USA TODAY International Edition
ONE CRAZY SUMMER AT THE BOX OFFICE
Another record haul, but flops made headlines
Hollywood loves its unstable characters, and this summer it played one.
One of the most unpredictable movie seasons in memory careens to a close with the Labor Day holiday weekend, and analysts see three distinct ways to interpret ticket sales.
For bottom- liners, summer was an unqualified success: Ticket sales will hit a record $ 4.7 billion, according to projections from Hollywood. com.
Those who look at the bigger picture point to attendance, which is down 3% from last summer and indicates a flatlining business.
And for those trying to read the cinematic tea leaves, the summer was nothing less than maddening. “I don’t ever recall a summer with this many high- profile flops,” says Hollywood. com’s Paul Dergarabedian. “You’d think we’d be down ( in ticket sales), and we’ll hit a record. It was a schizophrenic summer.” Among the high- profile misses:
The Internship, which cost $ 58 million but managed just $ 45 million;
The Lone Ranger, which lassoed only $ 88 million against its $ 215 million price tag; and White House Down, the $ 150 million political thriller that mustered just $ 72 million.
Still, the season shattered the 2011 summer box- office record of $ 4.4 billion. While observers say the recordhigh cost of tickets — now averaging $ 8.38 — helped set the record, moviegoers turned out for unexpected films to overcome the midsummer string of big- budget turkeys.
Among the surprises:
The Heat. The female buddycop film starring Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock was this summer’s Hangover, collaring $ 156 million.
The Conjuring. Few horror films cross the $ 100 million mark, but this haunted- house tale has taken in a blistering $ 132 million — more than six times its production budget.
World War Z. Last- minute reshoots had analysts predicting doom for this Brad Pitt zombie thriller. But Z rose from the dead to an impressive $ 199 million.
The common denominator? Few saw the hits coming.
“The midlevel movies overperformed,” says Jeff Bock of industry trackers Exhibitor Relations. “But there was no telling what would happen this year. We knew Iron Man 3 would be big ( the summer’s box- office champ at $ 409 million). But that was it.”
Dergarabedian says studios and analysts may be putting too much stock in social media, where films such as Pacific Rim ($ 99 million) and
Kick- Ass 2 ($ 23 million) lit up Facebook and Twitter but didn’t translate into dollars.
“If there’s a lesson here, it may be that social media measures awareness, not intent,” he says. “Just because people know a movie is coming out, that doesn’t mean they’re going to go see it. I think we’ll look at summer, scratch our heads and say, ‘ What the hell just happened?’ ”