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Starting with Sony's "Spider-Man 3," set to open May 4, and
ending with New Line's "Rush Hour 3," slated for August 10, the
schedule is stacked with high-profile releases that are
expected to fill theaters and get cash registers cranking. "Lines beget lines," says Chuck Viane, Disney's domestic
distribution president. "You get people in there seeing the
trailers for the fall movies and one thing triggers another.
That's the really great thing about our business. When we're on
a roll, there's a snowball effect." If the summer of 2007 lives up to expectations, it could
turn out to be the biggest in box office history, shattering
the record held by the summer of 2004, when 557.4 million
admissions generated roughly $3.5 billion in revenue during the
15 week period between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Among the other films that are expected to get the record
mojo going: Paramount-DreamWorks' "Shrek the Third," set for
May 18; Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End,"
which opens the next week; Warner Bros.' "Ocean's Thirteen" and
Sony's "Surf's Up," both set to open June 8; Fox's "Fantastic
Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer," slated for June 15; and
Universal's "Evan Almighty," set for June 22. The hit parade continues with Disney-Pixar's "Ratatouille"
on June 29, Paramount's "Transformers" on July 4, Warner Bros.'
"Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix," and New Line's
"Hairspray" on July 20 and Fox's "The Simpsons Movie" on July
27. Each studio has a couple of potential summer blockbusters,
but could there be too much of a good thing? In the past, there
has been more "breathing room" between films, a studio
executive posits, wondering if the titles will step on each
other's shelf life. "It will be interesting to see if this is a
summer where we open big for a week then go away quickly." But while the studios might fret the fate of individual
films, the sheer number of big films opening seems to make it a
no-lose situation for theater owners. "This is a cyclical business and very dependent on
product," says Mike Campbell, CEO of Regal Entertainment Group.
"We had a good year in 2006, and I think what we've got
upcoming in 2007 looks very, very strong. So I expect to see
further recovery." According to trade group the Motion Picture Assn. of
America, U.S. box office revenue rose 5.5% to $9.49 billion in
2006, reversing two years of declines that had some observers
wondering if the cinema experience was being displaced by home
theaters,
TiVo, video games and the like. In retrospect, pundits are writing off the 2005 slump to a
paucity of product. Based on the strong 2007 lineup, Bank of
America analyst Michael Savner recently bumped up his growth
estimate for this year by two-tenths of a percentage point to
5.0%. Conscientious effort on the part of theater owners to
upgrade the moviegoing experience is also helping. Theaters
have been upgrading to more comfortable seating and lobby
environments as well as in technical areas like sound, digital
projection and 3-D. "There's a lot of good intentions to enhance the moviegoing
experience," says DreamWorks Animation chief Jeffrey
Katzenberg. "I've met with many people on that side of the
business and found them ambitious about innovating." Reuters/Hollywood Reporter |
Get ready for the summer
of sequels. 
