Search This Blog

Thursday, 8 January 2015

Box office review 2014

2014 was a year of both over-performance and under-performance at the box office. While the fourth Transformers movie topped the worldwide, international and Chinese markets, it notably under-performed in most traditional major markets, but its over-performance in China transformed its fortunes.

Indeed the Chinese box office is now the largest after the US, and offers makers and distributors a rare silver lining: for example, worldwide flop Expendables 3 raked in more than $70m from China. 

But the jaw-dropping ‘go figure’ of 2014 was Transformers 4’s $301m haul from China – that’s 22% more than its US take. The Chinese money was also crucial to Transformers 4 taking the top spots internationally and worldwide ($842m and $1.1bn respectively): without it, the robots would have finished behind the other two main surprises of 2014, Frozen and Guardians of the Galaxy respectively.

Disney’s tale of Else and Anna rather unexpectedly became a box office behemoth: in 2014, it took in more dollars than it had the previous year, $744.5m v $551.7m. More than half of its 2014 take came from two countries: the US, where it took another $137m on top of 2013’s $263m, and Japan, where it held the weekend box office number one position for 16 weeks from mid-March until the end of June and thus accumulated $249m.

Its combined 2013 and 2014 worldwide totals not only make it more successful than Transformers 4, but also bigger than 2013’s number one Iron Man 3.

Comic relief
But Marvel was not to be denied its moment: just as it did with Tony Stark back in 2008, it took a little known property and created a smash hit – in 2014 that was of course the Guardians of the Galaxy. A worldwide haul of $772m is impressive, especially when you consider that the comic is not a renowned and well-loved best seller, and neither the cast nor the director are big enough names to generate a hit of this proportion.

Served by probably the year’s best trailer, it was the biggest film of the year in the US at $332m and raked in another $439m internationally (including $96m from, you guessed it, China, and nearly £30m from the UK).

Marvel also made the most of Captain America: at $714m, the sequel nearly doubled the original’s worldwide total, driven by an international take that more than doubled (and, yes, that includes $115.6m from China – the previous Cap wasn’t released there).

Of course, Disney owns Marvel, and as if the trio of Cap 2, Guardians and Frozen wasn’t enough, Maleficent survived some so-so reviews to take the number three position both worldwide and internationally.

Despite its success, Cap 2 was not the second most successful comic adaptation of the year: that title went to X-Men: Days of Future Past. Its $233m domestic haul might have disappointed Fox a little, but its $512m international take should have more than compensated.

The other comic book movie of 2014, Amazing Spider-Man 2, can’t really be regarded as a hit, especially now that we know Sony’s fears post-hack. A worldwide haul of $709m sounds a lot, but it’s less than the predecessor’s: the original reboot took 30% more in the US and just 2% less internationally (Spidey 2 doubled its Chinese take and that made all the difference).

It can now only be a question of how soon and not if Sony strikes a deal whereby Spidey and his pals return to the Marvel fold.

The final comment on comic book movies in 2014 goes to the film that wasn’t based on a comic book, but played heavily on a comic book movie connection: Lucy.

While the internet was littered with calls for a Black Widow movie from Marvel in the aftermath of Scarlett Johansson’s scene-stealing in Cap 2, Universal pushed Lucy, its ScarJo starrer/Luc Besson-helmed actioner/2001 hybrid, front and centre. The result: number one openings worldwide and $458m in the bank. If it had been Marvel-made with Scarlett as Natasha Romanov in the black leather outfit and without the dehumanising Space Odyssey finale (which caused the film to drop off substantially as word of mouth kicked in in each territory), then this would have been a $750m monster, easy (which would then have meant a sequel of course).

No matter, the combination of Cap 2 and Lucy, plus the critical plaudits she earned for Under The Skin (and the celeb pages coverage for the birth of her first child) mean Scarlett vies with Jennifer Lawrence for the title of the year’s most successful actress.

I am the JLaw
JLaw had two major hits plus some hold-over success with American Hustle (which took the majority of its $101m international haul in 2014): the two hits need no introduction in the form of X-Men and the third instalment of The Hunger Games. The former made the most of her rise to prominence (she dominated the poster), while Mockingjay Part 1, with its lack of action, proved once again that without JLaw, the Games would be dead in the water (in financial terms, I should note that Mockingjay will not be released in China until February 2015, so more dollars will fly its way; however it’s tracking significantly behind its predecessors in most major markets). 

