The basic story line of the 2014 domestic box office is that it’s going to finish about five percent below last year’s record-breaking $10.9 billion total, but here’s a look between the lines:
>> The top grossing movie in 2014 was Marvel and Disney’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” with $333 million. Last year, three films topped $400 million: “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” ($424 million), “Iron Man 3” ($409 million) and “Frozen” ($401 million). That’s a big reason this year is down.
>> “Transformers: The Age of Extinction” was the only movie to top $1 billion at the global box office and the only film to open at more than $100 million. But the biggest headline was the $301 million it rang up in China, which outstripped the $245 million it made in North America.
>> The top five studios in terms of market share were, in order: Fox, Disney, Warner Bros., Sony and Universal. Fox had eight movies finish with more than $100 million domestically, Disney had five and Warner Bros. and Universal four each. It was a major rebound for Fox, which finished with $1.7 billion in domestic grosses — 69 percent ahead of its 2013 total.
>> Seven of this year’s highest grossing movies were sequels or remakes. If you include “Maleficent,” a live-action take on Disney’s 1959 animated film “Sleeping Beauty,” it’s eight.
>>The movies with the biggest grosses-to-budget ratios were Fox’s “The Fault In Our Stars” ($124 million domestically on a $12 million budget), New Line’s “Annabelle” ($84 million on $6.5 million) and Freestyle Releasing’s “God’s Not Dead,” $60 million on a $2 million budget.
>> Eight of the year’s top ten movies at the box office were rated PG-13, with the PG-rated “LEGO Movie” and “Maleficent” the only exceptions. The top-grossing R-rated movie was Sony’s “22 Jump Street,” the biggest G-rated film was Fox’s “Rio 2.”
>> Two movies with women as the leads – “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1” and “Maleficent” – made the top ten, while none with minorities did.
>> Domestic returns made up just 22.6 percent of the worldwide grosses for “Transformers 4.” The top ten movie with the highest percentage of domestic returns was “The LEGO Movie” at 55 percent.
>> Four of the year’s top 10 films debuted in May: “Maleficent,” “X-Men: Days of Future Past,” “Godzilla” and “The Amazing Spider-Man 2.” No other month had more than one.
>>The highest-grossing comedy was Sony’s “22 Jump Street” at $192 million; if you count animated films, it’s “The LEGO Movie” with $258 million.
>> The top indie movie at the box office was Wes Anderson’s “The Grand Budapest Hotel” with $59 million for Fox Searchlight.