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Universal doing summer-saults
submitted by: Lisa D.
source: Daily Variety
Date: September 4, 2001
By Carl DiOrio
HOLLYWOOD - More flesh-eating dinos, surprising nitro-guzzling street racers and a heaping second helping of "American Pie" drove Universal to the top of the summer box office with seasonal grosses totaling $513.4 million, or a 17% market share.
Overall, summer 2001 set a new box office record but not a new admissions mark, since receipts were propelled by higher ticket prices. This summer's estimated $2.95 billion in box office was 11% better than summer 2000 and 6% ahead of summer 1999, the previous record holder. Summer '99 still holds the all-time admissions record at 550 million. Box office tracker ACNielsen EDI estimates movie-ticket prices currently average about $5.66, which means roughly 522 million tickets were sold this summer. That's 6% more than last summer.
The summer's top-grossing picture was a cartoon that bowed before the start of the actual season. DreamWorks' "Shrek," blockbuster tale of a lovable ogre, grossed $206.4 million between the Memorial Day and Labor Day frames. But as the studio's only summer player, even leggy "Shrek" couldn't place DreamWorks among the season's market share leaders.
Universal's market share win over second-place Disney was bolstered by the seasonal performance of another pre-summer opener, "The Mummy Returns." The sequel actioner opened the first weekend of May and played strongly well into summer.
"It does take a little guts to be the first picture out there," Universal distribution president Nikki Rocco said. "Memorial Day is always the most enticing weekend, and you say to yourself 'Will the audiences be there earlier?"' Turns out they were, as "Mummy Returns" piled up $201.7 million domestically including an estimated $90,000 over the season-closing holiday weekend.
The No. 2 pic on the summer was New Line's action comedy "Rush Hour 2" ($198.9 million), and Disney's "Pearl Harbor" finished third.
"Pearl Harbor," which bowed over the summer-launching Memorial Day session, was re-expanded to 1,036 playdates over the Labor Day weekend. The World War II epic's $1.2 million in four-day estimated box office moved the total to $196.7 million.
Mouse House execs now project the picture's total domestic run will reach $202 million. But the Mouse owes its silver-medal this summer less to the underwhelming run of hugely hyped "Harbor" and more to the surprise success of "The Princess Diaries."
Along with Universal's teen-oriented street-racing drama "The Fast and the Furious," the G-rated Julie Andrews starrer was a true summer sleeper. Both pictures broke bigger than expected and played longer than anticipated.
Universal's other big summer hits were sequels -- family actioner "Jurassic Park III" and young-skewing laffer "American Pie 2."
20th Century Fox rode to third place on the strength of its "Planet of the Apes" update and "Dr. Doolittle 2," a sequel to its talking-animals remake.
"We were running ahead of (Disney) until 'Princess Diaries' opened," Fox's executive VP of sales Rick Myerson noted. "We had a great summer."
Disney distribution boss Chuck Viane said the "summer held up to our expectations in total." But he acknowledged Disney "probably expected a little more out of 'Atlantis."'The family tooner, which also was also re-expanded over the Labor Day weekend, grossed an estimated $900,000 in 785 theaters over four days to move ita haul to $82.4 million -- disappointing by high Mouse standards.
In a year-to-date comparison with 2000 -- at a point two-thirds into the current calendar -- 2001 stands 9% ahead of the same period last year with industrywide grosses of $5.6 billion.
Universal also leads in year-to-date box office market share, at 13%. Paramount is No. 2 with a roughly 11% market share so far this year.
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