For the last few years franchise movies like star wars, marvel, etc. made money regardless of quality. However now it seems like audiences are being choosier when it comes to these kinds of tentpole releases. I’ve seen some people online say that the movie/theater industry is losing people in general but I don’t think that’s the case.
Super Mario and spiderverse made a lot of money. And Oppenheimer, Barbie, and Dune seem to be tracking well. I think the problem is that people are getting sick of the same old stuff and need more than just a brand name to go to the theater. What do you you think?
It’s not superhero fatigue or franchise fatigue. It’s bad writing fatigue. Seriously, I don’t know why Hollywood keeps choosing terrible writers for huge projects, but as long as they are doing that they are going to keep getting what they deserve.
And speaking of huge projects, from what I’ve heard Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny cost $295 million to make rather than 250. And that’s not counting publicity and marketing, which brings it to 400 million if not more. That means they need to make at least $800 million to break even. No matter how you slice their opening weekend, they are in huge trouble. And given that Elementals and The Little Mermaid both bombed hard along with most other Disney movies of the last few years, I’d say that Disney is in serious trouble too!
On the other hand, Guardians of the Galaxy 3 was rather well written, and from what I’ve heard it did rather well at the box office. Which is just more evidence that if you have a decently-written film the public WILL go and see it. We’re just avoiding crap, that’s all.
I’ll go out on a limb and say that hauling poor old Harrison Ford away from his bong and forcing him at the age of 80 to make shitty movies is tantamount to elder abuse. As for The Flash, coddling wannabe cult leader and mental defective Ezra Miller was just the icing on the cake. The movie was just badly written.
Frantic last minute reshoots and rewrites are a dead giveaway that something is seriously wrong with a production. But that that is happening so often in Hollywood in the last several years is clear evidence that Hollywood itself has completely lost their way. I don’t know if they can right that ship, and to be honest I don’t much care. If they won’t provide people with the good entertainment that they want, eventually somewhere else will. Maybe Bollywood or China.
As someone in the industry, the tentpole execs do not give a shit about writing or even quality. They just imagine $$$ and hate risk, so they double down on what they already know. It’s a dumb decision from the outside looking in, but they literally can’t see that. Also, in the last 10-15 years, screenwriting has developed more into a gig economy than a FT job, so even finding good writers and keeping them around is tough as hell.
Sometimes, I think I understand their place too. We’re talking about really big budgets here, and while I agree that it’s better to take risks so we can get amazing movies, I must imagine the dread the exec that greenlighted taika waititi thor love and thunder to do w/e he wanted.
In the end they let the director loose and still got a mediocre movie. (Maybe it was $$ successful? Somebody know?)
This was the revelation I was waiting to unfold. The best indicator that good writing has legs and bad writing flops regardless of genre or franchise these days is definitely the recent Marvel box office runs.
Ant-Man: Quantamania was mediocre and as people saw it and relayed this sentiment it lost audiences and the box office intake dropped hard – no one wanted to spend money or time on it once word got out.
Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol 3 had the opposite happen with good writing and a rare occurrence where Disney let James Gunn do pretty much whatever he wanted. As people saw it and relayed the sentiment that it was well written and worth seeing in theaters, people flocked to it and gave it some of the strongest legs that continued to make box office money well after opening week.
Guardians 3 even got me into a theater for the first time in years because so many people said it was the one movie they recommended experiencing there instead of waiting for a Disney+ release. Well written movies are refreshing. We’re bored enough with the schlock regardless of genre, but give us something with real substance and it still has a chance to excite audiences to spread the word and make money.
Speak for yourself. I’ve been majorly burned out on super hero movies.
Seriously, I don’t know why Hollywood keeps choosing terrible writers for huge projects
Don’t worry, soon Hollywood won’t be choosing writers at all. (Thanks ChatGPT!)
(Obviously I agree that good writing is fundamental to the success of a movie, with few exceptions.)
If anyone is surprised by Indiana Jones failing then that is just sad. Name the last good Harrison Ford movie, I’ll wait. Erza Miller was suppose to be a good pick for the younger generation but Warner Brothers forgot that the younger generation doesn’t respond well to groomers and they also use TikTok. Word got out on him.
Black Adam, how many times can you watch the rock play the same character over and over. Fast X, no words needed.
