The Great Box Office Recession? -- Discussing the Up & Down Trends of the Box Office Market

[dudalb]

If we are taling worldwide gross, I think inflation and the loss of a major market are going to have impact on the final total.

[Torontofan]

Seeing global markets if you make a must see film, people will watch it and it will smash records.

 

No way Home did 800 million during a huge pandemic wave. 

 

The problem is none of the films are must see films that are releasing these days apart from comic book movies much. 

Edited March 30, 2022 by Torontofan

[tonytr87]

Things are looking up lately with Uncharted grossing well over 100 mil and The Lost City opening really well. The problem in March is studios were skittish and barely released anything. For some reason they decided to cram it all into April, much like October last year. 

Edited March 31, 2022 by tonytr87

[Porthos]

[dudalb]

On 3/31/2022 at 8:24 PM, Porthos said:

I think this is obvious: Covid has changed the world forever.

Short Term, I think the high inflation in the US is going to cut into box office.

[dudalb]

On 3/30/2022 at 8:27 AM, Torontofan said:

Seeing global markets if you make a must see film, people will watch it and it will smash records.

 

No way Home did 800 million during a huge pandemic wave. 

 

The problem is none of the films are must see films that are releasing these days apart from comic book movies much. 

I think the must see films will still be huge hits, but a lot of the more borderline films are going to suffer. The high inflation will cut into people's entertaiment budget. If you are single this might not be such a big thing, but if you have a family to suporrt. your movie budget will have to be cut back.

[dudalb]

And the final world wide totals for the year will be intersting ,with one of the major markets bascially dying a quick death, and no signs of it coming back any time soon.

 

[Eric Deetz]

 

[Shawn Robbins]

I totally forgot about this thread. 

[cannastop]

30 minutes ago, Eric the Tethered said:

 

all you really need is a damn ticket really.

[Mojoguy]

39 minutes ago, Eric the Tethered said:

 

That's why Discount Tuesdays are a huge hit with families.

Edited July 19, 2022 by Mojoguy

[AniNate]

I must sadly revive this thread again since we have now officially fallen behind the rolling 2022-2023 comp. I guess this can be where we air our daily despair about the state of the industry

[lab276]

Yep, now almost a full BILLION dollars behind 2023, and 200m behind 2022. And it's only gonna get worse as the summer goes on.

 

[AniNate]

Inside Out tracking has been looking better recently so there might be a small chance of next weekend stopping the bleeding, and Despicable Me does look like it will be a legit net gain on last year. 

 

It is a shame Horizon looks like a dud. That would've been nice to have as a leggy counter programming hit in two parts.

[Cooper Legion]

First time ever seeing this thread. Those folks in 2011-2013 didn’t know how good they had it…

[dudalb]

I think it is clear that the coming of streaming has resulted in a permanent overall loss of ticket sales. Iger is right, things are NEVER going back to the way they were pre 2020.

I alos think blaming COvid is a bit inacurate; blaming streaming is much more accurate. I think the move to streaming and the drop in ticket sales would have happened if there had been no COvid. It would have just taken longer. It mad esomething that would have taken five or six years happen in a couple of years.

It is the biggest permanent drop in movie attendence since the coming of Television circa 1950 killed movie attendence by 40%.

Off course some individual films will still be huge hits; but you need to look at the overall trend and it is clear the overall loss of ticket sales is  serious and permanent. 

There are other factors; in the US Inflation has bit into family's entertainment budgets, and a couple of huge markets have proven vulnerable to international politics; Only way to see a Western film in RUssia is via piracy; athough it is very widespread in Russia studios don't get a ruble of money from it. and it is clear that the Xi regime in  China is cutting down on the number of roreign films released there.

[dudalb]

11 hours ago, AniNate said:

Inside Out tracking has been looking better recently so there might be a small chance of next weekend stopping the bleeding, and Despicable Me does look like it will be a legit net gain on last year. 

 

It is a shame Horizon looks like a dud. That would've been nice to have as a leggy counter programming hit in two parts.

In four parts and that is part o th readon it looks to fail, people do not want to make that kind commitment to a totally unkwown film.That is is an original makes it different then series like LOTR DUne, Etc.

[AniNate]

From a high-level humanitarian perspective, I actually don't think a certain permanent loss in theater attendance in favor of streaming is a bad thing. It does suck to have to reserve tickets and coordinate a theater showing meetup if you're a big group compared to the relative ease of watching a movie at home. It also means less cars on the road for that purpose (better for the environment) and less people being drunk or otherwise inattentive in those cars causing crashes. 

 

It does mean exhibitors will have to adjust their business model to a smaller customer base, but I don't think the desire for communal viewing will ever go away. Just at a certain point it would be nice to see the weekly trend go back up, even if it's just fleetingly.

 

 

Edited June 10 by AniNate

[dudalb]

2 hours ago, AniNate said:

From a high-level humanitarian perspective, I actually don't think a certain permanent loss in theater attendance in favor of streaming is a bad thing. It does suck to have to reserve tickets and coordinate a theater showing meetup if you're a big group compared to the relative ease of watching a movie at home. It also means less cars on the road for that purpose (better for the environment) and less people being drunk or otherwise inattentive in those cars causing crashes. 

 

It does mean exhibitors will have to adjust their business model to a smaller customer base, but I don't think the desire for communal viewing will ever go away. Just at a certain point it would be nice to see the weekly trend go back up, even if it's just fleetingly.

 

 

Oh, the desire to go out and see movies with other people will never die out, movie theaters will not vanish completly, but the big drop in overall attedence since  2020 is permanent.

Once again, this has happened before; In in the early fifties, where television took away 40% of the pre television theatricla audience.

Of course some films will still be huge hits, and some weeks will be good weeks for box office, but the overall loss in audience is here to stay.

[lab276]

Just to demonstrate how apocalyptically bad the box office is travelling atm, here are the three post covid summers. Blue is 2022, red 2023 and yellow 2024. I know we all saw it coming, but seeing it like this is pretty stark. The studios and cinemas are in desperate need of a real blockbuster. Can it be the case that streaming is more profitable? Have any direct to streaming movies caught the imagination in the way that TGM, Avatar TWOW or Barbenheimer have? It's like the difference between releasing a tv series all in one go vs one episode per week. The conversation just can't sustain itself if the bulk of viewers watch it in one week then just move onto the next thing. Imagine if Netflix released Hit Man in theatres.

 

Edited June 12 by lab276