May 17, 2004

The summer movie season has started out with a thud, there is no doubt. But reading the two wire service reports on the weekend reminded me about how false trends in box office reporting take hold as accurate details fall away in light of bigger trends. Unfortunately for some, the truth is in the detail. So in what seems to be an annual effort now (I am obviously failing), here is a fact-based effort to nip some bad trend reporting in the bud…

1. $50 million is not reasonable "as the passing grade for a summer popcorn movie" and is only "viewed informally in Hollywood" that way by people who don't know anything about the box office.

The last three summers, before which there were a total of eight $50 million summer openings in the entire history of domestic releases, have averaged six such openings per year. With over 20 "summer popcorn movies" released each summer, any number that demands that 2/3rds of films fail the "standard" - and remember, this is not a quality issue, as opening weekend has virtually nothing to do with quality - is not a reasonable standard. Please note also that Pirates of The Caribbean failed to meet this standard last summer, while The Hulk passed it by 20%.

2. "Most movies this time of year" DO NOT "see earnings drop 50 percent or more each week."

In a stat that was even a bit of a surprise to me, only 7 out of 25 major studio May releases (28%) over the past three summer have had 50 percent drops or worse in their second weekends and only 6 out of 25 have had 50 percent drops in their third weekends. The three of the second weekend 50+ droppers last year were X2, Matrix Reloaded and The Lizzie Maguire Movie. The only one of the trio not to have an $85 million-plus opening weekend, Maguire stabilized with a 34 percent drop in its third weekend, while the other two remained in the high 50s. But in the fourth weekend, those blockbusters dropped just 39 and 41 percent, respectively.

Moreover, the bad news in the hallways of Universal is that Van Helsing's AP/Reuters-estimated 61 percent drop holds up tomorrow, it will be the worst second-weekend drop ever in a May, so far as I can tell. (I've gone as far back as Godzilla.)

But here is where it gets really interesting… 50 percent drops become an epidemic in June. Looking at the last three summers, 16 or 28 films (57%) recorded second weekend drops of 50 percent or more, 12 of 28 fell more than 50 percent in the third weekend and 13 of the 28 dropped more than 50 percent in the fourth weekend. Only seven films fell more than 50 percent in each of its second through fourth weekends. Only one of those seven films, A.I., is not held pretty universally as a box office bust. But that is a lot of damage and is closer to being a notable trend. And the split starts to look more reflective of general quality trends.

In July, 17 of 32 (53%) make the 50 percent second weekend fall. Third weekends were 18 of 32 to that negative trend. And fourth weekends are 13 of 32.

By August, a mammoth 70 percent of films lose 50 percent or more in their second weekends (19 of 27 in the last three years). That includes the four biggest August grossers of the last three summers; Signs, Rush Hour 2, American Pie 2 and XXX. Interestingly, of the eight films that didn't drop by 50 percent or more in weekend two, only two failed to pass the $55 million mark (Blood Work and Captain Corelli's Mandolin). After those significant second weekend drops, less than a third of those droppers would fall as hard again until the very end of their domestic box office lives.

3. Troy was handicapped by its "R" rating and "its debut compared favorably with 2000's R-rated Gladiator."

Troy is only the sixth best R-rated opening in the last 18 months. Four of the others were, to be fair, sequels or extensions of successful franchises. But you get the point. The movie you can easily sell is not handicapped. The one that is hard to sell is.

As for comparisons to Gladiator, they only hold up in the wardrobe department. Gladiator was generally well reviewed and was led by an emerging star, ready to hit his peak. However, there is another example in the same summer as Gladiator that makes nearly the same exact case for Troy maintaining and then becoming a serious box office success.

Anyone? Anyone?

On June 30, 2000, a Warner Bros. release hit theaters. The Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer rated it, like Troy, "rotten," though Troy got 59% approval to this film's 46%. The movie starred a very popular actor who had not been enormously successful at the box office. The film opened to a fifth-best for the summer $41.3 million and went on to gross $183 million domestic (just $5 million behind Gladiator), almost $330 million worldwide. And it was directed by Wolfgang Petersen.

Now do you know?

It was The Perfect Storm starring George Clooney. You have to wonder why Warner Bros. is choosing to compare their opening box office to Gladiator when the analogy to The Perfect Storm holds, pardon the pun, a whole lot more water. Obviously, swords and sandals match with swords and sandals. But the analogy to The Perfect Storm is one that I personally am able to argue and rationalize as a possible future for Troy far more so than the Gladiator comparison.

Now, the hard part. In their second weekends, Perfect Storm fell 34% and Gladiator fell 29%. If Troy can drop less than 40%, the potential for a perspective turnaround, as well as a financial one, is there. If not, look for the film to top out in the $130 million range with a need to do at least $200 million overseas before looking at breakeven after all ancillaries.

4. "Despite the apparently strong earnings for "Troy" and "Van Helsing," their massive budgets and the intensity of the summer movie competition suggest they will have a hard time earning their money back in North American theaters."

This one actually is accurate. But it is completely misleading. There are 41 films that have grossed over $100 million in North American theaters during the last three summers. Perhaps as many as eight of these films have broken even on domestic theatrical in that period. Five of these films grossed over $200 million domestic and the rest were films that cost less than $40 million to produce.

The simple reality is that very few films are expected to earn back their money, especially when you consider minimum outlays of $25 million and average outlays of about $50 million for Prints & Advertising, in domestic theatrical. If only 20% of the most successful films of the summer season manage this feat, you can imagine how much lower the number will be amongst the other 80+ major releases that still have pay big advertising dollars that, on average, take $60 million of box office gross to cover.

READER OF THE DAY: BUFFALO BRI writes: "Polish sausage: You are totally wrong about Troy. There is a lot of skill on display here: good action filming, even-handiness to not paint one side as evil/good or to make the movie just about a woman, good cgi without too much reliance on it (Scott wished he had the cgi Peterson had instead of his subpar efx company The Mill on Gladiator), Wolfgang knows when to edit out long LOTR-like talkie scenes that bore the hell out of people, cool rolling balls of flame, hiring an actress to play Helen who is naked all over the net, hiring a Starwars Prequel actress like Rose Byrne. Eric Bana just might have out classed them all with that performance. With two powerfully characters going at it, I mourn the loss of what Wolfgang could have done with Superman vs Batman. I think you ask too much from summer movies. No one will display as much skill the rest of the summer."

E ME: I too hope that Petersen someday returns to SvB, a movie that I would love to see and think Petersen would knock out of the park. I think that he was submarined by the Benioff screenplay here though. And if I believed that he was as much of a casting schemer as you suggest, Paris Hilton could have sucked more life into Helen than Ms. Kruger has. What summer mythology pisses you off?