Grosses vs Domestic: Two Lists, One Message
By: MattInRC
As we presented to you last month, Hollywood has been stuck in a freefall of declining domestic profits, with Top 10 releases down 63% from this time last year. While there's no clear answer when a reversal will occur, a comparison of worldwide grosses to this point is also telling. In short, what's drawn foreign audiences to American films in 2013 is very different than what's brought so few of us to the theaters. This becomes very apparent when comparing domestic ranking of films to overseas. So let's start with domestic, courtesy of our friends at BoxOfficeMojo.com:
Domestically
1 Oz The Great and Powerful $212,767,000
2 Identity Thief $131,254,000
3 The Croods $125,800,000
4 G.I. Joe: Retaliation $86,663,000
5 Mama $716,28,180
6 Olympus Has Fallen $71,116,000
7 Safe Haven $70,054,278
8 A Good Day to Die Hard $66,792,000
9 Warm Bodies $65,574,000
10 Jack the Giant Slayer $61,947,481
11 Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters $55,433,000
12 Escape From Planet Earth $54,415,000
13 Gangster Squad $46,000,903
14 The Call $45,481,000
15 Snitch $41,821,000
...and here's Worldwide:
Worldwide
1 Oz The Great and Powerful $454,100,000
2 The Croods $330,700,000
3 A Good Day to Die Hard $299,700,000
4 G.I. Joe: Retaliation $231,900,000
5 Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters $219,200,000
6 Jack the Giant Slayer $178,700,000
7 Identity Thief $157,100,000
8 Mama $130,200,000
9 Warm Bodies $107,600,000
10 Gangster Squad $99,200,000
11 Olympus Has Fallen $76,400,000
12 Safe Haven $70,100,000
13 From Up on Poppy Hill $60,500,000
14 Escape From Planet Earth $57,500,000
15 Beautiful Creatures (2013) $57,300,000
It's interesting to note that just how much worldwide audiences loved A Good Day to Die Hard, with worldwide receipts accounting for a whopping 78% of its total profits. The same goes for Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, with worldwide accounting for 75%. One cannot ignore the worldwide success of Oz The Great and Powerful which should hold strong throughout most of the year as a top 10 release. It's probably not odd that American audiences think fat people are somehow funny, as Identity Thief remains a top 10 through the Spring, but look for it and most other titles to get pushed down and disappear entirely from the top 10 list by August.
But that's not all. When compared to 2012 worldwide receipts, the industry is surprisingly up...way way up. By this time last year, Hollywood had amassed $1.699 billion, which makes 2013 a very profitable year so far. Who knows whether that profit will hold throughout the year, but it's yet another comment on just how different US fans perceive their films as compared to fans overseas.
So, why are American audiences staying away from theaters, while worldwide ones seemingly can't wait to get in? We discussed this in our article last month, but some are guessing that US crowds are waiting until the summer because the current lot of films is not appealing. The problem with that logic is that 2012 foot traffic during the peak season was down from 2011, which doesn't bode well for a year featuring no Avengers, Dark Knight, or Skyfall. We do have Iron Man 3, Star Trek: Into Darkness, the late bloomer The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, and a host of other potential blockbusters, but only time will tell.
What's clear is this: increasingly, Hollywood is depending upon strong worldwide sales of its films to achieve their bottom lines. This wasn't always the case, but it is now.
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