Flasz On Film

Hollywood is in financial trouble. Insofar as the big companies are all diversified conglomerates, the Disneys, Paramounts, and Warnerses aren’t necessarily on the verge of collapse. Their merchandising, licensing agreements, and other revenue streams likely have them on solid-enough long-term footing. On the movie exhibition side of the big picture, though, some theatre chains could very well be on the way out. How could this be, as things are finally being reported as returning to normal? Easy. No one is going to cinemas any more. They just aren’t, especially in North America, despite the sugar-coating of the industry news and apparent denial coming from the industry itself.

Recently, the much anticipated Dune: Part Two landed in theatres to sell its Spice, and the Chalamet film did so to the tune of $82.5M on its opening weekend in North America. Entertainment news outlets celebrated with articles discussing the film’s triumph and a certain amount of relief that another meaningful blockbuster was finally occupying multiple screens at the local megaplex. It was successful, yes. Hooray. However, a lot of that success—and what few people are talking about—lies buried under the inflated ticket prices as opposed to beneath the realities of sold out theatres and queues for tickets stretching around the block. By way of comparison, ten years ago, Warner Bros. released The Lego Movie, which was not a massively anticipated title at the time like Dune 2. The distinctively animated film had a traditional promotional campaign for a month or two beforehand, plus the obvious merchandising crossover with the popular building blocks. Point is, it just popped up at the box office one weekend with minimal marketing fuss, and it made it $69.0M. Based on ticket prices then and today (and I’m using data from the work done by the good folks at the-numbers.com), The Lego Movie outsold Dune: Part Two by almost 800,000 tickets. Dune is supposed to be a Box Office tentpole in 2024, but it is playing out like the equivalent of a 2014 hit-of-the month. Similarly, the next week, Kung Fu Panda 4 skadooshed into theatres, and movie news websites reported the good news story that the Jack Black animated film earned a solid $58.0M opening weekend in the US and Canada. Comparatively, sixteen years ago, the original film made approximately the same amount ($60.0M) in its opening weekend, and that total—after factoring in today’s inflated ticket prices—represents nearly three million more tickets sold than this new, fourth instalment. The times, they are a-changing.

Plenty has been made of blaming Covid for the movie industry’s ills, and of late, accusatory fingers have also been wagged at the actors’ and writers’ strikes in 2023 for slowing down productions and releases. Those are significant and impactful events, to be sure, but let’s be honest. The writing’s been on the wall for a while now. The signs have been there for years.

In 2019, Disney’s movie honchos thumbed their noses at the competition and ran all the way to the bank. They ended the year with a Frozen sequel and the successful five-year run of the latest Star Wars trilogy. Pixar released a third sequel to its flagship film, Toy Story, and the live-action CGI reboot crew took on and released a successful remake of another Disney cornerstone, The Lion King. Earlier in the year, the MCU climaxed with the conclusion to its Phase Three shenanigans with one of the biggest money-making films of all time, Avengers: Endgame. Furthermore, Old Walt’s shop was developing its own streaming platform. That was 2019. Regrettably, the world fell apart in 2020, but it did, more or less, resurface again in 2022. Unfortunately, filmgoing audiences didn’t return, except for the occasional hit or nuclear physicist-plastic doll portmanteau. For some time now, the entertainment industry pundits keep saying, “theatres haven’t returned to pre-pandemic levels”, as if the expectation is that they will but just haven’t bothered yet. What no one is saying is that the economic realities of getting customers to leave the house to go someplace to be entertained appears to be a problem for the movie sector only. Fans are gathering in open spaces again. They’re going to sporting events, concerts, Friday night trivia at the pub, and monster truck extravaganzas. Broadway audiences were slow to return, but even they’re almost back up to their pre-pandemic admissions.

To begin with, 2019 is probably an unfair benchmark to begin a comparative study. Of course, that size of movie audience hasn’t returned. In 2019—at least over at Disney— they were dealing with an embarrassment of riches. Covid or not, 2020 was going to be a reset year since several mega-franchises had climaxed all at once. Even with that, the pandemic simply accelerated downward market trends that were already entrenched within the movie-going world—trends that were barely visible behind Thanos’ ruby-studded magic mitten and all the money that was being generated by Elsa, Hobbs & Shaw, and Pennywise. Even as audiences everywhere enjoyed the menu of blockbuster film offerings of 2019, it was a ‘last supper’ of sorts. The world’s viewing habits were steadily shifting away from the big screen.

