Is this the new normal for the box office?
Even with Barbie and Oppenheimer, summer movie ticket sales remain stubbornly below pre-pandemic levels—and they may stay that way
Film Features marvel
Although the 2023 summer movie season isn’t officially over until Labor Day, we feel pretty comfortable calling it now. As usual, the studios aren’t putting much effort into this final weekend, when the only new releases worth mentioning are the action-thriller sequel The Equalizer 3, a true crime mystery starring Hilary Swank called The Good Mother, and a couple of horror titles—All Fun And Games and Don’t Look Away—that wouldn’t hold up against stiffer competition in September or October.
None of those films are likely to change the story of this summer’s box office, yet another tale of a few big successes and a whole lot of also-rans, just like it’s been for a few years now. Maybe it’s time to stop expecting things to return to the way they were before 2020 and accept that some moviegoers simply aren’t coming back to theaters for anything but absolute “must see” events.
As we head into Labor Day weekend, the total grosses of all films released this summer stands at $3.8 billion, according to Box Office Mojo. While that’s a strong improvement over last year’s $3.1 billion, it’s still well below 2019’s pre-pandemic total of $4.3 billion. And if you take out the nearly $600 million made by Barbie and the $300 million earned by Oppenheimer since both films were released on July 21, this summer actually falls below 2022. Of course, last summer’s box office was bolstered by the smash success of Top Gun: Maverick, which had earned $700 million by this point in the year. That film opened in May and would go on to make almost twice as much as its closest summer competitor, Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness.
A continuing trend
Theater attendance has been slumping for years, of course, but the pandemic accelerated that trend. In part, people have gotten used to watching movies in the comfort and safety of their homes. At the same time, the period between a film’s theatrical run and its arrival on digital platforms is getting shorter. Even as Barbie is still selling tickets in theaters, it will be available to watch at home beginning September 5, just 45 days after its big-screen debut.
Looking ahead to the fall, we’d have said the film most likely to come close to Barbie’s success would be Dune: Part Two, but it’s been moved to the spring. That should help The Marvels by freeing up IMAX screens in November, but fans aren’t as quick to buy into the Marvel Cinematic Universe as they used to be. Even the controversial Captain Marvel reached $1 billion worldwide four years ago, something no MCU film without the name Spider-Man in its title has done since 2019. Don’t count on Disney to come to the rescue with its generic-looking animated musical Wish. And Martin Scorsese’s highly anticipated Killers Of The Flower Moon was produced by Apple, which means it will likely get a streaming date on Apple TV+ not long after its theatrical run.
The new theatrical reality
It’s also worth pointing out that Hollywood released 426 films in the summer of 2018 and 403 in 2019, while this summer saw just 197 titles arrive in theaters (even less than the 202 that landed in 2022). And with the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes currently impacting the production of films potentially slated for next year, there may be even fewer releases in 2024. There’s no way around the math of it—fewer movies in theaters means fewer ticket sales.
Here’s more obvious math for you: with fewer films in theaters, there’s less opportunity to make up for the bombs. For every Barbie, Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse, or Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 this summer, there was a No Hard Feelings, an Asteroid City, a Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken, a Joy Ride, and a Last Voyage Of The Demeter. There’s really no common thread among these films to explain their failure to connect with audiences—they’re different genres and budget levels, some were well-reviewed while others were panned. Their only common bond is that none of them felt like big, cinematic events that had to be experienced in a theater.
We don’t yet know what lessons Hollywood executives will take away from this summer, especially since they also have to worry about figuring out how to get writers and actors back to work. But the larger reality is that the habits of moviegoers are changing fast, and studio bosses and theater owners seem unable to keep up. That means attendance might never return to pre-pandemic levels, and Hollywood may just have to lower its expectations going forward.
87 Comments
For all the romanticism about seeing movies in the theater, it’s pretty clear that a significant portion of the movie-consuming population would much rather just watch at home, all things considered.When that involved driving back and forth to Blockbuster and watching a shitty VHS on a bulbous 25″ screen, there was still a lot of incentive for that crowd to go to theaters sometimes, but that’s really not the case anymore.
