Domestic Top 10 - May to August (*Still on general release) International Top 10 - May to August (*Still on general release/yet to be released in some countries) UK Summary A good summer for... A bad summer for... Final Summary Text copyright Filmverdict 2006. Any film stills are copyright of their respective owners. Used without permission, sorry!
Review of Summer 2007
Words: Rich
Box office numbers: Box Office Mojo, The New York Times
In April, I looked ahead to the forthcoming summer in my Summer Blockbuster Preview. The season looked like being a potential record breaker and it has proven to be so, but as always some expectations proved to be false and there were some pleasant surprises. Now the summer movie season has come to a close (fittingly with The Bourne Ultimatum), it seems appropriate to look back and weigh up the winners and losers.
I'll weigh up each film's success based on their domestic (US/Canada) gross, their international gross, and also a section looking at how well the films performed in the UK. Note that this feature isn't necessarily intended to reflect my own personal opinion of the films in question, just how well they have done at the box office and what the general opinions of the films have been.
1. Spider-Man 3 - $336.5 [million]
2. Shrek the Third - $321.0
3. Transformers - $310.6
4. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End - $308.6
5. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - $286.9
6. The Bourne Ultimatum - $203.4*
7. Ratatouille - $201.3*
8. The Simpsons Movie - $178.6*
9. Knocked Up - $148.1
10. Live Free or Die Hard (Die Hard 4.0) - $133.6
So the summer's first blockbuster, Spider-Man 3, has ended up top of the heap. With a spectacular highest-ever opening weekend of $148m, it began May with a bigger bang than ever before. Although $336m is still strong in anyone's book, after such an opening it represents quite a considerable decline in the following weeks. It's unsurprising to see the third Shrek instalment so high up, even if it was a critical misfire, but even that underperformed compared to Shrek 2, with a roughly 25% drop in ticket sales before even thinking about inflation. The biggest winner of the summer out of the mega-blockbusters is clearly Transformers, which shot past my original expectations and posted a $300m+ total with a $150m budget (although it still managed to be probably the most spectacular film of the summer). Close behind came Pirates 3, but its similar total is much less impressive considering its gargantuan estimated $300m price tag, excluding marketing costs. Bourne is still going strong, Ratatouille slightly underperformed for Pixar but the great reviews helped, Knocked Up is this year's little film that could and Die Hard managed to hang on quite impressively after a fairly weak opening. Another noteworthy achievement this year: it's the first time four films have each made more than $300 million.
1. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End - $959.8 [million]
2. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - $912.0*
3. Spider-Man 3 - $890.2
4. Shrek the Third - $757.5
5. Transformers - $685.7*
6. The Simpsons Movie - $481.3*
7. Ratatouille - $391.8*
8. Live Free or Die Hard (Die Hard 4.0) - $356.5
9. Ocean's Thirteen - $305.5
10. The Bourne Ultimatum - $279.6*
Pirates somewhat made up for its lackluster US take with a very strong worldwide total, not far off Dead Man's Chest. However, its total worldwide gross is still a significant $100m down on its predecessor. Conversely, Spider-Man 3 outpaced both earlier outings to generate the series' highest gross yet, while Harry Potter 5 proves that there's still juice in that franchise. I wonder if that will continue with the last two instalments now all the books are out. Most of these films have made a significant proportion of their earnings outside the US, generally more than 60%, which is an increasing trend nowadays.
While many have complained that we haven't seen a summer, the last few months at UK cinemas have seen roaring trade. As reported by Variety, July 2007 had the highest UK cinema attendance on ever, with 21.8 million of us going. Beating earlier gross records is common due to inflation, but beating records for actual attendance numbers is extremely uncommon. British cinemas are going through a boom period, and a significant number of major films are being partly filmed on these soils too. The summer's highest earner is, predictably, the quintessentially British Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, making £48.5 million (equating to nearly $100m - a rare feat indeed, but one admittedly helped by current exchange rates). The strange same-weekend release of The Simpsons Movie and Transformers helped propel July 27-29 to the highest UK weekend gross of all time. Here the Simpson family managed to trounce the giant robots, and have so far made £37.2m compared to Transformers' still-impressive £22.4m. Sequels mostly reigned, with Pirates 3 this year's number two, third going appropriately to Shrek the Third and fourth to Spider-Man 3. Bourne is still packing the houses after three weeks.
Paramount
This year Paramount became the fastest studio ever to reach the $1 billion cumulative gross mark, passing it on July 9th. It's also now easily their highest-grossing year ever, and we're only in September. Their recent acquisition of DreamWorks has really paid off, as before that they were only a relatively minor player amongst the studios. Their top five films this year have all come from DreamWorks (including Transformers and Shrek the Third).
Shia LaBeouf
LaBeouf has well and truly graduated from comic relief sidekick (I, Robot, Constantine) to leading man this year, with Transformers putting a cherry on top of his earlier US success with Disturbia. Indiana Jones IV beckons next year, and he's already signed up for three Indy films - Spielberg seems to have found the guy to take over the whip and fedora duties.
Judd Apatow
Knocked Up has made loads of cash and in terms of cost to gross ratio is the most profitable film this year. Superbad, which he produced, has nearly steamed past the $100 million mark as well after less than three weeks. The 40 Year Old Virgin was even referenced in Transformers. This man is set to take over the comedy world.
Paul Greengrass
Greengrass repeated the success of The Bourne Supremacy with Ultimatum, which has now become the highest earner of the series. He now has the freedom to choose pretty much whatever he wants to make. So what has he gone for? Iraq war pic Imperial Life in the Emerald City.
Multiplexes
After a concerning dip in grosses in 2005, 2006 recovered somewhat but 2007 is blowing last year off the charts. At this point grosses are up 7.3% on last year, 13.7% on 2005 and even 3.9% on 2004. So are advances in home viewing equipment hurting the cinemas? Not on this evidence.
Threequels
Other than The Bourne Ultimatum, this has been a year to forget for the number 3. The third instalments of nearly every franchise have not only generally disappointed audiences and critics (although Ocean's Thirteen was an opinion splitter at Filmverdict) but have failed to match up to earlier totals in their respective series.
Mega-budgets
The films with massive budgets - we're talking $300 million here, plus huge advertising expenditure - have generally not justified their cost, at least looking at just the US grosses. Transformers has proven that if spent wisely, $150 million is ample, and the makers have been laughing all the way to the bank.
Pirates
The swashbuckling scallywag seems to be losing his appeal. Pirates 3 still raked it in - especially outside the US - but the drop in earnings from last year's outing (which must be at least partly due to the film's quality, or lack thereof) reflects a waning interest. Again the strategy to release two sequels within a relatively short timeframe has failed to pay off.
Torture porn
Did anyone notice that Hostel: Part II came out this year? Director Eli Roth blamed its flopping on internet piracy, but that excuse doesn't really pass muster. Imitator Captivity also came and went with little impact. Now please stop making them. On the other hand, a more traditional horror, 1408, made quite a nice chunk of change.
20th Century Fox
Fox's head honchos will be searching for the new killer franchise right about now - The Simpsons Movie has been a substantial hit but other than that the studio has not really contributed to the records broken this year, leaving it in sixth place behind all the other major studios.
This year's packed schedules have seen more big releases than ever before. Ultimately that has benefited the box office, with 2007's takings surpassing even 2004's (the highest-grossing year ever) up to this point. In terms of quality the year has been generally less than stellar so far, but there have been several high points and the remaining months of 2007 look full of promising offerings.
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