As Hollywood sets its sights on the big awards season that’s about to kick off, the end of the year is also a time to review box office results, and in 2011 there were certainly some winners here in the U.S.
Not surprisingly, the biggest film of the past year was the final chapter of the Harry Potter saga. Harry Potter is an amazing franchise that sustained itself really well over ten years and eight movies, and we tip our cap to everyone involved in that series. At the same time, there were some surprises at the 2011 box office.
Several comedies made it into the top films of the year including Horrible Bosses, Bridesmaids and of course the comedy blockbuster of the year, The Hangover Part 2. Comic book heroes continued to thrive in 2011 as well, with Thor and Captain America both finding a large audience across America. Animation is always a winner too, and lots of the year’s top films came in that category with Pixar’s Cars 2 leading the pack. Other sequels that did huge business in 2011 included the latest Transformers film, the most recent Pirates of the Caribbean movie and Fast Five, the 5th film in the incredible Fast and Furious franchise.
There were some disappointments and surprises, too, over the past 12 months. Tron: Legacy, Little Fockers and The Green Lantern all were let-downs for their producers, while on the upside, no one really expected movies like The Help or Bridesmaids to each do so well… both did nearly $170 million dollars at the domestic box office.
And some of those films aren’t done yet as the awards season may add to some of those totals, but for now, that’s a look at some of the movie business highlights from 2011.
I’m Stephanie Simmons from Reelz where movie fans can watch TV about movies on DirecTV channel 238, Dish network 299 and cable systems nationwide. We’re online too at Reelz.com.