--- title: Movies Are Having the Worst Summer Since 1997 description: It's partially because there's a dearth of new movie ideas out there canonical: https://time.com/3228698/summer-movies/ author: Sam Frizell article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-08-30T16:00:23.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:05:33.101Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Movies Are Having the Worst Summer Since 1997 og:description: It's partially because there's a dearth of new movie ideas out there og:url: https://time.com/3228698/summer-movies/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt654784dfae3758e5/69869e92cd68480ab7095f2c/guardians-of-the-galaxy-movie-trends.jpg?branch=production&width=1000&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1000 og:image:height: 563 og:image:alt: GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, from left: Dave Bautista, Chris Pratt, 2014. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Movies Are Having the Worst Summer Since 1997 twitter:description: It's partially because there's a dearth of new movie ideas out there twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt654784dfae3758e5/69869e92cd68480ab7095f2c/guardians-of-the-galaxy-movie-trends.jpg?branch=production&width=1000&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Movies Are Having Their Worst Summer Since 1997 > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. ## Video: Tech Breakthroughs in Film: From House of Wax to Gravity [Watch (HLS stream): Tech Breakthroughs in Film: From House of Wax to Gravity](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/C4dqJ7xz.m3u8) (3:46)  _Published 2013-10-04. Gravity Director Alfonso Cuaron had to wait four and a half years for technology to catch up to his vision before filming characters floating in zero gravity in his latest space thriller. That’s just one benchmark in the history of tech breakthrough_ by [Sam Frizell](https://time.com/author/sam-frizell/) ## Sam Frizell Aug 30, 2014 4:00 PM UTC  Dave Bautista and Chris Pratt in Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Dave Bautista and Chris Pratt in Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Disney by [Sam Frizell](https://time.com/author/sam-frizell/) ## Sam Frizell Aug 30, 2014 4:00 PM UTC If you can’t remember the last time you went out and saw a great movie, you’re not alone. North American box offices are having their [worst summer season](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/30/movies/movies-have-worst-summer-since-1997.html) in 17 years, and it’s because no one is particularly excited about the flicks that have occupied the silver screen for the past several months. Ticket sales in the United States and Canada are expected to total roughly $3.9 billion between the first weekend in May through the end of August, a 15 percent decline from the same stretch last year, the New York _Times_ reports. Sequels that were expected to rake in cash at the box office by adhering to tried-and-true formulas ended up bombing. Tom Cruise’s sci-fi _Edge of Tomorrow_ looked kind of like _Oblivion_ (2013, also starring Cruise) and sounded kind of like _The Day After Tomorrow_ (2004). It brought in $99.4 million, but Warner Bros spent at least $250 million on production and domestic marketing. _Amazing Spider-Man 2,_ _Step Up All In_, and _Hercules_, all with familiar themes, did poor to middling in ticket sales. The No. 1 movie of the summer, Marvel’s _Guardians of the Galaxy,_ sold more than $258 million in ticket sales, at least partially for offering something new to moviegoers: a 1970’s-era soundtrack and eclectic range of lesser-known comic book heroes (including a talking raccoon voiced by Bradley Cooper) materialized into solid ticket sales. Here’s to new ideas and better sales next summer. \[[_NYT_](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/30/movies/movies-have-worst-summer-since-1997.html)\] ## Transcript [ SOUND ] Wait, you have to break. The can, the can's empty. You'll hit hard. Grab a hold of anything you can. [ SOUND ] Gravity Director Alfonso Cuarón had to wait four and a half year for technology to catch up to his vision for filming his characters floating in zero gravity. Using robot arms an ultralight rig with custom lighting, the visual effects team created the most realistic zero gravity looking film to date. That's just one benchmark in the history of tech. Break throughs in film. Here are some of Time's favorites. [ MUSIC ]. The first 3D feature with Stereophonic sound was Warner Brother's House of Wax in 1953. [ NOISE ]. The horror movie premiered in New York at the Paramount theater with 25 speakers. And was called by a New York Times reviewer, as a wild display of noise and nonsense, with noises coming at you from all parts of the theatre. While the director of the movie Andre De Toth was satisfied with the sound innovations, he was unable to see the 3D effect, having lost an eye at an early age. Fast forward to 1979. When Apocolypse Now became the first Dolby Stereo 70 mm film with surround sound. [ SOUND ] And then the 80s when films first started using computer generated imagery or CGI. [ SOUND ] Hi. I'm Cindy. 1981s Looker was the first film to use CGI for a human character and is seen featuring a naked image generated on a computer of actress Susan Day. He becomes a prisoner in a world of his own making. In 1982, Disney's Tron made graphics on a computer with only two MB of memory and 330 megs of disk storage. Back then, computers could generate static images, but they couldn't automatically put them into motion. Visual effects artists had to enter 600 coordinates, each by hand, to get 4four seconds of film. [ SOUND ] In 2002, the historical drama Russian Ark was the first feature film to be shot entirely in uncompressed high def video, and the first to consist of one single, unedited take. [ MUSIC ] [ SOUND ] The 96- minute sequence took three tries to get right. [ MUSIC ] Avatar brought 3D to a whole another level. Director James Cameron made extensive use of a beam splitter ray that allowed the lenses of two cameras to overlap and create dynamic interocular distance. To produce a true 3D experience. [ SOUND ] I'm looking for someone. To share in an adventure. While the average film is shown in 24 frames per second, The Hobbit was the first box office release both recorded and projected in 48 frames per second, in an effort to make the film more immersive. But the experiment received mixed reviews as some found the new effect distracting. [ MUSIC ] Yes, it's true there's a child, and the child is my. In the 2012 musical Les Miserables, Tom Hooper recorded his actors actually singing while filming. As opposed to layering in their voices later on. [ MUSIC ] This may be one of the least flashy innovations on the big screen, but it changed the game in terms of emotional performances. 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