It’s not just romanticism, there is added value to seeing some movies in the theater, especially comedies and horror. At least there used to be. I’ve never laughed at home like I have in the theater, whatever the reason. And the biggest shock I ever experienced from a movie was the alien’s reflection in the TV from Signs, which I missed initially and only caught after being cued by the people around me.But the kind of indie drama stuff that everyone is decrying the lack of? Yeah, I’d rather watch that at home
Seeing smaller art films in theaters is the best, actually, because you’re (ideally) in a setting conducive to heightened awareness and concentration on the film, which art films especially demand. There aren’t the same possibilities for interruption as at home.
I don’t have anything like an arthouse theater near me. But I did go to the TCM FF a few years ago, and seeing classic films on the big screen was a treat. At the multiplex, the noise from adjoining theaters is too much of a distraction for me.
I always say that boring films are better in the theatre.
A movie theater is the best way to see EVERY movie. Not just ones with explosions.
A lot of comedies are more fun in the theater, but how many decent comedies actually get made these days? Barbie is the first high profile live action comedy in ages.
100%. The best theater experience I’ve ever had was Borat. People were crying, sliding out of their seats – it was mayhem. I watched it at home with some friends later and it was still funny, but nowhere near the same.
My ultimate example is Easy Money, the Rodney Dangerfield movie. I laughed so much in the theater I was winded. Literally minutes later, trying to recount the funny scenes to my mom, I couldn’t remember a thing.
Man now there’s a title I haven’t heard in a while!
I don’t know about the US situation but my American Sister in Law says Theatres there are pigstys and the audio isn’t proper in a lot of them. In Hong Kong they’re really well maintained overall so we have a pretty good cinema going audience.
My movie going desires have certainly changed. Unless I am truly wanting to have an event, I know that movie I would like to watch is going to be on a streaming service soon.
I used to really try to get to the movies once a month. It was a priority for me. But that stopped 20 years ago. It started with the distractions, mostly the phones. I started saying I would only go to the popcorn movies, watch the rest at home (on video, later streaming). Then there started being fewer popcorn movies I really wanted to see. And now, whether it’s actually gotten worse or I’m just more aware, the condition of the theaters is really the biggest issue. They’re filthy. You wouldn’t get on a bus that looks, or smells, like the average theater. Yeah, you can run a 24-plex with 3 people, but you can’t maintain it. So I haven’t been to the theater 6 times in 3 years, but it has nothing to do with the pandemic.
I worked in a theater as a teenager back in the 90s. Even with 10-15 people cleaning the auditorium after a packed showing of a movie, we could really only get rid of the worst of the garbage before the line of people waiting to get in for the next showing started to get impatient and demanding entry. We usually had less than 10 minutes before the complaints would start. To actually get each auditorium completely clean would take well over an hour and involve some pretty heavy mopping and vacuuming, so this was only done once a day after the theater closed for the night. I’ve barely even been to a movie theater in the past 15 years, so I have no idea if they still use a full crew to clean the theaters between showings.I guess it would be too much to ask for movie patrons to not eat like complete slobs and to wait a little longer before being allowed to enter the theater.
The spilled popcorn is one thing, judging by the smell there’s a lot more going on, and no amount of minimum wage personnel can really be expected to deal with it. Maybe asking drunk people and 5 year olds to sit for 2 hours was a mistake.
That’s pretty much why the theater I worked for hired a professional service for the overnight cleaning.
I worked at a big AMC theater from 2005-2009 and can confirm the auditoriums (and the theater as a whole) were only thoroughly cleaned at night. For our main screens (between 400-500 seats), we would get someone to run a push broom down every aisle and then everyone else would sweep it up with porter pans. Smaller screens were usually cleaned more thoroughly. If the turnaround was especially fast, we would sometimes have to do what we called “the tuck,” which was… literally just sweeping things far enough under the seats so they couldn’t be seen. Mops only came out for big spills or gross stuff (vomit, dip spit, etc).As a side note, this is why you’re an asshole if you stay for the whole credits. We would have to wait for your cineaste ass to GTFO before we could begin cleaning, which would delay everything and not only cause problems for THAT screen, but all the others we were supposed to be cleaning. Our floor schedules based the runtimes (and, thus, when they were supposed to be over) with trailers included, but credits NOT included, so even if there wasn’t already a short turnaround, waiting for 15-20 minutes as some chud stares at the credits would certainly cause one.
