It is widely acknowledged that the summer of 2016 was not a typical season for mainstream blockbusters. However, a new report released by Bloomberg recently detailed the financial losses of various movie studios.

Bloomberg quoted data and forecasts from the film industry website The Numbers. They believe that the losses to movie studios should be around US$1 billion. Among them, the mediocre performance of blockbusters in theaters is more surprising than the inability of small films to attract large audiences. The poor box office of blockbusters is more surprising. The $915.6 million deficit forecast in the report is far higher than last year's $546.3 million.

“Overall this is bad,” Doug Creutz from investment banking group Cowen said, “We have been talking about the increasingly bad ecosystem in the film industry, and I think that trend has been reflected this summer. ”

"People aren't going to movie theaters as much as they used to be," Creutz continued. "The only way Hollywood can solve this problem is to cut the studios, and that's not going to happen." ”

The film with the worst box office performance is "Ben-Hur". Although there is some controversy, the report still estimates that the film lost $120 million (some say it was $75 million). Paramount Pictures also had disappointing results from "Star Trek Beyond" and "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows," with the former losing $75 million and the latter losing $65 million.

Although Disney's "The Giant" (a loss of $115 million), "Alice Through the Looking Glass" and "Peter's Dragon", three of the top 10 box office films of the year, all performed poorly in terms of profitability, "Finding Nemo: Dory and Where's Dory" and "Captain America: Civil War", the two best-performing films of the year so far, still allowed Disney to reap a net profit of approximately $521 million.

Other underperformers include Kubo and the Two Strings (a loss of $80 million) and the remade Ghostbusters (a loss of $58 million), although these figures remain controversial.

There are many reasons for poor box office profitability, including lack of sequels, the rise of online small-screen viewing, and poor reviews of movies. "Suicide Squad" has already earned $300 million, and despite negative reviews, audiences are still willing to go to theaters to see the movie.

Warner Bros.’s “The Conjuring 2,” “The Conjuring” and “Me Before You” performed well, and they all entered the top 10 box office lists this year.

(Translation: Wang Yinuo)