Now that the end of the year is upon us, and everyone who was going to watch The Interview have watched it, it is time to look back at 2014 and see what studio ruled them all.
It was an interesting year for movies, with a number of comic book and pop culture properties vying for box office dollars. From Godzilla to The Maze Runner, and The Hunger Games to The LEGO Movie, those participating in movie box office challenges had a nail biting time. Box Office Mojo has updated its 2014 domestic grosses, and for United States of America audiences, Guardians of the Galaxy was the top of the charts bringing in $332,749,244 since August.
[table id=118 /]Interestingly, when it comes calculating in the international box office receipts, Transformers: Age of Extinction, slaughtered Guardians of the Galaxy. To date, Guardians has only brought in $772, 349,244, while Transformers made over a billion dollars worldwide – $1,087,404,499 to be exact. So, if you are wondering why Michael Bay and Mark Wahlberg are excited about a new Transformers movie, you know why – international box office make a huge difference in the way the studios operate.
There is going to be a lot of talk about how popular Guardians of the Galaxy was this year – and it was for the United States, but when it boils down to which studio had the most movies in the top 20, Buena Vista (Disney) and Fox tied with four movies each.
The other thing theater owners will want to share to justify the increased ticket and concession prices will be the total gross for the year. Compared to 2013, ticket sales slipped 5%. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but when sales drop nearly $700,000,000 someone is going to take notice.
When looking at this data, is there anything that really stands out to you?
3 Comments
Really surprised about how poorly The LEGO Movie did Internationally. Only film in the top 10 to make over half its money domestically.
I think it will be interesting to watch the ongoing split between international vs. domestic hits. Some films will be overseas blockbusters while under-performing here as in the Guardians vs. Transformers comparison. Why did Guardians do really well here, but not come close to Transformers in the international market? Giant robots translating well in China and other parts of Asia? In the top 15 it looks like the international market added about $500 million to those films, except Transformers which was close to $850 million over domestic. Fascinating stuff.
Well, yes. First, comparing Battle of Five Armies to Guardians of the Galaxy, you’re comparing a movie that’s only been out for two weeks to one that’s been out for five months, so you can’t really compare the two. Also, when comparing domestic vs international – are overseas ticket prices comparable to US ticket prices? Or are they proportionally lower? In the US, ticket prices are so high that I rarely go see a movie I love in the theater more than once, but back when movies were only a few bucks, I’d go to see a beloved movie two or three times – or more. If a movie is one I don’t particularly care about, I’ll wait for it to come out on DVD. Without knowing how ticket prices compare, it’s hard to know how the figures stack up. For example, if ticket prices in China convert to (for example) $2.50 US, and half a billion out of three billion Chinese go to that movie several times you get an impressive looking amount – but remember you’re comparing that to less than maybe half a million people in the US who are probably paying between $15-$20 dollars to see the same movie.
I guess I’m trying to make two points here first – the figures don’t tell equivalent tales since each of the movies were released at different times and also the figures don’t related the ticket prices and base populations of each region to one one another. And secondly, the theaters and studios in the US may be pricing themselves out of the market. When I was a kid, you could go to the theater and see two movies and cartoons in between for fifty cents – and the theaters and studios made plenty of money even at that low price. If the studios and theater owners are worried about the decrease in movie goers over the years, I suggest to them the same thing I tell the cable company when they try to get me to hook up to cable again: they need to take a look at their prices. They’d get more viewers at lower prices than they will get by continuing to gouge the public for every dollar they can get.