The Great Box Office Recession? -- Discussing the Up & Down Trends of the Box Office Market

[Shawn Robbins]

If things get bad again, it'll be a new recession. The old one is over.

Yep. Although, Avengers might make other movies under-perform enough this month that it *looks* like a minor recession in May.

[stuart360]

The economy is bad and peeople are more careful with their money these days but i always said that if a film comes out that people really want to see then they will pay for it, they are just more choosy now.

[CJohn]

Yep. Although, Avengers might make other movies under-perform enough this month that it *looks* like a minor recession in May.

Dark Shadows and Battleship will be affected in a great way.

[Hiccup]

Hopefully The Avengers won't knock May in to a recession by stealing audiences.

[CloneWars]

Yep. Although, Avengers might make other movies under-perform enough this month that it *looks* like a minor recession in May.

May isn't that exciting, but June has a crap ton of awesome films coming out. You're probably right about the other May films underperforming, but I think it will be a factor of seeing TA over them, and also waiting for the more exciting June crop of films to come out.

[GiantCALBears]

How will the year go minus THG, TA, TDKr, TH? I know that's not exactly fair but it's still a good discussion topic here...

[CJohn]

How will the year go minus THG, TA, TDKr, TH?I know that's not exactly fair but it's still a good discussion topic here...

Safe House, The Vow, Journey 2, The Devil Inside, Contraband, Act of Valor, The Lorax say hi.The year is fine even when we are not talking about those 4 big movies.

[kayumanggi]

It's OVER.

[MovieMan89]

It's OVER.

Yep and so is this discussion, imo. TA has officially put the final nail in the B.O. recession's coffin. All hail 2012, the year of the box office!

[AniNate]

Maybe this thread should now just become a discussion about the general box office economy? That's pretty much what it is, anyway.

Edited May 7, 2012 by tribefan695

[vc2002]

YES.

[kayumanggi]

2012 is now ahead 2010 which holds the record.

As of May 6th:

ACTUAL GROSS

$3,584.5 2012

$3,491.1 2010

$3,312.9 2009

2010 was big early on because of AVATAR. But now 2012 is going to be way ahead because of its big Summer. The holidays is nothing to worry about too since THE HOBBIT and TTS: BD ll combo is going to be huge, not to mention the Oscar baits which I think look really strong this year.

And you think it's just the gross? No. 2012 is ahead ticket sales-wise too. Just how awesome is that?

457.8 M tickets 2012

442.5 M tickets 2010

441.7 M tickets 2009

Another amazing feat. 2012 has sold 76.3 M more tickets than 2011.

[BK007]

Way too early to say this. People decided to call it after TDI's OW? Sure we've had three huge films but 2012 is very very top heavy.This just masks how awful April 2012 was. 2009 didn't have such a huge stretch of bad performances except in the end of Feb to mid March. For all we know everything else could tank.Let's not downplay or disregard American Reunion, John Carter, Wrath of the Titans and Titanic 3D. Even if you take out Titanic 3D, but then predictions here were overpredicted by 100%, you still have nothing to plug the hole with.When summer breaks the attendance record and when we have more than TDKR doing well, then come back to me. As it stands, it's not even 2 quarters of growth yet and people seem to get all in a frenzy with the top, as they should and forget depth is what makes a year good.Want to start talking and it's a bit crude but check out 2002 adjusted. 6 300m+, 13 200m+, 37 100m+ movies, 72 50m+ movies.2012: Avengers, Hunger Games, Lorax, TDKR, Brave, TASM, Hobbit, Breaking Dawn...you still need 5 more 200m+ movies.You can argue that Avengers or TDKR or whatever counts for two, but Spider Man makes $544m. Two Towers made $448m, Attack of the Clones $407m and Chamber of Secrets $351m. If you have no depth, you will get beaten.Now of course 2002 is the all-time record, so even coming close to it would mean the end of recession, true, but I just simply used it to illustrate a point. 3 movies' performance does not a third of year make. In even simpler terms, if Avengers made $600m but people here want to call $80m for Dark Shadows, $50m for Battleship, $50m for Dictator, we still lose by a huge margin. A big movie can only compensate for so many before it is cancelled out.

[AniNate]

Those other movies didn't fail because people weren't able to see them. The fact that any film came even close to breaking the adjusted opening weekend record means money isn't as much of an issue as it was last year.

[BK007]

Hopefully this thread is free from loonieism but I can bet that after THG and Avengers, if Spidey, the Bat, Hobbit and Bella do well, people here will, as they already are, clamouring "No one cares about the other releases" Yeah, if only the world solely revolved around those movies. Problem with the world today though isn't it? Reactionary, reactionary, reactionary but no substance. Time and time again, look at George Zimmerman/Martin Trayvon. What a circus of horseshit. People have lost the plot. Everyone is abusing the actual facts to their own advantage.

[BK007]

Those other movies didn't fail because people weren't able to see them. The fact that any film came even close to breaking the adjusted opening weekend record means money isn't as much of an issue as it was last year.

You missing my point? It's called the great box office Recession, maybe I'm taking for granted people know what a recession means. If one film takes up the vacuum and leaves no space, it doesn't ensure or guarantee improvement.

[BK007]

Use Deathly Hallows 2 as a perfect example.$43m midnights OMFG AMAZING!$91m opening day OMG AMAZING!-53% drop Saturday still highest 2 day gross!$169m opening weekend still unadjusted highest OW!It's pathetic by the end.Or if we dug a little deeper, only 7 movies have made a 3x. Both TMW and T3D had other days to boost those. So truly only 3 President's Day openers, 21 Jump Street and Mirror Mirror. Every single movie that has closed so far hasn't even made 2.8xSure they may outopen their counterparts but if they all burn out so quick it doesn't help.This is a marathon not a 100m dash.

[lab276]

To be fair, it's basically been up since day one. Even April was pretty decent, coming within 6m tickets of 2011 (the best since 2006). And now with TA doing gangbusters...2012 has basically had half a year to slow down and it just hasn't. That doesn't mean that it can't at some point, but it really doesn't look to stop.If anything, we'd need to wait a few years to make the call, but as it stands, I'd say we're practically out of the recession.

[AniNate]

You missing my point? It's called the great box office Recession, maybe I'm taking for granted people know what a recession means. If one film takes up the vacuum and leaves no space, it doesn't ensure or guarantee improvement.

It is improvement in itself. Nothing has been able to achieve what The Avengers did since 2008. Seriously, it made more in its opening weekend than Thor, Hulk, and Captain America made in their entire runs. Edited May 7, 2012 by tribefan695

[BK007]

To be fair, it's basically been up since day one. Even April was pretty decent, coming within 6m tickets of 2011 (the best since 2006). And now with TA doing gangbusters...2012 has basically had half a year to slow down and it just hasn't. That doesn't mean that it can't at some point, but it really doesn't look to stop.If anything, we'd need to wait a few years to make the call, but as it stands, I'd say we're practically out of the recession.

I'm not sure that's a "just". We say just 6m tickets but that's at least $48m some other movie has to make up somewhere and that's just to match 2011 which still ended up awful as a whole.What do you mean by it doesn't look to stop? April sure was a "stopper" by no means a killer, but if people really think Avengers killing Dark Shadows, Dictator and Battleship is a good thing, they have to reexamine that thought.