The Number

The summer movie domestic box office totals are tracking to finish below $4 billion for the first time in more than a decade. Through Aug. 20, the domestic summer box office was running at $3.6 billion, or 13 percent lower than the same time last year when the total was $4.1 billion, according to figures from ComScore Inc., a media measurement and analytics company. The summer movie season traditionally goes from the first weekend in May through Labor Day. This year there were no films released during the last two weekends of the season. San Fernando Valley studios nabbed the top two in terms of summer domestic box office totals. “Wonder Woman,” from Warner Bros. Entertainment in Burbank, earned $404 million while “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” from Walt Disney Co. in Burbank, brought in $389 million, according to ComScore stats. Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst in the Sherman Oaks office of ComScore, said the summer movie season is limping to a finish after four months of ebb and flow that gave the industry nausea. The problem was that large-budget tentpole movies that included “The Mummy” and the latest in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Transformers” franchises, failed to connect with audiences, Dergarabedian said. “There are literally five or six movies that had they connected we would be looking at a different scenario,” he added. With such films as “Blade Runner 2049” and “The Last Jedi” installment of the “Star Wars” franchise still to come, Dergarabedian said there are interesting movies on the calendar that will make for a solid fall in terms of cinematic quality. “Once you remove the cloud of the down trending (summer) box office, if you look at the lineup of films, it looks very promising,” he added. “But to be fair this summer looked promising. I’ll admit it I thought it might be a record summer in 2017.” – Mark R. Madler