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By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Posted Saturday, January 7th, 2012 - 9 Comments »
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Summit Summed Up

38 films in 5 years, when all is said and done.

9 films with a domestic gross over $50 million (that’s including the final Twilight in the count).

You can literally count their years in Twilights.

Year One: 5 films, none grossing as much as $25m… and then, Twilight
Year Two: 8 films, 2 grossing over $20 million, Knowing almost gets to $80 million… and then Twilight 2… and a Best Picture Oscar for one of its commercial failures, The Hurt Locker.
Year Three: 6 films… 2 earners over $20 million domestic… Red becomes biggest non-Twi hit with $90 million …and a Twilight in the middle.
Year Four: 6 films … 2 nice grossers against budget… 2 big 3D bombs and a Beaver… and then, a Twilight
Year Five : We’re one film into what would have been the company’s second 8-film-and-a-Twilight year. Look for the last film – aside from potential sequels – to carry a Summit logo to be, of course, Twilight.

Twilight was a great call. Red, Source Code, and Letters to Juliet were good wins for the studio. $35 million for 50/50 is worth a big smile and a hat tip.

That’s about that.

There are others who got their $300 million and did less with it.

Lionsgate, by the way, has had two $100m movies in their entire history… neither of which they made… one of which they didn’t even acquire. They’ve released 19 straight films since The Expendables without a $60m domestic grosser. They’ve released 57 movies since Summit released their first. They’ve had ten $50 million domestic grossers in that period – 4 from Tyler Perry, 3 for r-rated horror. But they have basically gotten out of the hard-R horror business since Saw 3D in October 2010. Good timing… for Paramount.

Six of their twelve films in 2011 grossed under $1.5m domestic and another grossed $3 million. The one modest non-Perry success was The Lincoln Lawyer, flopping with Conan, Hussein, Bane, and that abs kid from Twilight (to be fair, ABduction will make a little money thanks to foreign… which were pre-sold).

Everybody should be happy with this deal… except Lionsgate shareholders, who will pay for it soon enough.

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9 Comments »

9 Responses to “Summit Summed Up”

  1. Gus says:
    January 8, 2012 at 8:37 am

    David, can you explain a few things that seem nonsensical to me about this?

    1. How does a studio make 5 films, which will gross in total about $3B, and then sell the whole thing for $300M?

    2. How/why does Lionsgate make its way out of R-rated horror when anyone with eyes can see that’s a major source of their past success?

    I assume there are simple answers for both of these but I don’t understand them in a plain-sense way.

  2. EthanG says:
    January 8, 2012 at 8:49 am

    Lionsgate getting out of horror is pretty baffling, but they decided they wanted to go in a Latino/urban direction, probably due to the success of Tyler Perry. 7 of their 12 films last year could be categorized as such, and even “Conan” and “The Devil’s Double” felt as if they had an ethnic flair.

    As for Summit…it’s sad to see another mid-major be absorbed so soon after FilmDistrict gave up its distribution.

  3. Paul D/Stella says:
    January 8, 2012 at 9:00 am

    Is Lionsgate going to abandon horror or just focus on direct-to-DVD titles like Hostel III? Seems like they are still very active in that market.

  4. EthanG says:
    January 8, 2012 at 10:18 am

    They do have horror on the schedule this year, with ANOTHER Texas Chainsaw Massacre reboot and a possession chiller…along with the more upscale Joss Whedon flick “Cabin in the Woods.”

    It seems to me like Lionsgate was already shooting big this year with “Hunger Games,” “Expendables 2,” and “What to Expect When You’re Expecting.” If they merge with Summit we could see the first top-6 year by non-major studio since 2004 when Dreamworks was still self-distributing.

  5. Paul D/Stella says:
    January 8, 2012 at 10:29 am

    Oh that’s right Texas Chainsaw 3D. And that possession movie is from Raimi isn’t it? Used to be called Dibbuk Box or something like that.

  6. movielocke says:
    January 8, 2012 at 10:31 am

    so is Ender’s Game the only Summit film on the horizon with the potential to be a 100 million grosser post twilight?

  7. cadavra says:
    January 8, 2012 at 11:44 pm

    No, I think RED 2 could get up there…if they even make it now.

  8. Greg says:
    January 9, 2012 at 5:32 am

    Hostel 3 was a Stage 6/Sony release, not Lionsgate.

  9. palmtree says:
    January 13, 2012 at 9:46 pm

    Reads like an obituary for an untimely death…

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So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

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