A LOOK AT THE SUMMER 2012 BOX OFFICE

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The summer is coming to an end just as usual at the end of August. Over the last four fiery months, we have seen plenty of memorable and winning movies which include three superhero affairs, talking teddy bear, the usual alien affair and highland fairy tale princess. Of course, in the same period, we also saw misfires like an unnecessary 90s remakes, misplaced vampires and dull popcorn flicks. Summer 2011 was a not major letdown in terms of the number of high quality films, but was still obnoxiously countable. This summer scores not much improvement in that terms but the concern is that the box office sales slump by 5 percent below last year, according to Reuters report. More details after the break.

REASONS FOR DOMESTIC SLUMP

Analysts point out that the summer sales are likely to suffer because of a few reasons:

The intense competition from the Olympics, which drew record TV ratings. More than 219.4 million Americans tuned in, making this year’s Olympics the most-watched event ever in the US TV history and NBC was clearly the winning TV station that benefits the most. The closing ceremony did steal 31 million Americans away from the theatres. (Source)
A number of prolific summer flops. Summer flops varied from Universal’s Battleship, Warner Bros’ Dark Shadows, Sony’s Total Recall and That’s My Boy, and Fox’s The Watch.
Nervousness following a mass killing at a “Dark Knight Rises” midnight show in Colorado. While no estimate of overall box office sales loss is available, general analysts agreed that the shooting gave huge impact on The Dark Knight Rises. Some put the figure as high as $60 million.

AT THE MOMENT

Nevertheless, the total U.S. box office is still ahead of last year by a small margin of 4 percent at this point, due to exploding spring releases like The Hunger Games, Safe House and The Vow. Spring releases generated 14 percent increase over last year with the three films leading the chart. The domestic year-to-date sales are at $7.4 billion, only 4 percent above last year.

THE TOP OF THE SUMMER

Business as usual as we look at the top grossing films of the summer 2012 in the U.S. Box Office, as in the table below (source):

Rank	Movie Title	Studio	Total Gross*
1	Marvel's The Avengers	Walt Disney	$ 617,800,446
2	The Dark Knight Rises	Warner Bros	$ 423,088,380
3	The Amazing Spider-Man	Sony Pictures	$ 258,423,379
4	Brave	Walt Disney	$ 230,174,296
5	Ted	Universal Pictures	$ 214,880,255
6	Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted	Paramount Pictures/DreamWorks	$ 214,030,500
7	Men In Black 3	Sony Pictures	$ 178,515,577
8	Snow White and the Huntsman	Universal Pictures	$ 154,932,775
9	Ice Age: Continental Drift	20th Century Fox	$ 153,756,800
10	Prometheus	20th Century Fox	$ 126,305,587

Note: *The grosses are updated as of 26 August 2012

OVERSEAS NUMBER STILL SOLID

Even with the distractions resulted by the Olympics and Euro 2012, the numbers from overseas markets remain strong. Analysts projected that the foreign market shares will remain between 45% to 65% for most major blockbusters. In fact, the top ten summer films are on this trend. Ice Age: Continental Drift has accumulated $662 million from non-US markets (compared to a dismay $153.8 million domestic), showing the increase significant of foreign market to the studio revenues. To further illustrate this situation; here are the top movies of the year so far with apt comparison between the domestic and the foreign figures (source):

Rank	Movie Title	US Gross*	Overseas Gross*	Worldwide Gross*
1	Marvel's The Avengers	$ 617.8 M	$ 874.0 M	$ 1,491.8 M
2	The Dark Knight Rises	$ 423.1 M	$ 519.0 M	$ 942.1 M
3	Ice Age: Continental Drift	$ 153.5 M	$ 665.0 M	$ 818.4 M
4	The Amazing Spider-Man	$ 258.4 M	$ 446.5 M	$ 704.9 M
5	Men In Black 3	$ 178.5 M	$ 443.4 M	$ 622.0 M
6	Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted	$214.0 M	$ 369.0 M	$ 583.0 M
7	Brave	$230.2 M	$ 212.3 M	$ 442.5 M
8	Snow White and the Huntsman	$ 154.9 M	$ 239.0 M	$ 393.9 M
9	Ted	$214.9 M	$ 155.7 M	$ 370.6 M
10	Prometheus	$126.3 M	$ 214.8 M	$ 341.1 M

Note: *The grosses are in million (M), updated as of 26 August 2012

THINGS IN MALAYSIA

The table below listed the top ten biggest summer film in Malaysia (source).

Rank	Movie Title	Total Gross*
1	Marvel's The Avengers	$ 10,965,615
2	The Amazing Spider-Man	$ 7,099,068
3	Battleship	$ 6,415,419
4	The Dark Knight Rises	$ 5,507,541
5	Men In Black 3	$ 5,110,670
6	Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted	$ 4,086,685
7	Snow White and the Huntsman	$ 3,626,479
8	The Expendables 2	$ 3,626,479
9	Ice Age: Continental Drift	$ 2,625,253
10	Total Recall	$ 2,330,639