No one went to the movies this fourth of July weekend.
You most likely went to the movies this Fourth of July. According to box office reports, this past weekend was one of the worst in decades. Sales were down about 43 percent from 2013 and Transformers won the weekend again.
Box office nerds are speculating why this year’s sales were so bad. Some guesses are because of the World Cup, bad weather. But, the most obvious reason could be that there wasn’t anything good playing. According to BuzzFeed, this weekend’s box office “was the lowest grossing 4th of July weekend since the 1980s, when adjusting for inflation:”
Because July 4 falls on different days of the week each year, it’s difficult to make direct box office comparisons for Independence Day weekend: July 4 fell on a Friday this year versus a Thursday last year, for example, meaning many adults had just one day off in 2014 versus two in 2013. Still, Transformers: Age of Extinction dropping 63.6% from its debut weekend, with just $36.4 million over the holiday weekend, does not bode well for the long-term health of the franchise. In fact, it is currently tracking well behind the domestic grosses of the first three Transformers films.
Variety also reports that this year’s Fourth of July falling on a Friday was encouraging for a large movie audience. But, the Hurrican hitting on the east coast could have been problematic for ticket sales.
The movies released this week included Melissa McCarthy’s ‘Tammy‘ which made 21.2 million olver the weekend. ‘Tammy’ is currently sitting as the worst reviewed movie of 2014.
“The good news is that Tammy is not a crappy remake of the 1957 Tammy movie with Debbie Reynolds that spawned three sequels and a TV comedy series. The bad news is that this one is much worse… It’s about as funny as a liver transplant.” — New York Observer’s Rex Reed.
Discuss this story with fellow Project Casting fans on Facebook. On Twitter, follow us at @projectcasting.
