Worst Box Office slump in a decade as Hollywood loses golden touch
Analysts blame a surfeit of sequels and remakes
Hollywood has suffered its worst weekend at the American box office since the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks, with analysts blaming a surfeit of sequels and remakes for deterring audiences.
Initial estimates suggested the entire gross takings for cinemas in North America would be around $US65 million ($A62.8 million) last weekend, down 20 per cent from the same period a year ago.
In September 2001, takings on one weekend fell to just $US59.7 million ($A57.7 million).
The results were so bad that the best-performing movie in America, measured in terms of revenue per screen, was Raiders of the Lost Ark, first released in 1981. It was shown on re-release on 267 screens last weekend and took in $US1.7 million ($A1.6 million), at an average $US6460 ($A6244) per screen.
No single film grossed more than $US10 million over the weekend. The nearest was The Possession, a horror story with no big stars, that took just $US9.5 million ($A9.18 million).
The Words, which stars Bradley Cooper, was savaged by critics and disappointed at the box office.
Other major releases also disappointed. The Words, starring Bradley Cooper, one of Hollywood’s most in-demand leading men, was savaged by critics as “boring” and “turgid”, while The Cold Light of Day, an action film starring the British actor Henry Cavill, Bruce Willis and Sigourney Weaver, also flopped badly after costing $US20 million ($A19.3 million) to make. It was described by The New York Times as a “catastrophe worth noting only for the presence of its name cast.” The Labour Day weekend, which has just passed, is traditionally slow for cinemas, but this year attendances sank to levels which shocked studio executives.
It capped a disappointing season for Hollywood, which had expected its biggest ever summer. In a still troubled economy, executives were reluctant to take risks on original concepts and relied heavily on a series of big-budget action films and superhero sequels.
The result was the lowest summer movie attendance in 20 years. The number of tickets sold fell to 532 million, down 4 per cent from summer 2011.
Two films that were successful – The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises, a Batman film – accounted for almost a quarter of the entire box office return in North America. Before the summer even began, the Disney studio had been forced to incur a $US200 million ($A193 million) writedown over its science-fiction flop, John Carter, in March.
Paul Dergarabedian, a box office analyst at Hollywood.com, said: “It is pretty scary when the top movie comes in at only $9.5 million. On paper, the summer of 2012 looked like a clear record-breaker. But the audience is what makes and breaks the summer, and they didn’t come out in the numbers we expected for a lot of these films.”
Factors contributing to the slump included the Olympics on TV. The mass shooting in which 12 people were killed at a screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Colorado in July also put people off. But neither factor was believed to have had a major impact on attendance.
Nick Allen, Los Angeles – Telegraph – September 11, 2012