Television was suppose to kill it. Then VHS. And, ultimately, streaming.
But this summer, moviegoing was very much alive and kicking, with a projected near-record domestic box office haul of $4.8 billion, nearly toppling 2013’s banner $4.87 billion, per ComScore and Deadline calculations. That’s when we started the clock on April 27, when Avengers: Infinity War blasted this summer off with the biggest stateside opening of all-time at $257.7M.
Last summer reached an 11-year low of $3.86 billion (for the same April 27-Labor Day period), and it was the stale franchises to blame, not Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime. As AMC Theatres CEO Adam Aron told Deadline before Infinity War opened, moviegoers aren’t making Sophie’s Choices between the cinema and streaming.
“Netflix was in business in February (when Black Panther opened), and they’ll do good business when Avengers: Infinity War opens. The American consumer and the global consumer can handle all this content. We can survive healthy side-by-side with all these other means of getting content.” Boy, was he right.
This summer was built on some of the backs of young franchises (Deadpool 2), cliffhangers (Infinity War), diversity (Crazy Rich Asians), beloved brands with a riveting veneer (Incredibles 2, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom), and age-old stars who continually renew the stakes for their franchises (Tom Cruise in the best-reviewed Mission: Impossible of all-time, Fallout).
Great movies at the box office drive business for other titles, thanks to the age-old marketing of in-theater trailers, and Black Panther (yes, that February release which hit $700M) set a fire at the box office that burned well past Infinity War. Says Greg Foster CEO of Imax Entertainment, “Thankfully, because of Avengers: Infinity War, summer started in April instead of May, which created the all-important momentum that our industry thrives on. Every month – From April to August – there was more than one blockbuster that audiences could wrap their arms around and be reminded of why they love going to the movies.“
Here are some of the takeaways from this summer at the box office:
Throw out the rule book Summer doesn’t start on the first weekend of May. Says who? Disney’s Marvel, that’s who, and exhibition is that much richer for it. AMC reported that, for the quarter ending June 30, their admission and concession revenue was at $1.4 billion, +17% from the same three-month period a year ago. Ditto for Cinemark, which saw $889M in such revenue, +17%. Avengers: Infinity War teed off and led all titles to their second-best week YTD (April 27-May 5) with $415.1M, following the Feb. 16-22 week when Black Panther propelled all theatrical business to $419M.
“This summer was all about not adhering to the status quo. When Hollywood rips up the playbook, it creates a new box office paradigm. It really worked. Distributors were more nimble, took some risks, and benefited from not following the safe or traditional release date strategy for movies,” says ComScore Senior Media Analyst Paul Dergarabedian. Warner Bros. pulled off the bold move in August by having two event pics follow each other by five days in release and score over $100M in business — we’re talking about The Meg and Crazy Rich Asians.
Despite their phenomenal B.O. success, Disney had an Achilles heel No disrespect to the summer (and the year’s) box office leader, who repped 38% of the season’s box office with $1.8 billion. But they owned one of two big budget bombs this season: Solo: A Star Wars Story. This is the studio which has propelled its success off the Walt Disney business philosophy of ‘plusing’, continually making scripts and marketing increasingly better and churning out branded product which greatly appeals to both critics and the masses in a do-or-die social media age. While there are myriad reasons why Solo failed, there was a prompt jaded reaction for the film coming off its Super Bowl trailer, and a lot of that has to do with the studio’s public divorce from the pic’s original directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller: Fans smelled blood.
With Solo‘s bombing, suddenly Disney’s whole Marvel-like studio plan of churning out spin-off Star Wars character movies became dead in the water. It’s possible that if Solo‘s production was handled controversy-free, we might be looking at a higher gross for the prequel rather than being the lowest-grossing Star Wars movie of all-time at $392.6M WW.
(Excerpt) Read More at: Deadline.com