July - Make or Break
The last 5 Julys are ranked as the highest grossing months for the U.S. box office and with Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows Part 2 (both to be released in 3D versions) we're all hoping this July will keep the streak going and outpace last July's, record holding, $1.32 billion take.
Larry Crowne, Zookeeper, and Horrible Bosses are also on the July roster- my bet is on Horrible Bosses as the breakout comedy with legs. Two other July releases, Captain America: The First Avenger and Friends with Benefits won't do so well. Captain America is late to the superhero party and Friends, I don't think will have much punch. However, the sleeper pick is Crazy Stupid Love as a good date night alternative to either Cowboys & Aliens or The Smurfs.
Lets hope for a record breaker July.
Weekly B.O. Recap
It as no surprise the Cars 2 would be the front-runner this weekend - raking in over $68 million (and a tidy $42 million more overseas). In second place was Bad Teacher which grossed a very respectable $31 million and should come in at $50-60 million during its overall run. Not as good as the other recent adult comedy, Bridesmaids (which has now taken in over $146 million domestically) but very good nonetheless.
Rounding out the top five for the weekend were Super 8 at $12 million and Mr. Popper's Penguins at $10 million. The Hangover Part II, which grossed $6.6 million for its fourth week in release has now grossed over $243 million domestically.
Best Picture ReDo
Instituted in 2009, Oscar's Best Picture went from 5 nominated films to a mandatory 10. Well, just two Academy Award years later the Best Picture Award is being revamped. Starting in 2011 between 5 and 10 movies will be nominated depending on the raw votes received by the Academy's 6000+ members. Can't they get it down to the 5 outstanding films of the year? And yes, maybe the Academy should start choosing the best movies based upon box office grosses. The Academy should stop voting for the high-brow and so-called artistic films and go with the money movies that really move and sustain the cinema industry both in the U.S. and overseas. I think you will see Hollywood moving in this direction as what passes for great cinema here is not what the rest of the world (nor a huge percentage of U. S. moviegoers) is interested in viewing.
Exhibition Goes (Far) East
A total of 313 cinemas were constructed in China last year. China now has approximately 2000 cinemas, and by 2012's end is expected have 3200 cinemas - equating to over 10,000 screens. This compares to about 35,000 screens in the U.S., which is by most counts over-screened. By contrast, the Chinese cinema market is vastly under-screened. At 2012's end China will have approximately 160,000 people per screen while, if the U.S. holds steady will have about 8,000 per screen. I don't think the Chinese envision ramping up to the U.S.'s screen count, (it would equate to over 162,000 screens) but the growth over the next 10 years will be significant.
For Chinese exhibitors the goal is to expand in what are termed "second-tier cities" (mainly provincial capitals and affluent suburbs of same) as first-tier cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou, will see most of the cinema's growth through 2014.
Best and Happy Movie Going!
Jim Lavorato
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment