While you won’t be surprised to learn that Mission: Impossible 4 was the top movie at the box office this weekend (what, you thought it was going to beTin Tin?), you might be a teensy weensy itty bitty bit surprised to learn that overall box office receipts were down for the year: specifically 3.5%, which means that 2011 was the worst year at the box office since 1995. Yup, since the year of Braveheart. Or Pocahontas.
Some are blaming the lackluster movies the big studios decided to produce this year - we’re still tallying all the awful superhero films that were hurled our way this summer; some are blaming technology - you know, because we won’t wander into the cineplex to see Sandra Bullock when we can watch her ex make an ass out of himself on Youtube; and some are blaming the economy - which means we can blame Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – or George W. Bush and/or Barack Obama.
Apart from the final installment of Harry Potter, there were no stand out films this year. Sure, Hugo is brilliant but hasn’t been such a darling of the masses. War Horse seems to be made for a different era and every sequel, be it featuring the bachelors from The Hangover, Sherlock Holmes or a trio of singing Chipmunks, underperformed by a good hundred million. Even the perfect track record of Pixar wasn’t spared with the release of the underwhelming Cars 2. Too many sequels and remakes were offered up to audiences and returned, untouched, and without so much as a ‘no thank you.’ And deservedly so, some would argue, because the movies weren’t so good.
I’ll leave the Monday morning quarterbacking and ticket tallying to others. Here are the final tallies for the final weekend of 2011:
1. Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol - $31.2 million
2. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows - $22.1 million
3. Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked - $18.2 million
4. War Horse - $16.9 million
5. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - $16.3 million
6. We Bought a Zoo - $14.3 million
7. The Adventures of Tintin - $12.0 million
8. New Year’s Eve - $6.7 million
9. The Darkest Hour - $4.3 million
10. The Descendants - $3.6 million
The Only Reason I'm Gonna Get MI 4 On DVD Is Because Of Paula Patton.
I Agree Teq But I Still I Got Sucker Punched Out Of $10 Just To See My Girls Vanessa & Jamie Killed Off. Sorry For The Spoiler Alert To The Bastards That Didn't See It.
MI was horrible...my brother in law talked me into to seeing it and I almost fell asleep.
Tintin made over $300 million worldwide and Mission Impossible did $362 million worldwide, but I guess we will just ignore that:)
yup, I watch a lot of world cinema and the contrast in the storytelling is striking, the whole blockbuster business has been severely skewed. In the beginning it was impressive, as they were trying (and often succeeding) to pull of a cool story with the support of visual effects, now they're pulling off cool visual effects with zero story.
In an awesomely bastardly manner I'm looking forward to each and every new Hollywood movie but not because it's going to be interesting (a rare and delightful surprise), but because I'll get to see another cute starlet almost nude (Sucker punch, Columbiana anyone?)
Well put. This whole notion of "blockbuster" is a big part of the problem. They put a huge amount of money into a movie and then have to make it so that it pleases the least common denominator of the movie going audience. It then ends up pleasing no one very much. I want a return to smaller movies that are made smarter. If the retards have to stretch a little to understand then so be it. My guess is these movies would do just as well or better especially if all of Hollywood was doing it.
LMAO, that is true.
Actually it's been a year of shitty blockbuster movies
Well this has been a shitty year for blockbuster movies.