Nevertheless, you can’t ignore the bald statement that films with Jennifer Lawrence in a starring role generated more than $1.6bn at the worldwide box office in 2014 – and no male actor can claim that level of success.

With the Hunger Games finale in 2015 and another X-Men movie in 2016, she seems unstoppable for the moment.

Building bricks
The Lego Movie looked unstoppable in the early part of the year, holding number one at the US box office for three weeks in February and ultimately raking in nearly £260m. It was similarly powerful in the UK: three weeks at number one and the number one movie of the year. Shockingly, it did not perform anywhere near as well anywhere else (with the exception of Australia, where it took $27.8m). 

Its international was so low (relatively!) that it didn’t even make the international box office top 20 at the year end, beaten by the likes of the 300 sequel and The Maze Runner and Noah. Indeed, 40% of its international total came from the UK and Australia combined. Perhaps Lego is not the worldwide brand that one thought – or was the movie too US-centric?

Nevertheless, spin-offs and sequels are planned: the Batman Lego movie for 2017 and Lego Movie 2 for 2018.

Adult entertainment
While the Lego Movie was ostensibly for kids, there was just as much, if not more, in it for adults. And there was much else for adults in 2014, some fare becoming surprisingly large hits, of which three to spring to mind: Gone Girl, The Wolf of Wall Street, and 12 Years A Slave.

Much-talked about Number One Bestsellers get adapted into movies every other day, but very few prove as successful at the box office (Time Traveller’s Wife, for example, wheezed its way to $101m worldwide a few years ago). However, Gone Girl is an exception to the rule: $349.5m worldwide, including $165m-plus in the US and £22m-plus in the UK. It opened well, and then simply clung on to the charts, showing tremendous legs.

The Wolf of Wall Street was a curious beast and a surprise financial success: $339.8m worldwide, including an additional $75.5m in the US in 2014 (on top of the $41.4m it took in 2013), plus £22.3m in the UK (including three weeks at number one).

Doing conspicuously well in the UK was 12 Years A Slave. Rather than take the usual noble Oscar push route (open small with platform screenings and then expand), 12 Years’ distributor treated it like a blockbuster – and that move paid off handsomely with £20m banked.

This is the UK’s biggest ‘go figure’ for years: quite how a 133-minute American slavery epic made it that big in the UK, I’ll never know. Is the white man’s guilt that rich a seam in the UK?

The UK chart witnessed as much over- and under-performance as anywhere else: The Inbetweeners 2, at £33.4m, was a big hit, but well shy of the original’s £45m in 2011; but Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, at £32.5m, raked in 50% more than its predecessor.

As the year closed out, the third instalment of the Hobbit had done just enough to get ahead of the Inbetweeners. However, it faces stiff competition for the title of most successful film released in the UK in 2014 from a somewhat unlikely quarter: Paddington, the end-of-year gate-crasher.

The marmalade-loving bear garnered universally excellent reviews and gave everyone, bar the Hobbit, a bloody nose in December, pulling in £28m, with the potential for a few more million pounds more in 2015. Given its exceptional legs, £40m is not out of the question.

God complex
The Bible and God were back with a bang in 2014. Darren Arronovsky’s Noah may have been somewhat controversial and suffered similarly poor word of mouth as Lucy, but nevertheless the dollars flooded in ($362.6m worldwide). Ridley Scott rode in with Exodus in December, which didn’t really catch on in the US and that seemed to translate into similar apathy internationally.

But in the US, the faith-based movie bandwagon really got rolling: from a combined budget of just $36m, the heavenly trio of Heaven Is For Real, God’s Not Dead, and Son of God pulled in nearly $212m in the US combined. 

It almost goes without saying that they barely did anything anywhere else ($19.8m worldwide combined for the three), nevertheless it can only be a matter of time before a faith-based (ie Christian, not any other faith!) movie passes through the $100m barrier (Heaven Is For Real was only $8.6m away from doing so).

Original material
The most successful film of 2014 that was an original property (ie not adapted from another medium nor a sequel/prequel/reboot, etc) was also the most successful film not available in 3D: Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar.

Some didn’t like it and others were confused (for the record, I loved it), and thus with uneven word of mouth, Interstellar closed out the year on $640m: in reality, that’s not bad for a film with no really big stars, and that was as ambitious as it was. Nolan may have lost some of his box office lustre (Inception did $825.5m in 2010), but let’s be clear, there was only one other ‘original’ hit in the worldwide top 20 (Lucy).

