Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Finally, a voice of reason about the "slump"

This is topic Finally, a voice of reason about the "slump" in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://ft-forum.com/ft/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=8;t=004413

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 12-27-2005, 10:50 PM:

From Roger Ebert's "Movie Answer Man" at www.rogerebert.com :

The passion of the slump
December 25, 2005

Q. If this was such a great year for movies, why are box-office receipts so far down from last year, even though admission prices are at an all-time high? Do you feel that there is such a growing disconnect between Hollywood and America that Hollywood had better wake up or face serious consequences?

Cal Ford, Corsicana, Texas

A: No, I don't, because the "box-office slump" is an urban myth that has been tiresomely created by news media recycling one another. By mid-December, according to the Hollywood Reporter, receipts were down between 4 percent and 5 percent from 2004, a record year when the totals were boosted by Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," which grossed $370 million. Many of those tickets were sold to people who rarely go to the movies. 2005 will eventually be the second or third best year in box-office history. Industry analyst David Poland at moviecitynews.com has been consistently right about this non-story.

Posted by Mike Heenan (Member # 392) on 12-27-2005, 11:00 PM:

A ticket sold is a ticket sold.... it's lame how people have to justify sales for The PAssion to mold their opinions on box office receipts. [Roll Eyes]

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 12-27-2005, 11:33 PM:

All I know is that the "box office" is still getting their asses handed to them by video games!

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 12-27-2005, 11:37 PM:

When I saw the movie trailer for "Miami Vice" my first thought was, "great, we get to watch even more TV on the movie screen." Maybe that's another reason for the push to video projection. So many of the movies are really just blown up TV shows. So why not get rid of the film and just replace it with a big freaking TV set?

Posted by Matt Fields (Member # 3211) on 12-28-2005, 12:18 AM:

Ebert is right...the slump is a myth...people have been crying about the death of the theatre since television. The theatres are still here 50 years later...

Let there be no doubt that for a lot of theatres, the "Passion" was a huge boost. At my theatre, its the largest grossing film I've ever had. It did almost double the #2 movie ever (Shrek 2).

Posted by John Walsh (Member # 168) on 12-28-2005, 07:48 AM:

If the studios are doing so great, why are theaters doing so poorly "Movie Answer Man"?

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 12-28-2005, 07:59 AM:

why are theaters doing so poorly

Too many screens, all running the same film, and being forced to hold the film longer than it is profitable.

This is the problem with national "boxoffice" figures. They do not indicate how individual theatres are doing. Nationwide Average gross per screen for an entire year would be a more telling number to judge the trends.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 12-28-2005, 08:24 AM:

I've gotten replies from our customers that they are down between 7% and 24% for the year. I generally ask how things have been for the year when I'm on my service calls. It careens all over the place. Some continue to build.... closing gown older sites and replacing them with new cinemas in an effort to lure customers in and to make operations more efficient and cost saving. We have several customers who's groses are up, one of them is up 40%! This is in the gold mining area of the country though and since there is now a boom in gold again the population base is alot higher in those areas than it was.

I do think Hollywood is in a slump though and that its a big time slump. Anyone out there can easily recognize this because we have too much crap like "Miami Vice", and "King Kong" to contend with... a lack of originality is what it is, long inflexible run contracts, little to no profit from the film itself, and actors that think they're god. With conditions like this it becomes really disappointing for exhibitors in general. Lame actors & lame pictures = lame profits! There's no way around that. While theatre owners seemingly keep pace by overhauling themselves I feel its also time for Hollywood to do the same thing and become original again.

Mark

P.S. I never did agree much with Ebert anyway..... another case of he sits in his nice office, goes to the screening room and does his reviews, then tapes his shows.... Since Gene passed on he's become a burned out old movie critic that should retire and fade away. His show is dull and boring to say the least and it's worn out and to me just another phony part of the press. He doesn't get to see the reality side of the exhibition buisness that most of us get to see. Believe him if you want to but you'd also probably believe they are raising the Titanic next week as well.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 12-28-2005, 11:49 AM:

There is now and have always been "cycles" in the business. Assume 5 directors (or studios, actors, etc). Some have a hit every 3 years, or 4 or 5. The industry as a whole will "win" when all cycles are positive and be "lose" when all cycles are negative. If you understand probability. It all makes sense.

It would help, however, if scripts were more intelligent and less derivitive. Louis

Posted by Greg Mueller (Member # 17) on 12-28-2005, 12:06 PM:

quote:
a lack of originality is what it is,

Boy I couldn't agree more. Remake after remake, it's like the "writers" forgot how to be creative. Or maybe the creative writers have all died or retired or something.

