Tuesday, August 15, 2017

Report: Movie Box Office On Track for Lowest in 25 Years

Via Drudge:  Reports now, according to Exhibitor Relations: if things continue as they have, this will be the lowest box office in a quarter century. While there have been bright spots (“Dunkirk”) and surprises (“Baby Driver”) the failures have outweighed everything.

Start with a total write off on “King Arthur” and go from there. Then go to “The Dark Tower.”

One terrible new failure: “Nut Job 2,” they say, is the biggest loser ever in wide release (4000+) studio movie. It made just over $8 million this weekend.

Four years ago, at a USC symposium, famed and very successful directors George Lucas and Steven Spielberg warned the film industry that reliance on blockbusters– tent pole movies that failed would cause an implosion. At first no one took them seriously. But now maybe we’re seeing what they meant.

Spielberg said at the time: “That’s the big danger, and there’s eventually going to be an implosion — or a big meltdown. There’s going to be an implosion where three or four or maybe even a half-dozen mega budget movies are going to go crashing into the ground, and that’s going to change the paradigm.”

Other huge flops this year include “Life” — the sci fi movie no one saw, “Monster Trucks,” which was a monster disaster. “Ghost in the Shell” with Scarlett Johansson also came and went quickly. Plus Will Ferrell’s “The Office” was a total write off, and Sony’s “Rough Night” was an embarrassment.

I’m not counting the $100 million plus lost on “The Promise,” because it was a vanity production.

This year also brought Tom Hanks’s biggest flop in decades, “The Circle.” And of course there were the two misbegotten TV remakes– “Baywatch” and “CHiPs.”

Even blockbusters that seemed like hits weren’t — “Pirates of the Caribbean 5” was a bloated mess. And “Transformers 5” was so bad that critics wondered why it was made. “The Mummy” also reeked of failure and desperation.

Studios keep counting on international sales to bail them out. And it works a lot of the time. But continuing to send bad product from the US will eventually take its toll.

19 comments:

AllenS said...

They need new talent. The old actors suck, like Tom Hanks, suck.

Amartel said...

They're out of ideas and re-booting the re-boots at this point. Sometimes a format just runs out of creative juice. An hour and a half to tell a story is asking a lot, now (except in certain specific genres such as horror flicks). People are used to serialized story-telling, like on TV. So we get the bloated superhero dumbed down for foreign market blockbusters, which are boring, or random stuff that may or may not be good. The cartoon/kid movies are frequently pretty good. There are no new movie stars anymore; Hanks and the rest of them are leftovers from another era. TV became the hot entertainment delivery format starting in the 1990s, maybe before. Growing up in the 70s it was definitely the backwater of the entertainment industry. Maybe it's time for something new - or the further dispersion of entertainment formats. Give the movies space for a real re-boot before they come back.

Amartel said...

They remade CHiPs?
Good gawd, that's scraping the bottom of the barrel. Was there an work-related excuse surgically implanted into the storyline for the Ponch character to engage in disco dancing? (This happened every week on the TV show.)

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

beekuz movies suck and most of the actors and actresses in them are proggy group-think bubble dwelling elitist hypocrites. I have no interest in going to the movies. They can blow me.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Mission Impossible 264 is out soon. Get in line!

ricpic said...

"....dumbed down for foreign market[s]......"

That's the key. The decision to tailor films for foreign markets first and the American market a distant second led inevitably to action films with kindergarten plots and dialogue. Almost no adult fare out there so a big slice of the potential audience has been discouraged from regular moviegoing. Maybe the conglomerates that own the movie studios (among many other businesses) will get wise to the business plan mistake they've made, but most likely not because they're not movie people, they don't love moviemaking and therefore have no feel for what brings the folks in.

The Dude said...

Sol Hurok said “If people don’t want to come, nothing will stop them.”

ampersand said...

The last movie I saw in a theater was "the Grifters". That was 27 years ago. Even prior to that some patrons had become real slobs acting as if they were still in their living rooms.
I expect they have gotten worse. No point in going out for that.
I was lucky to have experienced the last of the movie palaces. 3000 seat behemoths probably hosting a dozen viewers. Most of the theaters that survive had less than a 1000 seats and those have been twinned, tripled or quadrupled. I understand that some of the screens are not much bigger than a big screen tv. Better to wait for the blu-ray to come out and borrow it from the library. The pop corn is affordable at home too.

edutcher said...

OK, think about it. All movies are based on comic books, old TV shows, old good movies. computer games, or amusement park rides, with a lot of CGI to paper over how lousy they are.

Or Lefty sneer fests at real people.

