The 2015 summer movie season seems to have been saved but it wasn't by superheroes this time. After a bad summer in 2014, the 2015 summer movie season has been a welcomed change for Hollywood executives and the frazzled bookkeepers who have spent, no doubt, many a sleepless night dreading having to present another bad summer earnings report. Hollywood rebounded and in a big way. When the haze clears after Labor Day weekend, the $4.4 billion taken in this summer will be the second biggest summer take since the 2013 record of $4.75 billion and, more importantly, it is a 7.5% percent increase over last year. This without the aid of a truly dominant superhero film.
Universal Pictures has been on a hot streak all year and the summer was just more of the same. To date the company has earned $5.3 billion this year in revenue, buoyed by the season's top moneymaker Jurassic World ($1.6 billion earned worldwide) and the top animated film Minions (just over $1 billion).
Have no fear, the superhero genre is safe. Avengers: Age of Ultron was the second highest grossing film in North America over the summer with $457.7 million made. However, according to the Fox News article, this is the first year since 2011 that a superhero didn't top the summer box office.
Quoting Universal's head of distribution, Nick Carpou, from the same article, "It's a lot of hard work, but it's also an indication that we're tapping audiences in different ways with the different kind of movies we're releasing. I think our diverse slate doesn't tend to tire people out."
It is the diversity this summer season offered that many believe is the reason why the 2015 was successful and the 2014 one not so much. Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for Rentrak, credits Universal for their approach this season. Jurassic World was still a blockbuster movie but it was not a superhero one.
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