flops

2014 Box Office: Bumpy Summer, Bumpy Year

Jon The Blogcentric1 Comment

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You may have seen my blog about the VIFF already. One thing some people may not have noticed about my blogging is that I haven’t been doing tracking of the year’s box office pace. Normally I do. Maybe one or two of you have noticed. Anyways this is my first look at 2014 at the box office and it doesn’t look too pleasant right now.

Decent Winter

The first quarter of 2014 didn’t make as much as the first quarter of 2013. Nevertheless it did provide for an excellent January and February. Neither January or February set a box office record for that month but both outgrossed their respective month from 2013. January 2014 was almost $60 million higher than January 2013 thanks to hits like Frozen, Lone Survivor, Ride Along, The Wolf of Wall Street and The Nut Job. February 2014 was almost $175 million higher than February 2013 thanks to the phenomenal success of The LEGO Movie and other hits like The Monuments Men, About Last Night, Three Days To Kill, Non-Stop and Son Of God. However all that extra wouldn’t be enough to outgross the winter of 2013 thanks to March 2014 grossing almost a quarter-billion less than March 2013. Strong openings for the 300 sequel, Mr. Peabody and Sherman, Divergent and Noah didn’t carry far enough in the end and the winter of 2014 just missed by that much.

Spring Falls Slightly Short

Don’t get me wrong. Spring was loaded with movies to get people to the cinema but it didn’t outgross last year’s spring. Once again no month set an all-time high but April was more than a quarter-billion higher than April 2013 thanks to Captain America 2, Rio 2, Heaven Is For Real and The Other Woman. May 2014 was more than $225 million shy of May 2013. Some could say there was no real big bang like Iron Man 3 from last year. Others could say too many competitors like The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Neighbors, Godzilla and X-Men: Days of Future Past opening at once.

However don’t get me started on June. June was the month that sent the message that 2014 was going to have a tough summer at the box office. First off June had the only weekend where a movie released in 2014 grossed more than $100 million on its opening weekend: Transformers: Age of Extinction with a paltry $100,038,390. That’s only 27th on the all-time list. Secondly were the ho-hum openings of movies like Maleficient, The Fault In Our Stars, 22 Jump Street, How To Train Your Dragon 2, and Think Like A Man Too. At the end of it all, June only grossed $995.4 million: $230 million less than June 2013 and the first June since 2003 to gross below $1 billion!

Summer’s Bumpy Road

You shouldn’t rely completely on the totals over at Box Office Mojo because the list of July totals shows July 2014 telling one story and the Weekly chart of 2014 and doing quick math in adding the July weeks telling another. One thing is certain is that this July didn’t outgross July 2013 despite continuing success of Transformers 4 and openings for Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes and Lucy.

The bright light not just of the summer but of the movie year so far has to be August. This is the one month that set an all-time record this year: $983 million. Definitely the success of the Guardians Of The Galaxy has a lot to do with it. There were other box office pumpers that month too like the Ninja Turtles, Into The Storm and Let’s Be Cops.

I decided to pass up reviewing September even though it hasn’t grossed as much as last year. Nevertheless the next three months will be a challenge. I don’t think 2014 will set an all-time box-office record but it will draw huge crowds with Fury, Nightcrawler, Horns, the latest Hunger Games movie Mockingjay Part. 1 and sequels for Night At The Museum and Madagascar. I’m confident 2014 will end past $10 billion but that’s something only time will tell.

WORKS CITED:

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

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

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

2013 Box Office: Summer More Sizzle Than Slump

Jon The Blogcentric1 Comment

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The news involving the Hollywood box office for the most part has been pretty negative especially in terms of the annual total gross or all the action movie flops this summer. One thing that has been overlooked is the overall success of the summer. It actually did better than most people noticed. Or most journalists took note of.

Continuing from where I last kept track, July was actually a bigger month than most people noticed. Yes, the big news of the action flops of that month like The Lone Ranger, Pacific Rim, Red 2 and R.I.P.D. What shouldn’t be overlooked were the big successes of the month like the minion power of Despicable Me 2, the goofball comedy of Grown Ups 2, suspense of The Conjuring and even the successful action-packed delivery of The Wolverine. Overlooked by most, 2013 produced the highest-grossing July ever with $1.291 billion: $20 million more than the previous July record set in 2008 and almost $220 million more than July 2012. Funny how the flops made bigger news than the successes.

August also continued the run of success for the summer of 2013. It opened with the success of 2 Guns, continued with the temporary success of Elysium, received surprise successes from We’re The Millers and Lee Daniels’ The Butler and ended on a bright note with the opening of One Direction: This Is Us. At the buzzer, August 2013 grossed $755.4 million: $16.4 million more than August 2012. 2013 is not the highest-grossing August ever as it’s been outgrossed by the Augusts of 2001 and 2007.

So if you want to give a rough estimate of comparing summers, by simply adding up the grosses from May to August of both 2013 and 2012, the summer months of 2013 grossed slightly more than $425 million more than the summer months of 2012. This is a welcome relief after the slumping of the first four months of the year. It doesn’t completely make up the deficit it had over the monthly pace of 2012’s total gross but it does help gain a lot back and reassure us that people still like to go to the movies despite how many forms of entertainment people have.

