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Many of Hollywood’s summer hits have shared one common formula, no matter what the genre: They are either remakes, sequels or part of a franchise.
The strategy has mostly worked, as the domestic box office has effectively rebounded from a slow first quarter, grossing $3.26 billion since the first Friday of May, when Comscore, which collects ticketing data, begins tracking the summer season.
The summer kicked off with a record Memorial Day weekend behind Disney’s live-action remake of “Lilo & Stitch” and the eighth installment of “Mission: Impossible,” with some industry analysts branding the duo as “Stitchpossible.” “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” pulled in nearly $200 million at the domestic box office, but “Lilo & Stitch” has been the star of the summer season, hauling in over $421 million domestically and over $1 billion globally.
Studios have a long history of reprising action flicks and kid-friendly movies, but even decades-old comedies have been retooled as sequels this summer despite the genre falling flat at the box office in recent years. Paramount’s “The Naked Gun” ($33 million), released over 31 years after the franchise’s last installment, opened at No. 3 at the box office on August 1. Disney’s fantasy comedy “Freakier Friday” opened at No. 2 at the domestic box office this weekend ($29 million) — almost 22 years after the original hit, “Freaky Friday.”
Shawn Robbins, director of analytics at Fandango and founder and owner of Box Office Theory, said Disney is a prime example of a studio using nostalgia within the last 30 years to attract moviegoers.
“That’s just natural with where the younger moviegoing audience is now, combined with millennials who have started families of their own,” he said, adding that the revivals are for “younger generations who are aging.”
Paul Dergarabedian, senior analyst at Comscore, said most of this summer’s hits have been non-original films. Such movies are particularly effective for studios that “like to play it safe” when attracting families, who are the bulk of the season’s consumers and prefer seeing an established franchise film.
Superhero movies, meanwhile, still loom large for moviegoers who want to see special effects on a big screen, even when those superheroes didn’t draw big crowds to theaters in the past. Disney and Marvel’s “Fantastic Four,” which has grossed $230 million domestically, and Warner Bros. Pictures’ and DC Studios’ “Superman” remake, which has grossed $331 million, marked new eras for both franchises.
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“Sequels and remakes have a lot of natural advantages — they come with built-in awareness and interest, which is what drives moviegoing,” said David A. Gross, who publishes the movie industry newsletter FranchiseRe.
Dergarabedian noted that Warner Bros. Pictures will continue the trend with “The Conjuring: Last Rites” in early September.
Not all of this summer’s blockbusters have borrowed from past work. In fact, this weekend’s No. 1 movie was an original film that was helped by its popular genre.
“Weapons,” a mystery horror film distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, topped the box office, opening to $42.5 million, according to Comscore. “Weapons” follows another original horror hit from Warner Bros. Pictures that opened in April and ran through the summer: Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners,” which grossed $270 million domestically.
“Audiences love horror, and they love original horror,” Dergarabedian said.
Warner Bros. Pictures also looked globally with racing drama “F1,” which has pulled in a more-than-respectable $179 million at the domestic box office but a staggering $385 million internationally.
“It’s a big message to Hollywood that more risks deserve to be taken on movies like ‘Sinners’ and ‘Weapons’ and ‘F1,’” Robbins said. “There’s clearly a hunger out there for original films.”
Gross said “F1” and “Sinners” are films that could return to the box office, “in some form,” although Coogler has said a sequel isn’t in the cards.
“This summer was a perfect mix of original films that tested the waters and, of course, a preponderance of remakes, sequels, known (intellectual property),” Dergarabedian said. “It all kind of came together and it worked.”
Yet Hollywood still had its share of remakes, sequels and new franchise installments that failed to draw big audiences this summer.
“Ballerina,” an addition to the John Wick franchise, grossed $58 million domestically, while “Karate Kid: Legends” ($52.5 million) and “M3GAN 2.0” ($24.1 million) fell short of expectations, said Robbins. He added that “I Know What You Did Last Summer” ($31.4 million) performed modestly, but that was “fairly unsurprising” because it lacked a “modern audience hook.”
“(The summer) has been feast or famine in so many ways,” he said, adding that predictions for the season were harder because it’s been “jam-packed” with franchises.
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