Bad writers would be the main reason for failing films. Too many times you see 5-6 writers on a project, dead give away that it’s going to suck. Studios also like to play the blame game for bad decisions. Why didn’t anyone see the female led ghost busters? Sexism not the fact that the movie was unfunny and a train wreck.
A24 is one of the few studios that produce new and exciting movies. Something original. Even if it is something that has been done, they have a unique perspective, see parasite. Their movies always seem to over perform.
which brings it to 400 million if not more. That means they need to make at least $800 million to break even.
400 million spent means 400 million to break even, no?
The rumors for indy 5 were that it needed something like 900 million to break even and a billion to make any profit.
With the new report saying it was a 325 million production and a minimum 100 million promotion budget, I tend to believe them.
No. Marketing typically equals production costs. So $400mm production + $400mm marketing = $800mm breakeven.
No, 400m includes marketing budget. Reason it typically needs double (actually more like 2.5 times the gross) is that studios only get around half of box office receipts.
Presumably 800 gross
I don’t think it has anything to do with being franchise films. Studios just need to make good films and people will see them.
Spider-Man made 600m WW so far which isn’t too shabby. That has to contend with superhero fatigue as well as franchise fatigue.
Nah movies are too expensive now. I’m super excited for indy. He’s my hero but the theater is a horrible money waste.
They need to learn to release straight to streaming instead of Theatre only. Because I spent a while lot of money on a 5.1, 65in 4k TV and awesome lighting to go blow $100 every time I want to see a new release? Hell no. The threater is just more irrelevant then ever when I can be super comfy and watch or be packed in with 100 strangers.
I saw the movie last weekend and paid about $10USD for 2 tickets, sodas and popcorn. Mexico is a beautiful place
2 x 3D Atmos = $45
XL Popcorn and pop = $20
???
$100
How expensive are those tickets?!
There’s still a place for theaters for people in apartments or condos who can’t set up home theaters without bothering their neighbors… Unfortunately. Damn you high home prices 😭
No, it’s just more expensive than ever to go watch a movie. I like going to this one theater because it has comfy seats, they serve beer, and have good sound. The tickets are like $12-18, but I also have to pay for parking (about $30 for a 2-3 hour movie), and they up charge the beers too. So, going to watch a movie ends up being around $60-70 for two, and the only reason to go is to be part of the social experience happening around the movie, because if you wait like 90 days, you can buy the movie on iTunes or YouTube for less than $60.
So I pretty much only go to Marvel movies since the cgi action scenes are better on the huge screen.
Dune was incredible in theaters. I’m scared of watching it again at home (in prep for the 2nd part) since I’m probably going to be disappointed
Proper surround sound with subwoofer required, to be sure
The soundtrack was amazing… Ooof the chills.it gave me!
I’m the same - I remember it quite well so may just go without seeing the first part again beforehand.
I saw it in a normal cinema, then literally the next day booked it in isense (like imax). Most people don’t have the money to pay for a decent Atmos setup so only get to experience it in the best cinemas on occasion. Dune was so worth it.
Yeah, I can imagine. I skipped it but watched it later on my phone. Definitely want to go see part 2 in theaters.
Wow! That’s quite expensive. I’d hate to have to pay for parking at the movies. Our theater is more like 10-12 for a movie ticket, plus upcharged drinks and snacks, so my wife and I still end up paying at least 40 bucks to go to the movies. We go once a month at most, but it has to be part of a date night, you can’t just go to the movies on a whim anymore.
i would love to see revivals of old franchises go the way of the dodo. i am as nostalgic as any millennial but if i want to see indiana jones or ghostbusters or whatever, i’ll just watch the originals.
i don’t think the superhero franchises are going anywhere, unfortunately. they are still reliable, even with some people losing interest over time. it seems like a good moneymaking bet for disney at least. and all the studios seem really risk-averse lately, more than they used to be.
I’d more interested in MCU stuff if they tried something new with them. It’s why guardians as a franchise did so well. The cracks really started showing id argue with captain marvel.
I’m just bored of superheroes in general, I think. I watched up to the first Avengers movie as they came out, and kind of lost interest after that. GotG was fun, and I liked the first Black Panther. Loved Thor: Ragnarok. There’s just probably a limit to how much someone can do with that set of concepts without getting repetitive.
It’s more to me because of the studios interfering. Its worse with wb and DC but like cause it’s a overarching universe each individual projects suffers creatively because of it.
