Jon The Blogcentric

Usually during the year, I do a lot of focus on the box office and how it’s doing. This year I’ve been involved with so many other blogs, I’ve been distracted from it. However with only two months to go, I decided to do a focus on the box office of 2015 and boy has it been bustling!

Once again, I thank Box Office Mojo for all the monthly details.

The $405 million of January 2015 was not a record breaker but it was almost $20 million higher than January of 2014. They year started with the continuation of the success of the last Hobbit movie leading into Taken 3 and the monstrously successful American Sniper which had four #1 weekends.

February 2015 was a rather dull month with the successes of the SpongeBob movie, Focus and the critically panned 50 Shades Of Gray. The box office didn’t even hurt that much as its $711.1 million in February was only $1 million less than the previous year.

The $858 million of March 2015 was not the highest-grossing March by far but it outdid March 2014 by $17.2 million. The box office saw the #1 spot with a variety of movies and movie styles like Cinderella, Chappie, Focus, Insurgent and Home.

The $639 million of April 2015 was not only more than $100 million less than the gross of April 2014 but it lost whatever gains 2015 had accumulated over 2014 and sent it at least $60 million behind pace. Basically Furious 7 was not only the biggest thing that month but pretty much the only happening thing that month.

The summer season began in May on a questionable note as well with $1.182 billion. That was more than $50 million less than May of 2014. Sure, The Avengers: Age Of Ultron grossed enough to be one of the Top 10 highest grossing movies ever but most of the other movies did not perform as well despite pushes from Pitch Perfect and Tomorrowland. Even Mad Max: Fury Road and San Andreas didn’t perform well enough for the May to overtake last year’s May.

Leading into June 2015, trailing last year’s box office by $100 million seemed like a lot of ground to make up at first until the monster success of Jurassic World helped that along with strong openings from Inside Out, Spy and Ted 2. Three box office records were set this June. Two were by Jurassic World for highest opening-weekend gross of $208 million and highest non-opening weekend gross of $106.6 million. I believe that’s the first time a movie grossed more than $100 million in a weekend that wasn’t their opener. Also that weekend, Inside Out opened at $90.4 million making it the biggest opening weekend gross for a movie not at #1 for the weekend. June 2015 ended $1.378 billion, way more than the $997 million of June 2014 and putting 2015 back into pace of setting an annual box office record.

July 2015 continued outgrossing the year before with $1.293 billion: almost half a billion more than July of 2014. Keep in mind the June and July of 2014 were the first months in years to gross under a billion. You can imagine how much of an upper the summer of 2015 was. The month began with Inside Out finally taking #1 and releases like Ant-Man, Minions, and Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation pumping in that energy.

Box Office Mojo doesn’t have an exact total for August 2015. They have it at $546.5 million which is noticeably off if you look over the weekly charts of that month. One thing is sure and that August 2015 was less than the $1 billion made in August 2014. M.I.: Rogue Nation continued its reign at the top at the beginning of the month but the month delivered the summer’s biggest surprise hit in Straight Outta Compton. It’s safe to assume August 2015 made at least $700 million.

September is traditionally the quietest month of the movie calendar especially since the summer months went for it and now people are returning back to either work or their schools. This September set a record for September’s total gross: $690.5 million. You could tell the month gave a lot for moviegoers to see in September such as War Room, The Perfect Guy, Maze Runner 2 and Hotel Transylvania 2.

October 2015 is another month Box Office Mojo hasn’t totaled correctly. They have it at $550.1 million although it should be totaled around $700 million. Still it’s less than October 2014. This October was dominated by The Martian that was at the top all but one weekend which was taken over by Goosebumps.

November hasn’t ended yet so it’s too soon to tell if the total will outdo November 2015. This November’s tour de forces were The Peanuts Movie, Spectre and Mockingjay Part 2 which just opened surprisingly lower than expected. Next weekend will be Thanksgiving weekend and there’s a lot of promise for movies like The Good Dinosaur, Creed and Victor Frankenstein. December also has a lot of movies with buzz like Christmas Eve, MI: 5, In The Heart Of The Sea, The Big Short, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Sisters, Joy, the latest Chipmunks movie and The Hateful Eight.

I will admit there’s no guarantee that 2015 will set a new box office record–that will be decided at the very end of the year– but its chances are good. Anyways stay tuned. And go out and see a movie.