Box Office Boom This Summer
At a time when the Internet, video rentals and cable and satellite television offer plenty of diversions, movie theaters still were as popular as ever this summer.
From Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day, the take at U.S. theaters was estimated at just less than $3 billion, shattering the previous high of $2.6 billion a year ago.
The strong summer showing has helped push ticket sales for the year up 6 percent over last year.
"We are a culture that likes to get out of the house," said Tom Sherak, head of distribution for 20th Century Fox. "We like to get away from our problems. Movies give us the opportunity for two hours to get out and get away and just let go."
A record 11 movies have taken in more than $100 million each, and a 12th is expected to join the club.
This summer's films also have had staying power. In summer 1998, movies on average took in 27 percent of their total gross in the opening weekend, said Wayne Lewellen, distribution president for Paramount. This summer, that average was down to 24 percent, indicating films are lasting longer in theaters.
Not only were the films good enough to keep moviegoers going back for more, but blistering heat over much of the nation also helped send people to air-conditioned theaters.
The season started with a bang. Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace opened May 19 and became the fastest movie ever to gross $100 million, hitting that in five days. The 20th Century Fox release has taken in about $420 million.
Two weeks before Phantom Menace, audiences got a preseason warmup with Universal's The Mummy, an unexpected horror smash. And over Memorial Day weekend, Universal slipped in Notting Hill, the Julia Roberts-Hugh Grant romance.
"Star Wars didn't scare us off," said Nikki Rocco, head of distribution for Universal. "We knew we had two big hits."
Bookending those movies around Phantom Menace paid off for Universal. Mummy kept going to gross $155 million and Notting Hill collected $115 million.
Then things got crowded. Between Phantom Menace and current box-office champ The Sixth Sense came a rare period when a different movie opened atop the box office in each of nine straight weeks.
"It was so competitive that no matter how good you were, you got knocked out the next weekend by another movie," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc., which tracks movie attendance.
The usual late-summer doldrums, when movie attendance usually trails off, never materialized, largely because of Sixth Sense and the surprise hit The Blair Witch Project.
The low-budget Blair Witch is on track to gross about $140 million. Sixth Sense, about a boy who communicates with the dead, has been No. 1 the last five weekends and should finish well above $200 million.
The bawy teen comedy American Pie also topped the box office in July and should pass $100 million this fall, making it the 12th summer film to hit that mark.
There's still a solid slate of films for fall and the holidays, and 1999 could break the full-year record of $6.95 billion set last year.
"Let the fall begin," said Fox's Sherak.
Here's the list of the summer's top 12 movies, with box-office grosses as of Aug. 31:
- Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, $419.4 million.
- Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, $204.2 million.
- Tarzan, $166.5 million.
- Big Daddy, $160.1 million.
- The Mummy, $155 million.
- The Sixth Sense, $138.9 million.
- The Blair Witch Project, $128.1 million.
- Runaway Bride, $124.4 million.
- Notting Hill, $114.7 million.
- Wild Wild West, $111.7 million.
- The General's Daughter, $101.4 million.
- American Pie, $96.7 million.