Four years ago, at a USC symposium, famed and very successful directors George Lucas and Steven Spielberg warned the film industry that reliance on blockbusters– tent pole movies that failed would cause an implosion

That was the case when they were starting out. Real movies, what's now known as the Silver Age of Movies, ended in the middle 60s.

Studios rely on at least one blockbuster every 2 or 3 years to survive. If not, well that's what happened to United Artists.

And that was 1980.

Leland said...

I watched Ghost in the Shell, and as a fan of anime; I thought it was pretty good. I got that those who saw the original, naturally compared it to the original, and didn't like it; but I never saw the original, so I didn't have that burden. I understand those that wouldn't like the genre anyway not liking it.

Otherwise, just saw Guardians of the Galaxy 2, which made me laugh.

Nothing else. Wife saw Wonder Woman and liked it. I'll probably see it soon enough. Not sure about the rest of the 2017 releases.

Chip Ahoy said...

I don't care.

La la la la la la.

Know what I care about?

Kind Soopers' good will in responsibly hiring people with special needs to fill jobs. It's charming. And it's helpful.

It took me a moment to realize the older gentleman collecting carts in the parking lot is retarded. About five seconds.

Their parking lot is ground level but with another parking lot above it so it seems underground. And it's sloped ridiculously steeply like this is San Francisco or something. It was full. I parked at the far end at the bottom so it was a very real abs workout keeping the trolly from rolling downhill. I love that.

Unpacking the trolly into the truck I hear a male voice behind me. He's speaking to me,

"Need any help with that I like coke too except I like cherry coke best I used to like regular Coke but now I like cherry Coke best I can help you load up your truck need your cart taken back when you are done I can drink six cherry Cokes in a one day my mother used to buy me all cherry Cokes all the time but my grandma wouldn't let me drink any because she said Cokes are bad for you no really I can help stack the bags in your truck I could drink regular Coke all day but now cherry Coke is better because they have cherries in it and those taste very good I like plain cherries to but I liked cherry Coke first because I heard of it first and real cherries have pits inside them you can punch holes in the boxes to carry the Cokes it makes it easier need any help with that I can help you I can help load your truck I used to drink lots of Cokes but now I don't drink Cokes so much plus cherry Cokes are better."

"I like to drink milk too."

"So do I drink milk all the time it's my favorite thing to drink better than Cokes I drank milk since forever and sometimes add chocolate and sometimes I drink the whole thing at one time and run out and then my mother has to buy more but I go glug glug glug glug glug glug glug glug until it the whole thing is gone because it just keeps going down without stopping like a continuous flow into my mouth because I can't put it down and I can't stop drinking until the whole thing is gone and I like the way that it's cold and milk comes out of a cow and you can add chocolate and turn it into chocolate milk and the cow just keep making more milk and I keep drinking the milk until it's gone and then switch to Cokes but now I like cherry Cokes because that has cherries in it and now I like regular cherries too except they have pits in them that you have to spit out."

So five seconds elapsed and I began to think this guy might be a little bit special.

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

When movies suck, less people go.

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

I like milkshakes at the movies. They are $5 milkshakes, but at least it is better than paying $5 for a popcorn or a soda that costs the theater about 25 cents. A milkshake is a reasonable value at $5.

It won't get me to go if the movie sucks. But if I do go, I get a milkshake. With whipped cream.

chickelit said...

Hollywood could make great films if they wanted to. But they don't want to. They cater instead to political correctness.

I'm glad film has lost the war against TV drama. They deserve to lose.

chickelit said...

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...I like milkshakes at the movies.

In Switzerland, we used to get beers at the Kino.

ndspinelli said...

Not ALL movies suck. There is indeed a dearth of good movies. But, they are out there. This past year, Hell or High Water is a superb movie that I think all here would like, to love. Other flicks in recent years; Hacksaw Ridge, American Sniper, Mystic River, Fences, American Hustle, Gran Torino, True Grit, Moneyball, Flags Of Our Father. I could go on. There are some great actors and actresses out there as well. Yes, the movies of our youth and our parent's lives are great and special. And yes, the % of good movies made in our youth was better than it is today. Many here have not seen any of these movies I list. You just like to whine.

Methadras said...

Hollywood continually churns out absolute shit lately. The right people aren't getting fucked.

ndspinelli said...

Meth, Hollywood does turn out a lot of shit. But not all is shit. That said, I read your list of favorite movies and we are disparate in our tastes.

ricpic said...

"You just like to whine."

Let's hear it for whining! It's my metier (to quote Jake Gittes in Chinatown -- the one line in that whole film that was "off" IMO).