Wait, Paul Blart Mall Cop 2 Is Still Sony's Highest Grossing Movie Of The Year?

Brian in Mesa

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Wait, Paul Blart Mall Cop 2 Is Still Sony's Highest Grossing Movie Of The Year?

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Wait...l-Sony-Highest-Grossing-Movie-Year-74567.html

It’s been a bad summer for Sony Pictures. Ok, it’s been a bad year for Sony Pictures. Not only has the studio gone without a breakout hit all year, but most of their films actually classify as misses. With apologies to Kevin James, when the highlight of your year is Paul Blart, you’re not having a very good year.

The Hollywood Reporter has the story about the rough year that Sony has been having. Former studio co-chair Amy Pascal apparently predicted the lack of breakout hits in an e-mail. An interesting coincidence considering the Sony hack which lead to the e-mail’s release went a long way to her losing the position. Still, she wasn’t wrong. While every other major studio has at least one film that has grossed $300 million, Sony’s strongest performer thus far is the aforementioned Mall Cop sequel which has grossed barely over $100 million. We don’t want to beat up on it too much, it did only cost $30 million to make, so it was a very profitable film. That’s something, right? Sony has only brought in $564 million worldwide. Universal’s Jurassic World has done better on its own, and that’s just domestically. Yeah, it’s ugly.

Everything else gets a "fails to meet expectations" on its performance review. Aloha, Chappie, Pixels... the box office has met them all with a collective "meh." Pixels is actually Sony’s second highest grossing movie of the year. No, really. The movie that just opened, and did so without impressing anybody. It’s number 2.

No wonder Sony was willing to make the Spider-Man deal with Marvel. They needed to do something. Since the release of Amazing Spider-Man 2, Sony hasn’t seen a movie do nearly as well, and by all accounts that was still a disappointment financially. Spider-Man was the one sure-fire money maker in their stable, and they weren’t confident they could make money with it on their own anymore.
 

Shaggy

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Ouch. Amazing how they can't seem to get a good movie out there.
 

Bert

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That is scary. That movie was so aweful. lol

It's not going to get any better. Up next for Sony?

Ricky and the flash. (super duper meh) and Goosebumps, which as soon as I saw the preview I said wow, that's going to BOMB.

After that it gets better. 007 is always a hit, and Spectre looks pretty sweet. I'm sure Hotel Transylvania 2 will be a pretty decent size hit. The one I am most excited for is The Walk. Looks pretty visual and awesome, but will it be a hit? I seriously doubt it unless it can create some Gravity type buzz on visuals alone.

Still I dont see a 300million dollar hit in there, bond might get over 200. Skyfall did go over 300, but it is the only one in the series to do so, and that movie was crazy expensive to make from what I remember reading about it.
 
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Iceman

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So basically the only real hit Sony has is the Playstation???
 

Chaplin

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That is scary. That movie was so aweful. lol

It's not going to get any better. Up next for Sony?

Ricky and the flash. (super duper meh) and Goosebumps, which as soon as I saw the preview I said wow, that's going to BOMB.

Goosebumps will not bomb. The couple times I've seen the trailers in the theater, the kids ate it up. You have to look at it's competition. The movie comes out on Oct 16. Hotel Transylvania 2 comes out Sept 25, and while I think that will be a bigger hit, I don't think it will be a lasting hit after 3 weeks. Only other competition it will have is from the week before, Oct 9, with the release of Pan. And while I'm stoked for that particular movie, I don't think it will be a blockbuster either.

Beyond that, the next family release is November 6 when Peanuts comes out. (That happens to be Spectre's release date as well so Peanuts has a higher danger of bombing IMO) So I definitely think Goosebumps will not bomb--it may not explode and be a blockbuster, but it will do well.
 

BillsCarnage

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So basically the only real hit Sony has is the Playstation???
Pretty much. Sony has been in a world of hurt the past few years. And to think they were the Apple of the 80s-90's. Happens to every big company at some point and it'll happen to Apple.
 

Chaplin

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Pretty much. Sony has been in a world of hurt the past few years. And to think they were the Apple of the 80s-90's. Happens to every big company at some point and it'll happen to Apple.

In their top 10 list of highest grossers for the company, only 2 are from the last 5 years, and both of those are from 2012--Skyfall and the first Amazing Spider-Man. They've had some successes over the past few years, with their biggest being 22 Jump Street and Amazing Spider-Man 2 last year, but they have NO films in their top 100 since then.

2015 has been a crap year for them. I liked Chappie, but none of their other releases this year. Last year had the above 2, but also Fury and The Equalizer, which I liked and even Robocop and Captain Phillips the year before were decent.

But the hack and The Interview ended up being pretty damn bad for the studio. I think Goosebumps will help, but it won't be enough.
 
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