By Gary Symons
TLL Editor in Chief
This has been the year of the Big Flop, as multiple Hollywood ‘tentpole’ blockbusters have failed to break even at the box office.
That’s led some—including yours truly—to fear the end of the cinema experience is near, but there’s another explanation that actually makes more sense.
When you actually look at the data for overall box office figures, it appears the cinema business is doing fine, but typical Hollywood blockbusters are not.
Certainly, there are a number of films that just about everyone thought would do well this summer, but instead collapsed like a badly cooked souffle.
For example, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny cost $300 million to make, and brought back Harrison Ford for his final appearance in the titular role, but it now looks like it won’t even earn half the money it took to produce. Warner saw its superhero offerings Black Adam and Shazam! Fury of the Gods flop earlier in the year, but the most tragic example is the utter failure of The Flash; a film that many had touted as possibly the top film of the year and “the greatest superhero film of all time.” Instead, the troubled film may earn the title of greatest comic book movie flop of all time, and could also predict tough times ahead for the entire DC franchise.
Disney has also suffered at the box office this year, as recent Marvel films have failed to ignite any real interest, and the Pixar film Elemental fell flat, posting the second worst opening weekend in the studio’s history.
But against that litany of underperforming blockbusters is another key data point. In short, overall box office figures are looking pretty good.
Believe it or not, the theater company Cineplex is reporting its earnings so far this year are very close to their pre-pandemic performance. Revenues have reached 98% of the numbers reported in 2019, which was a very good year for film. Better yet, some of the most anticipated films of the year haven’t lit up the screens yet, so 2023 does have the potential to meet or beat pre-pandemic numbers. For example, the critically acclaimed films Barbie and Oppenheimer are getting a huge amount of buzz from critics and filmgoers alike, and Cineplex is reporting it’s already pre-sold 130,000 tickets.
Wes Anderson’s quirky Asteroid City has also done well, beating out the Grand Budapest Hotel as the director’s highest grossing film to date. Perhaps most importantly, the Tom Cruise spy flick Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning is expected to ride the coat tails of the actor/producer’s megahit Top Gun: Maverick, and could easily become the top film of the year. In fact, the new Mission Impossible has already set an attendance record for its advance screenings, and the film has a lot of buzz.
The question is, if the box office is doing so well, why are many of the most expensive blockbusters doing so poorly?
Simply put, I think it’s because audiences aren’t buying what the studios are selling. In particular, as Disney CEO Bob Iger has theorized, it may be that audiences have reached a level of ‘superhero fatigue’ that makes people unwilling to pull out their wallets for yet another Marvel update, or yet another story born from the Star Wars universe. Note that this year, the films doing well are typically live action movies focused on acting and stunt work, and stories that are generally based in our real world.
It makes sense when you consider the era of big sci-fi blockbusters really started with the original Star Wars film in 1977. At the time, it was by far the most successful film in box office history, and for almost a half century now studios have been pursuing the next big special effects blockbuster.
Marvel’s incredible success in turning comic book superheroes into box office gold only accelerated the process, but today, it appears that audiences, fed a steady diet of Star Wars, Marvel and DC both on the big screen and on TV, have finally hit a saturation point. After all, consider that for DC, there have not only been a large number of films, but also a huge number of TV series in the so-called ‘Arrowverse’ from the US network the CW. Marvel and Star Wars have both followed suit, churning out more films every year, but also producing several series on Disney+. There’s so much content around the MCU and Star Wars now, all of it linked to the ongoing central story line, that keeping up with the story is starting to feel like homework.
As well, the trend has forced the studios to bring in characters that aren’t well known to most people. I mean, sure, pretty much everyone knows who Batman, Superman, Captain America and Spiderman are, but did most of us know about Echo, Ms. Marvel or Black Adam before they were promoted by their studios?
All of this likely means the studios are due for a major change in what they produce in coming years, but, is that really a bad thing?
Studios obviously don’t want a major flop on their hands, but it’s also true that when certain types of films start to fail, it’s usually a sign that audiences are looking for something different. It may be that audiences are telling filmmakers that they only have so much appetite for a superhero universe, and now they’re in the mood for something else. As well, cinema-goers tend to skew older these days, so it may also be a trend that films aimed either for adults or for parents with kids will do better than superhero films aimed at teenagers and young adults, who simply are not flocking to theaters anymore.
When Iger says Disney may have over produced films and series from the MCU and Star Wars, I tend to agree, but I would also go farther.
It appears in general that audiences are looking for different stories. That might mean Marvel or DC can put out one or two superhero films a year, but in general, Hollywood is going to have to put on their thinking caps and focus on new stories, with new characters, that will once again capture the imagination of the movie-going audience. As well, studios may have to refocus their thinking, and realize that filmmaking is not just about the next billion dollar film, but rather, about also putting out quality films that don’t cost as much, and still make a good profit margin.
And if they do that, I would argue the failure of recent blockbusters could be a very good thing indeed.
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