The US box office has suffered its worst summer in a decade.
It’s not been a great time at the US box office for movies this summer. With all the news of broken records for individual movies and surprise hits, none of it could rescue the industry from a pretty dismal state of affairs.
Last weekend, for example, was a record low for ticket sales and the entire line-up of movies currently playing in theatres across the country only managed $65 million. This is a low that hasn’t been seen since September 2001.
This past weekend’s drop has been attributed to the fact that there were no new major releases to entice audiences. The summer blockbusters have been and gone, and now the industry is left in a kind of limbo until the holiday season offerings become available.
But this doesn’t explain the notably poor summer the industry has experienced at the box office. It’s actually been pretty brutal, with this summer being the first not to cross $4 billion in domestic ticket sales in a decade, according to comScore (via The Guardian).
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And the bad news doesn’t stop there, as this August is a whopping 35% down on the same month last year.
“It’s a black eye for Hollywood but not a knock-out punch,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for comScore. “Make no mistake about it, there was little foot traffic in theatres this weekend. But the storyline will change in two weeks when It opens.”
There are a lot of hopes being pinned on the latest Stephen King adaptation. But with early buzz for the film being good, perhaps It will be the perfect start the latter half of 2017 needs to get things back on track.
