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2011 Movie Year In Review: Another Downhill Year

Jon The Blogcentric6 Comments

It seems with every movie year, it tells a lot of its overall successes and failures. However its overall total would be the big determiner if it was a success of a year or not. 2011’s movie year not only showed one year’s lack of success but Hollywood’s continually declining success.

2011 started carrying the burden of the not-so-good news of 2010. 2010’s total box office finished at $10.565 billion: $30 million less than 2009’s record-breaking year. At first $30 million doesn’t seem that that big of a loss but there was one additional sobering fact. 2010 sold almost 1.34 billion tickets: the lowest since 1996. Even Entertainment Weekly made note of that during January of 2011 and offered some tips in increasing movie turnout.

2011 had even more sobering statistics to tell. The year’s total gross was almost $400 million less than 2010’s: a dip of 3.8%. These two years in a row failing to outgross each other was the first such pair of years since 1990 and 1991. Ticket sales were also lower: 1.276 billion to be exact and the lowest since 1993. Not pleasant at all.

2011 was not completely bad news. The year still grossed over $10 million and became only the third year ever to do so. The months of January to March failed to outgross 2010. Mind you it was hard to do considered January and March 2010 had mammoth hits like Avatar and Alice in Wonderland. That downtime ended in April as it managed to become the highest-grossing April ever at $948 million. Successes like the action movie Fast Five and animated family movies like Rio and Hop had a lot to do with it. May also managed to be bigger than 2010’s thanks to Thor and Pirates of the Carribean 4 but June was a setback of a quarter-billion. Movies with big buzz like X-Men: First Class, Super 8 and Cars 2 didn’t pan out as big as they hoped. July and August offered bigger grosses than 2010 thanks to Transformers 3, the last Harry Potter movie, Captain America, the Rise Of the Planets of the Apes and the sleeper hit The Help. Thanks to July and August’s success, the whole summer’s total just managed to squeak over the previous year’s total. September became the highest-grossing September ever, thanks in part to a 3D release of the Lion King but the last three months had lackluster box office results. Not even the latest Twilight movie, the second Sherlock Holmes movie or the latest Mission Impossible could help the last three months of 2011 outgross the previous year, nor lead 2011 to a higher box office total.

So who or what’s to blame for this? You could blame the theatres for giving such irritating increases in ticket prices. You could blame the lack of box office star power of today’s A-list stars. You have to admit the star power of Julia Roberts, Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks and Will Smith isn’t as big as it used to be and there haven’t been any new ones to achieve the star power they once had. You could blame it on the lack of attractions at the theatres itself. That explains why a few theatres, including the Coquitlam SilverCity, have included an adults-only VIP lounge that includes alcoholic drinks. You could blame the lack of new winning ideas coming from Hollywood.

You could also blame it on a lot of external factors as well. First the economy. You have to admit that tough times don’t make for being able to afford a night out at the movies that often. You could also blame it on a lot of the new media functions and new ways to see movies. In the last five years, Youtube and Netflix have come about and it has changed a lot with people seeing movies. Even cellphone companies have movies in which one can download and watch on their cellphone, much to the displeasure of the likes of David Lynch. In fact that has led to a lot of changes in businesses such as video chains like Blockbuster and Rogers either going bankrupt or reducing its stores. Even local stores like Vancouver’s Videomatica–which specializes in hard-to-find DVDs like cult movies, indie flicks and a multitute of classic movies–had to close their main shop and relocate to a record store to keep business happening, especially for their most loyal patrons. It also explains why it’s next-to-impossible to have a single-screen theatre as I stated in my article about the closure of the Hollywood Theatre. In fact in my city of New Westminster, there will be a cinemaplex opening up with ten screens and a total seating of 1800: an average of 180 per screen. That’s the realities of running a movie theatre nowadays. Also we should remember that we’re now at a time when video games make higher annual grosses than movies. So people are finding other alternative ways to entertain themselves.

Despite all that’s happened last year and even happening now, 2012 has a lot of movies to show. Hollywood knows its demands and film festivals have their line ups planned. So hopefully 2012 should give you plenty of reasons to go see a movie this year.

Okay. Now I’m done the one and only ‘2011 in Review’ article I feel I need to right. Now I can go back to what I do best, which is review movies and the awards season. Golden Globes predictions tomorrow.

WORK CITED:

“Yearly Box Office Chart” BoxOfficeMojo.com. 2011. Box Office Mojo. Owned by  IMDB.com. <http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/>

2011’s Box Office Blahs

Jon The BlogcentricLeave a comment

This is my first movie post that has little to do with the Oscars. Hope you like it.

Can you believe we’re now into the tenth weekend of 2011? Or ninth if you don’t count the weekend beginning on New Years Eve? Yep, it’s now March. Two months have passed and have compiled some pretty shocking box office statistics. Entertainment Weekly pointed out in an article that this January had the lowest ticket sales in 20 years. Just today, I received an e-mail alert from Box Office Mojo saying that this February had the lowest gross since 2007 and the biggest Feb-to-Feb nosedive since 1995. Not good news at all. Especially surprising since a Justin Bieber movie was released this February.

One could attribute this to a lot of reasons. Could be because of other alternative entertainment options, like videogames or Youtube. Some could say it’s because of those download sites like Netflix. Some could even say it’s not those things at all but could be because of the lack of spice in the set of commercial movie fare the past two months had to offer. It was especially surprising to see certain Oscar fare like The Fighter, True Grit and Black Swan go beyond expectations and each grossing above $90 million. In the last decade, most Oscar fare didn’t fare too well at the box office. Guess this year’ s saying something.

