With few flops, Hollywood enjoys a hot summer

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-07-17 09:38

The year-ago season came within 0.5% of summer 2007's record $4.16 billion tally. So, will the industry manage this summer what it couldn't a year ago?

Definitely maybe.

Four films so far have surpassed $200 million domestically, compared with three at a similar point last summer, and the latest "Harry Potter" installment likely will join them. Plus, at least four pictures have significantly outperformed industry expectations:

-- The "Transformers" sequel always was viewed as the season's top grosser, but almost nobody thought it would rake in as much as it has.

-- Paramount's franchise reboot "Star Trek" wasn't seen as a $200 million-plus domestic grosser before its release, given the franchise's then-moribund state. Although it has rung up less foreign coin (about $125 million) than at home, it has overachieved compared with past "Trek" movies.

-- Before the release of "Up," one Wall Street analyst said early clips suggested Disney might have an underachiever on its hands. Turns out the release has been the second-best Pixar-produced performer to date, behind "Finding Nemo." And they say nobody knows anything in Hollywood.

-- Warner Bros. greenlighted a sequel to "The Hangover" before the Todd Phillips-helmed comedy even hit theaters, but $200 million-plus? Now that's a guilt-free hangover.

Midsummer domestic rankings show Paramount sitting in first place in year-to-date market share with $1 billion-plus; the studio also tops the summer pecking order with $675 million, thanks to "Transformers" and "Star Trek." But Warners will rise in the rankings any minute now, with "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" already packing in capacity audiences after hitting multiplexes this week.

Looking ahead, the rest of the season's releases will determine whether the summer box office will be one for the record books.

Those include Universal's Judd Apatow comedy "Funny People," starring Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen, set to unspool July 31; Paramount's effects-driven military actioner "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra," scheduled to bow August 7; and Quentin Tarantino's war picture "Inglourious Basterds" and Rob Zombie's horror sequel "Halloween 2," set for release by the Weinstein Co. on August 21 and August 28, respectively.

Of the bunch, the Stephen Sommers-directed "G.I. Joe" seems to have the most going for it. Once the subject of rumors about a troubled production, the Hasbro co-production will hit the market as the first pure action film in several weeks. Skewing young, "G.I. Joe" is filled with crowd-pleasing visual effects and mayhem.

Universal would love for "Funny People" to draw the same mix of couples and young men that took Apatow's "Knocked Up" to nearly $150 million domestically, but the film treads in much more dramatic waters than the director's core audience might expect.

"Basterds" is likely to draw much older audiences. But the success of the Brad Pitt starrer and Weinstein's subsequent slasher pic are key to the company's fiscal health.

Pleased with the season's theatrical performance to date, industryites are optimistic about prospects for a solid close to the summer.

"We had such a stacking up of big titles from early May forward that I think it's remarkable how well most have been able to deal with that," Fox distribution president Bruce Snyder says. "And there's plenty of juice still to go."

There does remain the small matter of weekend comparisons for the balance of the summer. Comparable 2008 frames were inflated by historically robust grosses from Warners' $533 million blockbuster "The Dark Knight," from mid-July onward.

"I just don't know how we're going to cope with that," a top studio executive says. "It was just such a monster."

It means that though the prospect of the season's delivering a record haul remains doable in theory, getting there might require a little studio teamwork.

"You can't expect to have another film take the place of 'Dark Knight,'" Disney distribution president Chuck Viane says. "It's going to have to be a combination of films, and it's definitely going to be very tough to beat over that stretch."

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