As some of you have noticed over the year with my blog, I’ve been paying big attention to what has been happening at the box office in 2012. I’m sure those who’d want to see an increase in the annual box office total this year also would have paid such big attention. Anyways 2012 has ended and the movie year has ended on a positive note.

The reason for 2012’s big attention has to do with years past as I have pointed out in previous box office posts. 2009 not only set a box office record of almost $10.6 billion but became the first ever $10 billion year. The following years were not so impressive. 2010 just missed breaking the record by a measly $30 million but the bigger news was of the ticket sales being the lowest since 1996. 2011 was even more humbling by being over $400 million shy of 2009’s record and even less ticket sales than 2010.

For 2012, I was looking forward to see if it was going to break the record with both eagerness and nervousness. Eagerness because I wanted to see the new record set. Isn’t that the goal of every year to be the box office record-setter? Nervousness because if there was another dip in the box office or in ticket sales, who knows what that could mean for the future of movies? Especially in this multimedia universe?

January and February shows signs that the box office was improving. March and April showed the success to continue assuredly, if not spectacularly. May and June added to the promise of 2012 being the record breaking year. July to September showed the chance of finally breaking the record continuing well. With three months to go, 2012 was $240 million more than last year at that same time and $363 million more than the first nine months of 2009’s record-setting year.

October continued the steady success with continuation of Hotel Transylvania and the big opening of Taken 2. Success of the opening of Paranormal Activity 4 and the slow but steady building buzz of Argo also added to October’s success. October actually finished with $559.2 million: $13 million less than October 2011 and almost $60 million less than 2009. Not that much of a downer. November began with the big openings of Wreck-It Ralph and Flight. Further excitement came via the latest James Bond flick Skyfall opening at $88.3 million: the biggest opening weekend ever for a James Bond movie. However it was the opening of the final Twilight movie Breaking Dawn Pt. 2 and the steady climb of Lincoln that led November to a total gross of $1.423 billion to make it the highest-grossing November ever.

December however lacked the buzz. Excitement continued with the success of Breaking Dawn Pt. 2 but excitement was weak in the first weekend of December as the weekend of Breaking Dawn was only $17 million with Skyfall, Rise Of The Guardians, Lincoln and the Life Of Pi close behind. Further lack of excitement for an opener continued the following week as Skyfall found itself back at the top with a paltry $10.7 million. Excitement came back in the third weekend of December 2012 with the long awaited The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey opening with $84 million. The Hobbit remained at the top of the box office until the end of 2012 despite challenges from opening from Jack Reacher, This Is 40, Django Unchained and Les Miserables. In the end, December 2012 ended rather weakly with a total gross of $988.5 million: the first December since 1999 to gross less than $1 billion.

Now that the year has ended, how does it all stack up for 2012? It actually stacks up quite well. 2012 had strong showings with excellent opening weekend including four opening weekends to rank in the all-time Top 10 and The Avengers setting the record with the first ever $200 million opening weekend. 2012 also produced two movies in the Top 10 list of all-time highest grossing movies with The Avengers at #3 with $623 million and The Dark Knight Rises at #7 with $448 million. The whole year brought a total record gross of $10.835 billion. Ticket sales were also the biggest in three year with a total of 1.364 billion sold.

Now that the record has been accomplished for 2012, this means a new challenge for 2013 to attempt to set a new record or sell more tickets. Will they do it? It all depends what the year has in store.

WORKS CITED:

“Monthly Box Office Chart” BoxOfficeMojo.com. 2013. Box Office Mojo. Owned by IMDB.com. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/monthly/

“Yearly Box Office Chart” BoxOfficeMojo.com. 2013. Box Office Mojo. Owned by IMDB.com. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/