One thing is the successes and failures of 2013 can teach Hollywood a lot about shelling out movies for the public. I will admit that the news about the constant flopping of the big budget action movies did deserve to be made note of. In fact it continued with Elysium despite how good quality it was. One thing that should have also been taken note of was the low-budget successes that happened. Some of which had quite minimal expectations put on them. First example is the horror drama The Conjuring which made $136 million total all on a budget of $20 million. In fact it debuted at #1 in its opening weekend with a gross more than double its budget. Another example is the oddball comedy We’re The Millers. It never was #1 at the box office but it opened with a healthy opening weekend of $26.4 million and went onto a gross that currently stands at $132 million. This movie had to be the movie that had legs this summer. The most current example is Lee Daniels’ The Butler. That’s not your typical summer fare but it held the #1 spot during the last three weekends of the summer and just hit $100 million this weekend. Hollywood, take note.

It’s not to say that action moves were a complete dud this summer. It actually opened strong with Iron Man 3 and continued with Star Trek Into Darkness and World War Z. However the first sign that the crowd was about to tire of this genre was when Man Of Steel didn’t gross as much as hoped. Sure, $291 million is still impressive and has it as the 3rd-highest grossing movie of 2013, but more was expected. I believe that was the first sign that it would be all downhill from here for this summer’s action flicks.

What should be noted is that the biggest winners at the box office were not necessarily the action movies but the animated family movies. Iron Man 3 may have been the highest grossing movie of 2013 so far but Despicable Me 2 is the second-highest. Its Minion Power took it to a total gross of just over $359 million. Monsters University holds as the fourth-highest of 2013 with $265 million. A third animated movie, Epic, also received an impressive total gross of $107 million.

So that sums up the summer of 2013. Action-packed, animatedly-charming and surprises out of left field. For every box office dud, there were hits. The bad news of the summer action flick would lead to good news of this summer’s total gross. Hollywood should learn from this summer and prepare not simply for a better summer but a smarter-planned summer for 2014.

2013 Box Office And The Big Budget Flops

Jon The Blogcentric4 Comments

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Last week I wrote about the current situation at the box office in terms of the monthly totals. This time around I’ll be talking about another box office issue of this year, especially this summer. Big budget movies going up in smoke.

The box office has had big movies for years with special effects, dazzling action scenes, directed by reputed directors and starring A-list stars and they’ve paid off well more often than not. The summer is normally the best time to have such big movies loaded out in release.  This year it seems like the big budget movies are having their weakest year in a long time and it look like the hype of the summer movie season hasn’t done much to help boost it. How bad have they been doing? Here’s a list of the most notable big budget movies to fare poorly:

  • G.I. Joe: Retaliation – Stars: The Rock, Channing Tatum, Bruce Willis – Production Budget: $130 million – Box Office Total: $122.5 million
  • Oblivion – Stars: Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman – Director: Joseph Kosinski – Budget: $120 million – Box Office Total: $89.1 million
  • After Earth – Stars: Will Smith, Jaden Smith – Director: M. Night Shyamalan – Budget: $130 million – Box Office Total: $59.7 million
  • White House Down – Stars: Channing Tatum, Jamie Foxx – Director: Roland Emmerich – Budget: $150 million – Current Box Office Total: $68.4 million
  • The Lone Ranger – Stars: Johnny Depp, Armie Hammer, Helena Bonham Carter – Director: Gore Verbinski – Budget: $215 million – Current Box Office Total: $81.3 million
  • Pacific Rim – Stars: Charlie Hunnam, Rinko Kikuchi – Director: Guillermo Del Toro – Budget: $190 million – Box Office Total: $68.3 million

Now that’s just for the big budget movies that are now out of the Top 10. This weekend was unique because of two big budget movies with dismal opening weekends:

  •  R.I.P.D. – Stars: Jeff Bridges, Ryan Reynolds, Kevin Bacon -Director: Robert Schwentke – Budget: $130 million – Opening Weekend Total: $12.7 million
  • Red 2 – Stars: Bruce Willis, John Malkovich – Director: Dean Parisot – Budget: $84 million – Opening Weekend Total: $18.1 million

To think last year they were cracking all those John Carter jokes. Looks like John Carter‘s got some company this year. This also puts into question a lot of other big budget movies still to be released this summer. Yet to be released is The Wolverine, 2 Guns, Elysium, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones, Paranoia and Getaway. The production budgets for those movies has not yet been released by Box Office Mojo but you can bet they will all face the pressure of making it all back, if not #1, at the box office.

It’s not to say all big budget movies have done poorly. Iron Man 3, Star Trek Into Darkness, Man Of Steel, The Fast and The Furious 6 and Man Of Steel have fared very well. Even animated movies with big budgets like The Croods, Epic, Monsters University and Despicable Me 2 have been successes if not box office-toppers. Even Turbo opening this weekend at $31 million shows strong signs it will make its $135 million back before its run is over.

I guess it’s not exactly about shelling out bloated overhyped movies during the summer but just a job about doing the right moves. I know that every year faces the pressure of outgrossing the year before and 2013 faces that same expectation the record-breaking big shoes of 2012 to fill. I guess it’s just another study Hollywood has to undertake in preparation for both the summers of 2014 and 2015.  Also Hollywood should be reminded that you don’t always need a big movie to top the box office In fact this weekend’s #1 movie was The Conjuring with $41.8 million: more than double its budget. Pay attention, Hollywood.

WORK CITED:

BoxOfficeMojo.com. 2013. Box Office Mojo. Owned by IMDB.com. <http://www.boxofficemojo.com>