Plot twist: no movie bombs this summer
NEW YORK — Have you noticed something oddly tranquil about this summer movie season? For the first time in recent memory, there hasn’t been one major bomb.
Usually by now, there would be blockbuster-sized craters left on the charred summer-movie battlefield, the inevitable toll of Hollywood’s most high-stakes season. But this year, summermovie bomb-watching, long one of the most dependable spectator sports of the season, has gone entirely without the sight of a “Lone Ranger”-sized mushroom cloud.
After the cataclysmic, thesky-is-falling summer of 2017, when overall grosses slid 14.6 percent from the year before, Hollywood has rebounded. Ticket sales in North America this summer are up 11.3 percent, according to comScore. The comeback is even more pronounced when you factor in that the annual Marvel movie kickoff to summer slid just ahead of the official first weekend of May start, shifting the $678.5 million domestic for Disney’s “Avenger: Infinity War” to the spring.
Amid a remarkably turbulent time for the movie business, this summer has been surprisingly, almost weirdly, steady.
“The studios did what they were supposed to,” said Kyle Davies, domestic distribution chief for Paramount Pictures. “This notion that people are tired of going to the theaters, I don’t believe it for a second. I think people are ready every weekend: ‘Give me a reason to come.’ ”
Paramount didn’t have a lot of releases over the summer but coming off the spring success of “A Quiet Place,” Davies said, “Things have turned around.” “Mission: Impossible — Fallout,” the sixth installment in the Tom Cruise franchise, is approaching $500 million worldwide, and the Diane Keaton-Jane Fonda-starring “Book Club” has, with $68.6 million, fared better than most comedies this year.
But even Tom Cruise, despite all his powers, can do only so much to tip the overall box office. So what’s behind the bounce-back?
MoviePass, the flailing subscription service, has claimed responsibility. Subscription moviegoing has surely had an additive effect, bringing more regular visitors to theaters.
Jeff Bock, senior box-office analyst for Exhibitor Relations, said it’s difficult to extrapolate how big a driver subscription services have been, though he credited the copious attention and drama around MoviePass with fueling moviegoing awareness. He’s more inclined to point to the improved studio project, specifically sequels like “Incredibles 2,” “Ant-Man and the Wasp” and “Deadpool 2.”
The difference in Pixar releases alone accounts for a $440 million gap. Last summer, “Cars 3” grossed $152.9 million domestically; this year, “Incredibles 2,” the summer’s biggest smash, has earned $590.3 million in North America.
The most unexpected sensations of the summer have been documentaries. There will be three docs to clear $10 million in box office, an unprecedented high for non-fiction filmmaking. “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” is up to $21.8 million for Focus, Neon’s “Three Identical Strangers” has hauled in $9.7 million, and Magnolia’s Ruth Bader Ginsberg documentary “RBG” has grossed $13.7 million.
“It’s a zeitgeist moment, no doubt,” said David Linde, chief executive of Participant Media, which co-produced “RBG.” “People go to the theater for a unique experience and that experience is all about a collective experience. That hasn’t ever been truer.”