..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington

Week Sixteen 2007
The Big Blah...
(or How Can So Much Money
Look So Minor In The End?)

I wish I could say it's been a summer of surprises. 

On the positive side, it's Knocked Up, The Simpsons, the size of Transformers, and, in a tiny way, License To Wed.  On the negative, there are almost no major surprises.  Sicko, the two Lindsay movies, Stardust, and A Mighty Heart were minor disappointments at the box office.  The two studio brutalities had trouble written on them from a distance, Evan Almighty and Surf's Up.  And, as a result, aside from Evan's price tag, even those aren't surprises.  We knew that Noah was not the same as making your girlfriend's boobs bigger and that early June, between Shrek and The Rat, was a crazy place for an animated movie with little pedigree. So ...

The most significant surprise was Jim Tharp's aggressive creation of the 7-day opening weekend for Transformers, essentially saying, "Screw tradition," blowing apart the difficult problem of a July 4th Wednesday, and creating an opportunity and $165 million in a week and four hours. 

It's not that Transformers was not going to perform.  These numbers make the level of interest clear.  But a more traditional approach would probably have meant a smaller first week sampling and in the end, a smaller total gross. 

Amazingly, the Transformers first week was only the fourth best of the summer, behind Spidey, Cap'n Jack, and Harry Potter.  With only ten occurrences of a $150 million first week in movie history - only three with grosses higher than the four films to achieve it this summer - we seem to have found a new gold standard for marketing departments. 

But every silver lining has a big dark cloud somewhere nearby.  In this case, the best example is Shrek The Third vs Shrek 2.  S3 actually opened to $900,000 more in the first week than S2, which is still the second highest grossing film in its domestic original run in history.  And S3 will gross more than $100 million less than S2 domestically and almost $200 million worldwide.

Pirates 3 didn't have as big a first week as Pirates 2 (still the biggest opening week in history), but the $115 million domestic shortfall from P2 to P3 is a lot more than the $36 million difference in openings.

Spider-Man 3 is the closest thing to performing the same this time around.  Spider-Man 2's opening week was $10 million more than Spidey 3 ... and the domestic total will be about $35 million less domestically. (It is the biggest Spidey overseas.) 

The only one of the $149 million-plus opening week movies this summer will crack two times that opening week - the smallest of the group - Shrek The Third.

We haven't heard serious conversation about day-n-date releasing of theatrical and DVD in a couple of years ... but expect a return of the conversation in the form of a serious shortening of the DVD window by this time next summer.  It's not because the day-n-date thing makes a lot of sense or that theatrical is dead ... far from it.  It is because Spider-Man 3 generated 90% of its domestic gross in just 24 days.  And that stat is roughly the same for Transformers (23-25 days), Pirates 3 (25 days), and Shrek 3 (28 days).  It looks like it will be about that from Potter. 

Pirates 2 hit 90% at 32 days just last summer.  Star Wars did it in 31 days in 2005, as did Spider-Man 2 in 2004.  In 2003, Shrek 2 took 41 days to get to 90%.  Finding Nemo, in 2002 ... 54 days.  That said, the first Spider-Man, in 2001, got to 90% in just 36 days.

In the cases of these big movies, the 10% of the domestic box office past weekend four means about $15 million and change back into the studio.  The argument to release, say, Spider-Man 3 on DVD next week is changing from 2005's "we can save marketing money by not having to relaunch the product six months later" to a shoulder shrugging, "Why not?" 

The answer remains the same as it has been, even more so with an expanding array of ownership delivery options ... theatrical is a critically high revenue-per-viewer part of the film business.  There is no evidence that theatrical does anything other than increase interest in the post-theatrical spending opportunities.  But the shortened window clearly decreases a willingness to spend in the theatrical setting, especially on more marginal product, even more so in periods of buyer's fatigue for moviegoers.

But even fatigued, the first two weeks of August have put this summer even further ahead of the previous summer records.  The only first two weeks of August that seem to have been better are 2001, with Rush Hour 2, American Pie 2, and The Princess Diaries 2.    But the rest of that summer couldn't compare. 

As best as I can figure, using the daily Top Twelves, this summer is about $275 million ahead of the previous best, 2004 - $3.357 billion so far to $3.084 in '04.  As of August 14, these are the only two years in history to have gross domestic theatrical revenues of over $3 billion   

Of course, the legs on Rush Hour 3, The Bourne Ultimatum, and the openings of Superbad and The Nanny Diaries will still determine whether this summer keeps the lead ... and as indicated, legs have been in short supply this summer.

This summer being the biggest ever is just as insignificant a stat as The Slump stats were in 2005.  To perceive this as a recovery by theatrical, you have to have bought into the absurdity of The Slump in the first place.  And to sing to high heaven about two $250 million-plus productions and two $150 million-plus productions and none passing $350 million ... that's silly too.

Given the budgets of this summer and the security of the franchises - 8 of the current 13 $100 million grossers were sequels, two were based on TV cartoons, one was Adam Sandler, Ratatouille  is part of the Pixar franchise and only Knocked Up really stood a unique, unfranchised, not-star-driven 9-figure films - we should have expected bigger numbers.  Again, all five of the Top Five for this summer grossed $200 million in less than 12 days ... and none cracked $340 million total. 

Moreover, the only sequels to do under $97 million domestic were Hostel II, 28 Weeks Later, and the not-really-a-sequel sequel, Daddy Day Camp. Of the other nine sequels - the ones released by the majors - only Evan Almighty was under $110 million domestic or $250 million worldwide.  So ... does anyone want to ask the "Why do they make so many damned sequels" question again?

But the really good story is worldwide, where the domestic Top Five has grossed $2.5 billion so far (with some more to come, though not a huge amount), compared with just over $1.5 billion domestic.  And that doesn't include Fox, whose The Simpsons Movie and Live Free or Die Hard both have grossed 50% more than their domestic grosses overseas.

This is also the first summer ever with four $400 million international grossers, the previous best being three in 2004 (Potter 3, Shrek 2, Spider-Man 2).  And this is the first summer in history in which none of the Top Ten worldwide grossers will see less than 50% of their overall gross come from overseas.  (Ratatouille is the only one currently under 50%, but it is expected to be somewhere around 60% when it opens the rest of its international markets.)

And creatively?

Ironically, the big, dumb sequels mostly seemed anxious to try to be higher minded ... and failed, one after the other. 

So now, we start looking towards Summer 2008, which is not nearly as loaded as Summer 2007.   There are only seven sequels scheduled to this summer's dozen.  And not one of the sequels has a flm in the series that grossed $300 million (Only Narnia has a predecessor that grossed $500 million-plus worldwide.  And of course, Indiana Jones is from a different box office era.)  The real question will be, how loaded are the marketers and will next summer be the summer in which we really start to feel the DVD window creep?  Really, we're going to be relying on Iron Man, Speed Racer, The Love Guru, and The Pineapple Express (and will Sony really sit on this one until next summer?) to make the summer more muscular than Batman.  Get those slump stories ready!!!

This Week's Box Office Chart

(This column does not appear weekly this summer.
But it will turn up at least once a month and more, as the news demands.)

July 11, 2007: 20 Weeks Of Summer
May 31, 2007: 20 Weeks Of Summer
May 26, 2007: 20 Weeks Of Summer
April 26, 2007: 20 Weeks Of Summer: Week One (2007)
April 13, 2006: 20 Weeks Of Summer: Week One (2006)
April 14, 2005: 20 Weeks Of Summer: Week One (2005)

- Email David Poland