Firstly, the film side of Hollywood’s business model had spent this century doubling down on a handful of trends, most having to do with branding and merchandising corporate entities such as Marvel, DC, Jurassic Park, Minions, etc., rather than sellable genres, bankable movie stars, or original ideas. For some reason, studio execs felt these brands were undentable. A quick look at the history of Hollywood trends, however, indicates a track record of volatility. Genres come in and out of favour all the time. For instance, I haven’t come across any new “found footage” horror films lately. Even the almighty Western and the glorious escapist musical, which drew audiences into cinemas for decades, became unexciting and virtually unmarketable cinematic dinosaurs by the 1970s. When films from these genres emerged, they were sold on their novelty, not their trendy familiarity. For some reason, in the 2010s, no one seemed to fathom that a decline was even possible for the revolutionary company Pixar or the game-changing, universe-building Marvel Studios. Budgets for projects under these banners kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger even though common sense should have dictated moderation as almost everything has a ceiling. Same thing for The Fast and the Furious franchise over at Universal and a handful of other billion-dollar brands. Did execs slow down production on these things and prepare to pivot? Nope. The mindset was anything that runs on Diesel runs forever and these franchises are strong as a Rock.

However, erosion is a thing, too. Superheroes, the Fast and the Furious franchise, Pixar, Transformers, and Disney Animation—they’ve all been operating on about 20 years of goodwill and growing success. X-Men and Spider-Man made a big splash around the turn of the century and righted the 1990s superhero ship. Recall that there was a first wave of superhero films in the 1990s that came and went fairly quickly, threatening to die out altogether following Batman’s nipples, Blade’s mediocre box office, and New Line Cinema’s awkward Spawn-ing. However, CGI, A-list superheroes, and some good creative types (like Sam Raimi and newly crowned Best Director, Christopher Nolan) turned the superhero fortunes around. It was a good little run, too, as a Hulk movie and a couple of Fantastic Four films held down the fort until the MCU and The Dark Knight could take things to the next financial level. Pixar had an even longer, more impressive run of hits going back to 1995. However, the kids and young adults who grew up with Wolverine, Lightning McQueen, and a creepy-helmet Green Goblin are now well past the prime cinema-going target market age.

Superhero fatigue is an oft-noted excuse for the box office’s rough year in 2023. However, it’s not simply the glut of super-movies that’s weighing on filmgoers. It’s also that the fans who were there for Iron Man, Avengers, and Man of Steel—i.e. the fans who were most invested in those series—are busy. They’ve become distracted by workplace stresses, family commitments, and the challenge of carving out a sliver of space for themselves in the modern rat race. They’ve become heroes in their own right, fighting their own gallant battles against housing and cost-of-living crises. Today’s cinemas are not simply contending with other entertainment options like stage shows and live music; they’re competing against grocery stores and landlords. Thirtysomethings are a busy, busy demographic, and as much as they may still love and reserve nostalgic places in their hearts for Spidey, Buzz Lightyear, and Harry Potter, they just don’t have as much time or money to spend on them. This group is probably sharing those popular brands with their own kids, but they are not nearly so inclined to take them across town to see them in a theatre at a cost of $11 per child, plus $13 for themselves, especially when these movies will show up on streaming services—in their living rooms—in 45 days’ time anyway. Another way to put it: trends come and go because target markets age out and move on. To believe that Transformers, the MCU, or Pixar would maintain their levels of popularity for eternity—as the gatekeepers of those properties did—was fantasy. As silly as it may sound, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles may hold the gold standard on how to adapt a property over time. The holders of that brand reinvent the look and style of Michaelangelo, Donatello, and Splinter about once a decade—new toys, new shows, new movies—seemingly laser-focused on selling ninja half-shell heroes to each and every new batch of 8-year-olds coming down the line.

The movie industry should simply face facts. The youth of today who are being introduced to all of these blockbuser brands have no nostalgic connection to these series. None of them felt the wonder of Spider-Man or Iron Man finally hitting the big screen. Or Batman returning and being amazing. Two decades ago, the anticipation and reward associated with these releases were palpable. Kids and young adults today don’t care as much about movie mutants and super heroes because they grew up with those characters constantly surrounding them. These brand-name figures have been on the big screen, the on little screen, and screenprinted on their socks for as long as they’ve ever known. Gen Z doesn’t care. The DCEU recently realized this when they posited that bringing Michael Keaton back as Batman would be a financial slam dunk and appeal to absolutely everyone. The result? Not only did Gen Z not give a toss, no one did. As it turned out, the forty and fifty-year-olds who should have been interested, didn’t bother attending The Flash either. And then there was the confusion in summer 2023 for anyone under 30 over who Indiana Jones even was, much less why there should be any obligation to see the fifth movie. Last summer, teens were more likely to use a Batman skin in Fortnite and look up Indiana Jones on Wikipedia than actually go to the theatre for either character. Regrettably, the distributors—the cinema companies themselves—are on the frontline of this. They’re unfortunately being force-fed programming from studios that is increasingly stale-dated and out of touch with the interests of their target audiences. The coveted 15- to 25-year-old moviegoer can’t afford, can’t justify, and can’t be bothered going out to the cinema. There is currently a major disconnect between the product coming out of Hollywood, who it appeals to, and what actually does appeal to the supposed cornerstone young-adult movie audience. If anyone suffers while studios try to sort it out, theatres themselves will be the ones holding the bag.

