It’s fair to say that 2014 was not an exciting year for movies. It’s fair to make that judgment especially after the year-end box office result in terms of both total gross and ticket numbers. It’s also fair to say that 2014 did not show as huge of a loss as expected and this became the sixth straight year of raking in more than $10 billion.
Some may wonder why I would be so optimistic. Actually around the time I wrote my Bumpy Summer blog, it was quite questionable about how well the 2014 box office would fare. The first quarter from January to March looked on par with 2013 but the second quarter from April to June looked doubtful. Further doubt continued with the lackluster summer. However the last four months of the year were consistent enough for 2014 to end on a more optimistic note.
September saw the continuation of Guardians Of The Galaxy on top at the beginning. However the month progressed with strong openings for No Good Deed and Dolphin Tale 2. The Maze Runner also opened strong with The Equalizer. However it was not enough as this September totaled $449.2 million: $21 million less than last September.
October was a real picker-upper for the month as Gone Girl debut on top at the beginning and surprised just about everybody with its longevity.Its second weekend even outdid openings from Dracula Untold and the Alexander movie. It took Fury to dethrone it from the top in its third week. Even with Ouija and John Wick having the highest debuts the final weekend, the month belonged to Gone Girl. At the end of the month, this year gave us the highest-grossing October ever with $848.4 million.
November was expected to be a big month with the opening of Mockingjay in the fourth weekend and a lot of huge buzz expected for it. The three weekends before its opening yo-yoed with Ouija staying on top but with a measly $10.7 million. The second weekend saw big openings with Big Hero 6 and Interstellar. Dumb and Dumber Too opened well but not as well as expected. Then came the opening for Mockingjay and as expected, it was a biggie with $121.9 million: the biggest opening weekend of 2014. However it was not good news as it was the lowest opening weekend for any Hunger Games movie: $30.5 million less than the first movie’s opening weekend and $36.5 million less than Catching Fire’s opener exactly a year ago. Mockingjay remained on top for the last weekend in November. This November’s total gross of $1.03 billion missed last November’s total by $458 million: almost half a billion.
The first weekend continued with the reign of Mockingjay on top and the biggest opener The Pyramid only coming in 9th on the chart. Things looked more promising as Exodus: Gods And Kings opened strongly. December was expected to end strongly with the last Hobbit movie opening in the third weekend. The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies did open strongly with $54.7 million and the following weekend continued with strong attendance for a total of over $200 million that weekend.
There were a lot of ups and downs this year. The downs made more news than the ups. In the end, the box office of 2014 totaled $10.355 billion: down 5.2% from the record-setting $10.923 billion of 2013. The numbers were not too impressive as far total grosses go either. The highest-grossing movie of this year, Guardians Of The Galaxy, totaled $333 million: the lowest-grossing #1 movie of the year since 2001. Even Mockingjay’s opening weekend was very lacklustre.
Despite it all, I do give it credit. For the sixth straight year, the box office has grossed over $10 billion. There’s always the concerns of new technologies like Netflix and watching movies on your smartphone that always cause concern for how the box office will fare but it’s still consistent despite the drop. It will take Hollywood a big effort to continue getting people to the theatres to enjoy movies. It will be continuously faced with challenges a new technologies will keep on coming our way. However I am confident people will want to go to the theatres for the movies. People enjoy it. However it will take Hollywood and the other studios to deliver them the stuff worth enjoying. I am however optimistic for 2015 . We’ll have to see.
WORKS CITED:
“Yearly Box Office Chart” BoxOfficeMojo.com. 2014. Box Office Mojo. Owned by IMDB.com.http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/
“Monthly Box Office Chart” BoxOfficeMojo.com. 2014. Box Office Mojo. Owned by IMDB.com.http://www.boxofficemojo.com/monthly/
“Weekend Box Office Chart” BoxOfficeMojo.com. 2014. Box Office Mojo. Owned by IMDB.com.http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/
Jon The Blogcentric 