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Post by jdv on Jun 3, 2024 11:52:41 GMT -5
Hollywood is in a death spiral, and this time Barbie isn't going to save them. Last Memorial Day weekend, people simply refused to go and we saw the worst box office performance in 30 years.
It didn't get any better last weekend as GARFIELD was the #1 movie in America... with $14 million. IF, another children's movie, was #2 at $10.8 million, with FURIOSA basically tied with IF at slightly less then $10.8 mil. APES took in $8.8 mil for 4th, and FALL GUY scraped up another $4.4 in what was probably the last weekend in wide release for both movies.
All told, the top 5 movies in the USA took in a combined $50 million, or about $10 mil each, which sounds good....
But the combined budgets for those same movies - BEFORE ADS - is $600,000,000. When you throw in ads, the loses become truly scary. Indeed, only GARLFIELD looks to go into the black, largely because it was the cheapest to make at $60 million, although IF might break even too.
Remember that these are supposed to be the summer-time box office bonanzas that keep the rest of Hollywood going. APES and MAD MAX are in theory tent-pole movies guaranteed to rake in the cash. Ryan Gossling, Ryan Reynolds, and John Kranskinski are supposedly a huge stars. Garfield and multi-generational IP.
None of it mattered. Essentially, Hollywood must now hope that DESPICABLE ME 4 and DEADPOOL 2 are huge hits - or at the very least don't lose money - because everything else looks even worse.
But in truth, movies as we once knew them are over. It's been decades since the last 5 star movie; most movies are either "meh" or straight up trash. And even if they were good, the rise of giant 4K TVs and streaming movies while they're still in theaters (plus youtube/tik tok and video game) has killed the golden goose.
Look for multiple movie chains to simply disappear even as more movie studios fold or are absorbed by conglomerates - and all very soon. Too much crap, too many other things to do.
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Post by jdv on Jun 3, 2024 12:26:27 GMT -5
Look for multiple movie chains to simply disappear even as more movie studios fold or are absorbed by conglomerates - and all very soon. Too much crap, too many other things to do.
Boy, that didn't take long - literally an hour later:
"Paramount, Skydance agree to terms on $8B merger deal: report
Skydance, the media company founded by David Ellison, has agreed under the proposed deal with a Paramount special committee to pay $2 billion for Paramount’s parent company, National Amusements, which is controlled by majority stakeholder Shari Redstone, according to CNBC." -----------------------
In other words, Paramount is no more....
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Post by Warpig on Jun 3, 2024 12:56:27 GMT -5
Wow...I wonder what's to become of Paramount's Streaming Services?
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Post by jdv on Jun 3, 2024 15:26:24 GMT -5
Wow...I wonder what's to become of Paramount's Streaming Services?
I wonder what will happen to any streaming service not named Youtube or Netflix. Other than exactly those two services, they're all losing money at an incredible rate. To the tune of billions of dollars.
And yet it is those very same services which have done the biggest damage to the box office. As people cut the cord, the nearly endless endless money spigot has dried up as streaming ratings are completely merit based, versus cable companies which charged you monthly regardless if you never watched a single minute of CNN or Fox.
So it all comes back to quality of content, as in the wildly poor quality of it. Paramount, Disney, Universal et al - they're all paying a price for movies and shows that seek to program vs simply entertain. Disney has lost half it's value in 5 years, with no signs the bleeding is near an end (indeed, their latest STAR WARS show looks to lose a hundred million dollars all by itself).
While there are obviously other factors harming the box office, look at the films released 40 years ago vs now. The difference is simply staggering. Oddly enough, people are unwilling to plunk down ever-harder earned cash for rubbish.
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Post by Warpig on Jun 3, 2024 16:07:14 GMT -5
Hence, I mostly watch YouTube.
I tried watching a modern movie on Prime the other day.
It was like every other movie: meh.
I mean, I didn't want to actively kill myself but....
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Post by jdv on Jun 3, 2024 16:47:46 GMT -5
TV shows are now vastly better then 99% of all movies. THE BOYS alone destroys any movie that's come out in the past 10 years....
...Because it's been 10 years since the last 4 star (out of 5) movie came out - EDGE OF TOMORROW. Yup, 10 years.
The best recent movie I've seen was ROAD HOUSE, which is hilarious fun. Not great, but at least I didn't feel like gouging out my eyes while watching it.
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Post by jdv on Jun 3, 2024 18:06:50 GMT -5
Look for multiple movie chains to simply disappear even as more movie studios fold or are absorbed by conglomerates - and all very soon.
And a mere 5 hours after I posted that....
“Stephen Goddard, the manager of Emerald Cinema Complex in [Emerald, Queensland], sold just 222 tickets to” Furiosa during its opening week, the Daily Mail reported. He says that these “disastrous numbers could spell the end of his 20-year business.
He explained that a movie people actually want to see “would usually sell 1050 tickets in a week,” so he “will probably shut down.”
