Hollywood's summer headache continues

I made a blog entry about a month ago ("The Incredible Shrinking Box Office"), recounting how my cinema-going experience increasingly sucks, and how that might be true for more and more people - and even the kids - who think that the stuff they're getting at the movies is just not up to scratch. I thought this might explain why this season had so far been a bit of a dud for Hollywood. Well, a month-plus on from all the early May stories of Hollywood's Box Office slump, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith has opened and Made It Big (domestic box office of $307 million and rising); but otherwise, good news has been thin on the ground, and the rest of the summer fare hasn't matched up to expectations. Thus, according to Entertainment Weekly, this "makes 15 straight weeks that box office is down from the previous year".

The signs of weakness are everywhere. Last weekend's USA Today noted that ticket sales to date were down 7% from 2004 (about $245 million); summer box office is down 9% from last season." Another report from LA's Daily News last week said "the top 12 films earned nearly 30 percent less than the top dozen did during the same weekend a year ago, according to studio estimates released Sunday."

Two Big Event early-summer blockbusters have, at the end of their second weeks, underperformed: Madagascar (4,142 screens, $100.4 million take); and The Longest Yard (3,634 screens, $95.8 million). Three new (supposedly) Big Openers this week - Russell Crowe's Cinderella Man, The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, and Lords of Dogtown, all languished (at No. 4, 5, and 7 respectively) despite their multi-thousand screen openings. House of Wax bombed. Mr & Mrs Smith looks creaky. If Tom Cruise and The War of the Worlds tanks, studio execs are going to start running for the exits. I find all this to be tremendouly fun. Studios have been pushing CGI-enhanced junk for so many summers that it's amazing they've managed to pump up the numbers this long. (I saw a rerun on TV of Independence Day last week and had to remind myself with some difficulty that the film is now nine years old! Think how much crap has passed under the bridge since then -- I'm losing track.)

OK, I'm still willing to accept this rubbish is good fun for a drive-in theater. But otherwise . . . To repeat my question from last week (Whither the blockbuster): "Thirty years on from Jaws, the first "blockbuster" to set up the current system, is it time for Hollywood to update its strategy?"

Yep.