The summer is now officially over and our minds are already beginning to turn to… the Christmas movie season. But first, let’s take stock and see where we are with comic book-based movies. We have just one left for release this year, the feature version of Steve Niles’ 30 Days of Night, but that’s waiting for the appropriate Halloween period.
Much has been made of the $4 billion summer box office and how it set a new record, until you adjust for inflation and then it doesn’t beat 2002. Studios say that’s okay, because the hits will also prove strong sellers this holiday season in DVD (regular, HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, collect them all!). With average ticket prices creeping up to $6.85 (it’s $10.25 in Connecticut, where on earth is it only $6.85?), the receipts have also risen.
Here’s an updated look at the genre films released this year with their total box office to date followed by their budgets. Again, following that logic, 300 remains the clear winner by traditional Hollywood logic. When all the home video sales get counted next spring, we’ll see if that remains the case.
Ghost Rider, $115,802,596 / $110,000,000
300, $210,250,922 / $65,000,000
TMNT, $42,273,609 / $34,000,000
Spider-Man 3, $336,530,303 / $258,000,000
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, $131,451,007 / $130,000,000
Stardust, August 10, $31,912,000 to date / $70,000,000
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