Yup, that was exactly my experience working at an AMC multiplex about a decade before you, except that we would start cleaning as soon as the credits began, then picked up the pace by the time the majority of people left the theater.
Where on earth are you going/do you live? I’ve honestly never encountered anything remotely that bad. Try your smaller chains or independent theaters if you’ve got them.
Same – the two theaters near me are generally spotless. Also helps that both serve beer and cocktails.
And they’ve pretty much all gone to recliners and reserved seating as well.
Yeah one of the two is a Studio Movie Grill, which is all recliners, has a full cocktail menu and the food is actually pretty good. Not cheap, but it’s a completely different experience from the typical moviegoing outing.
Man, I used to love Studio Movie Grill. But now it’s gotten to the point where it’s actually a pretty disruptive cinema experience, with all the clanging silverware, loud whispering as people order, and the servers constantly coming back and forth, (never bending down) blocking the screen.
Even our Regal (once kind of the sketchiest of theaters near me) has gone to the recliners/actual food treatment. And one (but only one unfortunately) of the theaters inside sells alcohol (but in a bar inside it and only for showings after 9pm)
Yeah, I don’t know if my theaters are nicer or my public transportion is worse, but even the least fancy theater I’ve been to is cleaner than a city bus.
I suspect people who say things like “you wouldn’t get on a bus that looks or smells like that” aren’t the type of person who uses public transit much or at all so they don’t have much in the way of comparison.
Ominous trailer voice: “It started with the distractions, mostly the phones…”
I think part of the thing with people only coming to the movies for “must see events” is that everything that comes out tries to be a must see event. So Hollywood only released less than 50% of the number of movies that they did in summer 2019, but they still tried to release a bunch of blockbusters. So that makes me think they released a lot fewer comedies, dramas and basically anything that wasn’t a big budget franchise movie. The only comedy I can think of that got released this summer is No Hard Feelings with Jennifer Lawrence.
The problem is that every studio is chasing the same formula – a couple of major tentpole releases that provide most of the revenue for the year. That might work if everyone else is putting out smaller-budget films, but what we have now is Major Events and small-budget fare. The middle has been hollowed out, where you used to find all kinds of quality movies. How many classic action movies were middle-budget releases? The Fugitive, Point Break, In the Line of Fire…how many of those action films do we get today?
That has been happening for a while, and certainly seems like it is getting worse. The big blockbusters are getting bigger and more expensive and the little movies are getting tiny. So there is a bigger in-between range of movies that don’t exist. Like looking at box office mojo for July and August, where are the date movies? There aren’t really an comedies (romantic or otherwise), mid budget action or suspense/thriller movies or even basic dramas. So what do people go see on a date if one of the people going doesn’t like see a big action movie, a kids movie or some other franchise thing?
Yep. Like a lot of commenters on here I used to go to the movies regularly because there was pretty much always something there worth seeing, and much of it was middle-budget productions.
To my knowledge, no one produces the relatively cheap teen rom com for theaters anymore. Every now and them I get a nostalgia infused trip looking around for a “today’s John Hughes films” and as far as I can tell, only Netflix really makes them now.
The only comedy I can think of that got released this summer is No Hard Feelings with Jennifer Lawrence.Perhaps you’ve heard of this little indie gem called fucking BARBIE?!? Also there was Asteroid City, The Blackening, Joy Ride, Haunted Mansion, Strays, and Bottoms. Sounds like you just weren’t paying attention lol.
