Welcome to the third-annual edition of my Box Office Year in Review! Of course, the last two times I did the Box Office Year in Review, it was for a movie website called FilmSchoolRejects.com. This year my 2010 Year in Review goes here at my place of employment - the News-Optimist!
One of the big headaches I always have about writing a Box Office Year in Review column is that I never have at my disposal all the final numbers for all the releases. Usually, I would have to write a year-at-the-movies article that ran the first week of the new year, and I would have to give my list of the Top Ten-grossing releases using the numbers up to Dec. 31st. The problem always was that there always a few releases that were still in theaters by the time Jan 1st rolled around, and of course they kept on making money and would make a hash out of my Top Ten rankings for the year.
That's exactly what happened at the end of 2009. A summer release called Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen held the Number One spot for the box office when January 1, 2010 rolled around, with a domestic gross of $402 million.
However another 2009 release, James Cameron's 3D masterpiece Avatar, had just opened in December of that year and was still in theaters on Jan. 1st, making a boatload of money. In fact, it stayed in theaters for weeks on end in 2010 and continued to make gobs of money -- so much of it, in fact, that it ended up breaking the record to be the highest grossing movie of all time. The total North American domestic box office for Avatar ended up at $760 million, breaking Titanic's record of $600 million. Avatar's total worldwide gross ended up being $2.78 billion, also a new record.
Avatar made most of its money during 2010, by the way. In fact, it made something like $477 million dollars in domestic gross during 2010 alone, and that's not even counting the $283 million it made in 2009. So if you really wanted to know what movie extracted the most money out of theatergoers in 2010, it was actually Avatar. But since we are only counting 2010 releases in this Top Ten list I am about to unveil, Avatar doesn't even make the 2010 list at all.
If you think it's sad that a 2009 release is the top-grossing movie of 2010, you are right. This was a lousy year at the box office all around, and the fact that a 2009 movie made more money in 2010 than all the 2010 releases that opened says a lot about the state of things at the cineplexes these days. The domestic North American box office was $10.57 billion, about $30 million less than last year. Actual movie attendance was even lower - the worst since 1996, in fact.
Granted, Hollywood was coming off a record year in 2009 when the box office set an all-time record gross, but still, 2010 was disappointing.
Part of the reason the actual box office numbers for 2010 weren't worse than they were was because theatres absolutely milked the public for every last dime, with ridiculous ticket prices! Good luck trying to get into a movie for under $10 bucks at most places these days. A number of North American movie chains chose 2010 as the year to raise their ticket prices. Prices were particularly jacked up for what were an increased number of 3D movies. On the heels of Avatar, and sensing that 3D was the way to get people out of their homes and into a movie theatre, the studios chose 2010 to milk the 3D cash cow. You saw one movie after another roll out in 3D. Alice in Wonderland. Clash of the Titans. Toy Story 3D. Piranha 3D. Yogi Bear. On and on and on.
Theatres all jacked up the ticket prices for the 3D flicks by an extra four bucks to cover the cost of glasses and make a little more money. Some theatres in Manhattan were threatening to hike 3D prices all the way to the dreaded $20 barrier back in May. But then the press got wind of it and a lot of people complained, so they pulled back on that idea. All in all, though, the prices were ridiculous for 3D movies, an out-and-out cash grab. The problem for the movie chains was that many customers just didn't like paying extra money to get headaches and eyestrain watching 3D movies. A lot of moviegoers were turned right off. So the anticipated boost in revenues from the higher ticket prices was mostly cancelled out because of people who decided to stay home.
All in all, 3D did nothing to boost overall revenues at theatres. While a lot of 3D movies did very well at the box office in 2010 and kind of defined the year in general, they really wasn't the cash cow people in Hollywood were hoping it would be to solve all their problems.
As well, 2010 saw a higher-than-average number of second-rate 2D retreads and sequels - Sex and the City 2 comes to mind, and there was yet another "Fockers" movie - and we didn't see a whole huge whack of new box office records set by the 2010 releases. It seemed after Avatar finished its run, that was it as far as big records were concerned. It made for a boring year, box office-wise.
Still, there were a number of success stories, and I'll just run through the top ten list of North American box office results for 2010 releases. The numbers come to you straight from the list compiled by the folks over at Box Office Mojo.
10. Tangled, from Buena Vista Releasing. Domestic gross $176 million. Opening weekend gross, $48 million. Still in theatres as we speak.
9. How to Train Your Dragon, from DreamWorks Animation. Domestic gross of $217 million, with an opening weekend of $43 million.
8. Shrek Forever After, also from DreamWorks Animation. Domestic gross of $238.7 million and counting. Opening weekend of $70 million.
7. Despicable Me, Universal's entry into the CGI animation stakes. Domestic gross $251 million. Opening weekend $56 million.
6. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part I. Warner Bros. Domestic gross $288 million and counting. Opening weekend on November 19 saw a gross of $125 million.
5. Inception, starring Leo DiCaprio. Also from Warner Bros. Probably the surprise "good news" story of the year. Domestic gross $292 million, opening weekend $62 million.
4. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. Summit Entertainment. The third of the successful Twilight movies. Domestic gross of $300 million, opening weekend was $64 million.
3. Iron Man 2. The second featuring the popular Marvel comic book character. Paramount. Domestic gross of $312 million and opening weekend of $128 million.
As an aside - this was the best opening weekend for a movie the entire year. Yet, the main headlines I saw in the news articles said "No records for Iron Man 2." That kind of says it all about the way things went at theaters for the releases this year. When one of your top grossing movies for the whole year doesn't even set impressive records, that sort of sums it up.
2. Alice in Wonderland (2010). Buena Vista. $334 million, with a opening weekend of $116 million. Unusual because it opened in March, and springtime movies usually never make this kind of money. Set all kinds of records for a March release as a result.
1. And finally, drum roll please, the top grossing movie of 2010 was --- Toy Story 3, in 3D, from Disney and Pixar. Its domestic haul was an impressive $415 million. It opened on June 18 to an opening weekend haul of $110 million. All in all, another home run for the Pixar studio who never seem to miss the mark in putting out quality entertainment that gets people interested in going to the movies.
That wraps up the Top Ten list for the year, and again, there could be some late changes - Harry Potter could move past Inception and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse up the rankings, because it's still making money. As I have said, I never like putting out these lists because there are always movies still in theatres that are still making money, so it always messes up the final rankings.
Now, it's time to name my 2010 Box Office Loser of the Year, reserved for a movie that should have done better but which instead stunk up the joint with a disasterous box office performance. As I said earlier, it was a pretty sorry state of affairs for the entire box office in general, with quite a few losers. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World did particularly awful business at $31 million, and there were some other eggs laid out there, but for my money the turkey of the year has to go to Jonah Hex, starring Josh Brolin, John Malkovich and Megan Fox - a woman who can't seem to find a good role to save her life. She was also in that ridiculously-lousy Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen movie, a flick so bad that it ended up claiming the Razzie Award as 2009's Worst Movie of the Year.
Jonah Hex opened to a $5.3 million weekend and a $10.5 million overall gross in 2010. Ten million cool ones may sound like good money to you folks playing the lottery, but when a movie costs about $47 million to make like this one did, it's not good at all. And consider this - a production budget of $47 million is considered cheap in Hollywood. Yet this movie still found a way to lay an egg anyway. Anyhow, so much for Jonah Hex.
That wraps up my look at the motion picture domestic box office in 2010. Hopefully the movies will be better in 2011 - then maybe more of the folks at home will actually show up.
