Hollywood's New $300 Million Club

Remember when $100 million was the benchmark for box-office success? That number seems so quaint compared to this summer's record breaking run. For the first time ever, four films have broken the $300 million barrier at the dometic box office: Spider-Man 3 ($336.4 million), Shrek the Third ($321 million), Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End ($307.6 million) and Transformers ($303.7 million). Another stat for the record books--13 summer movies have made more than $100 million. All this means that summer 2007 is "turning out to be the best on the books," says Variety, "running 10% ahead of 2006 and 6% ahead of 2004, the previous record-holder, according to Nielsen EDI. The total number of summer admissions (May 4 - Aug. 12) is 526.5 million, up 6% over the same frame last summer." And movies continue to hit in August, leaving studios to rethink how they view their late summer release strategy. All of this is pretty fascinating, considering that it wasn't too long ago (remember the summer of 2005?) that many pundits were reading the theatrical business its last rites, saying it was a superannuated form of entertainment, and that all kids cared about were video games and iPods. "It's proved that when you offer people great stories that also deliver state-of-the-art effects and stunts, they want to go out and experience it together. It becomes an event," DreamWorks CEO/co-chair Stacey Snider told Variety.