2012 Summer Movie wrap-up: The Avengers and the art house save an otherwise mediocre summer movie season.

This is actually a pretty simple summer movie season to analyze and/or dissect.  In short, the expected mega-blockbusters were indeed mostly mega-blockbusters, the expected middle-of-the-road hits were just that, while the films pegged most likely to flop or at least financially disappoint did just that.   If you had polled pundits at the beginning of the summer over the top four films of summer 2012, you they probably would have told you some combination of The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, The Amazing Spider-Man, and Brave.  And three of those films did pretty much what should have been realistically expected of them.  The core artistic pattern of summer 2012 was pretty simple: Most of the mainstream entries, even the ones expected to soar, ended up being artistically disappointing while the indie scene was on fire all season long.  Speaking financially, audiences embraced most of the major art-house films while being just a little pickier when it came to mainstream fare.  But the biggest news of summer 2012 was the general success of old-school movies, as a number of original properties and/or star vehicles proved quite profitable.  I've written extensively elsewhere about the slow and steady return of the 'movie' so I won't dwell on that here (essay and essay).  But when Magic Mike is a smash hit while a Total Recall remake is a money loser, one hopes that the studios will take note and perhaps learn a lesson different than "Let's make a sequel to Magic Mike!".

Weekend Box Office: Ted, Magic Mike, and Madea's Witness Protection all open huge in 'everybody wins' weekend.

This weekend represented a shining example of the two best trends in mainstream moviegoing this year.  As I wrote (here and here), we've seen a real upswing in both mid-to-low-budget mainstream fare that aren't especially 'tentpole-ish' as well as a huge upswing in the number of R-rated films being released by the major studios.  As such, two of the four wide releases this weekend were both R-rated and all four were relatively small-scale and in 2D.  That they mostly debuted to blockbuster numbers is an encouraging sign that not every movie need be a $150 million fantasy genre franchise entry.  The top film of the weekend is also the best mainstream picture of the summer, as Seth MacFarlane's Ted (review) debuted to a massive $54 million.  That's the third-best debut for an R-rated comedy behind the $57 million opening of Sex and the City and the $87 million Fri-Sun debut of The Hangover part II.  Among non-sequel/spin-off R-rated comedies, it topped the $44 million record debut of The Hangover and is the is among the top-ten best R-rated debuts of all-time. This is a massive win for all involved, bringing Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane serious film-making clout, further confirming that Mark Wahlberg is an actual 'put butts in the seats' movie star and giving Universal something to laugh about. Speaking of Wahlberg, this is his second biggest opening behind the $68 million debut of Planet of the Apes back in 2001, and it needs only cross $133 million to supplant The Departed as his third-highest grossing film (Planet of the Apes and The Perfect Storm earned $180 million and $182 million respectively)

Weekend Box Office (06/24/12): Brave hits the Pixar bulls-eye while Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is (somewhat) staked.

Another year, another $60-$70 million Pixar opening weekend.  Brave (review) is their thirteenth release, as well as their thirteenth number-one debut and their eighth film to open between $60 and $70 million since 2001.  Brave, which attracted headlines due to the fact that it was Pixar's first film with a female lead (and a female director until Brenda Chapman was replaced by Mark Andrews), opened with an estimated $66.7 million this weekend, putting it (for now) just above Cars 2's $66.1 million debut and a bit below Up's $68.1 million opening as the fifth-best debut in Pixar history.  Brave pulled in $24.5 million on Friday, which gives the film a 2.71x weekend multiplier, which is actually pretty low by Pixar standards.  Still, it's close enough to the 2.73x multiplier for Wall-E ($23m/$63m), the 2.68x weekend multiplier for Toy Story 3 ($41m/$110m), and the 2.64x weekend multiplier for Cars 2 ($25m/$66m) to avoid any alarm.  Movies, even most animated ones, are just a bit more front-loaded these days and Pixar films tend to play like sequels in a popular franchise than stand-alone entries. In terms of total box office, there is always the chance that Brave could play like Cars 2, which (comparatively) flamed out with just 2.8x weekend-to-total multiplier ($191 million domestic) and end up below $200 million.

Weekend Box Office (06/17/12): Rock of Ages and That's My Boy tank while Madagascar 3 remains strong and Prometheus plummets.

I try to remain somewhat positive about box office, if only to counter the relentless 'It's a bomb!' or 'Big Star FAILS!' punditry that makes up much of the box office pundit world.  But there is little good news to report about this weekend's two big releases.  The top new release was Warner Bros' broadway adaptation Rock of Ages.  The 80s rock homage pulled in just $15 million.  Now to be fair, while the film's opening is far below the $27 million debut of Adam Shankman's last musical, Hairspray in July 2007 as well as the $27 million debut of Mamma Mia! four summers ago, it's actually the sixth-biggest debut for a modern musical, which shows how rare they are even in a post-Moulin Rouge era (Moulin Rouge opened with $13 million eleven years ago, by the way).  It's a bigger opening that Rent ($10 million), Dreamgirls ($14 million on under 900 screens), Burlesque ($11 million), and Sweeney Todd ($9.3 million on 1,249 screens).