My, what a difference a year makes. After a robust summer box office in 2009, the 2010 season has seen a lot more disappointment than industry insiders would have expected. After ruling last summer, most of the franchise reboots and sequels fell short, and this past Memorial Day weekend, usually a huge movie weekend, saw its worst numbers in 17 years. But not everything has been doom and gloom. The box office has found an unlikely savior in films geared toward kids and their parents.
Kids Save the Day
The summer box office has usually been dominated by big budget, popcorn flicks. After all, 2009's big winner was Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. But that hasn't been the case. The Russel Crowe starring Robin Hood, the definition of a summer epic, was received very coolly, only bringing in $104 million domestically. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time fared even worse ($88 million). The glitz and glam of the Sex and the City sequel sunk fast, and even The A-Team reboot, yet another capitalization on 80's nostalgia, failed to make a mark.
But then there is Toy Story 3, which has made $339 million and counting. And The Karate Kid remake, which was targeted at family audiences, has made a solid $164 million so far. The fourth installment of the Shrek franchise, while falling short of it's predecessor, still hauled in $232.7 million, which still puts it at the top of the list. And last week, the animated flick Despicable Me opened above expectations with a $60 million take.
Of course there are exceptions. The family targeted Marmaduke bombed, and Iron Man 2 rose above the rest of the early summer fare and is so far the only film besides Toy Story 3 to break $300 million. But by and large, it has been the PG crowd that has saved the box office.
An Interesting Trend
So how can this be explained? Traditionally, it is the holiday season that shows this kind of boom in family films, not the summer.
Part of the reason could be burnout from last summer. After the glut of reboots and sequels 2009 saw, it is possible the moviegoers have grown tired of them, and with the economy still poor being a lot more selective. Even movies like Knight and Day, while not specifically based on an existing franchise, felt like a Mr. and Mrs, Smith clone, and the fact that The Killers, which operated on a similar premise, came out weeks before didn't help. It is possible that after all the "safe bets" and familiarity of last summer, audiences are craving more original ideas (which is why Hollywood is now looking to the upcoming Inception to help the summer box office require.
That might explain the lackluster performance of traditional summer fare, but what of the big splash kid's movies have made? Some of it could be attributed to the nagging tendencies of kids; even if the parents are not interested they may go anyway to please their children. Another reason could be the ever increasing sophistication of animated films and their popularity among older viewers (thanks in large part to Pixar's stellar track record). Whatever the cause, the effect has been a small sigh of relief from the industry.
Timothy Gaydos - I attended Ohio University for four years, studying Video Production and Film, earning a BA in Science and Communications from the Scripps ...
