By Joe Perovich/Murphy News Service
American moviegoers bought 1.26 billion movie tickets in 2014 – the lowest annual turnout since the 1.21 billion sold in 1995.
The rise of on-line streaming services and torrent clients – along with last year’s relatively dismal turnout at the box office – have some writing eulogies to the movie-theater experience. But others say 2014’s paltry performance was nothing more than an anomaly — pointing to box office upticks in 2015 as “Fast and Furious” and “Avengers” sequels lead the charge.
“As a film critic I hate to say a certain year ‘was the worst in films in X amount of years,’ but last year was the case,” AfterTheCut.com Editor-in-chief David Berov said in January. “Frankly speaking, the year 2014 in film was one that could not have been saved.”
Sequels Underperforming Previous Installments
| Year | Movie | Budget | Box Office | Gross Profit |
| 2012 | “The Amazing Spiderman” | $230 million | $757.9 million | $527.9 million |
| 2014 | “The Amazing Spiderman 2” | $255 million | $709 million | $455 million |
| $72.9 million less | ||||
| 2011 | “Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon” | $196 million | $1.124 billion | $928 million |
| 2014 | “Transformers: Age of Extinction’ | $210 million | $1.091 billion | $881 million |
| $47 million less | ||||
| 2013 | ‘The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’ | $140 million | $864.9 million | $724.9 million |
| 2014 | ‘The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1″ | $125 million | $752.1 million | $627 million |
| -$97.9 million | ||||
“Furious 7,” the final installment of the Fast & Furious film series, opened last month to record-breaking numbers – $147.2 million on weekend No. 1 – the largest ever in April, surpassing 2014’s “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” opening weekend by more than $52 million.
Worldwide, “Furious 7” earned an historic $1.4 billion – making it the fourth highest-grossing movie of all time, and just the 20th film ever to surpass $1 billion.
Associate editor for The Vulture, Nate Jones, attributed its mega-success to its popularity on separate media platforms.
“Not only did ‘Furious 7’ feel like the first film people will remember from the year 2015, but the song ‘See You Again’ off of the film’s soundtrack has been No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 Charts for a while now. And of course, Paul Walker’s passing brought people in for tribute.”
“See You Again,” by Wiz Khalifa, featuring Charlie Puth – heard at the end of “Furious 7” as the film is memorializing Walker – has more than 178 million views on YouTube and has ranked No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 Charts in each of the last three weeks.
“”Furious 7” mastered the all-out promotion blitz in every way imaginable,” Jones said. “Now, you see “Avengers: Age of Ultron” replicating the same sort of monumental success.”
The Avengers sequel recorded the No. 2 opening weekend of all time last weekend – a three-day of more than $191 million.
Its competition for No. 1 was itself, “Marvel’s The Avengers,” which opened to a total just north of $207 million.
The exact month in which blockbusters are released has been losing pertinence in recent years.
“Now, movies just want a weekend all to themselves,” Berov said. “And in the case of both the ‘Avengers’ sequel and this last ‘Furious’ movie, competing studios will actually voluntarily clear out the schedule for them. They try to stay away from the week before and the week after a big-budget film is released because they know it will wipe away their revenue in those weeks.”
Most were expecting ‘Furious 7’ to make $100 million in its opening weekend, Jones said, “but while I tout the affect of the song and the overall promotion by the studio, Walker’s death might’ve been the most crucial – as morbid as that sounds.”
Actor Walker was killed in a single-car accident on Nov. 30, 2013 in California.
Deaths can’t be the only driving force behind millennials indulging in the movie-theater experience.
“No, that’s certainly part of it,” University of Minnesota senior Joshua Presbitero said. “Do you think the second film in the Batman trilogy, “The Dark Knight,” would have been as big of a hit as it was if Heath Ledger’s death hadn’t happened?”
It’s an interesting theory, and the total gross of the “The Dark Knight” exceeded the “The Dark Knight Rises,” the trilogy’s final film, by $85 million.
“’Furious 7′ is doing well because it had six films before it to build a massive following. Most importantly, the lead actor passed away in an unfortunate manner that relates to what the audiences see him doing on the screen,” Berov said. “It causes the fan base wanting to not only pay homage to the deceased by going to the theater, but it also brings in people who haven’t seen any of the six prior films just because of Walker’s death.”
U senior Joe Eisenmenger, who’s in the theater arts program, said his trips to the movies are becoming more infrequent because television is catching up to the theaters in quality.
Berov said the price of consuming the modern movie-theater experience is an investment few will overdo or ever do.
“The facets for why attendance plummets swells by the year,” Berov said. “Whether its ticket prices, needing a $20 bill for popcorn and soda, the ‘inconvenience’ of leaving one’s house, or streaming services – where’s the trade-off?,” he said. “There are not enough entertaining films to grab the attention and desire of the general public.”
“The product on television is good enough – so good, actually, where movie trips have been minimized to simply going for the ‘hysteria’ of something,’” he said.
As evidenced by the polarizing “American Sniper” and even “Fifty Shades of Grey” – a movie that was boycotted and faced opposition campaigns – hysteria is an alluring brand for a sought-after audience by the movie industry.
“Star Wars: Episode VII,” coming to theaters in December, appears to be the next film that might play on the concept of ‘hysteria.’ It’s already caught the intrigue of many because of new director J.J. Abrams, and the return of original characters such as Han Solo and Chewbacca.
The dynastical run of the Star Wars franchise, combined with Abrams’ fresh perspective, may well inject the film with an abundance of record-breaking potential.
“The sample size for projecting a doomsday scenario for movie theaters is not large enough yet,” Jones said. “All signs point to “Star Wars: Episode VII” being the third movie of this year with some sort of historic pedigree.
“Furious 7” – and now “Avengers: Age of Ultron” after this past weekend – have quantitatively conveyed the health of the box-office industry,” Jones said.
Reporter Joe Perovich is studying journalism at the University of Minnesota.