The Hollywood Summer Blockbusters That Lost The Most Money This Year

Hollywood power brokers are feeling mighty pleased with themselves these days as they head off to their summer places in the Hamptons, Europe, or wherever they spend their money and time through Labor Day. The box office, after some pretty lean years, is sizzling, powered by such megahits as the third installments of Shrek, Spider-Man and Pirates of the Caribbean (plus a Transformers or Harry Potter movie here and there). According to the online site Box Office Mojo, movie receipts are up by 7.2% over last year and 13.7% over 2005. So all's well in Tinseltown, right? Well, not quite. Sure, the box office looks swell from afar, but the DVD market is still sluggish, and piracy is always a lurking menace. And look a little deeper at those very robust box office numbers. This year's haul is being powered by megahits, four of which have already passed $300 million in ticket sales, and another (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) that may limp across the $300 million threshold before the summer ends. Compare that with all of last year, when the receipts were more evenly distributed across the movie landscape. Indeed, only one film—the second Pirates of the Caribbean installment, with a final tally of $423 million—made it to the $300 million promised land. In fact, this year Hollywood seems just as capable of making huge hits as it is of producing the kind of failures that make you cringe as if you're watching yet another George Romero zombie flick. So, while the moguls are happily sipping their Bellinis and savoring the big earns on the box-office lists, Power Lunch has decided to make the powerful feel humble by pointing out that they're still capable of creating the kind of stinkers that—without those hunkering hits—underscore just how close the industry always is to sinking back into box-office oblivion.

read more | digg story