Record-breaking summer of Hollywood movies in US

The Labor Day weekend in America signalled the end of a summer movie season that provided mixed results for Hollywood.

A record was set for summer box office revenue, $4.7 billion, a 10.2% rise from last year and about $300 million than the previous mark set in 2011. In addition, attendance jumped 6.6%.

Ticket prices were up 27 cents on average from the 2012 summer movie season, which partly explains the increase in revenue – being the 12th-best summer movie season over the past 20 years in terms of actual number of tickets sold.

The highest-grossing movie this summer in America was Iron Man 3, which debuted in May and made over $400 million domestically.

Hollywood.com box office expert Paul Dergarabedian notes that each of the top six summer films was either a sequel or a reboot: Iron Man 3, Despicable Me 2, Man of Steel, Monsters University, Fast & Furious 6, and Star Trek Into Darkness.

There were plenty of other big-budget films that were considered box office bombs, such as The Lone Ranger and the Will Smith-Jaden Smith flick After Earth.

Nevertheless, Paul says the summer movie season helped turned Hollywood's fortunes around. He comments, "The year started out really slowly, and in fact when we kicked off the summer with Iron Man 3, the year-to-date box office was down almost 11% versus last year. And by the end of the summer, we pulled just ahead of year-to-date box office, so what a difference 18 weeks of the summer make."

News story courtesy of Entertainment News @EntNewsShowbiz