Posted by Matt Fields (Member # 3211) on 12-28-2005, 12:42 PM:

Talent has always been the rarest of commidities. I think we look back on the past with rose colored glasses. Only a handful of the thousands of old movies are remembered today.

I think the studios have always made "safe" pictures. They do not want to risk thier money on gambles when the alternative is to make a safe (yet crappy) sequel, remake, or genre picture.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 12-28-2005, 12:42 PM:

quote: John Walsh
why are theaters doing so poorly "Movie Answer Man"?

A 9% downturn is not "doing so poorly." It's just a down year. If you're a NATO member, go get your Encyclopedia of Exhibition and look at the 30-year history and look at the up-and-down cycles.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 12-28-2005, 12:47 PM:

quote: Matt Fields
Talent has always been the rarest of commidities. I think we look back on the past with rose colored glasses. Only a handful of the thousands of old movies are remembered today.

Oh Matt... come on! There are thousands upon thousands of extremely talented people working in the film industry.... I can vouch for that since I spent alot of time working in it.

You can only remember a handful of old movies...... I can remember hundreds and I think many others here can as well. There were threads in the past pertaining to this sort of thing.... do a search for it to find those hundreds of titles, then you'll know.

quote: Matt Fields
I think the studios have always made "safe" pictures. They do not want to risk thier money on gambles when the alternative is to make a safe (yet crappy) sequel, remake, or genre picture.

Hahaha, There is a crapo movie called King Kong playing on screens now that will never recoup even its negative cost. Yea, this was one real original film.... ha....... There was another one called Waterworld.... Heavens Gate.... and so many garbage "B" movies that I can't even remember the title of one of them. I don't expect every film to be a landmark trend setting film but lets throw away the stupidness in films that seems to prevail. This is the sort of UNSAFE stuff thats ruining hollywood and film in general. Go ahead....bring digital projection on.... if there's anything left to show with it.....

Mark

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 12-28-2005, 01:31 PM:

Two quick observations...

1. Why do we measure box office success by counting dollars instead of total ticket sales?

2. Why is "Passion" considered a film that "boosted" the box office? Why didn't he say that "Shrek 2" boosted the box office? It made 441 million. Or "Spiderman 2" which made 374 million? "Passion" only made 370 million. How about that God aweful "Troy" movie which had no business making 130 million dollars. Or "The Bourne Supremacy" which made 170 million. Why aren't they considered "boosts"?

Posted by Steve Scott (Member # 630) on 12-28-2005, 01:36 PM:

CNN's morning weather girls were spouting off about why King Kong hasn't done as well as Titanic...
It's the same general malaise that people who always expect everything to sell out & are surprised to find out that most people have better things to do than see the [bs]

released this year.
The creative train in the movie world stops every other year or two to dump remakes & TV-show adaptations that are destined to fail. Hopefully next year they'll make that train run again. But people have unrealistic expectations for their movies. Their peers in focus groups tell Hollywood what they like & the studios plug in demographic-friendly elements to otherwise pale stories. Moreover, there's been less showmanship by studios & cinemas alike this year. There's probably more advertising & less lighting on screens around the country. And then all the fake-indie crap dumped into megaplexes but ignored by the real independent houses.

I couldn't justify a mere $8 for most films this year, so I've kept my mouth tight-lipped when patrons ask me if anything is a good film. I try to let the tone of my voice say more truth [Smile]

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 12-28-2005, 04:54 PM:

quote: Greg Mueller
Boy I couldn't agree more. Remake after remake, it's like the "writers" forgot how to be creative. Or maybe the creative writers have all died or retired or something.

Agreed, but I think the problem is moreso the suits than the writers. Odds are that there ARE writers out there churning out good scripts, but it's those damned suits saying "oh no it doesn't match our stupid golden formula!!! You need to change this and have that person die and have these two get together at the end and totally kill all originality because it's our formula." [Roll Eyes]

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 12-28-2005, 05:16 PM:

Mark J.: The reason "Passion" is singled out as a "boost" is because it got a lot of people into theatres that never (or very rarely) go to movies. "Shrek" brought out the same people that all popular animated movies bring out, so there was nothing unusual about it.

Posted by Benjamin J. Kepner (Member # 1241) on 12-28-2005, 05:31 PM:

I think the reason that the exhibitors have been getting hit harder than anything is this... Somehow Hollywood has gotten ahold of some magical "Golden marketing formula of self-destruction" that causes movies to go all balls for the first two weeks (when they get the biggest cut) and then they fall flat off the face of the earth (or straight to video) before the 2nd runs can even make a single red cent off of em.

Posted by Mike Spaeth (Member # 524) on 12-28-2005, 11:52 PM:

Life goes on. Find ways to maximize profits and move on. The way business is done is not going to change.

