“Mid-Summer Box Office Report: Top Ten Chart, Studio Report Card”
From Thompson on Hollywood:
Picky audiences yield flat ticket sales this summer.
With spending money tight, moviegoers are being careful with their choices at the multiplex. “People are waiting to hear from friends whether certain movies are worth their money,” says Disney distribution chief Chuck Viane. “When discretionary income wasn’t tight, teenagers had no problem seeing three films during the course of a week. Now, they’re seeing about two.”
While the year’s domestic box office has reached $6.76 billion so far (according to Box Office Mojo estimates), ahead of last year’s record, the summer lags 3% behind the same frame a year ago.
But while Universal’s president of domestic distribution Nikki Rocco says that “exhibitors are happy; popcorn is selling,” ticket sales are flat. At $3.27 billion (through August 3), the summer box office should pass the $4 billion mark as it has over the last four years; however, breaking last year’s record of $4.3 billion remains an open question.
Of special note the relative failures of The A-Team, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Knight & Day, Killers, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Marmaduke, Jonah Hex, and Magruber.
On the other side of things, here’s the top 10 for summer box office:
1 Toy Story 3 (Disney) $389.8 milllon
2 Iron Man 2 (Paramount) $311.4 million
3 The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (Summit) $288.2 million
4 Shrek Forever After (Paramount-DreamWorks) $235.6 million
5 Inception (Warner Bros.) $193.3 million
6 Despicable Me (Universal) $190.3 million
7 The Karate Kid (Sony) $172.9 million
8 Grown Ups (Sony) $150.8 million
9 The Last Airbender (Paramount) $127.3 million
10 Robin Hood (Universal) $105.2 million
Thompson includes a report card on each studio’s summer performance. Their BO totals in order are Paramount, Disney, Sony, Universal, Warner Bros., Summit, Fox, and Lionsgate.
Meanwhile you can still go out and support indie films like Get Low, The Kids Are All Right, Winter’s Bone, I Am Love, and Cyrus, among many others currently in theaters.
UPDATE: Another 2010 box office review, this one from TheWrap.