Now that the holidays are over, the post-mortem for 2008’s box office is also being offered. The clear winner last year was Warner Bros. who had the runaway success of The Dark Knight behind them. With global ticket sales of $997 million dollars, Dark Knight didn’t just prove to be the biggest superhero movie of all-time, it also became the second highest-grossing film ever. Thanks to the Batman movie as well as Sex in the City and Four Christmases, WB enjoyed revenue of $1.77 billion dollars, the biggest haul of cash ever for a movie studio.
Paramount Pictures stands in second place with total ticket sales of $1.58 billion. That studio struck gold with Iron Man, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and its two DreamWorks co-ventures, Kung Fu Panda and Madagascar 2.
Sony Pictures followed next with $1.26 billion in revenues thanks to the star power of Will Smith (Hancock) and James Bond (Quantum of Solace). Surprisingly, Smith’s holiday drama Seven Pounds isn’t performing as well as the studio expected it to.
20th Century Fox is in fourth spot but only if you factor in the films from its other branches like Fox Searchlight. Overall the studio had a lousy year for its blockbusters, with bombs like the X-Files sequel, Babylon A.D., The Happening and Eddie Murphy’s Meet Dave. Thankfully it had an end-of-year success with Marley and Me and its animated Horton Hears a Who grossed $154 million in the spring.
Universal Pictures is in fifth place with ticket sales of $1.11 billion. Mamma Mia!, The Incredible Hulk, Wanted and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor all made north of $100 million for the Uni peeps.
Surprisingly it’s Walt Disney Pictures that had the worst showing for last year. After having made enough cash from the third Pirates of the Caribbean in ‘07, the house that Walt build had only a couple of superstar performers (WALL-E with $223 mil was the studio’s #1 movie). The second Narnia movie, Prince Caspian, only made $141 million dollars but cost around $200 million to make.
And that’s the story of how the big studios fared in 2008. Smaller ones like Summit Entertainment had a good year thanks to its breakout hit Twilight but that doesn’t mean ‘09 will be as awesome as the year before. Overall, movie theaters took in $9.63 billion dollars, just $10 million more than 2007. Still, when the economy is hitting a rough patch and downsizing and economic depression seem to be the words on everyone’s lips, even a small percentage of growth can be viewed as a major victory.
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