Posted by Greg Anderson (Member # 235) on 12-29-2005, 02:21 AM:

Once again, it seems like the Oscar race will be all about movies which won't be popular. I expect headlines about the "lowest TV ratings" in the past however-many years, etc.. Average Americans won't care who wins. It's no wonder that Chris Rock and Billy Crystal have already said "No, thank you" to hosting the party in March 2006. (The press tends to write articles blaming the host for low ratings or praising the host for high ratings. [Roll Eyes]

) I'll be surprised if anybody can "rescue" the telecast this time around.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 12-29-2005, 10:07 AM:

Well said Greg! I am one of those out there who could care less.

Mark

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 12-29-2005, 12:39 PM:

I can see the headlines now: "Movie industry has bad year, now low TV Oscar Ratings spell beginning of end"

Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 12-29-2005, 01:11 PM:

They should do a live Razzie Awards show- I'd watch that. Sounds like there'll be a lot of competition there this year.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 12-29-2005, 07:28 PM:

It is a point of debate whether the movie industry is in a slump or not.

However, it is an absolute fact multi-national corporations are deliberately blocking originality, purposefully making the same derivative product. That level of same old sameness extends to the movie posters, trailers and DVD cases. There's good movies out there, but not many releases from major distributors are very remarkable at all.

You can't really corporatize creativity into a dependably predictable commodity. The film distributors and major production companies can try to apply their formulas, and release a larger percentage of sequels, remakes and TV series converts. It's not going to get them very far. My movie going and DVD buying habits have trailed off a great deal.

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
Oh Matt... come on! There are thousands upon thousands of extremely talented people working in the film industry.... I can vouch for that since I spent alot of time working in it.

As Brad stated, the talented creative peoplea are not calling the shots. The corporate boardrooms are doing it. And they couldn't figure out how to do a decent job even if someone gave them a map. The fundamental thing is the movie companies must take risks on new ideas. Right now they are risking little. The only reason they're making any kind of living is we have a general public so blissfully stupid they'll just seem to buy anything. But this crap can't go on forever. The music industry is certainly finding out that one.

quote: Mark J. Marshall
Why do we measure box office success by counting dollars instead of total ticket sales?

Because it sounds better in the press. It's all about spin.
[Roll Eyes]

I couldn't care less if a movie hits the $100 million mark, or even manages to do it in a single weekend. Who cares!? BFD!

You can hit the $100 million mark with less than 10 million tickets sold. That's 1 in 30 Americans seeing the movie. Very UNimpressive.

If the idiots in the press would start tracking actual ticket sales, then that slump would appear more real. And more real in the long term -especially when you count ticket sales per capita and compare that to historical sales.

Right now "Titanic" is the box office champ. Another movie could come along and equal its haul with quite a few less tickets sold. If we measured box office champs by tickets sold, "Gone With the Wind" would still be the all time champ. Modern films like "Jaws" and the original release of "Star Wars" would be well ahead of "Titanic."

This difference in spin versus reality is a golden opportunity for any entertainment press outfit. The capability is there to quickly tabulate actual tickets sold, rather than stupid box office gross. Those tickets sold figures can provide a far more realistic figure to see just how Hollywood is doing with its product compared to previous years or decades.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 01-04-2006, 02:06 PM:

quote: Mike Blakesley
Mark J.: The reason "Passion" is singled out as a "boost" is because it got a lot of people into theatres that never (or very rarely) go to movies.

If that's true... why isn't Hollywood making more of those kinds of movies? Seems to me that there's a target audience there that could be tapped into.

(I already know the answer to this, but it is the obvious question everyone - ESPECIALLY EXHIBITORS - should be asking.)

Posted by Jeremy Fuentes (Member # 2135) on 01-04-2006, 03:57 PM:

I've said it before, none of this talk really matters. All that matters is how your theater is doing. All the "crap" movies, like King Kong(a matter of opinion BTW) equal good weekends for us. Thats all that matters. Right?

Posted by Steve Scott (Member # 630) on 01-04-2006, 04:08 PM:

For many patrons, "Oscar-nominated" is eponymous for "I will enjoy without thinking about the content" Patrons are told what to see this time of year, and they follow. When the snow melts, then they want the bang for their buck Summer titles to try to pull them away from more worthwhile activities they could be doing in their thawed world.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-04-2006, 04:25 PM:

quote: Mark J. Marshall
If that's true... why isn't Hollywood making more of those kinds of movies?

Why do you think Disney pushed the church crowd so hard on "Narnia?"

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 01-06-2006, 05:08 PM:

That's a different kind of movie, Mike. No one had to push people to see Passion. Do you think next year Roger Ebert will be saying that Narnia "boosted" the box office of 2005?