Looking ahead, 2015 appears to follow this current trend: lots of adaptations, an awful lot of sequels/reboots (Avengers 2, Mad Max, Terminator 5, Ted 2, FF, Bond, Hunger Games 4, M:I 5, and the small matter of Star Wars 7) and very few, if any, genuinely original megahits are on the cards.

Worldwide
Transformers 4                                  $1.1bn
Guardians Of The Galaxy                 $772.2m
Maleficent                                         $757.8m
X-Men: Days Of Future Past            $746m
Frozen                                               $744.5m
Captain America 2                            $714m
The Amazing Spider-Man 2              $709m
Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes   $708.3m
Hunger Games 3                               $676.2m
Interstellar                                          $650.1m
Hobbit 3                                            $628.8m
How To Train Your Dragon 2          $618.9m
Godzilla                                            $525m
Rio 2                                                 $498.7m
TMNT                                               $477.2m
The Lego Movie                                $468m
Lucy                                                  $458.9m
Edge Of Tomorrow                           $369.2m
Noah                                                 $362.6m
Gone Girl                                          $356.6m

International
Transformers 4                                   $842m
Frozen                                                $607.5m
Maleficent                                           $516.3m
X-Men: Days Of Future Past              $512.1m
The Amazing Spider-Man 2               $506.1m
Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes    $499.7m
Interstellar                                           $470.7m
Captain America 2                              $454.3m
How To Train Your Dragon 2            $441.9m
Guardians Of The Galaxy                   $439.6m
Hobbit 3                                              $439.3m
Rio 2                                                   $367.1m
Hunger Games 3                                 $363m
Lucy                                                    $332.2m
Godzilla                                              $324.3m
TMNT                                                $286m
Edge Of Tomorrow                             $269m
The Wolf of Wall Street                      $264.3m
Noah                                                   $261.4m
Hobbit 2                                              $250m

US
Guardians Of The Galaxy                   $332.7m
Hunger Games 3                                 $313.3m
Captain America 2                              $259.8m
The Lego Movie                                 $257.8m
Transformers 4                                    $245.4m
Maleficent                                           $241.4m
X-Men: Days Of Future Past              $233.9m
Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes     $208.5m
Big Hero 6                                          $204.6m
The Amazing Spider-Man 2               $202.9m
Godzilla                                              $200.7m
22 Jump Street                                    $191.7m
TMNT                                                $191.2m
Hobbit 3                                              $189.5m
Interstellar                                           $179.4m
How To Train Your Dragon 2           $177m
Gone Girl                                           $166.2m
Divergent                                           $150.9m
Neighbors                                          $150.2m
Frozen                                                $137m

UK
The Lego Movie                                 £33.9m
Hobbit 3                                              £33.5m
The Inbetweeners 2                            £33.4m
Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes    £32.5m
Hunger Games 3                                £30.1m
Guardians Of The Galaxy                  £28.5m
Paddington                                         £28m
X-Men: Days Of Future Past              £27m
How To Train Your Dragon              £24.7m
The Amazing Spider-Man 2               £23.7m
The Wolf Of Wall Street                    £22.3m
Gone Girl                                           £22.3m
Interstellar                                          £20.1m
12 Years A Slave                               £20m
Maleficent                                          £19.5m
Transformers 4                                   £19.2m
Captain America 2                             £19.3m
22 Jump Street                                   £18.4m
Godzilla                                             £17m
Bad Neighbour                                  £15.7m

China
Transformers 4                                   $301m
Interstellar                                           $122m
X-Men: Days Of Future Past             $116.5m
Captain America 2                              $115.6m
Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes    $107.4m
Guardians Of The Galaxy                   $96.5m
Amazing Spider-Man 2                      $94.4m
Godzilla                                              $77.6m
Hobbit 2                                              $74.7m
Expendables 3                                     $72.9m
Need For Speed                                  $66.4m
Edge Of Tomorrow                             $65.7m
How To Train Your Dragon 2            $65.1m
TMNT                                                 $62.1m
Despicable Me 2                                 $53m
Robocop                                             $50.8m
Frozen                                                 $48.2m
Maleficent                                           $47.7m
Lucy                                                    $44.8m
Penguins of Madagascar                     $40.7m

Data sources: Boxofficemojo, BFI

No comments: