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Topic: Is 3-D Still Going Strong?

Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 02-20-2015 03:29 PM

Generating hype by way of dollar gross figures is only good for people with little knowledge of film history is just short term memories in general.

Today it wouldn't make much for "Space Pumpkins: Part VII" to outdo the opening weekend gross for Star Wars or Titanic. It's a common occurrence for the press to be spouting crap like, "biggest May weekend opening ever" for some sequel that actually ends up being pretty forgettable years later compared to the classics it supposedly beat.

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Andrew Thomas
Master Film Handler

Posts: 273
From: Pearland, TX, USA
Registered: Jun 2012

posted 02-20-2015 05:30 PM

So what your saying is that they are generating hype by using a system that works on 99% of the population [Wink]

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 02-20-2015 05:54 PM

In the advertising game it's what they call "puffery." Blowing something up to be something it's not, just for the sake of sales. It's been going on since the beginning of time. Hell when they installed the Scope screen in my theater they advertised it as presenting "three dimensional" type pictures which was totally a big lie.

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Terry Lynn-Stevens
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1081
From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Dec 2012

posted 02-20-2015 11:58 PM

quote: Mike Blakesley
In the advertising game it's what they call "puffery." Blowing something up to be something it's not, just for the sake of sales. It's been going on since the beginning of time.

So when American Sniper stunned everyone with its opening for January and then Fifty Shades of Grey equally stunned with its February opening, its not something that should discussed or reported in the news?

quote:
So what your saying is that they are generating hype by using a system that works on 99% of the population [Wink]

The 99% don't care what happened 20 or 30 years ago compared to today. Its really not relevant, we live in the "now" and if the weekly box office numbers are reported the current way and they get people into the theater, then so be it.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 02-21-2015 12:49 AM

quote: Terry Lynn-Stevens
So when American Sniper stunned everyone with its opening for January and then Fifty Shades of Grey equally stunned with its February opening, its not something that should discussed or reported in the news?

It's different because it's unusal to have big openings in the late winter, thus worthy of the news. Plus American Sniper is a cultural phenomenon this country, which added to its newsworthiness.

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Justin Hamaker
Film God

Posts: 2253
From: Lakeport, CA USA
Registered: Jan 2004

posted 02-21-2015 01:19 AM

With American Sniper, it was a story because it did so much better than any previous January release - even adjusted for inflation. It wasn't the actual dollar figure that mattered, it was that it was so popular in a month which doesn't normally have big hits.

On the other hand, holding up Fifty Shades as the top February opening is misleading. Sure, the $85 million opening is impressive. But not nearly as impressive as the $83 million for Passion of the Christ 11 years earlier.

The Fifty Shades example is what Mike was talking about. Sure it's technically a record, but it's meaningless without the proper context. And becomes less impressive when put into context.

Along the same lines, compare the $85 million opening for Fifty Shades with the $55 million for SpongeBob. Did SpongeBob really have 35% less attendance than Fifty Shades? The answer is probably not. Fifty Shades was more of an evening movie, and likely sold significantly fewer matinee tickets than SpongeBob, while SpongeBob likely did much less business in the evening than Fifty Shades. And then 3D premiums for SpongeBob change the equation again. Comparing American Sniper and Fifty Shades is another interesting example because Sniper had a higher percentage of matinee and senior admission than Fifty Shades.

Again, when movies have a big opening weekend, it is news worthy. If for no other reason than because it's going to be a popular topic of discussion. But the dollar figure is not what's news worthy; it's the fact the movie was so popular. The dollar figure only matters because it does provide some sort of yardstick to say how popular it was - even if the yardstick is imprecise and relatively meaningless to the layperson.

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Terry Lynn-Stevens
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1081
From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Dec 2012

posted 02-21-2015 10:33 AM

quote: Justin Hamaker
Along the same lines, compare the $85 million opening for Fifty Shades with the $55 million for SpongeBob. Did SpongeBob really have 35% less attendance than Fifty Shades? The answer is probably not. Fifty Shades was more of an evening movie, and likely sold significantly fewer matinee tickets than SpongeBob, while SpongeBob likely did much less business in the evening than Fifty Shades. And then 3D premiums for SpongeBob change the equation again. Comparing American Sniper and Fifty Shades is another interesting example because Sniper had a higher percentage of matinee and senior admission than Fifty Shades.

Wow haven't you analyzed it to death. But you forgot to mention that Spongebob is a kids movie and not an adult movie, so there will be a lot more kids admissions compared to the adult tickets. The 3D premiums are all off-set by the Fifty Shades of Grey PLF and IMAX surcharges. They will balance themselves out.

But then again Joe Public is not sitting there saying to Jill Public "Honey lets not see Fifty Shades of Grey tonight because we were mislead"...."Spongebob is really the more popular film as more people actually went to see the movie than Fifty Shades, you know Spongebob had cheaper tickets, 3-D surcharges, matinee prices, honey wanna see Spongebob tonight?"

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 02-21-2015 05:02 PM

I can definitely say that I've had customers come out after some movies saying things like, "Wow I can't believe that thing did $82 million dollars, it sucked!"

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Manny Montes
Master Film Handler

Posts: 270
From: United States
Registered: Feb 2010

posted 02-24-2015 01:58 AM

To be honest with you, I hope we can look back every year and talk about how XYZ movie blew it out of the park. I'm glad Sniper and 50 Shades are being talked about and did well (besides not liking the actual product) because i'm hoping that it shows studios that you can release a good product in any month and people will go see it. The summer season alone has been too crammed recently, so it will be nice to have a full 12 month calendar hopefully [Smile]

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Lyle Romer
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1400
From: Davie, FL, USA
Registered: May 2002

posted 02-24-2015 05:26 AM

quote: Manny Montes
The summer season alone has been too crammed recently, so it will be nice to have a full 12 month calendar hopefully.

Good luck with that! I've been saying that for decades now. The problem is that a February release doesn't line up at all with Holiday DVD/Blue-ray sales due to the ridiculously small windows.

Technically, I guess American Sniper was a Holiday release.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 02-24-2015 11:46 AM

Sniper didn't go "wide" until January 16 so for the purposes of release date arguments it's probably considered a January release.

It's hilarious how every single time a movie "breaks out" into a hit in the off months, the industry reacts with wonderment that "people will go to a good movie anytime!!" and then they continue to cram everything into the summer and Christmas.

I can sort of see it, though -- in one article I read, a studio guy says "If you put out a movie in February and it hits, you look like a genius, but if it flops, you might get blamed for the flop because you released it in the off season." So decision makers are just covering their backs.

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Martin McCaffery
Film God

Posts: 2481
From: Montgomery, AL
Registered: Jun 99

posted 02-24-2015 12:09 PM

Of course, the other reason for Decemberish releases is Oscar bait. They believe, perhaps justifiably, that Academy Member have the memory span of a fruit fly.

I'm sure someone somewhere is already arguing Boyhood would have won if it was released in November instead of whenever it was (and made a ton of money).

Of course, all of the other movies nominated that were released late lost, also, but no one wants to count those.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 02-24-2015 01:20 PM

American Sniper was definitely a holiday, Oscar-bait release. The marketing push for it started up in the fall. It, like so many other Oscar-bait movies, was released in a few big city theaters before year's end to qualify for the Oscar ballot. I do not consider it a pure January release.

The two big seasons for movie releases, Summer for big budget spectacles and the Holidays for Oscar-bait, are contemporary phenomenon. Decades ago it wasn't nearly as important to release a new movie during a certain season regardless whether it was intended to be a crowd-pleasing spectacle or high brow picture to please critics and Oscar voters.

In 1970, M*A*S*H and Patton were both big hits and critically acclaimed. M*A*S*H premiered on Jan. 25 and later went wide in March. Patton had its premiere on Feb. 4 and then went wide in April. Both movies won Oscars in the awards ceremony held a year later in 1971, including a Best Picture Oscar for Patton.

In the long run Silence of the Lambs will probably still rank as one of the most well known and well acclaimed Valentine's Day movie releases of all time. It was released Feb. 14, 1991. A year later it swept the major categories at the Academy Awards show, winning Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Actress. Not many movies have done that. A decade from now Silence of the Lambs will still be remembered while 50 Shades of Grey may just be a forgotten blip on the movie history radar screen.

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Mitchell Dvoskin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1869
From: West Milford, NJ, USA
Registered: Jan 2001

posted 02-24-2015 01:32 PM

> M*A*S*H premiered on Jan. 25 and later went wide in March. Patton had its premiere on Feb. 4 and then went wide in April.

In 2015, both those films would have gone to DVD/Bluray/Streaming around the time they would have gone wide back in 1970, and only vaguely remembered by Academy members by December. Fruit flies do indeed have better memories.

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Martin McCaffery
Film God

Posts: 2481
From: Montgomery, AL
Registered: Jun 99

posted 02-24-2015 01:56 PM

The whole idea of going wide, especially in summer, is strictly a post-Jaws phenom, cemented by Star Wars.

Was looking at a 1920' Film Daily and they were writing about the widest release ever - 300 (hundred) prints. In those days, it could take a year for a film to make it to the smaller out posts. And, of course, summer was the dead season since so many houses closed for the summer.

It's the Studio's world, they only let us show movies in it.

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