The lackluster opening for ‘Pixels’ highlights Sony’s former co-chair Amy Pascal’s weak slate (‘Chappie,’ ‘Aloha’), as Sony slips to last place in major studio market share. Now, successor Tom Rothman will be challenged as he bets on Meryl Streep and Robert Zemeckis.
In November, as she attempted to revive Sony Pictures’ fading fortunes, Pascal emailed a note to her chief lieutenant Doug Belgrad. Assessing Sony’s lineup for 2015, she wrote, in all caps, “THERE ARE TOO MANY DRAMAS/NOT ENOUGH TENTPOLES/NO OBVIOUS BREAKOUT HITS.”
Those words would prove to be more than a little prescient. More than halfway through 2015, Sony barely is hanging on at the box office. The studio has fallen to seventh place in domestic market share — behind the five other majors and Lionsgate — with a mere $247 million in grosses, just 3.74 percent of the total pie.