Meanwhile, home film-watching trends have also been rapidly evolving, and those emerging patterns ain’t helping. Plenty has been said about ubiquitous streaming and the era of content. Netflix and its streaming competitors are certainly influential in vying for audiences’ attention and their free time, but the streaming era may also be contributing to the greater trend of a quick-to-bore, fast-swiping generation of young customers who constantly need instant gratification and tire of a movie’s runtime. There’s always something up next in a streamer’s queue—if you’re bored, move on. YouTube and video games are also active competition for attention. With so much YouTube, Twitch, podcast, etc., content out there –which also happens to be curated to individual interests by behind-the-scenes algorithms—it makes sense that an evening at home with an iPad is suddenly a legitimate competitor for an evening out at the movies. Plus, networked, immersive video games offer as strong or stronger dopamine releases as any action film. In short, the cinema experience is in a tough battle for the attention of the next paying generation of filmgoers. About 50 years ago, Hollywood’s primo target audiences shifted younger and that target audience responded well to Hollywood blockbuster offerings for decades. Unfortunately, this group has become disengaged with film watching.

Or maybe it isn’t actually disengagement. Perhaps, the world has mastered its micromarketing to the point that our planet has become niche. There’s a little slice of the entertainment pie for everyone now. In the 1990s, for instance, everyone was watching the same shows—Friends, CSI, and ER because there were only so many channels available. It was sort of the same for movies. Now, there’s something for everyone online—no matter what your interests. So of course, people are tuning into what interests them the most—be it a specialty podcast, videos of Mr. Beast curing blindness, or reels of someone unboxing Christmas presents. Is it any wonder that annual Oscar broadcast can’t hit 20-million viewers anymore? It absolutely baffles the mind that people within the industry can’t understand why that awards show doesn’t pull in over 50-million viewers like it did in the old days. Again, denial, I guess.

Another factor that’s eating into cinema-going—and it doesn’t get mentioned too much—is the steadily improving quality of the home-viewing experience. Home theatre technology has been advancing by leaps and bounds for the past 20 years. And it’s not just the tech, DIY home improvement shows have been slowly encouraging homeowners to transform some of their personal space into comfortable home theatres—and why not, if the furniture and technology is out there. The latest generations of furniture have become more and more cozy. Customers have been slowly building little escapist screening rooms in their own homes for decades. Nowadays, people have big screens with crystal clear graphics, big sound systems, and comfy reclining seats in their residences. As the technology has improved, creating a home theatre out of a living room, spare bedroom, or basement has become a more and more affordable venture. Besides, at home, you can pause the movie for snacks and bathroom breaks, which is still something they won’t do for you in public at the cinemas. The pandemic forced people to stay home, and it may very well have forced people to appreciate the snug, hassle-free conditions of their own home viewing.

Last year was the year of the flopbuster. Maybe after all of those high-profile bombs—studios have gotten the message that they should try new things. Hollywood’s recent gambles investing in big-budget historical projects targeted to older audiences—Oppenheimer, Killers of the Flower Moon, and Napoleon—actually make quite a bit of sense. Aside from low-budgeted horror and religious films, the cineplex has been a wasteland for new ideas over the past decade. So, for what it’s worth, programming period epics aimed at fifty-year-old history wonks may be cinemas’ saving grace, for the time being at least. Producers may wish to curb those budgets a wee bit, but if they’re looking for a path out of the current box office doldrums, they may be onto something. The older end of the Gen-Xers are the ones with the time, money, and nostalgia for the cinematic experience, not high schoolers. In ten years, youngsters will be wistful over the likes of Squid Game and Mr. Beast. Maybe someone needs to actually do the market research to acquire the data that unequivocally proves studios are targeting the wrong group with their films. Then, maybe we’d get more Flower Moons and fewer Blue Beetles. And then if cinemas could install recliners everywhere and consider pausing feature presentations for pee breaks, Hollywood may be able to save the industry.