Global box office receipts are slightly up from a record-breaking 2015. Yet Hollywood is having one of its glummest summers in a long time.
So far, this year has included roughly the same number of hits as 2015, but many more flops and moderate disappointments. Some movies that fell short of studios’ big expectations are “The Huntsman: Winter’s War,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows,” “Independence Day: Resurgence,” “The Legend of Tarzan” and “Ghostbusters.”
Most of these movies cost more than $100 million and some close to $200 million. There have been 15 big-budget disappointments or flops thus far in 2016, compared with eight at the same point in 2015.
“There are only so many available dollars in the marketplace,” said Kevin Goetz, president of consulting firm Screen Engine. “These big movies can’t all work at the level that the studios need them to in order to justify their tremendous budgets.”
Searching for the next blockbuster hit that could stand out in a saturated, winner-take all media landscape, studios have packed this year’s release calendar with sequels, reboots and superhero adaptations. Most have fallen short of their backers’ big ambitions.
Box office in the U.S. and the top 10 foreign markets is up 1% so far this year to just over $18 billion, according to comScore.
The unimpressive performance of so many movies casts doubts on studios’ plans to use them to launch sequels and spinoffs of their own in the years to come. In an era when every studio is aiming to grab attention and profit through such franchise films, it calls into question whether the result will be more hits, or simply more roadkill.
This article originally appeared on Marketwatch.
