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

Showbiz 411 ^ | 14 Aug 17 | Roger Friedman

[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.”

[SkyPilot]

Then go to “The Dark Tower.”

I am not a huge or that informed Steven King fan, but wasn't the book character of Roland from The Dark Tower a tall white man in his 40s with "cold, steel blue eyes"?

If the executives in Hollywood wanted hard core fans of the book to flock to the movie, why would they cast a black man?

Wouldn't that be like casting Ryan Gosling to play Booker T. Washington?

That movie had a budget of 60 million, and is a massive flop. It cannot even pull in its budget, even with overseas ticket sales.

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.

Audiences don't want to be preached to, or be asked to suspend their intellect in movies (overseas as well). They want to be entertained. Hollywood has lost that sense of reality.

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.

The studios are run by homosexuals, and cocaine addicts. That's all I can figure.

[CMailBag]

They insist on pissing off half the public, just like ‘Hate Media’.

[gaijin]

When you tell me my ancestors were smallpox blanket Distributors it’s so funny..!

when you tell me America stole everything I get a warm feeling in my heart.

when you tell me that deep down I really should be gay, I get sooo interested..!

the black people who talk throughout the entire movie while using the f word..?

I love that..!

[MayflowerMadam]

If the best movie of all time were at our local theater I probably would not go. I object to putting money in the pockets of the left-wing Hollywood jerks. They turn around and give it to people like Hillary. I’m glad the industry is failing; those people have brought it on themselves.

[CitizenUSA]

They want to keep pushing their politically hard left, degenerate perspectives on middle America and wonder why they can’t fill seats. Honestly. Even if I loved LGBT propaganda—which I don’t—I think I’d like a break from it once in awhile. It seems like it’s in every blasted movie or TV show anymore.

[CitizenUSA]

Exactly right! They spit in our faces and expect us to lap it up? They can’t go bankrupt fast enough for me.

[kearnyirish2]

Yes, the alternate reality on the screen (movie or TV) has just moved so far away from what we see “on the ground” that it is unwatchable.

[Dr. Scarpetta]

Not ever going to another Meryl Streep movie or Ashley Judd or Robert De Niro, etc.

[Bryanw92]

Hollywood’s message is: white people are evil and stupid, men are evil and stupid, adults are evil and stupid, heterosexuals are evil and stupid, Christians are evil and stupid.

Then you decide to go to the theatre anyway and a tub of popcorn costs $8. The prominent “No Guns” signs tell us that only criminals should be armed inside....and in the big parking lots after the movie.

Meanwhile, we have movies on demand at home, big screen TV, 50 cent popcorn hot from the microwave, clean bathrooms, and a pause button. I’m amazed that theaters are still in business.

[ealgeone]

They insist on pissing off half the public, just like ‘Hate Media’.

The consistent anti-Christian bias in the movies is clear.

Why continue to support that?

[libertylover]

I was planning to go see “Dunkirk” soon. Has it been homo-ed down?

[Drew68]

The consistent anti-Christian bias in the movies is clear.

Why continue to support that?

It's not that. It has nothing to do with Christians or conservatives.

People are not going to the movies because they no longer found this a valuable use of their time and money and the reason for tis is simple; movies these days are not very good.

People are staying home instead and watching streaming television on massive home theaters. Television series production is the best it has ever been. More people will be talking about their season of Game of Thrones than anything at the cinemas.

[hardspunned]

The best movies of all time are streaming for us at home. Why the heck would anyone actually waste their time at a theater watching Hollywierd garbage when The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, etc. are running 24/7?

[Dr. Ursus]

NO.

[DoodleDawg]

I'm not a big action movie fan (boyfriend is another matter) so summers are not my favorite time of years for movies to begin with. My favorite movies of the summer were mainly art house flicks. In order I would have to say the were:

Maudie
Dunkirk
The Exception
The Big Sick
Churchill

[OttawaFreeper]

I’ve gotten into binge watching 1970s BBC produced historical dramas (Edward the Seventh, Elizabeth R). Now well into “Fall of Eagles”, with Jean Luc Picard playing Lenin.

[Bodega]

MayflowerMadam wrote:
If the best movie of all time were at our local theater I probably would not go. I object to putting money in the pockets of the left-wing Hollywood jerks.

You are absolutely spot on. I refuse to send my money to people I abhor for all the reasons we have discussed and their shoddy, inferior products. Surely they don’t think we are all that, THAT!, STUPID do they?

[SkyPilot]

Hollywood’s message is: white people are evil and stupid, men are evil and stupid, adults are evil and stupid, heterosexuals are evil and stupid, Christians are evil and stupid.

That's pretty much the case.

And regarding the casting of a black man to play Roland in the Dark Tower, I am sure the Hollywood executives sat around and thought what a great idea it was to throw that at the rubes in American, and "break down racial biases and barriers."

I served in the military with patriotic, good African-American men and women. The most exceptional of them were staunch Christians.

Were/are they the exception vis a vis the majority of blacks in the US? Yes, by definition. Not only did they serve their country, but they upheld the values of integrity, service, and defending the Constitution - that puts them in a different category.

So when I see Hollywood attempting to thrust upon us the idea that a black man is an everyman/everywoman Hero - the Defender of the Helpless and the Innocent - I can't get there.

I go to movies to be entertained, to leave behind the constant barrage of bad news and politics.

Once in the theater, I cannot suspend disbelief and embrace a black man as the Every Hero, because it does not reflect either reality or some of my personal experiences.

Myself and my family were the victims of a violent crime at the hands of a gang of young black men. I can read the crime statistics, and I know that the overwhelming number of murders, assaults, and racial rapes are committed by black men.

I can't sit through a movie and see the black Hero be what is depicted on screen. Sorry Hollywood, but it is what it is.

[pinkandgreenmom]

Good, let these LBGT agenda pushing leftist jerks suffer.

[4everontheRight]

Add Helen Mirren to your list. I am fed up with these celebs who are not even US citizens shoveling their piles of BS! I dont spend a dime of my hard worked for cash on these little people.