June's Best month Ever Erases Most Of Hollywood's Slide, But Problems Remain Going Forward
By; MattInRC
With six months of the 2013 movie season completed, we learn why Hollywood needed a strong June. Read on to find out why!
Believe it or not, I do sometimes pay to see a movie. But as a guy who reviews over 100 films a year for free, I have noticed just how empty theaters were during the last quarter when a film wasn't free. I equate it to visiting a funeral home and their unfortunate guests, with morose looks similar to the faces of theater managers who couldn't figure out what why their loved one had suddenly passed on. Who could blame them: 2012 was one of the most productive years for movies, both in terms of critical acclaim and box office receipts. With nothing on the scale of The Avengers or The Dark Knight Rises in the pipeline to encourage high traffic, the trend had to favor downward.
But no one was prepared for the avalanche: simply put, the first quarter of 2013 was a disaster for Hollywood, marked by cumluative losses of 30% at one point and real questions raised about whether the year could be salvaged. When 5 of your top 10 movies in the first quarter were leftovers from 2012, you knew something was wrong. And while Summer 2013 has completely changed the landscape of the top films, Hollywood hasn't erased all of those staggering losses.
According to our friends at BoxOffice.com - and as of June 30 - Hollywood was down around 9% from this point in 2012, reversing much of those huge losses we spoke of. Specifically, the industry made $2.831 billion, as compared to 2012's $2.802 billion. That's still a loss year-to-year, but according to our friends at BoxOfficeMojo.com, it's up 3.4% from 2009 and 9.7% from 2011. Here's a breakdown of the top films so far:
- Iron Man 3 $405,435,000
- Man of Steel $248,660,000
- Oz The Great and Powerful $234,668,782
- Fast Six $233,313,000
- Star Trek Into Darkness $220,501,000
- The Croods $184,412,000
- Monsters University $171,006,000
- Great Gatsby $141,988,676
- Identity Thief $134,506,920
- World War Z $123,722,000
While we expected the top 10 films to drastically shift from first quarter, we were also surprised at the resiliency of Oz: The Great and Powerful, especially since the film is now available on Blu-ray. Granted, Man of Steel hadn't arrived until June 14, but we had expected Fast Six and Star Trek: Into Darkness to Darkness to be eclipsed by the Oz origin story. I'm sure studio executives are not exactly happy that, considering the marketing campaign and mostly good reviews both received leading up to their uncontested releases. Still, this market is healthier than 2012's, which was entirely dominated by The Avengers and later The Dark Knight Rises. We have a number of films above the $200 million mark, which wasn't the case at the same time in 2012; and, we've just experienced the biggest June ever at over $935 million.
Still, this quarter has been punctuated by a number of disappointing releases, including the critically-acclaimed Oblivion and the critically-panned After Earth. Surprise flops are nothing new to Hollywood, but in year that seems potentially filled with them (Lone Ranger, White House Down, and The Wolverine), Hollywood needs a strong run from now to Labor Day - with titles like Despicable Me 2, and The Heat - to keep the trend moving upwards.
We're still concerned about the lack of a genuine blockbuster going forward, when Skyfall and Twilight premiered and enjoyed such amazing successes. Yes, we are aware of Q4's The Hobbit 2: Desolation of Smaug and Hunger Games: Catching Fire, but we'll need to see a new contender to join them that can bring home the $200 million bacon and provide some buoyancy to the rest of the market. While it's true that these each could bring in $400 domestically (and I'm sure Hollywood wouldn't mind), you'd like to see a more spread-out market than a totally top-heavy one.
How is this all going to work out? We need more time before announcing this patient as fully recovered. For now, we're cautiously optimistic.
What do you think? Join in on the conversation give us your thoughts.
Author Matt Cummings is a Film and Blu-ray Critic for SandwichJohnFilms, HiDefNinja, and OnePerCase. Follow him on Twitter at @mfc90125.
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