This could be the year of breaking of the all-time box office record. It's been so hyped now that if it doesn't happen it would be a disaster.
But when you consider the movies being thrown out there, it is almost a slam-dunk. The only question lingering a little out there is whether the movies have been released so close together that they may cannibalize one another and potentially take away from some of the projected revenue. That's a realistic concern. But even with that it would be a surprise if the industry doesn't break the record of $3.5 billion in revenue during the 15 week period between Memorial Day and Labor Day of 2004.
With that as a background, I do want to talk some on what is happening here. First, we have to understand the the movie industry is probably the greatest marketing machine in the history of the world - as far as business goes. The industry knows that a lot of their thunder has been stolen from them by new media competitors and need to do something about it.
The continual line of big-name releases this year will definitely steal its share of headlines from other forms of media. This probably is intentional. The battle for digital media, which is more connected to this than appears on the surface, is what will determine the future of media, no matter how many tickets sale this year.
With new media stealing a huge majority of the headlines, the industry must strike back strong to try to wrest some of that mojo back to themselves. This is a great way to go about it. There will hardly be a breather between big hit after big hit as the releases come out this year, and the media will cover every one of them in a big way (online and off-), as most of them will be popular sequels.
Again, this probably had to be done, but there is one problem that the industry will have to face after this August: What will they do for an encore? That's the underlying weakness in what is happening. If they break the records this year by a huge amount and gain some momentum back to the industry, what can be done to sustain it? There's no way that the year after will produce whatever happens this summer. Probably not even close.
I've known for a long time that part of the strategy will be to buy time, and in this case it will work. But will it buy enough time is the question that won't be known until next year. They have to buy time to get their digital strategies straightened out, or to increase revenues that are being fragmented among other growing markets and competitors.
Another factor will be how far the revenue will slide after this summer. Will it plunge greatly? Or will it be strong enough to not make the industry even worse than it did for the last couple of years?
While there is no doubt that everything is going digital, the question is how long will it take and how deeply will it effect viewing movies at theaters. Don't think for a moment that this isn't Hollywoods big strike back at their competitors; it is. What will be the most interesting to watch is how their powerful spin machine uses this summer to take back the attention of consumers and how long it will hold.
Some of the big shows scheduled for summer release: "Spider-Man 3, "Rush Hour 3," "Shrek the Third," "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," "Ocean's Thirteen," "Surf's Up," "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer," "Evan Almighty," "Ratatouille," "Transformers," "Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix," "Hairspray," and "The Simpsons Movie."
One thing for sure, the consumers are going to win this summer no matter what happens the next.
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