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A feeble July 4 weekend has left the domestic box office down by nearly 20 percent from last season, but the sky isn't falling in Hollywood. As a matter of fact, most of the studios are doing just fine this summer.

No one likes to make less money, and this season's overall grosses are at $2.3 billion so far, down 19.3 percent from $2.8 billion over the same stretch last year, according to Rentrak. But there's not a lot of teeth gnashing and no one is panicking, and it's not a matter of ”what, me worry?”

The short story is that while no film has matched the $400 million success of “Iron Man 3,” there have been far more hits than misses. There also hasn't been a mega-budget bomb — last summer there were four – and some of the high-profile movies that have under-performed domestically will wind up in the black thanks to overseas returns.

Remember that last summer was the biggest in history with $4.8 billion in grosses, so it was always going to be a tough act to follow and the industry knew that. It was clear that this summer's biggest sequels were going to be hard-pressed to match the grosses of Tony Stark and his pals, “Man of Steel,” “Monsters University” and “Fast & Furious 6.”

There was one animated film with major potential –”How to Train Your Dragon 2” — instead of two in “Despicable Me 2” and “Monsters U.” And the summer's prospects took a major hit when Universal was forced to push “Fast & Furious 7” in the wake of Paul Walker‘s death.

“X-Men: Days of Future Past” ($227 million), “Maleficent” ($213 million) and “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” ($200 million) are the summer's biggest movies to date, and “Godzilla” ($197 million) and “Transformers: Age of Extinction” ($174 million and counting) are close. But their grosses don't compare with last year's leaders at the half-way point: “Iron Man 3” ($406 million), “Man of Steel” ($267 million), “Fast & Furious 6” ($235 million), “Star Trek Into Darkness ($222 million) and “Monsters University” ($210 million).

Fox is having a terrific summer that stands to get better this week when "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” opens. It scored big-time with the teen drama “The Fault In Our Stars.” But while that film's $12 million budget makes its $112 million total all the more impressive, it doesn't raise the roof in terms of the overall box office.

With the success of “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” and “22 Jump Street,” Sony is a much better place than it was last summer when “After Earth” and “White House Down” were two of the season's biggest disappointments. The domestic total for Spidey was the lowest in franchise history and half of the “Iron Man 3” haul, but it has grossed more than $500 million overseas, second-best in the series.

Disney may not have “Iron Man 3” this summer, but “Maleficent” has been very strong, especially overseas, and it has Marvel's “Guardians of the Galaxy” coming on Aug. 1. Paramount has Michael Bay's morphing robots epic “Age of Extinction,” which will take a run at $1 billion in grosses worldwide, driven by its success overseas and especially in China. Universal has largely sat the summer out, but “Neighbors” was a pleasant surprise.

Warner Bros. has had a tougher time of it, with Adam Sandler‘s “Blended” and Clint Eastwood‘s “Jersey Boys” struggling, but things are hardly bleak.

Melissa McCarthy's R-rated “Tammy” may not have matched the opening grosses of her earlier hits “Identity Thief” or “The Heat,” but its budget didn't, either. The $20 million R-rated comedy will be profitable by the weekend and could still hit $80 million — or four times its budget, so financially it will be a win. Even the studio's pricey Tom Cruise sci-fi epic “Edge of Tomorrow” has chugged to $90 million domestically, and brought in $250 million from overseas. That may not put it in the black, but it's not a disaster.

“I think that the studios know better than anyone that this business is cyclical,” BoxOffice.com vice-president and senior analyst Phil Contrino told TheWrap. “I'm sure they are assuaging any panic with daydreams about how massive summer 2015 is going to be.”

The summer of 2015 is already jammed with Marvel's “The Avengers: Age of Ultron,” (May 15), “Jurassic World” (June 12), “The Terminator” reboot (July 1), “Despicable Me” spinoff “Minions” (July 10), The “Man of Steel” sequel (July 17) and a movie adaptation of the hugely popular video game, “Assassin's Creed” (Aug. 7). As “Captain America: Winter Soldier” did this year, ”Fast & Furious 7” will provide a preseason spark when it rolls out on April 3.