THIS: “accept that some moviegoers simply aren’t coming back to theaters for anything but absolute “must see” events.”Also, the studios haven’t realized yet that superhero movies outside of Batman and Spider-Man are no longer “must see” events, at least not to the tune of being able to justify $200 million plus budgets. the problem is I’m not sure how many “must see” movies the public is really up for in a given year, and i dunno if theaters can get by on just a few big movies a year if the rest are mostly just showing to empty theaters
The casual night at the movie theater, where you had a choice of several genres, was largely killed by the nearly constant emphasis on super hero and sci fi blockbusters over the past decade. I used to go the theaters sometimes not knowing what I wanted to see until looking over the choices. This stopped when my choices were mostly “A super hero movie, another super hero movie, a Transformer movie, random alien invasion movie, crappy Disney live action remake, yet another superhero movie, and the first super hero movie on IMAX.”Now, I only go to the theater if I know beforehand exactly what I want to see, and that isn’t often at all.
It kills me as a longtime moviegoer that several of the major releases every year are going to be part of some massive franchise that I’ll never catch up with. Not being a comic book / superhero guy, that doesn’t leave a lot. It’s probably also why Barbie and Oppenheimer crushed it – people who would skip every Marvel release finally felt they had something inventive to go see.
It used to be that any day of the week you could choose between Prognosis Negative, Sack Lunch, Muted Heart, or Chunnel. Now it’s just Death Blow all the time, while classy foreign faire like Rochelle Rochelle only plays in big cities.
I will gladly pay 19.99 for 2nd week streaming releases.I will pay 29.99 for 2nd week streaming releases.Look, My TV and Sound is nice enough now that with the exception of some movies, I dont need to in an RPX or IMAX seat.At home, I get my couch, my food, my lack of rando fuckos around me doing who knows…and I get the ability to pause for my said food, the ability for my wife to go to the restroom,(every dang time!), and the ability to start the fucking thing when we want.I get the idea of “its meant to be seen in the theater”…yea great, and i do will for some. But not every movie needs to be, so if they want to capitalize on on cash between First month, and then 3rd month streaming service numbers. Put that shit up for 10-20 bucks after 7-14 days. Because right now, stuff thats not worth going to the theater for i just wait for it to hit a service after 30-60-90
In the 80-90 I went to the movie theater at least 1-2 times a month. Saw many of the classic movies of those decades. In the 2000’s I even did the moviepass thing. I loved the reserve your leather reclining seat thing. I am now just done. The big must see things are now just reboots, live action remakes and superhero crap that you need to see 20 movies, 2 video games and 3 tv shows to understand. I have seen 2 movies in the theater since covid and one was Oppenheimer. The movie theater palaces with bars and 20 screens and 4 popcorn and candy areas feel like ghost towns of a lost era. Things change. TV changed movies, the internet changed movies, streaming changed movies. A new normal will emerge that will be different and even that will change someday.
The real problem keeping people from going to theaters is that they’re fucking expensive. Which is unfortunately the result of a chicken-and-egg cycle between studios and theaters where studios keep making movies with higher and higher budgets, forcing theaters to make tickets pricier and thus forcing them to jack up the price of all their snacks/drinks just to stay financially solvent…The studio heads need to realize that hey, not every movie needs to have a multi-billion dollar price tag and maybe we can turn this trend around.Of course there’s much to be said about streaming’s effect on the market but I generally believe first on the list of problems keeping people from going to theaters is price.
not every movie needs to have a multi-billion dollar price tagThe problem is that with substantially better home viewing setups, those are about the only movies that compel a theatre viewing. I would much rather watch smaller dramas and comedies at home, where I don’t have to pay exorbitant prices for snacks, and I can pause the viewing for a bathroom break (something that grows in importance as I age and films just keep getting longer).
Yep, home theaters are only getting better and cheaper as time goes by. I’ll bet lots of people trapped in their homes during the pandemic upgraded their set ups. The theater offers little to the experience beyond being able to see the movie sooner, which is why only the really big tent poles still have the earning power that they had back in the day.
