What happened this summer? It’s the question distributors, producers and movie studio executives are asking themselves and each other. Compared to last summer, the box office has seen a decrease in domestic gross while the marketing, promoting and budget size of each movie has experienced no significant change. 

So, if we all know what happened the harder question to answer is, why? Could it be a wide range of changes that have occurred in the economy and movie industry in the past year? Contributing factors may include high gas prices, illegal movie downloading, high definition home entertainment systems or even just a lack of interest.

For 20 consecutive weeks, beginning the weekend of February 4, the box office has seen a decrease in sales when compared to last year. 

According to Box Office Guru (www.boxofficeguru.com), the decrease ranges from one per-cent to 31 percent. The dilemma is that a constant one percent down can mean a few thousand jobs could be lost. The movie that finally helped end the dry spell was “Fantastic Four.” That weekend July 8, the box office brought in a gain of three percent compared to last summer. Ironically, ”Fantastic Four” received some of the worst reviews.

Maybe it’s not so ironic when the other four films in the top five are from acclaimed filmmakers (Steven Spielberg’s “War of the Worlds,” Christopher Nolan’s “Batman Begins”) and received better reviews.

The next weekend received some much needed improvement. New releases “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “The Wedding Crashers” helped raise the gain to 13 percent. Unfortunately, the gain didn’t last long as the following weekend gross (July 22) showed a nine percent down. The summer movie season officially ends Labor Day weekend and, looking at the new releases, it’s bound to end without a bang.

Let’s go back to the lack of interest question. Last summer was the summer of sequels and CGI. “Shrek 2,” “Spiderman 2,” “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” and “The Bourne Supremacy,” all grossed at least $175 million domestically. CGI films, such as “The Day After Tomorrow,” “I, Robot,” “Troy”, and “Van Helsing,” have all grossed $120 million domestically. Hyped movies such as “Fahrenheit 9/11,” “The Village” and “Collateral” have all grossed at least $100 million domestically.

This summer, Hollywood decided to release mainly remakes and adaptations. Movies such as “War of the Worlds,” “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” “The Dukes of Hazzard,” and “Bewitched” were significant at the box office, but according to the studios, not significant enough. The next question “Is it possible that this lack of interest resulted from a lack of creativity?”