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Article from The Wrap
 

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Posted by Terry Lynn-Stevens (Member # 7349) on 07-09-2014, 09:20 PM:
 
Its a nice spin from the studios POV, but I am willing to bet that if you interview some theater owners, you would hear a different story. Some of these summer tent pole pictures are clearly not bringing in a specific demographic in the North American market, they are not performing as intended.
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 07-10-2014, 12:58 AM:
 
Speaking as a theater owner, I would much rather have a lot of pictures that were solid, if not overwhelming, performers than a big hit here and there with a lot of flops in between, which is what we had last year. This year has been nice because almost everything has been a decent possibility to play.

Obviously a "down" summer is not what anyone wants, but the sky isn't falling either, the same way it didn't fall the last time we had a "down" summer. I'm just glad to see the industry not being in a panic mode for a change.
 

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Posted by Andrew Thomas (Member # 7000) on 07-11-2014, 06:14 PM:
 
This is my first year being open. If this is a "down" summer, I can't wait to see what an "up" summer is like

I'm pretty sure 2015 is going to be an up year overall, not just the summer. Disney alone has 2 Marvel movies (including the Avengers sequel), 2 Pixar flicks, and a new Star Wars film. Everybody else has a pretty nice schedule as well.
 

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Posted by Mike Frese (Member # 4361) on 07-12-2014, 01:11 PM:
 
So how is the summer going so far for everyone then?

(Note, have to be open for at least 1 year, not including arthouse as you do not normally track with the national numbers, not including sub-run as these summer movies have not gotten to you yet)

Are your profits flat or up?

I would be concerned with a national drop of 19% box office gross as that could be another sign of people not feeling the need to go the movie theater. And who knows what other crazy ideas the studio execs are thinking about.
 

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Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 07-12-2014, 04:46 PM:
 
I can't speak to profit and other financial data because I don't do the bookkeeping. But I can say we are having a very down summer. Tent pole after tent pole has under performed, and we just aren't seeing the crowds we saw last summer, or summers before.

One of the things I find troubling is that we are not busy when we should be busy. For example, 6:50 show of Apes on 7/11 was only about 40% of capacity. Based on the popularity of the last movie and the very strong reviews, there is no reason why this movie wasn't stronger. There just seems to be a lack of enthusiasm with the movie going public this summer.

One thing that is affecting us is a theatre about 30 miles away that had always operated as a discount theatre has started playing things on the break. They converted to digital and raised their prices a bit, but they are undercutting us by $3.00 on evening shows. Worse is they are either getting special consideration from the studios, or they are choosing to operate on tighter margins because their ticket prices are the same all day and they are lower than the per caps for some of the studios.
 

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Posted by Terry Lynn-Stevens (Member # 7349) on 07-12-2014, 04:56 PM:
 
I think once the summer is over, the large chains will be hurting the hardest. I think the smaller guys will be OK but it is the big chains that will be hit. I don't think IMAX has done all that great this summer so far.
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 07-12-2014, 05:39 PM:
 
If there is a lack of enthusiasm among the public, we haven't felt it here -- people are just as excited about the movies as ever. I had a little girl run up to me after the Transformers movie and holler, "That movie was SO AWESOME!!!"

However that said, we ARE down from last summer -- mostly because of the reasons cited in the article (no Iron Man, no Pixar, not as much animated fare, etc.) We are up from 2012, however.

To me it should be a sign to the studios that people are getting tired of the same old same old. How many ways can you show stuff getting destroyed? All these physics-free and no-logic movies seem like the same thing over and over. Especially when they not only keep making sequels, but reboots of series that aren't that old to begin with. How long until we have yet another Batman series launched by some new hotshot director?

The worst part of it all, is the media will now flow heavily with the doom and gloom stories and write nonsensical crap about the latest gimmick being used to "lure people back to the theaters" (as if nobody is going to the movies at all) when in reality all we need is movies that people really want to see.

Well that and maybe increasing the video window by about 8 or 9 months, but that's never going to happen.
 

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Posted by Andrew Thomas (Member # 7000) on 07-12-2014, 05:43 PM:
 

quote: Mike Frese

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So how is the summer going so far for everyone then?

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