According to Box Office Mojo, “with an estimated 110 million tickets sold, last month was the least-attended May since 2001, and ticket sales were off 19 percent from May 2009 and nearly as much from May 2008 and 2007.” If we look at the big May 2010 film releases we see Iron Man 2, Sex and The City 2, Shrek Forever After, A Nightmare on Elm Street, another unoriginal epic (Robin Hood), and another remake of a video game (Prince of Persia).  While box office performance for sequels such as Pirates of the Caribbean and the Dark Knight basically took off compared to their originals, sequels in May 2010 disappointed at the box office.

This begs the question, are we sick of sequels? Has the reliance of returning fanboys and bandwagon fans finally plateaued. For years, studios have dumped out garbage sequels with the hope of leveraging off of the success of originals and luring back moviegoers. For years, we have all gone back to the theater hoping that the sequel would be an acceptable continuation of the original. Some succeeded (Dark Knight, Pirates, The Matrix, Harry Potter, among others) and some didn’t as we can see above.  However, I do think it’s unfair to put Iron Man 2 in the “disappointing” boat because it has taken in $280 million domestically thus far and I think it was a pretty good sequel.  But overall, it seems that we perhaps could be sick of the sequel. This could be a message to studios to start putting out fresh, original movies. Chris Nolan’s Inception, perhaps the most anticipated movie of the Summer, is an original film. But is being sick of sequels the only reason for box office trouble?

While people might be sick of sequels, I think the recent increase in ticket prices might also be to blame for the disappointing month of May 2010. As mentioned in previous articles, theaters all over the country are raising prices with some theaters even selling tickets for $20. These theaters are mainly in NY and LA and the $20 ticket is for 3-D IMAX movies. The month of May 2010 was economically a VERY bad month, and combined with increased ticket prices people might have just decided that shelling out $20 for a movie is just too much.

Now, not every month is going to be higher than the next. The months of January – April 2010 set lots of box office records. Overall box office performance in those months was nothing short of amazing. We saw a huge return of people back to the movies, but Summer time is usually the time where studios make big money. The name “Summer Blockbuster” wasn’t just a random title created out of thin air. Seeing a reversal of the increase during this time was just plain odd. Memorial Day Weekend is the official start of the Summer lineup for movies, and a disappointing box office performance is not good.

So, we might be sick of sequels or we might be hesitant to drop extra cash from increased ticket prices. Hey, perhaps it’s both. Or, maybe the weather was just too good in May and people chose to be outside instead of being locked in a theater for 2 hours. I for one am definitely sick of Shrek. As for Iron Man 2, I rushed to theaters to see it as quickly as I could. It’s tough to target one reason, but I think it’s safe to say that original movies are taking a backseat to sequels in terms of production.

We will keep a focus on this throughout the Summer to try and identify any trends.

What do you think?

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