End Of Summer: A Solid One, For Hollywood
Much better than last year, at any rate:
The Hollywood hand-wringing of 2005 has been forgotten. After a dismal box-office year and gloomy prophecies about its future, the movie business has rebounded with a solid — though far from spectacular — summer season.
Led by one of the biggest all-time hits, Johnny Depp’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” Hollywood will have rung up about $3.85 billion (€3 billion) in domestic ticket sales from the first weekend in May through Monday, up 6.3 percent from the same period last year, according to box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations. Factoring in higher ticket prices, movie attendance was up about 3.1 percent.
“If every year were like this, it would be fine,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations. “Hollywood will take solid over slump any day.”
For summer 2005, revenues declined 8.5 percent and attendance tumbled 11.4 percent compared to 2004′s.
This summer’s revenues will come in about 2 to 3 percent below those of 2004, a strong box-office season. This summer’s attendance will be down about 8 percent compared to 2004′s.
2007 could be huge: Spiderman 3 and a new Harry Potter should mean a couple of chances at breaking single-day and opening weekend records…My favorite movie of the year thus far remains United 93, which comes out on DVD Tuesday…
Just saw “The Illusionist” and can’t speak highly enough of it.
Love story, magic show, caper flick and murder mystery all in one!
Comrades,
Actually, my favorite this year was “Over the Hedfe”, based on the cartoon strip of the same name.
Excellent animation, voicing and plot. Yeah, it’s a kid’s movie, but with grown-up humour writtn through it, and it plays well. I really enjoyed it, and it was the only one I’ve yet seen that was worth the price of admission.
Call me old-fashioned if you like, but there’s no reason to NOT make good “G” rated movies these days, and it’s awfully nice to be able to enjoy a movie with your kids and not be worried about what’s going to show up and need some explaining later.
I’ll also be up front and say I don’t attend a lot of movies these days. I simply cannot justify spending the money the industry feels I should be to sit in a cramped theatre with a tiny screen, poor acoustics and expensive snacks. The last time I figured the costs for the whole family (taxi each way, tickets, and a soda and popcorn each) it came to just under $100.00. Not exactly a value-oriented experience. At that price, it’s better to spend a little more and see live theatre, with real actors actually working for their money. But’s that’s another issue entirely.
With the technology available, I feel it’s a better value to use my home stereo and TV and rent through Netflix.
Respects,
Gwedd
“Little Miss Sunshine” was a fine film. Not too many adult films today that aren’t moronic or insipid – this was neither. I would also recommend Andy Garcia’s “The Lost City,” but it went straight from the film festivals into DVD.
I’ve heard good stuff about “The Illusionist”, as well…
Yeah, I saw Little Miss Sunshine 2 days ago, and The Illusionist last night, and both are fine films.
I saw Little Miss Sunshine last week with my wife and we both liked it — and we usually don’t agree about movies –
Lucky Number Sleven is one of the few movies I was excited about this year and it comes out next week. Even with the (what is surely thought to have been) massive plot, I thought the taste it left in my mouth after leaving the theater was very candy-like. Sort of like the feeling after watching “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels”. (Yes, Harnett and Liu are actually tolerable…) I could, however, understand someone absolutely hating the movie, especially if they went to the john and got lost after asking “what did I miss?”
I will definitely see the Illusionist now though. Already planned on seeing Little Miss Sunshine. Glad to see I won’t be disappointed.
Another movie theater gripe: the popcorn always sucks…yet, I continue to buy it in hopes that it won’t suck the next time. We typically stop at the CVS before going to the theater to load up on candy, especially since they don’t sell DOTS at the theater anymore. I’m also a big fan of Charleston Chew Minis.
The movie United 93 is described as “meticulously researched” and “based on fact”, but there is not any indication that the German passenger Christian Adams was indeed a coward and appeaser and tried to stop the American heroes from storming the cockpit as the movie shows. The Guardian’s film critic writes: “The film United 93 finds old Europe literally standing in the way of US derring-do. The only trouble is, it didn’t happen that way.”
Perhaps you are interested in my take on this in the Atlantic Review: German 9/11 Victim Defamed in “United 93″ Movie.