STUDIO SCORECARD. With the strong domestic and international opening of Despicable Me 2, Universal had a very good week (up $311 million from last week and almost catching Warner Brothers in terms of worldwide box office for the year). Warner Brothers, thanks to Man of Steel, still brought in $157 million this week. Next week the studio will suffer some bad publicity from Pacific Rim (which should disappoint in the same way The Lone Ranger is doing for Disney) on top of the growing bad publicity within the Hollywood community over its over-the-top claim to the title “The Butler.” Making Harvey Weinstein look sympathetic…now that’s cinema magic.
TOTAL NORTH AMERICAN BOX OFFICE. Looking at wide-release films in North America (those that play on at least 400 screens at some point), 2013 now totals just over $5.2 billion, now 2% ahead of 2012 (after trailing last year badly for most of this year) and 4% above the prior four-year average 2009-2012. Each year-to-date period below is defined as the first Monday after New Year’s Day through the most recent Sunday. The past week generated an incredible $410 million in wide-release North American box office, up 35% from the same week last year and up 25% from the 2009-2012 average for the same week. (The most recent week’s numbers are based on weekend estimates, which are usually at worst a couple of percentage points off from the final weekend tallies.)
| North American Box Office YEAR TO DATE | ||
| (billions) | Weeks 1-26 | |
| 2013 | $5.218 | Jan 7-July 7 |
| 2012 | $5.129 | Jan 2-July 1 |
| 2009 | $5.098 | Jan 5-July 5 |
| 2010 | $5.049 | Jan 4-July 4 |
| 2011 | $4.704 | Jan 3-July 3 |
Over the past six weeks, 2013 is now 32% above the same six weeks in 2012 and up 19% from the four-year average in the same time frame.
| North American Box Office LAST SIX WEEKS | ||
| (billions) | Weeks 21-26 | |
| 2013 | $1.779 | May 27-July 7 |
| 2009 | $1.602 | May 25-July 5 |
| 2011 | $1.530 | May 23-July 3 |
| 2010 | $1.498 | May 24-July 4 |
| 2012 | $1.343 | May 21-July 1 |
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