I haven’t bothered with DC movies since Wonder Woman (2017). It was an OK movie, and then I stepped outside and forgot about it. So I can’t speak to how bad those movies are, haha. With Marvel, I do think the quality is good, it’s just that I’m not interested anymore. I have a hard time understanding how anyone is still excited after 15 continuous years of the same stuff.
Indy is failing not because it’s a franchise, but because the audience for an 80 year old Harrison Ford is not going to the theater.
Flash failed for reasons other than it being part of a franchise. It failed because that franchise is not well liked, and in fact is in the process of being replaced.
Also, Ezra Miller is apparently a giant dick bag, turning off audiences.
I expect Blue Beetle will do worse due to featuring a character 90% of the movie going audience is unaware of, based on characters 99.9% are unaware of. At best people will go “So it’s an Iron Man / Spider-Man ripoff?”
Aquaman is the last of this generation of DC movies, hard to tell how it will turn out. The first one was the ONLY ONE of the DC films to hit the big $Billion mark.
Man of Steel - $668M
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0770828/?ref_=bo_se_r_1Batman V Superman - $873M
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt2975590/?ref_=bo_se_r_1Suicide Squad - $746M
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt1386697/?ref_=bo_se_r_1Wonder Woman - $822M
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0451279/?ref_=bo_se_r_1Justice League - $657M
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0974015/?ref_=bo_se_r_1Aquaman - $1.148B
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt1477834/?ref_=bo_se_r_1Shazam - $367M
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0448115/?ref_=bo_se_r_1Birds of Prey - $205M
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt7713068/?ref_=bo_se_r_1Wonder Woman 1984 - $169M
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt7126948/?ref_=bo_se_r_2The Suicide Squad - $168M
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt6334354/?ref_=bo_se_r_1Black Adam - $393M
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt6443346/?ref_=bo_se_r_1Shazam: Fury of the Gods - $133M
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt10151854/?ref_=bo_se_r_2The Flash - $245M and counting:
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0439572/?ref_=bo_se_r_1Edit I should say, both Birds of Prey and the Suicide Squad deserved better. Victims of covid and day/date streaming.
WW84 can die in a fire though.
Fair point about DC and Indy but Disney has had a few flops recently as well. Pixar isn’t a franchise but it was definitely a brand that normally would bring people to the theaters with just the name alone. Now they are struggling to get people to come to the theaters.
Oh, definitely. In my mind Pixar hasn’t had a really good movie since Coco.
I want to see Indiana Jones but I’ve had stuff to do every day since it came out. I might bite the bullet and go tomorrow.
No spoilers, for me it felt like it was cutting bits and pieces from the original films and remixing them.
“Oh, this is just like that bit from Raiders where Marian gets kidnapped… Oh, hey, that’s like when the tank ground up against the wall…”
There’s entirely too much of “Well if you liked that, you’ll probably like this…” moments.
Which isn’t always bad, but it doesn’t generate new memories so much as throw back to the others.
I think Ezra Miller is a great actor, but in small indie films, where he can act the problematic individual he’s outside the screen. Whorever decided to cast him off for big budget summer blockbusters should be fired.
They actually did a decent job in the Flash. It’s tricky playing an 18/19 year old version of the main adult character on screen at the same time.
Well, in their defense, The Flash was first filmed way before he got super problematic iirc.
I also thought it wasn’t too bad, but I seem to be in the minority apparently lol. My biggest complaint is some moments of bad CGI.
Slightly off-topic, but didn’t they claim something along the lines of “people will ignore that Ezra is a total piece of shit because of how great the movie is”?
Wow, you got me to Google the guy. I was expecting a bad incident or two, but the list just goes on and on.
Yeah I did the same recently and he’s out there
He’s mentally ill there’s no doubt about that. But it makes for good sensationalism so social media loves to just celebrate it.
WB was hyping it up like it was the greatest superhero film ever made. I’ve actually seen the movie and can assure you it is far from it. The whole thing felt like an inside joke from WB.
Oh wow, you weren’t kidding. Not someone you’d want to be around for any length of time.
I think Flash and Indiana Jones flopped because they’re garbage. Spider-Verse was a masterpiece and clearly a part of the shared universe franchise. Guardians 3 is nearing a billion dollars at the box office.
People aren’t tired of franchises, franchises are just generally getting worse. MCU is a mixed bag with some outliers still doing really well. We’ll see if the new phase can keep up with the introduction of new characters that most people don’t know. But I’m honestly not terribly hopeful.
