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   LOS ANGELES — American moviegoers sent a clear message to   
   Hollywood over the summer: We are tired of more of the same.   
      
   But don’t entirely blame the sequels and superheroes.   
      
   The film industry had its worst summer in North America, still   
   the world’s No. 1 movie market, since at least 1997, after   
   adjusting for inflation. Between the first weekend in May   
   through the end of August, ticket sales in the United States and   
   Canada are expected to total roughly $3.9 billion, a 15 percent   
   decline from the same stretch last year, according to Rentrak, a   
   box office data company.   
      
   Analysts in the spring had predicted an 11 percent drop, citing   
   viewing distractions like the World Cup and scuttled release   
   plans for films like “Fast and Furious 6” and Pixar’s “Good   
   Dinosaur,” which both had production problems. But the decline   
   was worse than expected, and the reason, analysts and studio   
   executives said, may have been a nasty case of déjà vu.   
      
   Tom Cruise’s futuristic “Edge of Tomorrow,” for instance, looked   
   like a hit — and that was exactly its problem. The title was too   
   similar to “The Day After Tomorrow,” released in summer 2004.   
   The barren landscape too closely resembled Mr. Cruise’s 2013   
   film “Oblivion.” Characters walking around in robot   
   exoskeletons? Been there (“Pacific Rim”), done that (“Real   
   Steel”).   
      
   Despite stellar reviews, “Edge of Tomorrow” took in $99.9   
   million at North American theaters, a major disappointment for   
   Warner Bros., which spent at least $250 million on production   
   and domestic marketing.   
      
   “Hercules,” which arrived seven months after “The Legend of   
   Hercules,” turned out to be a box office weakling. “Sex Tape”   
   was heavily marketed on Cameron Diaz’s legs, but moviegoers   
   shrugged: Sorry, we’ve seen them. “Both ‘Sex Tape’ and ‘A   
   Million Ways to Die in the West’ failed to stand out among the   
   other R-rated comedies,” said Phil Contrino, the chief analyst   
   at BoxOffice.com.   
      
   Sameness sells tickets, no doubt about it. The Top 10 movies of   
   the summer all came from familiar brands (Marvel, DreamWorks   
   Animation), featured familiar characters (“Godzilla”) or turned   
   on familiar stories (the raunchy college comedy). Still, only a   
   few of those films truly popped, Mr. Contrino noted, adding that   
   the ones that did “each gave fans something that was unique,   
   fresh and surprising.”   
      
   Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” was the No. 1 movie, selling   
   more than $258 million in tickets and still going strong.   
   “Guardians” was widely praised as offering something moviegoers   
   had not seen before — namely, comedic D-List superheroes,   
   including a talking raccoon and a walking plant, against a 1970s-   
   era soundtrack.   
      
   Disney’s “Maleficent” also became a runaway hit, taking in   
   $237.6 million in North America to become third-biggest movie of   
   the summer. Not bad for a film that one Wells Fargo analyst   
   earmarked in the spring as a too-weird-to-succeed bomb.   
      
   Although the characters were familiar to anyone who knows the   
   “Sleeping Beauty” tale, which is just about everyone,   
   “Maleficent” offered a revisionist story line with an unexpected   
   twist. Angelina Jolie’s titular villain, an evil fairy with a   
   fondness for bondage gear, transformed into a hero by the   
   movie’s final reel.   
      
   “Maleficent” may have had skeptics, but nobody saw “Lucy”   
   coming. A modestly budgeted science-fiction movie starring   
   Scarlett Johansson, “Lucy” delivered a hefty $115.1 million in   
   ticket sales. Fresh marketing may have made the difference:   
   Universal Pictures backed “Lucy” with an unusual black-and-white   
   ad campaign that stood out against a sea of uninspired   
   billboards.   
      
   Movie companies are quick to point out that overseas audiences   
   turned many films into hits, arguing that they work in a global   
   marketplace, and that judging a movie’s success or failure based   
   on North America is unfair.   
      
   What they do not often mention is that overseas ticket sales are   
   often less profitable. In China, for instance, as little as 25   
   cents of every box office dollar comes back to Hollywood; in the   
   United States, it’s 50 percent.   
      
   Studios released 12 sequels this summer, from the mega-budgeted   
   “Amazing Spider-Man 2” to the low-priced “Step Up All In.” If   
   sequels are doing their job, ticket sales go up: Existing fans   
   come back, new crowds come in. At the very least, sequels are   
   expected to tread box office water.   
      
   But only three managed to deliver significantly improved   
   results, compared with their series predecessor: “22 Jump   
   Street,” “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” and “X-Men: Days of   
   Future Past.” One, “The Purge: Anarchy,” was approximately flat.   
      
   That left eight sequels to nose-dive in North America. Ticket   
   sales for Paramount’s “Transformers: Age of Extinction” totaled   
   $243.9 million, a 35 percent decline from results for   
   “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” three years ago. (“Age of   
   Extinction” was nonetheless the summer’s second-biggest film.)   
   “Planes: Fire & Rescue” dropped 38 percent, and “Think Like a   
   Man Too” came in 31 percent lower. Sony’s “Amazing Spider-Man 2”   
   was down 25 percent.   
      
   What separated the few winners from the many losers? For the   
   most part, the winners convinced ticket buyers that they were   
   not just more of the same.   
      
   Mark Weinstock, the president for domestic marketing at 20th   
   Century Fox, made “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” distinctive   
   by using a bold advertising image of a machine-gun-wielding   
   chimp on horseback. The movie, a sequel to the 2011 film “Rise   
   of the Planet of the Apes,” also received rave reviews and   
   meaningfully advanced the franchise plot.   
      
   Fox also shepherded a seventh “X-Men” installment, “Days of   
   Future Past,” to blockbuster results; the studio offered   
   something new by bringing back older cast members like Halle   
   Berry and Patrick Stewart.   
      
   Mr. Contrino of BoxOffice.com, while no defender of retreads,   
   said that a well-done sequel can still feel fresh. “More than   
   anything, fans want something that feels unique and surprises   
   them,” he said.   
      
   http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/30/movies/movies-have-worst-   
   summer-since-1997.html?_r=0   
      
       
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)