I have a decent setup but still find the theater experience much more immersive. If I’m watching something that I really want to be drawn in to then not having the dogs jump on me or whatever 100 other at-home distractions I have to deal with pop up, I prefer theater every time.
Fortunately I can usually watch a movie at home with very few distractions that I can’t ignore. I do still like to see big scale films in a theatre, but I struggle with the ever increasing length of films. I went to see the latest Mission Impossible film in a theatre, but I just can’t deal with a 2+ hour film with no bathroom break unless I avoid all liquids for hours ahead of time. Getting old sucks. I’ll probably wait until I can watch Oppenheimer at home because of that. If studios would re-introduce the intermission I would certainly opt for more movies in theatres.
This right here. My home set-up is pretty sweet, add in a pause button, my own food and control over the air-conditioning, well, there needs to be a pretty compelling argument of why I should go see it in the theaters when the main thing I lose in waiting is, well, time spent waiting.
I avoid the expensive snack prices by…not buying snacks.
I would totally avoid movie snacks as well, but my wife simply can’t enjoy a movie theatre without some popcorn and candy. Fortunately, she’s as frugal as I am, and is willing to pack up and carry the “Movie Purse” when we do go to a theatre. But those prices do impact a lot of other people.
There’s something to this, as last weekend’s $4-dollar “National Cinema Day”, saw the largest crowds I’ve seen at the movies all year, some folks even making a day of it.
Yeah I went to see Blue Beetle (something I’d never have watched full price) and Jurassic Park 3D and just made a day out of it. (Almost went for 3 and did Mission Impossible but I figured a straight day where my only nutrition was raisinets would be bad for me). The line at my local theater was easily the longest I’ve literally ever seen in my life.
Price is seriously the biggest problem. I don’t mind going to movies by myself, but if I go see even a standard movie, buy popcorn and a drink, I’m sitting at close to $30
Is Last Voyage of the Demeter good or bad…? AV Club pick a side dammit.
I found the Snyder fans boycotting The Flash to be HILARIOUS because everyone was like “let’s not give them our money so that they make MORE films for us!!” And it’s like I’m sorry…. what? lol. Why would WB wanna do that now…? The best one was a guy being like “I don’t understand why they aren’t making a Keaton Batman Beyond film”. It’s like…. idiot, if your not gonna give them money the first time they give you old Keaton Batman why do you think they’d produce more…? There’s this weird idea that Hollywood owes us these films when they really really don’t. The other one is when MCU detractors complain that because those films are getting made some artsy film isn’t getting made (not at all how Hollywood works)… it’s like fine if you wanna predict the downfall of the MCU soooo badly here’s a ball and go entertain yourself out back because now they’re isn’t movies anymore. Fucking morons
Ah the old “THEATRES ARE ONLY FOR SUPERHERO FLICKS” bullshit.
A lot of people say that ticket prices have essentially paces with inflation on average, and while that may be true, it’s overlooking the fact that the cost of distribution is way, way cheaper. If a movie was playing in 4000 theaters you needed to transport thousands of canisters of film to those theaters. That shit was expensive. Now, for most theaters, it’s literally downloading from a hard drive. Rather than passing at least some of this massive savings onto the consumer, distributors are investing into every way they can think of to keep ticket prices up. 3D was the first salvo. Then AMC Prime, 4DX, reclining seats, dine-in theaters, etc. Anything they can do to charge us more. And I get it. Because studios are spending double of their already inflated budgets on absurd marketing costs and so they’re squeezing the theaters as much as they can. Until costs go down across the board the cycle will continue. Maybe with the massive bombs of 2023 studios and distributors will learn that.
Rather than passing at least some of this massive savings onto the consumer, distributors are investing into every way they can think of to keep ticket prices up. 3D was the first salvo. Then AMC Prime, 4DX, reclining seats, dine-in theaters, etc. Anything they can do to charge us more. Obviously theaters want to maximize their revenue but the new bells and whistles are also an attempt to make even the most run of the mill release seem like an event in order to get people the hell off their couches. If there is a lesson to be learned from this summer it’s that successful movies need to be communal experiences outside the traditional draw of big screen. Screens are plenty big at home. No one really complained at the cost of a ticket or the conditions of the theater when they were able to put on their favorite pink and sparkly outfits, meet up with their friends and see a movie as part of a larger fun time out. Humans are still social animals and we want to have common social experiences, but those goalposts move all the time and it’s up to studios and distributors to be creative and keep up with changing tastes.
