LOS
ANGELES — The delay of major movies from Pixar and Universal. The
pirating of “The Expendables 3” and “Annie” before their release. Warner
Bros. suffering one dud after another. Hackers forcing the cancellation
of a big Sony comedy.
Hollywood does not want a sequel to 2014.
For
the year, ticket sales at North American theaters will total roughly
$10.5 billion, a 4 percent decline from a year earlier, according to
projections by the box-office data firm Rentrak. Attendance will drop by
about the same percentage.
Annual
fluctuations of that size are not uncommon at the domestic box office,
which rises and falls based on the strength of the movie lineup. Still,
that total would give the movie business its lowest tally since 2000,
after accounting for inflation.
Despite
some major successes — “Guardians of the Galaxy,” “The Lego Movie,”
“Godzilla,” “Divergent,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and “The Maze
Runner” all revived franchises or started new ones — box-office weakness
stretched into nearly every genre and audience segment. There was no
big-budget catastrophe like “The Lone Ranger,” but at least a dozen
films underperformed in domestic theaters, suggesting structural
weakness, analysts said.
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