--- title: Why Theaters Desperately Need You to Go to the Movies This Weekend description: A lackluster summer at the box office has been followed by a so-so autumn—putting even more pressure on this weekend's two big movie releases to draw in the ticket-buying masses. authors: - name: Brad Tuttle role: Senior Editor url: https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/ bio: Brad Tuttle is a former senior editor at Money with over 10 years’ experience covering a vast number of personal finance topics, including careers, cars, travel, budgeting, investing, insurance, credit cards, consumer psychology, real estate, banking, and shopping and deals. education: Columbia University School of Journalism, MS at_money_since: 2014 articles: 366 covers: - Lifestyle - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Economy and Politics - Education - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Pets - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology social: - https://twitter.com/bradrtuttle - https://linkedin.com/in/brad-tuttle-834b225 former_staff: true published: '2014-11-07T11:00:35.000Z' modified: '2024-04-16T04:40:52.000Z' section: Lifestyle tags: - Christopher Nolan - Disney - Entertainment - Entertainment - Leisure - movie theater - movies word_count: 455 canonical: https://money.com/movies-interstellar-tickets/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![Anne Hathaway and Wes Bently in INTERSTELLAR, from Paramount Pictures and Warner Brothers Pictures, in association with Legendary Pictures.](https://img.money.com/2014/11/141107_em_movies_interstellar1.jpg) *Movie execs are counting on the space explorers of "Interstellar" to pull box-office receipts out of a black hole.* The highest-grossing blockbuster of summer 2014 was ["Guardians of the Galaxy,"](https://time.com/3069940/review-marvels-guardians-of-the-galaxy-the-expendables-in-outer-space/) which by Labor Day weekend had pulled in around $256 million at the box office. Yet as [*Entertainment Weekly*](http://popwatch.ew.com/2014/08/30/summer-box-office-lessons/) pointed out at the time, that total would have put "Guardians" at only #5 on the summer 2013 list had the film come out that year. The point is: Summer 2014 was a stinker for the film business. During the crucial period from May 2 to Labor Day, the box office total at movie theaters came to around [$4 billion](http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2014/10/20/fall-box-office-summer-2014/17593905/), nearly 15% less than the same period in 2013. September fared much better, with the box office up around 4% compared with last year, but overall the industry remains desperately in need of a big hit—or several. The movie theater company [Cinemark](http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=192773&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1986558) released third-quarter results on Thursday, and for the three-month period ending September 30, revenues were down more than $100 million compared with the previous year ($646.9 million versus $757.6 million), even as the average ticket price rose 3% and concessions per patron increased 6.7%. (FYI, the ticket price average was $6.09 and the average spent on concessions was $3.19.) Cinemark partly blamed the World Cup soccer tournament for the poor turnout. Whatever the reason—including, perhaps, the absence of, you know, good movies worth buying tickets for—attendance plummeted from roughly 81 million during Q3 of 2013 to 66 million this year. Across the industry, box office sales are down 4% thus far in 2014. Time is running out on the movie business's prayers that the year as a whole won't be a disappointment. Which is why industry execs may be hoping a turnaround truly takes hold this weekend, when two potential blockbusters from Disney animation and *Dark Knight* auteur Christopher Nolan—*[Big Hero 6](http://movies.disney.com/big-hero-6/)* and *[Interstellar,](http://www.interstellarmovie.net/)* respectively—are released. As the [*Los Angeles Times*](http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-projector-interstellar-big-hero-6-box-office-20141105-story.html) noted, each big-budget film cost about $165 to make, and each stands a decent chance of pulling in more than $50 million at the box office during its debut weekend. If that happens, it would only be the fourth time in history that two new movies opened with $50+ million weekends. And if that happens, it couldn't come quickly enough for the struggling film industry. "In the wake of a summer that ended up down 15%, we needed the post-summer period to perform," Paul Dergarabedian, a senior media analyst with the entertainment business research firm [Rentrak](http://www.rentrak.com/), told the *Los Angeles Times*. "Otherwise we were just going to get this negative momentum situation." After this weekend's releases, it looks like it will largely be up to a slew of sequels opening in November and December—from the "Hunger Games," "Night at the Museum," and "Hobbit" series, among others—to put patrons in movie theater seats. ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/movies-interstellar-tickets/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Lifestyle", "item": "https://money.com/lifestyle/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Movies", "item": "https://money.com/movies/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Why Theaters Desperately Need You to Go to the Movies This Weekend" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/movies-interstellar-tickets/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/movies-interstellar-tickets/", "name": "Why Theaters Desperately Need You to Go to the Movies This Weekend", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2014-11-07T11:00:35.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/movies-interstellar-tickets/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/movies-interstellar-tickets/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2024-04-16T04:40:52.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "Why Theaters Desperately Need You to Go to the Movies This Weekend", "articleSection": "Lifestyle", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2014/11/141107_em_movies_interstellar1.jpg", "width": 5760, "height": 3840, "caption": "141107_EM_Movies_Interstellar" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Brad Tuttle", "url": "https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/#author", "description": "Brad Tuttle is a former senior editor at Money with over 10 years’ experience covering a vast number of personal finance topics, including careers, cars, travel, budgeting, investing, insurance, credit cards, consumer psychology, real estate, banking, and shopping and deals.\r\n\r\n", "image": "https://img.money.com/2014/01/Brad-Tuttle.png?w=226&h=247&crop=1", "alumniOf": "Columbia University School of Journalism, MS", "sameAs": [ "https://twitter.com/bradrtuttle", "https://linkedin.com/in/brad-tuttle-834b225" ] } ], "publisher": "https://money.com/#organization", "datePublished": "2014-11-07T11:00:35.000Z", "description": "A lackluster summer at the box office has been followed by a so-so autumn—putting even more pressure on this weekend's two big movie releases to draw in the ticket-buying masses. 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