Hollywood Box Office Fail: A Memorial Day to Forget
For years, Memorial Day weekend has been the unofficial beginning of summer blockbuster season, with the multitudes rushing in to enjoy free air conditioning, buttered popcorn and big explosions. And though Hollywood has started releasing its blockbusters earlier and earlier (Marvel/Disney, in particular seems to love the first weekend in May), the audiences don’t seem to have gotten the message.
Tomorrowland, the weekend’s No. 1 grossing film, took in an unimpressive $40.7 million, just ahead of 2010’s groan-worthy Prince of Persia on the list of holiday weekend openers.
Memorial Day 2015 was the worst holiday weekend for Hollywood since 2001, when Michael Bay’s infamous WWII flop Pearl Harbor graced the screens. Considering the 44 percent increase in ticket prices over that time, this is a particularly bleak outlook for theaters.
Related: 13 Movies You Should See This Summer
Tomorrowland only barely beat Pitch Perfect 2, in its second week of release.
In 2014, X-Men: Days of Future Past took home $110.6 million, while the previous year had the sixth entry in the Fast and the Furious franchise to drive $97.4 million domestically.
The news is better internationally, where the most recent Avengers film (Avengers: Age of Ultron) continues to rake in the yuan, millions at a time. But the outlook for the rest of the domestic season is less rosy, with no obvious saviors later in the summer (Jurassic World, maybe?).
It’s not even June yet, but it is already looking like a chilly summer for Hollywood.
Budget ‘Chaos’ Threatens Army Reset: Retired General
One thing is standing in the way of a major ongoing effort to reset the U.S. Army, writes Carter Ham, a retired four-star general who’s now president and CEO of the Association of the U.S. Army, at Defense One. “The problem is the Washington, D.C., budget quagmire.”
The issue is more than just a matter of funding levels. “What hurts more is the erratic, unreliable and downright harmful federal budget process,” which has forced the Army to plan based on stopgap “continuing resolutions” instead of approved budgets for nine straight fiscal years. “A slowdown in combat-related training, production delays in new weapons, and a postponement of increases in Army troop levels are among the immediate impacts of operating under this ill-named continuing resolution. It’s not continuous and it certainly doesn’t display resolve.”
Pentagon Pushes for Faster F-35 Cost Cuts
The Pentagon has taken over cost-cutting efforts for the F-35 program, which has been plagued by years of cost overruns, production delays and technical problems. The Defense Department rejected a cost-saving plan proposed by contractors including principal manufacturer Lockheed Martin as being too slow to produce substantial savings. Instead, it gave Lockheed a $60 million contract “to pursue further efficiency measures, with more oversight of how the money was spent,” The Wall Street Journal’s Doug Cameron reports. F-35 program leaders “say they want more of the cost-saving effort directed at smaller suppliers that haven’t been pressured enough.” The Pentagon plans to cut the price of the F-35A model used by the Air Force from a recent $94.6 million each to around $80 million by 2020. Overall, the price of developing the F-35 has climbed above $400 billion, with the total program cost now projected at $1.53 trillion. (Wall Street Journal, CNBC)
Chart of the Day - October 6, 2017
Financial performance for insurers in the individual Obamacare markets is improving, driven by higher premiums and slower growth in claims. This suggests that the market is stabilizing. (Kaiser Family Foundation)
Quote of the Day - October 5, 2017
"The train's left the station, and if you're a budget hawk, you were left at the station." -- Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C.