“Back in 2006 to 2009,” he said, “the top movies sold 4500 – 5000 seats, We did 66,000 seats all through that period. We will do possibly 30,000 seats this year if we are lucky.” -----------------------------------------------
Simply put, movie theaters will die before Hollywood does, as the studios still have streaming services.
Whether or not this is an intentional destruction of a formally very important to our culture art form, or simple malfeasance is hard to say... Or is it?
Disney continues to make a product it knows will alienate more then half of its potential audience. They have quite literally lost half their value while also killing multiple previously impervious franchises (Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Marvel) in their pursuit of... well, you know.
Want proof? THE MARVELS lost $237 million last year alone for Disney. But it wasn't the only super-bomb - INDIANA JONES 4 (-$141 million), WISH (-$131 million), HAUNTED MANSION (-$117 million) all happened just last year.
Yet the people most responsible for this nearly unimaginable disaster continue to be employed.
Want more proof? George Miller had a Mad Max movie script featuring - get this! - Mad Max, yet that script was rejected for one featuring a woman with no sex appeal or charisma. That movie is on pace to lose $100 million and has effectively now killed that franchise as well.
When these awful, obviously stupid, movies predictably flop, the studios have chosen to attack fans rather then change content that no one seems to want. That Kathleen Kennedy - responsible for green-lighting films and shows which have lost well over a BILLION dollars - attacked anyone daring to call Disney's latest money pit STAR WARS THE ACOLYTE - as "misogynist" or "not a true fan" is the very definition of madness.
Yet there she still is, telling George Lucas (who finally seems to have seen enough) how story should be told.
So sure, streaming and video games haven't helped movies, but by far their worst enemy are the very people responsible for making them.
Want more proof? Sure you do!
INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, THE NATURAL, ROMANCING THE STONE, 16 CANDLES, POLICE ACADEMY, FOOTLOOSE, THE TERMINATOR, RED DAWN, BEVERLY HILLS COP, THE KARATE KID, DUNE, BUCKAROO BANZAI, GHOST BUSTERS, 1984, GREMLINS, CONAN THE DESTROYER, AMADEUS, PURPLE RAIN, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, REPO MAN, SPINAL TAP, and STAR TREK III (still the highest grossing TREK ever made) were all released exactly 40 years ago.
But this year we get PLANET OF THE APES 9, a MAD MAX movie without Max, MADAME WEB, BAD BOYZ 4 (featuring the ever beloved Will Smith), and SAW 11 !
So yeah. Movies are dead.
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Post by jdv on Jun 4, 2024 14:34:03 GMT -5
Looking over that list of movies from 1984, I noticed something Hollywood might want to take a look at (assuming it isn't purposefully trying to self-immolate itself):
There were only 2 sequels - the 2nd INDIANA JONES movie (which everyone wanted and was great), and STAR TREK III, which again, everyone wanted after WRAITH OF KHAN (and as noted, still holds the record for best box office for any Trek movie in adjusted dollars).
The sheer originality - and quality - of those films now looks like a half miracle compared to absolute dog shit pouring forth from Hollywood now.
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Post by Warpig on Jun 4, 2024 15:18:42 GMT -5
It does make me wonder how many actual original scripts are floating around out there, looking to be made....
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Post by jdv on Jun 4, 2024 18:44:18 GMT -5
It does make me wonder how many actual original scripts are floating around out there, looking to be made.... Depends on what "original" mean I suppose. When you look at those movies, most were based on something else... TEMPLE OF DOOM - sequel to RAIDERS, itself a tribute to serials from the 30's and 40's TERMINATOR - directly ripped from a Harlon Elison ep of The Outer Limts THE NATURAL - based on the novel 1984 - based on the novel
DUNE - based on the novel
ROMANCING THE STONE - a RAIDERS rip-off THE KARATE KID - a ROCKY rip-off CONAN THE DESTROYER - a sequel/based on books AMADEUS - based on a play GREMLINS - loosely based (at least inspired) by a Roald Dahl
STAR TREK III - sequel
The rest are original, at least as far as it goes. But just about half of the movies on the list are directly taken from something else. Now mind you, that's a vastly higher percentage then modern movies, but still a high percentage. So it's arguable that it's not so much "originality" that matters as simple quality. In other words, not recasting characters gender, ethnicity, sexuality, or otherwise dumbing down the content to such a point where the original concept (whether new or not) simply disappears.
It's about being realistic about how the vast majority of men & women react & treat each other. Or people in general. That inability to do so has absolutely murdered comedies, which are now virtually non-existent in movie theaters. Self-censorship has been utterly brutal.
And while CG has definitely helped make some movies better, it's also has the tendency to crush out other smaller stories. Put another way, would a movie like ROCKY ever be green-lit today versus a super hero movie?
So it's about setting the right tone (failure to do so), it's about the lack of realism, the lack of fun, lack of sex, lack of honesty, lack of actual action and actors who can do it.
Put another way, I'd rather see Roddy McDowall in latex make-up every time vs Roddy McDowall in a green-suit to be CGed in later.
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