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 After a handful of expensive summer flops, lower-cost movies
such as the $50 million "Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues" are
lighting up the screen for studio executives who are cautiously
predicting a second straight record year.
Ticket sales at theaters in the United States and Canada started
slowly at the beginning of 2013. Even with the summer hits "Iron
Man 3" and "Despicable Me 2," revenue for the year was running
0.3 percent lower than last year through July 26, according to
data from Rentrak, following bombs like "The Lone Ranger."
But starting in August, box office receipts pulled ahead of last
year's pace, helped by late-year surprises such as the civil
rights story "Lee Daniels' The Butler" and the hostage thriller
"Captain Phillips" that were made for $55 million or less and
had ticket sales of more than $100 million each.
They were joined by comedies "We're the Millers" and "Jackass
Presents: Bad Grandpa."
"The poster child is 'Gravity,'" said Gerardo Lopez, chief
executive of theater chain AMC Entertainment, who said the film
was expected to take in only $50 million to $70 million at
domestic theaters. "It's a good film and people found it."
"Gravity," the 3D space thriller about a pair of stranded
astronauts starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, defied
projections to sell $253 million at movie theaters in the United
States and Canada.
The film, which cost about $100 million to make, ranks sixth on
this year's list of highest-grossing movies at domestic
theaters, ahead of big-budget action hits like "Fast & Furious
6" and "Star Trek Into Darkness." Those films both cost at least
$160 million apiece to make.
Helped by higher ticket prices, U.S. and Canadian movie grosses
are 0.4 percent ahead of a year ago at $10.16 billion through
Sunday. The average price paid by moviegoers climbed 11 cents
this year to $8.05 through the end of September, according to
the National Association of Theatre Owners.
CROWDED SUMMER
The success of "Gravity" and other overachievers helped offset
weak performances by some pricey star-studded action films. They
include "After Earth," "R.I.P.D." and "White House Down," which
analysts say were hurt in part by a crowded summer movie slate.
"If you look at the list of the top-performing movies, there is
a very broad diversity of films there," said Chris Aronson,
president of domestic distribution for 20th Century Fox, which
scored a summer hit with "The Heat," a comedy with a budget of
$43 million that grossed $160 million at domestic theaters.
This year's surprise hits took off for different reasons.
"Gravity," from Time Warner Inc's Warner Bros, awed critics and
audiences with its depictions of space and weightlessness, which
pushed moviegoers to higher-priced IMAX and 3D tickets.
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 Star power helped promote "The Butler," which was
boosted by Oprah Winfrey's popularity, while "Captain Phillips"
stirred Oscar buzz for lead actor Tom Hanks.
"They sustained a fairly high volume of conversation over time,"
said Wayne St. Amand, executive vice president of marketing for
Crimson Hexagon, which analyzed Twitter comments on both films. The
tweets "kept both films on the minds of moviegoers for longer
periods of time than you might expect," he said.
The year also saw massive big-budget hits, led by Walt Disney's Co's
Marvel superhero sequel "Iron Man 3" ($409 million), Universal
Pictures' animated "Despicable Me 2" ($367 million) and dystopian
thriller sequel "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" ($358 million).
Domestic sales for the summer movie season hit a record $4.8
billion.
Hollywood's big-budget thrillers grabbed massive returns overseas.
"Iron Man 3," for instance, earned $806 million in international
markets, or two-thirds of its total.
Lions Gate Entertainment the studio behind "Catching
Fire," also found a hit with the $75 million heist caper "Now You
See Me" that opened in late May and collected domestic ticket sales
of $118 million.
"We felt we could live in that world and hold up very nicely, and
that turned out to be the case," said Richie Fay, president of
domestic distribution for Lions Gate. While the movie was initially
aimed at an over-25 audience, it also pulled in younger filmgoers,
Fay said.
A mixture of upcoming big-budget and smaller priced films will give
Hollywood a shot at beating last year's $10.8 billion record, say
analysts. Leonardo DiCaprio is getting Oscar buzz for Paramount's
"The Wolf of Wall Street," which cost more than $100 million to
make, while Fox has heavily promoted the Ben Stiller comedy "The
Secret Life of Walter Mitty."
"Anchorman 2," which opened Wednesday, will likely
join the list of this year's hits made with modest budgets,
according to Boxoffice.com, which projects the movie from Paramount
Pictures will take in $185 million domestically during its
theatrical run.
The movie's star, Will Ferrell, has appeared in character as
Burgundy seemingly everywhere, from Dodge Durango commercials and a
newscast in Nebraska to an interview with Denver Broncos quarterback
Peyton Manning for ESPN The Magazine.
"Will Ferrell is about as big a sell-out as you can get," said Jeff
Bock, senior box office analyst at Exhibitor Relations Co. "And
that's a good thing for everybody involved in this."
(Reporting by Lisa Richwine; editing by
Ronald Grover and Grant McCool)
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