Welcome to the summer doldrums.
Moviegoers have put Tinseltown on the grill this summer. After two spectacular record-breaking years, the July Fourth weekend’s box office just heaped on more summer misery at the multiplex.
The holiday weekend saw a gigantic drop of 46 percent in box-office receipts for the top 12 movies, with little beyond “Transformers” drawing a crowd.
Some of the publicly traded cinema companies fell Monday on the news.
Boxofficemojo.com reports that total box-office take was $120.6 million; the last time it was that low was in 1999, when “South Park” was released and the July Fourth box-office take was $116.5 million.
The top movie over the Independence Day weekend was Paramount’s “Transformers: Age of Extinction,” which has taken in more money at the box office in China than in the US.
During the three-day weekend, “Transformers 4” raked in $50.9 million in China versus $36.4 million in domestic sales.
Analysts had to go back to 1987’s “Dragnet” featuring Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks to find a period when ticket sales — rather than box-office receipts — were on par.
Those numbers are pointing to the worst summer season in a decade, according to boxofficemojo.com, unless some of the later releases are bigger than expected.
The summer period, which traditionally kicks off at the start of May, is down almost 20 percent at $2.3 billion, according to Rentrak.
Year-to-date domestic numbers are down 3.8 percent, to $5.4 billion, through July 6, says boxofficemojo.com.
“Transformers,” which is in its second week of release saw a 64 percent drop-off, while Warner Bros.’
“Tammy,” a comedy starring popular comedian Melissa McCarthy, took in just $21 million in its opening three-day weekend. Other openers included two Sony offerings: “Deliver Us From Evil,” with $10 million, and “22 Jump Street,” at $9 million.
The July Fourth box office last summer had the benefit of Universal’s “Despicable Me 2,” storming the cinemas.
The rest of July and August have analysts grappling with third-quarter numbers. One Wall Streeter reflected the overriding assumption that 2014 is going to be a year to forget, saying, “Everyone is super excited about 2015.”
Last year, too many tentpoles crowded on to screens during summer, leaving analysts wondering how they could all possibly succeed. Perhaps this year Hollywood decided to retrench.
In Monday trading, Cinemark stock was off 2.4 percent to close at $34.82; AMC Entertainment was down 2.3 percent to close at $24.07 and Regal Entertainment closed off 2.0 percent, at $20.79.
“It [the box office] was so bad it really caught people off guard,” said one analyst. “There are clearly a few wild cards for the rest of the quarter,” which ends in September.
Among them are: “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes,” on July 11; Paramount’s “Hercules,” on July 25, and August releases including Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy,” an “Avengers” spinoff and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”