According to MovieWeb, which breaks down box office results in several ways, only one of the past four years has fallen off the pace.  Totaling the results of the top 10 films of each week, beginning with the first week in May through the first week in August, 2003 – 2007 went as follows:

2003: $1.887 billion

2004: $1.922 billion

2005: $1.745 billion

2006: $1.909 billion

2007: $1.913 billion

And just as this year’s high praise appears contrived, so too it seems does the death knell of previous years. 

If Hollywood loves to tell a story, the media loves doom and gloom, and can go on and on whenever there’s a scent of disaster.  But with praise, things become a little hazier.  How many publications included the “What a summer for Hollywood!” line this week?  Yet no one wanted to take the leap and predict why we’re seeing the success, not to mention the absence of anyone pointing out that the praise was undeserved until your’s truly.

But in previous years when the media momentum centered on doom and gloom, everyone had an opinion.  Someone said opinions are like…?  I can’t remember, but supposedly everybody has one.

The internet was killing the movie business.  Piracy was killing the movie business.  A lack of Hollywood creativity was killing the movie business.  TiVo was killing the movie business.  The Iraq war was killing the movie business.  YouTube was killing the movie business.  China was killing the movie business. 

You name it, and someone had written a lengthy theory on why the movie business was dead.

Now we’re all supposed to sing the movie business’s praises – and even I was supposed to do so today – but no one can explain it. 

Turns out no explanation’s necessary: Hollywood is floating along just fine, right in line with previous years.  And the skeptics who will say its franchises are the only thing holding the business together, you can consider that more a rule than a trend.  According to MovieWeb, sequels have driven summer box office success for a while.  Here’s the number of films that were #1 for the first week of May through the first week of August from 2003 – 2007:

2003: 8 sequels

2004: 3 sequels

2005: 1 sequel

2006: 4 sequels

2007: 6 sequels

And if Hollywood execs needed any more reason to keep pumping out the franchises, the worst summer of the past five years had the fewest sequels, 2005.

Hollywood media analysis always tells extreme stories; either it’s failing miserably or succeeding dramatically.  Why we throw a more conservative, rational perspective out the window, I’m not sure.  Perhaps we feel better about the world when we paint an overly dark or an overly colorful picture of Hollywood. 

It’s far more fun to contribute to Tinsel town’s drama after all than it is for, say, the fertilizer industry.

So here’s my best attempt to explain the Summer Success: if success is defined by hitting your numbers, it's been one hell of a summer in Hollywood.

Scott Goldberg