Box office Recap
Wow - as we wrote in last week's CineBUZZ Report, Transformers and Harry Potter had to be mega-hits for this July to be the 6th July in a row as the highest grossing month in the year and Transformers-Dark of The Moon (Paramount / DreamWorks) can through- BIG! Aided by the long holiday weekend it grossed over $181million (to be fair it was a Wednesday - Monday tally) which made for a breakout box office and elated the folks at Paramount who are estimating a global take of over $398 million. Opening in 58 overseas markets the international box office accounted for $217 million with Korea, Russia, the UK, Australia, and Germany leading the pack in that order. Propelling the grosses were the 6 out of 10 viewers attending the 3D version of the film and 7 out of 10 in the international market. This was one film moviegoers wanted to view in 3D.
Next at bat is Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows-Part II (Warner) Our crystal ball says: a three run homer!
Cars 2 (Disney) came in second over the 4th of July holiday grossing a very respectable $32 million in its second week of release - it has now grossed over $123 million domestically. Bad Teacher (Sony/Columbia) one of my three big sleeper picks for this summer (the other two being Horrible Bosses(Warner/New Line) and Crazy Stupid Love (Warner) came in third, grossing an additional $18 million in its second week of play - it has now taken in $63 million. In other news, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (Disney) surged passed the $1 billion mark worldwide, with the international box office accounting for $775 million of the total.
As predicted (and it was really no surprise) Larry Crowne (Universal) was a box office dud. What was this movie's target audience - middle aged losers? Tom Hanks (who also directed) and Julia Roberts probably made more in salary than this busted film grossed in its debut. Even with its heavy marketing budget (Hanks and Roberts were on all of the late night and afternoon talk shows) the film only managed to tally a paltry $16 million over the extended holiday weekend. Universal reported that 80% of the audience was over 35 and 64% female (read 50 and 75%).
What's Wrong At Home?
As the grosses are tallied up, you quickly realize the importance of the international box office to Hollywood. On average, a mega-hit takes in from 60-70% of its gross from the non-domestic markets. This trend has been developing over the last decade and is going to continue as the rest of the world becomes more affluent and middle classes grow. This is the reverse of what is happening here at home. Ticket sales is the U.S. have been in a down trend since peaking in 2002 at 1.5 billion admissions. In 2010, ticket sales were over 200 million below the '02 record level !
What's wrong with this picture? No pun intended, but the reality is that many people no longer feel that attending a movie provides a value based, out-of-home entertainment experience. And this trend is likely to continue.
Best and Happy Movie Going
Jim Lavorato
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