‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ was a surprise hit that ruled the box office in 2014.
While 2014 couldn’t compete with 2013’s record box office, some unexpected heroes kept it from being a disaster.
Buoyed by a late boost from Peter Jackson’s final Hobbit film, the movie industry will finish the year with about $10.5 billion in ticket sales, according to estimates from Rentrak. That’s down 5%, well short of last year’s impressive $10.9 billion domestic haul.
The year “was confounding at best and frustrating at worst,” Dergarabedian says. “It’s one of those years that will go down in the record books as very interesting but not one we’d necessarily want to repeat.”
It could have been worse: In early summer, ticket sales were down as much as 20%.
Despite the success of X-Men: Days of Future Past, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Godzilla and Transformers: Age of Extinction, box office pundits knew 2014’s warm months “didn’t have the firepower that the previous summer had” with Iron Man 3, Despicable Me 2 and Man of Steel, says Jeff Bock, senior analyst for Exhibitor Relations.
Still, Guardians of the Galaxy — this year’s overall domestic box-office champ with a $332.7 million take — and a rebooted Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles turned the tide in August.
September and October proved to be the strongest on record, with more than $1 billion in box office for a slate that included The Maze Runner, The Equalizer and Gone Girl.
Then November got shots in the arm from the animated hit Big Hero 6 as well as The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 1. The penultimate movie in the popular Jennifer Lawrence franchise is No. 2 overall this year with $306.7 million and counting.
“Right when we needed it, Guardians came along and blew away everybody’s expectations,” Dergarabedian says. “That was a movie where you’d think it should be released in May, June or July, but they went in August and that created a real momentum. It created a new wave of moviegoing.”
A wild and wacky year in movies
Studios as a whole got more creative with release dates, Dergarabedian adds. Summer-ready Captain America: The Winter Soldier racked up $259.8 million (and ranked third overall in 2014), helped by an early April release that allowed it to dominate for three straight weeks against lesser competition. “They’re creating a situation where the movies define the month, not where the month defines the movies,” he says.
The success of the Captain America sequel, Guardians and Angelina Jolie vehicle Maleficent — three of the top six movies of 2014 — also cemented Disney as the biggest name in Hollywood, with Marvel, Pixar, Lucasfilm and Disney Animation all under its massive umbrella.
“The studio is just untouchable right now with Star Wars looming” in 2015, Bock says. “It’s almost like now there’s one super-studio and then everybody else.
“Where there might not have been a gap before, there’s certainly one now and everybody’s playing catch-up to what Disney’s doing.”
‘Hobbit’ rules box office, ‘Interview’ succeeds online
