Despite some big flops, Hollywood has record US$4.7 billion blockbuster summer

In the end, Hollywood made it through a precarious minefield of summer box-office bombs with a bulging wallet. The summer concluded with a record US$4.7 billion in North American box-office revenue, despite much maligned flops like After Earth and White House Down.

More than ever before, the industry packed a tumultuous but ultimately profitable summer season with big-budget blockbusters that ranged from the hugely successful Iron Man 3 to the disastrous The Lone Ranger. Though the movie business has always been one of hits and misses, this summer brought particular attention to some big flops.

Yet the box office saw a 10.2 per cent increase in revenue over last summer (not accounting for inflation), with attendance rising 6.6 per cent. A portion of the revenue bump could be attributed to rising ticket prices which, on average, went up 27 US cents from last year.

But the plethora of major releases - a more than 50 per cent increase from last year in films costing US$75 million or more to make - meant moviegoers had a parade of highly marketed, big-budget options through the early, most sought-after weeks of the summer. That meant faster blockbuster turnover that may have been better for the industry as a whole, but often came at the expense of individual films.

"It was one of the most interesting summers I've ever seen," said Paul Dergarabedian, a box office analyst for the website Hollywood.com "It was this mix of great news and bad news at the same time."

The biggest hit of the summer was Disney's Iron Man 3, which made US$408.6 million domestically and US$1.2 billion worldwide.

Disney gave some of that back, though, with Gore Verbinski's The Lone Ranger, which took in just US$88.4 million in North America despite costing more than US$215 million to make. (Studios split box-office revenue in half with cinema owners.)

Despite successes like Warner Brothers' Man of Steel, Universal's Despicable Me 2 and Paramount's World War Z, The Lone Ranger became the masked face of Hollywood's summer.

It was the most spectacular flop among many others, including Turbo, After Earth, White House Down, The Wolverine and The Hangover Part III.

John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theatre Owners, applauded the record summer revenue as a sign of industry strength but suggested studios are jamming too many blockbuster releases into too narrow a summertime window. This summer followed an especially poor first quarter for the box office.

"A few of those films suffered because of the congestion," said Fithian.