We've only just begun... to live. Explaining the slow box office start to the summer 2010 movie season.

Listen people, we are not in a summer box office slump. No matter what The New York Times is trying to sell you, audiences have not deserted the multiplexes in favor of other entertainment options (yep, Brook Barnes is at it again). Why has this summer been so middling thus far? Simple, with the exception of Iron Man 2 (which opened with $128 million and just crossed $300 million today or tomorrow), the really big guns haven't been released yet. Besides, as occasionally is the case, studios were spoiled by the mega-movies that did uncommonly well over the winter and Spring. Aside from Avatar, which made about $400 million of its $749 million over 2010, we had the $332 million-grossing Alice in Wonderland, as well as the solid smash hits in How to Train Your Dragon and Clash of the Titans. As far as the summer season goes, just like the summers of my youth (1988-1995), the real peak season starts in mid-June, or this Friday to be exact. In other words, come this Friday, to quote the last true mid-June giant, "Now... the real game begins now."

This summer was always going to live or die by what happens between June 18th and July 16th. The Karate Kid breaking out is a gift, an unexpected bonus for a June that should have been uber-quiet save for the mid-June monster that everyone else was running scared from (would YOU open your studio's biggest movie a weekend before Toy Story 3?). The only real issue is that Iron Man 2 didn't completely crush everything it is path like it was expected to, and Shrek: The Final Chapter under-opened just a bit. That left holes in the schedule that weren't meant to be filled. Everything else was just as it looked on paper back in April. Did anyone expect Robin Hood to open to $50 million? Did anyone think that Sex and the City 2 would top the opening of the original, especially opening on a Thursday of family-friendly holiday? Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was never going to be The Mummy let alone Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. Regardless, these were the B-players for their respective studios. Warner, Disney, and the rest still have their 800 pound gorillas in reserve.

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