The Business of Cinema
Historic decline in Hollywood movie sales during the summer in the United States is a cause for concern.
It isn’t just Bollywood that is struggling to keep its audience at home (in India) happy. From Salman Khan’s disastrous Tubelight to Shah Rukh Khan’s recent Jab Harry Met Sejal, the response to both films was so underwhelming that SRK and Salman vowed to pay Indian distributors back for sustaining losses in the amount of millions of rupees. Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif-starrer Jagga Jasoos also suffered a similar fate. Unfortunately, Bollywood producers are not the only ones who should be concerned. A similar decline is being seen in the United States.
According to a report in The Hollywood Reporter, which quotes numbers crunched by ‘comScore’, by the time Labor Day weekend is over, box office revenue in the summer in North America will be down by nearly 16 percent over the last one year and has eclipsed the decline of 14.6 percent in 2014. The report goes on to say that this is the first year since 2006 that a summer season didn’t generate 4 billion dollars.
Box Office Mojo, noting a pattern of decline reports a 25-year low dip in ticket sales. While some will find this decline surprising, others paying close attention know that it’s come on the heels of Hollywood studios decision to make a sequel of anything and everything; a trick that didn’t impress fans.
“A number of franchise installments underperformed domestically, including Transformers: The Last Knight ($132 million), The Mummy ($80.1 million) and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales ($172 million). While Pirates 5 certainly fared the best, it paled in comparison to the previous installments,” wrote The Hollywood Reporter.
Perhaps the only thing that rescued Hollywood studios was the response generated by the same films in the the international arena where numbers are up by 3 percent.
“Pirates 5 grossed $618 million overseas for a global total of $790 million, while Transformers 5 stands at $604 million globally after earning $474 million offshore. And The Mummy scared up $328 million abroad for a worldwide figure of $407.8 million.”
Other films, however, weren’t so lucky. King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets bombed in comprehensive fashion. Even Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey’s presence couldn’t rescue The Dark Tower from a miserable fate.
The report also points out that comedy movies didn’t do too well either with Baywatch and Rough Night also bombing in substantial fashion. So what does it all mean?
“The lesson for Hollywood this summer is that every movie counts when it comes to box office and there are no ‘throwaway’ titles,” Paul Dergarabedian of comScore stated. “At least three tentpoles missed the mark in North America as well as a handful of R-rated comedies that left audiences frowning, and the missing revenue from those failures could arguably have left a $500 million-plus void in the marketplace — enough to turn a potentially strong $4 billion-plus summer season heavyweight into a 98-pound weakling.”
With domestic revenue down 5.7 percent, it remains to be seen if Hollywood will get off the sequel wagon and back projects that have merit.
– With information from The Hollywood Reporter