself with pizza, Indian mango chicken with rice, chocopolitan ice-cream and triple choc cookies and Golden Girls playing on DVD. I’ll manage somehow!
Kam: Gosh, what an ordeal. Well, soldier on, friend. Soldier on.
Surcharges for giant-screen and 3D shows are padding the overall box office. Add in ticket price inflation and you get the impression there is a bubble waiting to be popped.
If there’s any overcrowding it’s on the side of going ubermainstream to handle giant-screen and 3D. Also, there were five Fridays in May 2009 and five Fridays in May 2008.
Wow, the latest is that both The Hangover and Up could do between $45 and $50 million, this weekend – I have a feeling that Up could very well get close to $300 million, looks like some of us (I’m thinking myself) might have all written off the box office, too soon. Right now, it’s pacing pretty evenly with Finding Nemo.
Dave, you’re certainly making sense about this article – there ARE actually fewer releases this summer and this does look like a year of a lot of triples (Gran Turino, Taken, Blart, Fast & Furious, Wolverine, NATM) than actual home runs.
But it was stupid for neither Fox nor Warners to blink on Memorial Day weekend – I could be wrong, but that has to the first time I can think of where you had two $150 million plus movies opening on the same exact weekend. Sorry, but when a film costs that much, it should at least have ONE weekend to itself, that’s just common sense. I have a feeling both lost about $25 million at least from each of those grosses because of that decision.
And about Hangover….wow, it’s niche, but that’s SOME niche, right now. After this and Wanted last summer (did $50 milliion in late June), I think we are seeing that studios can launch lower–priced R-rated programmers in the heart of the summer. Warners really need this, because I’m sure they have lost a ton of money on Terminator and Watchmen, this year.
And as for Fox…Dave, you kept saying how they were going to have a “mega” year, this year, but so far, it has not come to fruition. Wolverine and NATM have both underperformed and with the strength of Up, I’m guessing we have to lower expectations for Ice Age too, at this point.
For the all the hype and money spent, Fox could actually go the year without a $200 million grosser. Avatar could really go either way, but you just can’t assume it at this point. Actually, it’s strange to think about, but I have a feeling their only $200 million grosser for 2009 could be the Chipmunks sequel coming out at Christmas – who would have thought that?
So what’s the release strategy for Avatar? They can’t possibly limit a movie this size to 3D-capable screens only, can they? Even if Cameron wants it that way?
While Warner Brothers was certainly hoping for more from Watchmen & Terminator, Watchmen did have ancillary revenues all over the place, and they only paid $50 million before marketing for Terminator, as opposed to Sony tossing out $75 million for overseas.
Some in this thread have mentioned it but the Variety article only gets to it with one sentence…this year Hollywood has spread out the hits. They just happen to have been in the Jan-April. Variety crtiicizes the clumping then gives one sentence to the first four months of the year.
I happen to agree with the idea that it is the movies that determine the box office, not the calendar, but Variety seems to be ignoring evidence that it is a year round business already.
NATM 2 strikes me as just a bad choice to change to summer. Others have tried to move their dates some to success others not. In this case, I’d bet NATM 3 comes in Nov/Dec.
Agreed, Direwolf. NATM 2 made the same mistake that Prince Caspian made last year. They were both sequels to films whose young audiences associate with Christmas holidays and leggy Januarys, suddenly coming out in the summertime. Even the third Harry Potter film stumbled slightly when it made the move to June after two successive winter openings. IT did all right in the end thanks to its quality and word of mouth, but it earned noticably less than the others. Franchises should pick a season and stick to it. George Lucas never opened a Star Wars film at Christmas. Don’t you think it might have had some impact on its boxoffice?
Huh DP? Night at the Museum I ended up with almost 9 times it’s opening…the sequel will probably end up with less than 3 times it’s opening…Night at the Museum 2 would have to end with 172 million to do 3 times it’s opening…unlikely at this point. Star Trek has to do 225 million, something practically accomplished this weekend. The fanboy flick has better legs than the family flick for once…also Terminator Salvation is going to do well less than 3 times it’s opening (it would need 126 mill). Angels and Demons would need 138 million…not even going to be close. Fuzzy math on this one…