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The average domestic movie ticket in 2004 cost $6.21; using the $7.95 average instead, 2004 would have accrued box office revenue of $5.10 billion, a full $750 million better than 2010. Conversely, if we multiply the 552 million of attendance by the 2004 average ticket price of $6.21, revenue plummets to $3.43 billion. Overall, we are talking about a billion dollars less in revenue for the industry if we factor out the recent phenomenon of dramatic ticket price inflation. This is the real summer of 2010 box office performance. I refuse to be alarmist and say that the industry is dying. That’s simply not true. Instead, it is evolving in a way that no one could have anticipated at the start of the 2000s. Still, these numbers give credence to the fact that the summer of 2010 was an abject disaster in terms of movie attendance.

Why did this happen? Do you know the phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid.”? The movie equivalent of this is, “It’s the movies, stupid.” Many analysts had concerns about the overall depth and quality of the summer releases. And even some of the ones that had potential on paper proved to be wildly disappointing. There is a short list of high profile summer releases that matched/exceeded expectations. Those include Iron Man 2, Toy Story 3, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, Shrek Forever After, The Expendables and Grown Ups. A handful of others were pleasant surprises. That list is headed by Inception, The Karate Kid and Despicable Me. Every other major title from the summer has a performance that could be called into question, especially in terms of domestic performance.

Robin Hood was the first summer title to go down in flames. The mid-May release was afforded a staggering budget of $210 million, with insiders claiming that stated cost was significantly lower than the actual cost. The Russell Crowe movie needed a huge opening weekend to justify its expensive bottom line, but its $36.1 million debut was only good enough for second place, well behind returning number one film Iron Man 2. Remarkably, Robin Hood failed to demonstrate quality legs, winding up with a domestic total of $105.5 million. This tally represents exactly half of the stated production budget. Even if we consider its current global take of $322.3 million, Robin Hood still has not earned enough revenue to match its costs. Domestic earnings must be shared with exhibitors, while overseas earnings are split much more due to various foreign currencies, tariffs and laws in place. Robin Hood was in the red as it exited North American theaters, a theme for the summer of 2010.

Consider even an ostensible winner such as Salt. The action flick that included the unusual casting replacement of Angelina Jolie in place of Tom Cruise earned $118.3 million domestically, but required impressive foreign receipts of $175.7 million to overcome its shockingly large production budget of $110 million. Meanwhile, the film that Tom Cruise chose to do instead, Knight & Day, suffered an absolutely brutal box office fate. The $117 million production attained domestic earnings of only $76.4 million, meaning it shared the same revenue performance as Robin Hood. Cruise continues to be an international draw (I guess people outside of North America don’t care about Oprah’s couch the same way that we do), which is why Knight & Day wound up with $261.9 million globally. Exhibitors in North America, however, locked up over 10,000 theaters for the opening weekends of Salt, Knight & Day and Robin Hood yet had only $92 million to show for it. Also, none of the three movies that cost a combined $437 million to make wound up in the top 20 for 2010 in terms of expected box office.

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