Despite economic woes and tough comparisons with last year, the May box office stayed competitive with previous years and managed to create a new film franchise in “Iron Man,” Variety reports.
Through Memorial Day, box office revenues totaled roughly $780 million, with “Iron Man’s” boffo perf contributing a hearty $258.3 million, followed by “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” at $151.9 million.
Both tentpoles are distributed by Paramount, putting the studio far in the lead in terms of market share with 51.9% through Memorial Day, which this year fell on May 26.
Heading into the month, studios were nervous about starting the summer without titan franchises “Spider-Man,” “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Shrek,” which combined to give Hollywood its best May on record last year at $855.2 million through Memorial Day.
Studio honchos knew that no matter what the outcome, the strength of May 2007 would make year-over-year comparisons tough. The question was whether May 2008 — which was down 9% from a year earlier — would match up with other recent years. It did.
The May box office came in ahead of the month through Memorial Day in 2006 ($751.1 million) and 2005 ($725.7 million) but trailed slightly behind 2004 ($784.3 million).