I don’t know if the “in line with inflation” claim holds water, but what I do know is taking my family to the theater is easily a $100+ undertaking. “Hey, wanna grab a movie?” has become a bigger decision about how we want to spend our money.
This is from NATO (the other one)https://www.natoonline.org/data/ticket-price/I’d imagine the major problems with this are:1) Enormous regional differences – $20 tickets in NY and LA that absolutely outpace inflation versus cheap tickets in the sticks. I’d imagine the variance wasn’t that wide until more recently.2) Not factoring in convenience fees for sites like Fandango when buying online.3) The off-hour and off-day deals theaters do which bring the average downI’d be curious to see a primetime, first-run ticket now versus back in the day.
Well a $5 ticket in 1990 would now be $11.30 at 2.5% annual inflation. A ticket to Equalizer 3 at my local mall cinema is $13, so it’s really not terrible, but does not include the online “convenience” fee and the like. Granted when I was a kid we did a LOT of $2 second-run cinemas, which don’t exist anymore. Concessions is where they continue to kill you.
“This is from NATO (the other one)“.Man, they must get some intense wrong number calls. “Sir, I agree entirely that something needs to be done about Russia’s immoral war on Ukraine, but again, that’s not really what we do here.”
“Now, for most theaters, it’s literally downloading from a hard drive.”This also means there’s no justification for a second-run theater. Any place can screen a movie on release day.
… And here come all the fatuous commenters disparaging the theatrical experience for any number of facile, inane reasons…
Oh, they already arrived, of course.
And here comes, a complete douche! Welcome, assface!
People like you are why I don’t go to theaters. And by that I mean obnoxious assholes. Is that a facile or inane reason?Just kidding, I don’t care what you think.
I mean, I can totally get that in some areas of the world the theatre experience is pretty bad. It’s not gonna be the same everywhere. Here in Belgium, at least in my city? The cinemas are varied and clean, and the cinema-going public is generally polite and displays good cinema-etiquette. Like, we had a packed house during the Blade Runner: 2049 with a very varied audience, but you could still hear a pin drop during certain moments. But during more typical crowd pleasers like Barbie or the few Marvel movies I watched in theatres it was generally a trouble-free experience. I’m well aware that that’s not necessarily the norm though, not even in my own country let alone internationally. It’s not a comfortable experience everywhere. Those people disparaging the cinema-going experience aren’t necessarily wrong.
There seems to be a sense that it’s all superheroes and remakes. However, here’s what’s at my nearby cineplex todayBarbie
Blue Beetle
Elemental
Gran Turismo
Haunted Mansion
Indiana Jones
Mission Impossible
Oppenheimer
Retribution
Strays
TMNT
Equalizer 3
The HillOne remake (Haunted Mansion — I can’t consider M:I and Equalizer to be remakes at this point) and two superheroes if you count TMNT. There are actually more “true story” dramas there than superheroes.Oh, you can also see Jurassic Park for $5 apparently.
You’re kinda burying the lede here. Not counting Barbie or adaptations of books, you have 7 out of 13 that are either sequels or are otherwise based on existing properties.
While that’s true, I was referring to comments here, and no one complained about sequels.
Yes. I haven’t gone to a movie theater since 2019 and I have no plans to ever go to one again. Every movie I could ever want to watch is available on my TV; I have a well set up TV/seating area; and I don’t pay for markup on snack/drinks.There is no reason to go overpay for a shitty experience surrounded by shit people.
“the total grosses of all films released this summer stands at $3.8 billion…
While that’s a strong improvement over last year’s $3.1 billion, it’s
still well below 2019’s pre-pandemic total of $4.3 billion.”Er, 3.8 is closer to 4.3 than it is to 3.1, but your prose seems to be implying the reverse?
