Major box office summer slump due to dearth of good blockbusters
Takings are down over 44% from this same time in 2015
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Your support makes all the difference.This time last year, Jurassic World was released and went on to become the fourth highest grossing film of all time.
In the States, Colin Trevorrow's dinosaur sequel notched up a record-breaking $208.8 million (£147 million) in its opening weekend alone which is even more impressive when compared with this year's box office which is down more than 44%.
With this year's summer box office kickstarting early - and rather well - with Captain America: Civil War (released 1 May in the US), there's no doubt that the 2016 box office has since seen one hell of a slump.
Between the weeks of 6 May-12 June, The Hollywood Reporter points out how the North American box office saw a 22% decline marked by an accumulative revenue of $1.24 billion (£877 million) compared to 2015's $1.597 billion (£1.1 billion). Films that were expected to perform better include X-Men: Apocalypse, Alice Through the Looking Glass and Duncan Jones' Warcraft: The Beginning which generated a mere $24.4 million (£17 million).
comScore box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian said: "No matter how you slice or dice the calendar, there is no question that the summer of 2016 thus far has been a bit of a bummer, with the underperformers outnumbering the overperformers and a general malaise that has struck the early part of this most important moviegoing season."
He continued: "The poster child for this downturn has been the preponderance of sequels that have been unable to match their immediate predecessors in box-office dollars and critical and audience acclaim."
Of course, there are still numerous big films to come with Hollywood keeping the faith that they can salvage the lacklustre start; the coming months will see Independence Day: Resurgence, Finding Dory and Suicide Squad are all released.
So basically, the summer box office is relying on aliens, fish and depraved villains to do its bidding.
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