Ryan Faughnder reports on the bad summer movies season:
As Hollywood wraps up the all-important summer box-office season this Labor Day weekend, a sobering reality has gripped the industry.
The number of tickets sold in the United States and Canada this summer is projected to fall to the lowest level in a quarter-century.
The results have put the squeeze on the nation’s top theater chains, whose stocks have taken a drubbing. AMC Theatres Chief Executive Adam Aron this month called his company’s most recent quarter “simply a bust.”
Such blunt language reflects some worrisome trends. Domestic box-office revenue is expected to total $3.78 billion for the first weekend of May through Labor Day — a key period that generates about 40% of domestic ticket sales — down nearly 16% from the same period last year, according to comScore. That’s an even worse decline than the 10% drop some studio executives predicted before the summer began.
The usual suspects are being blamed: unlike previous years, moviegoers have other calls on their entertainment time and dollars, including the rise of gaming platforms, streaming sites like Netflix, and the attraction of watching freshly painted surfaces dry. The online critics at Rotten Tomatoes also come in for their fair shame of blame for Hollywood’s plight.
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