Outposters are superior online movie beings. You just are. Part of why we set up Last Movie Outpost, to be honest, was to try and provide a community for people like you who had been badly served by various websites full of overactive moderators, contributors who thought they were the main event, and sex pests.
While others spend their time shouting about the trivial, you guys are the only people who can turn, on a sixpence, from discussing the political furore around Sidney Sweeney to dissecting the relative finances behind the streaming model.
Speaking of that, it was Yoda’s article about the staggering numbers behind Happy Gilmore 2, and your subsequent conversations via Disqus, that set me thinking about something, and I have reached a conclusion, Outposters…
The Billion Dollar Grossing Movie Is Dead Baby… It’s Dead!
In fact, by extension, almost all comparisons of movie grosses today with other movies, even from the relatively recent past, are generally pointless in this new world we find ourselves in. Everything has changed in the movie landscape, and it has changed fast. How did we get here, why, and what does it all mean?
Post-COVID Viewing Habits
Looking back on 2020 and 2021 now, it all seems a bit surreal, and it is impossible not to feel a bit silly for going along with some of it. One of the first things to be closed down was movie theaters, as big releases were postponed and movie productions paused.
Meanwhile, streaming services went stratospheric. The minutes streamed soared into the billions, and movies like Extraction on Netflix became events, garnering the number of eyeballs that would make Bollywood jealous, let alone Hollywood.
In the course of this, many discovered the joys of home viewing. Lack of vacations and eating out, even commuting to the office, meant that people had spare cash to use to acquire increasingly huge televisions and advanced sound systems.
They trained us, or we trained ourselves, to not need to go to the movie theater anymore.
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Our kids aren’t going, either. Back when we were whippernappers, we basically hung out at the movie theater. It was borderline the only way to watch new movies. You either caught it at the cinema, waited around 6 months for a VHS release, or waited about another 2 years to watch it on television. In a world where we weren’t old enough to drink but too old to be climbing trees, the movie theater was basically our spare time.
These days, kids have it all. Access to multiple streamers and YouTube on their phones. A world of Roblox and Minecraft. They consume their entertainment in 45-second bursts via TikTok. Movies are, basically, for old people. Even if they wanted to go, they probably couldn’t, because…
Cinema Pricing
What the hell happened? A few weeks ago, I took my two kids to watch Superman. Sure, we got some nice reclining seats in a big screen and didn’t smuggle in our own candy, but the damn trip cost me going on for $100.
There is a cost-of-living crisis on. Everything from energy bills to groceries remains stubbornly high. Families are watching their budgets all over. Now is not the time to make a trip to the movies, a staple pastime, into a luxury expense.
But they have. So if it is so expensive and you have trained us to consume our media at home, then you’d better hope that a sense of scarcity and exclusivity drives a feeling of value. Oh…
Shorter Release Windows
What were we saying about “scarcity and exclusivity”? Just as the price point is rising so high that it pushes the medium into that luxury bracket, they remove any sense of exclusivity by shrinking release windows. It is almost as if the entire industry is run by morons, isn’t it? Some movies are coming out for home viewing within 30 days of cinema release. 45 days is a long time these days.
It used to take 3 months even as recently as the late 2010’s. It was 6 months not too long before that. Why bother going to the movies at that price point when you only have to wait the blink of an eye to watch it at home, especially as you have spent all that saved COVID cash on that massive TV! Speaking of home viewing…
The Rise of PVOD
Despite the hammering of “equity” and all associated ideals, isn’t it funny how there is still the inexorable rise of high convenience options for people with a bit of cash? Lightning lanes at theme parks. VIP security at airports. And if you are willing to pay, just-released movies beamed directly to your television. I mentioned the near $100 price for a small family trip to the movies earlier in this article. So if the movie has been out for mere days, and the whole family can sit down and watch it at home for $25.95, then why would we ever bother going to the movie theater ever again?
Well, maybe all that international box office can come to the rescue, right?
China
China very quickly became the single most important overseas market for Hollywood movies, so much so that studios bent over backwards to appease the controllers of that market. Then, just as quickly, China turned its back on Hollywood.
China is preparing to take Taiwan and then dare America to do something about it. When America doesn’t, China will then declare itself the new global hegemon and proclaim the great Chinese century. In order to prepare the way, the nationalistic drum has started to beat in the Middle Kingdom, and Hollywood has been caught in the crossfire. Negative sentiment of Hollywood movies has been circulating on Chinese social media, with a competitive edge.
Customers are staying away and supporting Chinese films to prove to the round-eyes that they are culturally superior. The results of this can be seen already with a Chinese movie being, comfortably, the highest-grossing movie of the year so far, while massive Hollywood releases struggle to find audiences in their former key overseas market.
Who Can Save Movies?
This is not to say that there will never be a billion-dollar grosser again. There is always room for a phenomenon like Barbenheimer to buck the system. Even a real 2025 phenom, which did find its global audience – A Minecraft Movie – stalled out at $950 million and change, so it will take something special.
In the meantime, something has to change in Hollywood, and it is changing. The days of middling Marvel movies somehow costing $350 million, or Tom Cruise being handed $400 million plus reshoots to fund his extreme sports addiction, are over.
There has been much discussion over the box office for this year’s Superman. Missing from much of the discussion is the fact that the budget was $225 million. For a movie like that, these days, that is a veritable bargain.
The cast is also lacking huge stars, with Nicholas Hoult and Nathan Fillion being the highest-profile main players in the cast. Ain’t nobody there getting an Exec. Producer credit or front-end points in that cast! The two leads playing Clark and Lois were on $750k each.
Then add to this the fact that the marketing was centred mainly around social media, with much of the buzz and engagement generated for free, the online commentators’ chatter about a $125 million marketing budget is very wide of the mark. So wide, in fact, that Warner Bros. execs openly mocked that number recently. Their hurdle rate for judging financial success was just $500 million in this new environment.
Over at Marvel, the same lessons have been learned. The new cast of X-Men will be largely unknowns with some TV faces in there. Meanwhile, the only actors earning Phase 1-3 money on the set of the new Avengers movie are Robert Downey Jr and Chris Hemsworth.
This is the new reality now. A reality of sub-$1 billion box office for even the biggest movies, and quite a few of the contributing factors are turds that Hollywood has laid in their own backyard.
Now watch Avatar 3 come along and make fools out of all of us.
