Posted on 08/15/2017 3:11:39 AM PDT by SkyPilot
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.”
(Excerpt) Read more at showbiz411.com ...
When I drive past the empty parking lot of the 12 screen AMC movie theater by me I feel really good. Almost as good as ESPNs tanking Nielsen ratings or Macy’s declining stock price.
I wish I could say that the article was wrong and you’ve missed a bunch of good movies at the theaters this year.
Alas, I can’t.
Netflix, Amazon Prime and HBO Go have yet to leave me with enough of a reason to spend $50 on a movie night out.
Baby driver was stupid
I didn’t read the entire thing but I must confess to hoping for a Meryl Streep loss of catastrophic proportions.
Hollywood fails because of the three generation shelf life rule.
No talent, no drive just a bunch of coasters, lefty west coasters.
Thanks for this great trip. Will look for it on my roku streamers. Sounds awesome.
If Americans were really getting what they pay for, the price of ticket to the movies would be $2.
Netflix at home is now a better experience than a movie theater. The TV sets of today have astonishing video quality and you don’t have to sit through 20 minutes of previews of movies you’ll never want to see. Nor do you have to listen to people around you chomping on food - can’t people sit through a two hour movie without having to eat?
I saw The Founder on Netflix the other night. Was in theaters just a few months ago. Not a bad film about Ray Kroc and how he revolutionized the hamburger stand.
But the movies are the cutting edge....... every 6th word starts with the F
>> if things continue as they have, this will be the lowest box office in a quarter century.
Gee, that’s a shame.
Game of Thrones is definitely the exception rather than the norm.
Glad to see Hollywood fail. I also now want Merck, Intel and UnderArmour to be ruined. Let them fail and be bought out by patriots.
Movies killed vaudeville.
Television weaken Movies and computers and the internet will put them down.
I have hundreds of movies in my DVD collection. I can buy a DVD cheaper then a movie ticket and a snack.
I have Netflix.
I have YouTube (if you don’t know there are hundreds if not thousands of old movies on YouTube along with old television programs.)
When we were young my wife and I would go to a movie each week (sometimes more). Today, we go to the movies maybe once a year, sometimes less.
Maybe if the movie industry returned to the entertainment business and get out of the social engineering business they may survive.
Actually I predict that small independent film makers will find a niche to feed the entertainment desires of Americans and will do ok while big studios slowly go out of business.
Note to Hollyweird: My offer to go through your slush piles is still open...
Streaming has given TV developers the ability to fill episodes with small details, hidden easter eggs, with the understanding that the viewer will re-watch the show again, catching all the little stuff they missed the first time. This has really raised the bar beyond something that filmmakers can typically get away with.
It's like music. Who buys an album and only listens to it once?
Other than Dunkirk, which I saw twice, I didn’t recognize the titles of any of the other movies mentioned.
I have Netflix, Britbox and Amazon Prime. I don’t even have to watch American stuff for the most part, just British!
I have read virtually every Stephen King book, including the old Richard Bachman books; the only trilogy I put down halfway through the first book was Dark Tower. Slow, boring and without reason.
King (an outspoken liberal, BTW, but his books still decent, but not as good as the early ones) has so many more great stories that could be good movies; don’t understand why Dark Tower.
For a long time I thought that the entertainment industry’s principal god was Mammon, meaning that if a particular movie or TV show brought in lots of money, they would make more like it. After all, isn’t that why they have ratings services? I was wrong; most of today’s directors seem willing to forego a profit to push a leftist political/cultural agenda. Just look at which films get nominated for awards. One of the biggest box office hits of 2004 was “The Passion of the Christ”—it attracted quite a few people who otherwise wouldn’t set foot in a cinema—but on Oscar Night, it wasn’t nominated for anything, nor have the studios shown much willingness to make more movies based on Bible stories. Even Mel Gibson lost interest, going from “The Passion” to “Apocalypto.”
Now I for one don’t like getting preached at when I go to the movies; I’m there to escape the real world for a little while. Apparently a lot of folks feel the same way, judging from box office receipts. Make a movie that promotes family values, or at least doesn’t offend them, and the public will reward you by coming in droves. That’s also why most of the animated features from Disney, Pixar and Dreamworks do well.
When people vote with their wallets that strongly, why doesn’t Hollywood get the message?
The same has happened to the music industry. 1% of the product is bringing in the lion’s share of the revenue (concerts included).
You can own the charts but overall audiences have tuned out.
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