Maybe Film studios should make more effort on lower budget movies instead of reviving old franchises and making commercial movies (Air, Blackberry, Barbie, Mario, etc).
These capitalist hero stories drive me nuts. Between air, Tetris, Uber, and all of these “one white guy + the system vs not making billions of dollars” movies, it’s like capitalist propaganda when more people than ever are having unfavorable views of capitalism. It bugs me other people in my life go to see them
I think the audience is simply being smarter with their money. A bunch of recent franchise movies have missed the mark and the audience is saying as much.
Super Mario
Dune
Across the SpiderverseAll franchises. But they have so far given their target audience what they’ve wanted.
Why go see Flash when it’ll show up on Max (or whatever) same with Indiana Jones which will be in Disney+ soon enough.
People are fed up with low-quality cash grabs as they always have been.
And they’re probably exhausted with the superhero movie tropes that have plagued the genre for over a decade.
I don’t understand the apathy for Indiana Jones. It was a great film. Very entertaining and fun and was dedicated to the previous films. Some very touching moments. Maybe people want to wait until it comes out on a streaming service rather than watch it on the big screen. The big screen experience was worth it with lots of action scenes and Harrison being de-aged and fighting Nazi’s, what’s not to love.
It’s because 4 was bad and it’s hard to believe that 80yr old Indy is still doing anything. Throw in the wonkiness of de aging and it’s not exactly an attractive use of time.
The traction that films with older actors such as Grumpy Old Men have limited appeal due to the age of the actual actor. I guess as I get older I just want to see my favourite actor in anything regardless of age. However, the expectation and delivery of entertainment is still there. I guess what George Lucas and Steven Speilberg have always tried to accomplish with their movie making is to grasp some of the anticipatory excitement that they garnered as children watching serials at the Bijou. Sure its campy and all in all mildly unbelievable, but the action delivers and so does the entertainment. The ability to escape was there.
Also a really really stupid name imo
I heard bad things about the last Indiana Jones, so I won’t see the latest one as I would feel like I was missing out on something. Same goes with the Flash… the films don’t come across as independent from each other so I won’t bother if it seems like I need to have followed the franchise until that point.
End of franchise films ? Not even close. What I think you’re seeing now is the floor is much lower for franchise films than before (especially with comic book movies). You need more than “it’s a Marvel movie” to have people go out and come see. The top movies of the year are still either sequels to franchises or based on existing IP.
That’s true. I should have titled the end of the “risk free” franchise film. Disney and WB drop 200 million on a movie and start filming without a coherent script because they knew that the film would coast on the name alone. I think those days might be gone. Marvel and others might need to step up their game to survive.
The bar has definitely been set with Spiderverse, especially for Multiverse movies
I think this is more accurate. You still need effort. I will say Flash and IJ are probably not the best examples though. Flash wasn’t bad and neither was IJ. Flash suffered due to the antics of the Ezra. It also had very inconsistent VFX. Even when sitting in a damn cockpit, they still out a layer of CGI over Ezra when they’re in the suit and it looked awful. If practical effects can be done practically, they should do so. They clearly could do good VFX in the movie, but it’s clear when it wasn’t needed. Faces are still difficult, so they should avoid working on them when they don’t need to. Rubber masks work. I can’t imagine they cost more than the VFX, but based on how they treat VFX artists, who knows. Moreover, it retread a lot of ground that was already done in Flashpoint. Plus, you have the conservatives trying to cancel (and in the same breath arguing against cancelling others) anything that has a woman replacing a man, or an actor that identifies with any of the LGBTQ+ letters.
Indiana Jones on the other hand suffered because the target audience has aged out of theaters. Crystal Skull definitely didn’t pick up a large contingent of fans. The style of movie is definitely aged. Current moviegoers like consistency down to the detail. Indiana Jones does not have that. None of it makes sense when you start to analyze any plot point. But it was never supposed to. The major plot points are more important. Everything else was an excuse to put Indy into ridiculous scenarios. That type of action hero movie just isn’t popular with the main movie going audience.
Agreed completely. Writing and Direction are key and studios will definitely need to recognize that (ironic considering the writers are still in strike).
Out of the loop, why is there a writers’ strike?
In short, studios are trying to replace writers with AI
That was part of it. They are also getting stiffed by streaming services.
