The green-eyed monster

Lots of quibbling and cavilling going on about the post-Hulk stock dump, but the best analysis comes from Newsarama, which points out similar declines after quite a few Marvel movies, as well as one for Scholastic this week, following the release of the Harry Potter book. Ain’t no one arguing that that was a disappointing performance, are they?

As I said before, this just seems like a logical time for people who are looking to cash in to do so, and would have remained so even if the Hulk movie had done Spider-Man business. It seems to me that most claims to the contrary–that the dump was due to disappointing box office–originate from one oft-quoted Bear Stearns analyst, Glen Reid, who you can find quoted here (in a Pulse article that bases its entire weak thesis on this one dude’s read of the market), as well as every other damn place that reported on the story.

The one aspect of the box-office-gloom theory that holds water is the fact that as this summer has made perfectly clear, franchise and tentpole movies need to make a goddamn killing the first weekend out, because in this blockbuster-packed 6,000-theater front-loaded movie climate, one week is often all you get to establish your strength and make almost half of your box. Variety’s dead-tree edition makes this case fairly effectively today.

Bottom line: Unless you’re making stuff up to get column inches and air time, or have an axe to grind with superheroes or superhero movies, it’s tough to spin this as anything but par for the (show)business-world course.