Summer Hot, Summer Cool: A Specialty Box Office Recap
by Peter Knegt (September 4, 2009)
A scene from Marc Webb's "(500) Days of Summer." Image courtesy of Fox Searchlight.
With 2009’s unusually late Labor Day weekend about to commence, it’s safe to call this summer movie season a wrap. Reports have already found their way through the trades, proclaiming this Hollywood’s highest-grossing summer ever. Which - without considering inflation of course - was very much the case. By the end of last weekend, overall box office revenue has come in about $4.17 billion, topping the previous record held by the summer of 2007. But of course, those numbers are not indieWIRE‘s job to consider. Back in July, indieWIRE ran an article examining the first half of this year’s specialty box office. The general consensus was that while Hollywood was doing just fine (at the time tracking 10% above last year - now that number is a little under 7%), Indiewood was having a tougher go at it. Only two limited releases - Christine Jeffs’ “Sunshine Cleaning” and Sam Mendes’ “Away We Go” had grossed over $5 million. The top five had a combined gross of $26.5 million, while at the same point in 2008, the top five had grossed nearly twice that. Two months later, things have seen a notable turnaround. Led by Fox Searchlight’s $25 million-and-counting rom com phenom “(500) Days of Summer,” and supplemented by breakouts like Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker,” Duncan Jones’ “Moon,” Robert Kenner’s “Food, Inc.” and last weekend’s record-breaking debut for “The September Issue,” summer 2009 has managed to actually improve on 2008. “It’s been a great summer,” Ted Mundorff, CEO of Landmark Theaters - the biggest art house chain in the United States - told indieWIRE. “We are extremely pleased with the box office results so far . Our top three summer films - ‘(500) Days of Summer,’ ‘The Hurt Locker’ and ‘Away We Go’ - found a 119% increase over 2008. It is distressing to hear the media repeatedly report that ‘indie film’ is no longer viable in the marketplace. Not only will 2009 finish ahead of 2008 - which was our record year - but we continue to expand our audience. Because of the diversity of product we are attracting all ages to our theatres. And thankfully, they seem to be coming back for more.” And while Mundorff’s claims are certainly justified, it’s also important to look beyond the top grossers. All three of his mentioned top earners blur a bit of a line between “indie” and “studio.” It’s notable that all three benefited from ad budgets that their smaller competitors simply were incapable of conjuring up. “Summer” and “Away” were distributed by studio subsidiaries Fox Searchlight and Focus Features, while “Locker” was released by “mini-studio” Summit Entertainment, of gazillion-dollar grossing “Twilight” fame.
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