Even Entertainment Weekly gave ten suggestions in their article. Some included less commercials, less fat filled popcorn, remake movies better than the original, TV rwritiers writing screenplays, more appropriate use of 3D, and even stylishly designed theatres. I myself had to agree with some of what the article recommended. At various occasions I’ve had to sit through 15 minutes of previews, seven commercials before the movie on one occasion, questioning the use of 3D in some movies and even believing I could write a better screenplay myself.

Now the rest of 2011 does look bright. We have the very final Harry Potter movie, the first part of the final Twilight book,  a remake of Arthur starring Russell Brand, a brand new Scream, Captain America, and sequels to The Hangover, Pirates Of The Caribbean, Cars, Kung Fu Panda, X-Men, Transformers…should I go on? Basically the theatres are going to offer a lot in the coming months. I’m sure there will be something to attract almost everyone.

Even this March has a wide variety of movies to attract people to theatres (source: IMDB) :

ACTION MOVIES & THRILLERS

– The Adjustment Bureau (opens this weekend)- Matt Damon stars in this sci-fi drama.

– Battle: Los Angeles (opens the 11th) – aliens invade La La Land.

–Limitless (opens the 18th) – Bradley Cooper stars in this psychological thriller.

–The Lincoln Lawyer (opens the 18th) – Matthew McConaughey stars in this cat-and-mouse legal drama.

COMEDY

–Take Me Home Tonight (opens this weekend) – romantic comedy with 80’s flavor.

–Paul – (opens the 18th) – two comic book dweebs capture an alien and a lot more.

TEEN FARE

–Beastly (opens this weekend) – fantasy film starring Vanessa Hudgens and Alex Pettyfer.

–Red Riding Hood (opens the 11th) – Amanda Seyfried stars in what’s more dark drama than fairy tale.

–Sucker Punch (opens the 25th) – Emily Browning as the action heroine.

FAMILY FARE

–Rango (opens this weekend) – an animated movie about a young lizard with true grit.

–Mars Needs Moms (opens the 11th) – Disney animated movie.

–Diary Of A Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules (opens the 25th) – wimpy kid Greg Heffley’s at it again.

INDIE FLAVOR

–Red State (opens this weekend) – Kevin Smith spoofs conservatism.

–Jane Eyre (opens the 11th) – an adaptation of the famous novel starring Mia Wasikowska.

– Win Win (opens the 18th) – Paul Giamatti plays an attorney disguised as a wrestling coach.

FOREIGN FLARE

– Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (opens this weekend) – this Thai film has been impressive at film fests.

– Potiche (opens the 25th) – this French comedy contains some big French names like Gerard Depardieu and Catherine Deneuve.

So there is a lot to offer in March. Hopefully the movie business will be able to pick it up more this month and lead to the year grossing well, if not the most ever. I hope you have a reason to go this March.

Oscars 2010: The Buzz And The Biz

Jon The BlogcentricLeave a comment

Okay, you all heard my ramblings about my views of the Best Picture nominees. They all ranged from blockbuster hits to arthouse films. The question is how did they do businesswise? For that I had to check at one of my favorite sites, Box Office Mojo:

-as of this year, we have five movies that have grossed over $100 million, same as last year. Unlike last year, there are two additional movies that have grossed over $80 million as compared to only one additional from last year.

-There is no mammoth record-breaking hit movie like Avatar from last year. That explains in part why last year’s Best Picture nominee average is $170 million while this year’s currently stands at $130.8 million.

-Last year’s Best Picture winner, The Hurt Locker, was only the eighth-highest grossing Best Picture nominee from last year and the lowest grossing Best Picture winner since 1960’s The Apartment. This does not appear to be the case this year as the heavy Favorites for Best Picture have all grossed $88 million at the very least.

The post-nomination total gross of the ten Best Picture nominees of this year is almost 10% that of the combined pre-nomination gross; equal to that of last year. However seven of the ten nominees are still in theatres and have not finished grossing in.

-Of the five Best Picture nominees from last year that grossed over $100 million, all of them passed the $100 million mark before the nominations were announced. This year only three had grosses of $100 million before nominations. Black Swan and The King’s Speech surpassed the $100 million mark after their nominations.

-Last year none of the Best Picture nominees was able to get even half of their pre-nomination gross after the nominations. This year, The King’s Speech and 127 Hours grossed $58 million and $11.3 million respectively before nomination day. After the nominations, they grossed and additional $46.7 million and $6.2 million respectively. It’s even possible that both movies could double their pre-nomination gross upon Oscar success.

-This is the fourth year in a row a movie from Focus Features has been nominated for Best Picture. This is also the third year in a row a movie from The Weinstein Company has been nominated for Best Picture. This is also the third year in a row Paramount has a Best Picture nominee.

That’s what I’ve notices from the nominated movies since being nominted. I’m sure there will be more noticeable biz after the Oscars are decided on Sunday. Box Office Mojo also keeps tabs on that too each year. In the meantime, stay tuned!

 WEBPAGES CITED:

“OSCAR:Full Chart of Noms and Grosses” BoxOfficeMojo.com. 2011. Box Office Mojo. Owned by  IMDB.com. <http://www.boxofficemojo.com/oscar/chart/?view=allcategories&yr=2010&p=.htm>

“OSCAR: Best Picture Breakdown” BoxOfficeMojo.com. 2011. Box Office Mojo. Owned by  IMDB.com. <http://www.boxofficemojo.com/oscar/chart/?view=&yr=2010&p=.htm&gt;