Brooks Barnes, last month:
A year ago, Hollywood watched in despair as Oscar-oriented films like “Licorice Pizza” and “Nightmare Alley” flatlined at the box office. The day seemed to have finally arrived when prestige films were no longer viable in theaters and streaming had forever altered cinema.
But studios held out hope, deciding that November 2022 would give a more accurate reading of the marketplace. By then, the coronavirus would not be such a complicating factor. This fall would be a “last stand,” as some put it, a chance to show that more than superheroes and sequels could succeed.
It has been carnage.
One after another, films for grown-ups have failed to find an audience big enough to justify their cost. “Armageddon Time” cost roughly $30 million to make and market and collected $1.9 million at the North American box office. “Tár” cost at least $35 million, including marketing; ticket sales total $5.3 million. Universal spent around $55 million to make and market “She Said,” which also took in $5.3 million. “Devotion” cost well over $100 million and has generated $14 million in ticket sales.
I’m confused why Hollywood is so confused by this. It’s almost like the pandemic delayed (or gave them an excuse to postpone) waking up to reality. There’s nuance here, but it’s also not rocket science.
Going forward, movie theaters are going to work (for the most part) for big budget spectacle films and/or some smaller scale films that are able to break through to the cultural zeitgeist. This may be because of a star or filmmaker involved. Or it may be because they’ve created enough buzz to “earn” their way to the big screen. Everything else should and will go to streaming. And that’s not the end of the world, it’s a more mass appeal platform, actually.
This is about more than money: Hollywood sees the shift as an affront to its identity. Film power players have long clung to the fantasy that the cultural world revolves around them, as if it were 1940. But that delusion is hard to sustain when their lone measuring stick — bodies in seats — reveals that the masses can’t be bothered to come watch the films that they prize most. Hollywood equates this with cultural irrelevancy.
And it’s worse than the above because they don’t actually tout “bodies in seats”, they still rely on box office (revenue), which is beyond misleading to the public and seems to be glossing over what is actually happening in Hollywood. Take the release of Avatar 2, for example. It’s a success, sure, in large part because it’s the aforementioned spectacle film. But it’s also not nearly as successful as Hollywood would like you to believe.
Oscar-oriented dramas rarely become blockbusters. Even so, these movies used to do quite well at the box office. The World War I film “1917” generated $159 million in North America in 2019 and $385 million worldwide. In 2010, “Black Swan,” starring Natalie Portman as a demented ballerina, collected $107 million ($329 million worldwide).
1917 (like Dunkirk before it) is a prime example of a movie you should see in theaters. Black Swan is perhaps the prime example of a movie that did a great job generating buzz ahead of its launch.
Again, this is not rocket science.
Here’s something I would like to see: a movie that starts on streaming and generates enough buzz that Hollywood moves it over to theaters. Now, this will only work if the theaters are actually good theaters, something you’d want to go to on a night out. But I think this could work! We recently watched Elvis on the small screen, but probably would have gone to see it at a theater if there was the right place and time to do so — even with it streaming. See also: Glass Onion. OBVIOUSLY.
Anyway, again, I don’t understand why this is so hard for Hollywood to understand. Other than that their jobs are tied to them not understanding.
The way to save theaters is to make movies that people want to see in theaters, and to make great theaters that people want to see those movies in. It really is that simple. But Hollywood is continually serving up the wrong content for that audience. And theaters are serving up a largely shitty experience for that audience. So…
