Via Slashdot:
In the weeks since Spielberg’s prediction, six wannabe blockbusters have cratered at the North American box office: “R.I.P.D.,” “Turbo,” “After Earth,” “White House Down,” “Pacific Rim,” and “The Lone Ranger.” These films featured big stars, bigger explosions, and top-notch special effects—exactly the sort of summer spectacle that ordinarily assures a solid run at the box office. Yet for whatever reason, all of them failed to draw in the massive audiences needed to earn back their gargantuan budgets
For whatever reason? There's something lacking among these 6 movies that most summer blockbusters: none of them has the number "2" or higher after it. Sequels drive show business during the summer months, and have for many years.
I mined Box Office Mojo's data of the top 100 grossing films from years 2000-2012 and picked out the summer movies from it. The results are not particularly surprising. The biggest hits by gross profit are listed below (dollar values in millions):
| Film | Gross | Cost | Release | Profit | P/cost ratio | Sequel? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Marvel's The Avengers | 623 | 220 | 5/4/2012 | 403 | 1.83 | Yes |
| The Dark Knight | 533 | 185 | 7/18/2008 | 348 | 1.88 | Yes |
| Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith | 380 | 113 | 5/19/2005 | 267 | 2.37 | Yes |
| Spider-Man | 403 | 139 | 5/3/2002 | 264 | 1.90 | No |
| Finding Nemo | 339 | 940 | 5/30/2003 | 245 | 2.61 | No |
| The Hangover | 277 | 350 | 6/5/2009 | 242 | 6.92 | No |
| The Twilight Saga: Eclipse | 300 | 680 | 6/30/2010 | 232 | 3.42 | Yes |
| Toy Story 3 | 415 | 200 | 6/18/2010 | 215 | 1.08 | Yes |
| Shrek | 267 | 600 | 5/16/2001 | 207 | 3.46 | No |
| Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen | 402 | 200 | 6/24/2009 | 202 | 1.01 | Yes |
60% of them are sequels, which is even more significant when you realize that only 33% of summer movies are sequels.
Here are the biggest summer bombs:
| Film | Gross | Cost | Release | Profit | P/cost frac | Sequel |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Battleship | 65 | 209 | 5/18/2012 | -143 | -0.69 | No |
| Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time | 90 | 200 | 5/28/2010 | -109 | -0.55 | No |
| Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within | 32 | 137 | 7/11/2001 | -104 | -0.77 | No |
| Stealth | 32 | 135 | 7/29/2005 | -102 | -0.76 | No |
| Poseidon | 60 | 160 | 5/12/2006 | -99 | -0.62 | No |
| Robin Hood | 105 | 200 | 5/14/2010 | -94 | -0.47 | No |
| The Island | 35 | 126 | 7/22/2005 | -90 | -0.72 | No |
| The Sorcerer's Apprentice | 63 | 150 | 7/14/2010 | -86 | -0.58 | No |
| Around the World in 80 Days | 24 | 110 | 6/16/2004 | -85 | -0.78 | No |
| Green Lantern | 116 | 200 | 6/17/2011 | -83 | -0.42 | No |
Not a sequel among them. Being a sequel is fairly well correlated with success at the box office
The obvious question is: why the hell aren't they releasing more sequels this summer? The answer seems to be at least in part that they've wrung most of these franchises dry. Taking a sample and looking at how the franchises are doing shows that many are flagging:
Some of these franchises aren't even turning a profit anymore (Pirates of the Caribbean and X-Men, for instance, are in negative territory). Others just aren't turning much of a profit compared to their budgets.
Anyone who can see that many of the popular franchises have been depleted, saw a slate of new IP movies coming, might have predicted a bad summer. The standard deviation on profit/cost ratio for sequels is only 0.83, but for new IP it's 7.7! There's a lot of uncertainty when you release a non-sequel, and that means you can have a big, unexpected bomb. And it's happening.