That quote isn’t saying the thing you think it said.It’s saying this year’s gross is more than last year, but still not close to 2019.
Yeah, seems like you could just as easily frame this as “we’re not quite back to pre-pandemic levels, but we’re definitely trending in that direction.”
In general, yes, but I’d bet Wish makes a lot of money. Nothing else coming out for kids around the holidays… I’d expect it’s gonna be kinda like a bigger Elemental where it doesn’t open huge and then just continues to make money worldwide for the rest of the year.
“And if you take out the nearly $600 million made by Barbie and the $300 million earned by Oppenheimer since both films were released on July 21, this summer actually falls below 2022.”I’m genuinely confused by the point you’re trying to make here. Is July 21st not…in summer? Also, had to laugh at the inclusion of Asteroid City in the list of summer box office flops. Was literally anyone expecting the latest Wes Anderson joint to set the box office on fire? Modestly doubling a modest $25 million budget is just about the prototypical Wes Anderson movie performance. Royal Tenenbaums, Moonrise Kingdom, and Isle of Dogs performed a little better; Rushmore, Life Aquatic, Darjeeling Limited, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and French Dispatch performed worse (significantly worse in the case of all but Dispatch). The only outlier is Grand Budapest Hotel, which somewhat inexplicably made $175 million back in 2014, but that’s still nowhere close to Barbenheimer money.
The “since” is referring to time, not indicating cause. It breaks down to “And if you take out the [earnings of Barbie and Oppenheimer since they were released], this summer actually falls below 2022.”
But that’s still an inane argument. Once you take the two top grossing movies out of the equation, the 2023 total box office is lower than the 2022 total box office…well, duh. I don’t really see why specifying the post-July 21st timeframe adds anything. If you arbitrarily delete Avengers Endgame from the 2019 box office than 2023 beat the pre-pandemic peak!
Oh I agree it’s a weird comparison to make. I think July 21 was just mentioned to note that both movies premiered recently and are still earning, but it’s kind of a clunky sentence.
I think GBH beimg so successful isn’t really all that inexplicable. It was loosely based on a mashup of several works of Stefan Zweig, so it had an additional audience in addition to Wes Anderson fans. My parents in their 80s saw it and enjoyed it even though they had been baffled by the attraction of Wes Anderson films like The Royal Tenenbaums that I had taken them to before.
If you build it, they will come.
The biggest issue is the average CONSOOOMER is a fucking moron incapable of appreciating anything that isn’t a giant explosions MEGAMOVIE. the kind of imbecile who makes a soyboy face for every picture. Cinema is dead as it once was because the average adult is a fucking dunce.
So many things have changed since the first commercial screening of a film in 1895. We live sci-fi lives today compared to those days; we can store multiple films on a device that fits into our palms and watch them on it. It’s only natural that the habit of going into a dark theatre with strangers to see a story told through moving images also change. If nothing else, each passing year more people will lose this habit just simply because of what the advancing technologies bring. Eventually not only movie-going but most probably movie viewing or even the concept of a movie will change completely. As we talk about the summer box office the future is shaping up. Those who have their eyes on the future will make a fortune when it arrives and those who keep on with the old will see their fortune diminish.
Why do you guys always talk about “the movies maybe don’t grab so much attention” or “people prefer the comfort of their homes” and never mention that it is more difficult to go to the cinema because of the closures, because of the consolidation that makes the same film appear on every screen (with one small exception with that kid’s one which is shown at 6 pm) and because in general the experience nowadays is way worse with worse screens, no attendants and smaller venues?
