How Hollywood scored a near-record box office this summer
Though there were some major hits that helped the North American box office rake in $4.5 billion (according to comScore, via The Hollywood Reporter), it will be best remembered for the bombs that were scattered throughout the season.
That's the second-best earning for a summer movie season ever, just behind 2013's $4.8 billion (and 1 percent over last year's), but looking back, the summer had the potential to be an all-time high.
Sadly, Hollywood gave audiences flat sequels and reboots that seemed out of date or just uninspired. Among the high-budget duds: "Independence Day: Resurgence," "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows," and the epic fail "Ben-Hur."
A pleasant surprise amid all this was how well certain mid-budget titles performed this summer.
From thrillers like "The Conjuring 2," "Lights Out," and last weekend's No. 1 movie "Don't Breathe," to the comedy "Bad Moms" (which has made over $100 million worldwide on a $20 million budget, to date), audiences sought out and kept coming back to movies that had more of a draw because of their genre, stars, and old-fashioned entertainment value rather than major CGI effects and superheroes.
So Disney was certainly the foundation that supported the summer's near-record revenue, but it was the success of smaller titles that got those hot months across the finish line.
Hollywood, take note. Please.