Plus, half the reason for lack of interest in Flash is that in franchise terms, it’s a “dead man walking” --the whole DCEU is getting the (re)boot after this, so there’s no incentive to watch this installment when you know there’ll be no payoff for anything it sets up.
Agreed. Early-mid 2010s were hollywood’s golden ticket for franchises. Another hunger games? A marvel movie? Star Wars? Hobbit? Just keep churning them out and we’ll go see them.
Now we (at least me and the people I talk to) are over the big franchises. For example, I love the infinity marvel movies, yes they’re repetative and predictable but they were fun, and I started watching them with Iron Man. It was a ton of fun seeking out easter eggs and predicting where it’d go. But it’s over, they finished it, and IMO they finished it well.
Now… well, another one comes out, super, I’ll see it when I get around to it. I’m definitely not going to go to the theater and I’m not going to buy a copy, so sometime on a streaming service probably.
I do hope we see a renaissance in individual films. I’ve been catching up on my backlog and there are so many good ones, I hope that Hollywood sees that not everything needs to be a (4 part) trilogy.
(but then there’s Dune…)
Well it turns out, if you give a shit and hire people that are passionate about the product they make, you make a good movie. And people like to watch good movies. That’s why dune worked. Because it was expertly done.
I had the same reaction with Marvel. I would watch almost every single movie the week it came out. They did extremely well with their Infinity Saga and capped it with an incredible conclusion. Infinity War/Endgame is a master stroke to what could’ve been an absolute disaster. Now that it’s over, the only MCU movies I’ve watched in theaters (let alone the first week) were No Way Home, Wakanda Forever, and GOTG3. The others I watched eventually at home (if at all).
@echoplex21 After Endgame, the only Marvel movie that interested me was GotG3. Now that I’ve seen it I’m done.
EDIT: Removed unnecessary user tags
It’s annoying that some people are so small-minded that they only think one style of filmmaking counts as “real cinema”. Just like there are different genres of film (like comedy, horror, drama, etc.), there’s room for different styles of film as well.
Too many people seem to think that just because two things can be projected on a screen, it’s reasonable to compare them. Some also believe that one kind of film is objectively better than another.
No. Neither of those things are true.
Films provide room for a wide range of creativity, whether they’re loud, big-budget extravaganzas with broad appeal, or quiet, intimate, narrowly focused films intended for a smaller audience - or something in between.
I don’t understand why there’s even an argument about which type of film is best. If you’re like me, you enjoy several different things, depending on your mood.
I think the issue is mostly about what is art?
Some of the big budget movies feel devoid of creativity and are more a product than a work of art. While I do agree with you that there is some art in those big budget, I think the issue lies in how we communicate a movie.
What is a “good” movie? That’s entirely subjective! A better approach would be to explain what you liked (or disliked) about it. Then we can have more productive conversations about it ahah
There are only two good indy movies and that’s raiders and the last crusade.
Anything else was crap and crap Indiana Jones movies are nothing new.
Dune and so on are objectively good movies even though they play the hobbit tactic with dune releasing only half the book.
Why people like avengers and marvel and these movies I have no idea. Only a select few of these movies are watchable.
I felt compelled to reply, don’t really know why but here it goes:
“There are only two good indy movies and that’s raiders and the last crusade.”
Temple of Doom also has it’s charm, many of the most iconic Indy moments, beautiful cinematography and boldness to do things differently. It’s the weakest of the original trilogy but also the most interesting one to watch.
“Anything else was crap and crap Indiana Jones movies are nothing new.”
Yeah the two new ones are kinda crap. It’s an interesting duo as the Dial of Destiny is technically a better movie of the two but at the same time it’s the most indifferent and forgettable. Crystal Skull was crap but at least it had some original ideas and fit the original concept of rejuvenating the style of pulp/adventure literature of the era it’s set in. DoD was mostly a collection of recycled cliches and unnecessary cameos with few interesting ideas that were forgotten after being presented.
“Dune and so on are objectively good movies even though they play the hobbit tactic with dune releasing only half the book.”
True, Dune was great. But knowing the source material I am happy they chose to film it in parts. I actually think it could have been a trilogy.as there is so much going on in the original book.
“Why people like avengers and marvel and these movies I have no idea. Only a select few of these movies are watchable.”
That’s one of the great mysteries of life. Although it probably helps that they were a pop culture phenomenon even before the movies 🙂
