Week Of December 18, 2006 - Mon / Wed / Fri

December 20, 2006

A Toast To Gross

There were a couple of stories earlier this week about how horrible the 2007 of sequels would be. It got me looking at the nature of the current state of box office and sequels. Here are some things I found:

578 films have been released so far in the domestic market in 2006.
372 of them never got to as many as 100 screens.

The Top Grosser in that under-100 group was, not unexpectedly, an IMAX film, Deep Sea 3D-, which grossed $21.6 milllion. The highest grossing non-IMAX film was Fox Searchlight's Water, which took in $3.278 million. The highest grosser under 50 screens was Volver, with $2.9 million, but will be looking for more as we continue the Oscar season.

Another 53 titles appeared on between 100 and 1000 screen in their runs… a very thin middle class. The top of that group was The Queen, with $25.7 million so far and An Inconvenient Truth with $23.8 million.

That leaves 153 wide releases or a little more than 3 per week (with two release weeks left in the year). In that group, there is a surprising symmetry. 52 films were release on between 1000 and 1999 screens, another 49 between 2000 and 2999 and 52 on more than 3000 screens.

31 of the 153 films released on more than 1000 screens this year were sequels or remakes. There are 26 such films on the schedule for next year right now. So where is the shift?

Only half of 2006's Top Ten were sequels/remakes, down from six of ten in 2005, five in 2004, and five in 2003. And note… of the five non-sequel/remakes in the Top Ten this year, three were animated films and the other two were a second-only-to-the-bible bestseller (that did even better overseas) starring Tom Hanks and directed by Ron Howard but was smashed by critics and a Will Ferrell comedy that hit just right in August. Talladega Nights was the only Top Ten film to come within miles of being worthy of any claim of "originality."

Only 6 of 2005's sequels/remakes were on the bottom half of the box office chart (under $37 million) of those 153 wide releases. So, 25 were in the upper half. 12 of those were in the second quadrant (box office slots 39-77, from $33.7m - $61.6m) and 13 in the top quadrant ($62.3m - $423m).

The sequels/remakes in that top quadrant, 38 top movies, represent $1.9 billion in domestic box office dollars. They are also pre-sold for DVD and are amongst the few films that have significant licensing value for the studios.

How could studio executives claim to be responsible to their stock holders if the ignored a "genre" that generated about a third of the entire domestic box office this year?

So why the bitch-a-thon about sequels?

A. We need something to write about.
B. Sequels and remakes are always an available, cheap target
C. Really thinking about it hurts people's heads

I am not saying that I love sequels. I am not dealing, with these numbers, with the cost of many sequels, which can be insane and counterproductive. Pirates 2 was almost as expensive as Superman Returns and had it done similar box office, Disney would be the unhappiest place on earth right now.

But like cotton panties at Victoria's Secret, you gotta have 'em. Not everyone is into thongs. In this business, sequels and remakes are the basics, along with kids films. There are ebbs and flows, but this is the reality, even more so in a marketing-driven business.

The two real stories in next year's sequels are the 1-2-3- of Spidey, Shrek and Cap'n Jack in May. Only five films in history have grossed $400 million on their initial runs. And three of them have sequels in one month this summer.

I am pretty sure that May 2003 is the biggest release month in movie history with $1.4 billion being earned by its 46 releases. Four were $200 million movies:

Finding Nemo - $340 million
The Matrix Reloaded - $282 million
Bruce Almighty - $243 million
X2: X-Men United - $215 million

These four titles totaled 1.08 billion. The last episodes of this May's big sequel trio earned $1.24 billion.

And anything less than $1.05 for these three would sure be seen as a disappointment.

Those are some big stupid shoes.

The good news is that everyone else has pretty much cleared out of the month. But the films in the first two weekends of June are just asking for trouble.

And how much energy will be left in the box office in the second half of June, for Evan Almighty and Fantastic Four 2? Ratatouille and Harry Potter should be fine. But how much space will Transformers have to stretch unless it is a true phenom?

Anyway, the argument is not sequels. The issue is crowding. And of course, as with every year, we never quite know how things will work out.

E Me.

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