Might as well dot-point the reasons, even though we all probably know them:1. People have really good home theatre set-ups these days and usually more than one streaming service. Why go out if you can watch everything at home?2. Movies are too expensive to go to. If Mom and Dad want to take their two kids to my local multiplex to see the new TMNT movie, it’s gonna set them back AU$98.00. Before getting an overpriced box of popcorn, drinks, and refreshments which probably won’t last before the trailers end. That makes the movies a sometimes thing at best.3. Movies are too long. For Christ’s sake filmmakers, not every movie needs to be 2.5 hours. What happened to a tight ninety?4. All the movies feel like they’re the same. Just a collection of interchangeable light-fantasy CGI-action mostly-superhero quip-fests remakes and reboots and retreads. (They aren’t literally all this, to be fair, but when the movies that mostly get all the money and the oxygen are these kind of movies, it’s hard not to feel like this is the case.) And yes, we’ve had action movies and fantasy movies and movies based on books/comics/TV shows/ whatever and blockbusters and the like since forever and not every movie released is going to be a classic of cinema. But everything definitely feels a lot more homogenous now. Say what you will about movies in the ‘80s, but if you look at, say, 1985, if nothing else Back to the Future was a different cinematic experience to Rambo: First Blood Part Two to in a way that The Flash and Quantumania and SHAZAM 2 are not. I quickly got a bit tired of all the Barbenheimer stuff, but to give it some credit: if nothing else it at least felt like something different.4a. Yes, yes, I know, “people will only go to see movies that feel like events these days!” But (a) I don’t think that’s necessarily true, and (b) even if it is, then if every movie is an event movie, then no movie is an event movie. And that’s especially true if every movie feels like it’s the same event movie.5. Cinematic universes feel like homework. Going to the movies shouldn’t feel like an obligation, especially in light of points 1-4. Again, granted, sequels are nothing new, but if you feel like you have not only watch the last movie but also all the other movies in the current phase along with all the D+ series just to feel like they’re ‘up to date’, guess what? They’re gonna start doing that shit from home, where it’s cheaper.
5a. This is more specific to Disney, but: there’s too much Marvel and Star Wars shit. And this isn’t just a problem for people who don’t like Marvel and Star Wars. Because you know why new Star Wars movies felt like event sin the 1990s and the early ‘10s, regardless of how good or not they ended up being? Because literal decades had passed since we got the last ones. But when every semi-obscure entry on Wookiepedia is getting it’s own eight-episode limited run series every other month so we can finally, finally solve the age-old riddle of where Grand Moff Tarkin left his spare keys, it all begins to feel a lot less special. You say you want massive sprawling intertwined universes where all your favourite obscure characters finally get their time to shine? Trust me, you actually don’t. Because this is what happens.1. is a hurdle, but not necessarily an insurmountable one; cinemas have faced the problem of people staying at home for audiovisual entertainment since TVs showed up en mass in the ‘50s, and they’ve always managed to adapt. Because it turns out that people do like leaving their homes from time to time, and one of the things they occasionally like doing is sitting in a dark room watching flickering lights on a massive wall, whether or not those flickering lights involve pixels exploding. Everything else is totally within the power of Hollywood.
Yes to all of these, but I feel like 4a in particular is something more people should home in on.
I hope so.The numbers films are chasing has gotten out of control. Making a billion used to be the rare, and it’s starting to feel commonplace. If lower box office returns is the new normal, that might actually be a good thing, because it would necessitate that studios lower the budgets of these films so they stop losing money.
It’s not even that making a billion is commonplace, it’s that more movies come out where due to budget, marketing and, I don’t know, needs for investor growth, anything less than a billion is “failure”, and… that’s just not reasonable nor sustainable. Like, if your metrics make grossing $500 million worldwide a “flop”, your metrics are wrong.
quit charging me $20+ for popcorn and a soda PLUS the price of a ticket and get people to shut up doing a movie and I might go back. Until then I’ll wait until it comes out on digital rental and pay $8 and watch it on my big screen TV and eat snacks from my fridge. This is not rocket science.
Lengthen the window before streaming.
Lower promotion budgets.
Greenlight more low-budget stuff that makes profit very easily.
Slash CEOs’ pay.
And, perhaps most importantly, BE PATIENT. It’s gonna take probably another 10 years before the box office reaches 2019 levels again, no matter what you do.