From Marvel Studios’ highs to Sony Pictures’ lows, from Scarlett Johannsson kicking butt to Adam Sandler bombing out, here are the highlights and lowlights in the movies this year.
Alice Mongkongllite for BuzzFeed
To say this has been a bad year for Hollywood is a bit like saying the outgoing Congress had some small disagreements. So let's reach into the thesaurus for some better bad words: It's been awful. Horrific. Abysmal. And that is setting aside (for the moment) the December denouement that was the Sony Pictures/The Interview debacle, the Bryan Singer scandal, the renewal of the Woody Allen scandal, the continued decline of original studio movies, and the unabated commercial primacy of Michael Bay.
Based on figures from Box Office Mojo, Hollywood has not seen ticket sales this low since 1989. That measurement may fluctuate a bit as final numbers for the year trickle in. But rather than some one-time aberration, 2014 represents the latest low mark in a downwardly mobile trajectory that the movie business has not yet figured out how to reverse — if indeed it can. It's how Disney can have four of the year's top 10 grossing movies domestically (Guardians of the Galaxy, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Maleficent, and Big Hero 6), more than any other studio, and still be down roughly 4.5% from 2013. It's how Warner Bros. and Universal can have a healthy slate of hits and still be down double digits year-over-year.
Adam B. Vary for BuzzFeed / Via boxofficemojo.com
Amid all this gloom, there are still plenty of studios, filmmakers, and actors who had cause to celebrate this year, while others are likely itching to put 2014 far behind them. Six months ago — back when box office was down a mere 1.5% from 2013, instead of a much more worrisome 5.3% — I assessed the winners and losers in movies through the first half of the year. Some things since have changed for the better, some for the worse. So as we ring in 2015, let's look back on the biggest winners and losers in movies overall from the year just past.
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