Getting people to go the movies should be the name of the game. The studios who originally shunned Mel Gibson should be following his lead to the bank. But they choose to leave all of that money on the table for some reason.

This week we're treated to that blockbuster "Grandma's Boy" instead.

Posted by Mike Heenan (Member # 392) on 01-06-2006, 05:39 PM:

I predict that Ebert will say Snakes on a Plane rescued the box office in 2006. [Big Grin]

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-06-2006, 06:01 PM:

quote: Mark J. Marshall
That's a different kind of movie, Mike. No one had to push people to see Passion.

No, I guess the millions of promos that were sent to all the churches didn't help a bit. "Passion" was promoted just like any other movie, probably more so. It had many of the same things going for it that "Titanic" did: Everyone knew the story, it was a popular story, and a well-made film.

quote: Mark J. Marshall
The studios who originally shunned Mel Gibson should be following his lead to the bank. But they choose to leave all of that money on the table for some reason.

I agree with you that the studios were dumb to pass on "Passion." But, you seriously think a slew of non-English-speaking, Bible-related pictures should have followed it? Nope. You can't MAKE lighting strike.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 01-07-2006, 01:42 AM:

Of course the promos going to churches helped. I said Narnia is a different type of movie, not that the promos didn't help.

And YES I think that Bible related movies should have followed Passion. Why not? They could probably follow it now and still be successful. Whether or not they're English-speaking is irrelevant, as Passion demonstrated, provided they're good stories that are told well. Why do you think that Bible related movies should NOT have followed it?

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 01-07-2006, 01:55 AM:

quote: Jeremy Fuentes
All that matters is how your theater is doing. All the "crap" movies, like King Kong(a matter of opinion BTW) equal good weekends for us. Thats all that matters. Right?

... an interesting observation. Looking at the IMDB listings for '06 releases, I'd be wondering if I couldn't do better by filling my auditoriums with video games.

On the other hand, I don't have an indoor anymore, and most of the stuff coming out this year will play GREAT at my drive-in.

... go figure.

Posted by Matt Fields (Member # 3211) on 01-07-2006, 09:37 AM:

One of the reasons The Passion was so sucessful was that Mel decided to use the ancient languages.

There have been many Jesus movies over the years..."The Passion" was different in that it claimed to be authentic.

Also, I think that many Christians wanted to support somebody from Hollywood making a movie for them .

I remember many customers, the ones who haven't been back since, asking me: "Why don't they make movies for Christians?".

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 01-07-2006, 10:04 AM:

EXACTLY. But it wasn't just Christians. Jews showed up to see it too despite the idiots that were claiming that the movie was anti-semetic. Folks of other religious stripes also showed up to see it just because of its content. Something like 98% of the country has some sort of religion in their lives to one degree or another, and there are hundreds of stories in the Bible that could be told. They just need to pick one and make a good movie about it.

The fact that Hollywood hasn't picked up on this and acted on it yet strikes me as arrogant. They seem to be asking "Why aren't people coming to see our movies?" As if something is wrong with YOU the movie goer. Instead they should be asking themselves "What are we doing wrong?" Until they start honestly asking THAT question, the problem is not going to get fixed.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 01-07-2006, 12:15 PM:

The reason why Hollywood hasn't done more with the religion movie genre in recent years it because it is fashionable to be agnostic. The fashion trend is deep enough to make them stay away from making more religious themed movies. The fashion is overriding some valid pricinples in marketing. I'm not saying its bad to be agnostic, but Christians should not be made to fell ashamed for being Christians. Same goes for Jews and Muslims. Too bad some outspoken crackpots or violent nut jobs assassinates the character of anyone having faith.

Anyway, Hollywood used to make a LOT of religious oriented movies. The first CinemaScope movie was "The Robe." The most well known VistaVision movie is "The Ten Commandments." And "Ben Hur" got the Super/Ultra Panavision 70 process rolling toward a lot of use in the 1960s. All sorts of wide screen bible epics were being made in the 1950s and 1960s. There were even a few in the 1970s.

Overall I think the shift in movie making fashion to more grungy based movies at the end of the 1960s began the end of that trend. It almost goes hand in hand with the 65mm production format going dormant.

Now to get back to The Slump.

The down box office of 2005 is translating over to the home video market and then some.

Reports were released this week on DVD sales for 2005: a mixed bag of results. 2004 was definitely a better year. The DVD format is "reaching maturity" far faster than anticipated. Many movies have had to be marked down to really low prices, often far lower than music CDs in order to be attractive. Lots of DVD player owners have already populated their movie libraries with their favorite titles and buying habits are leveling off.

In the past DVD sales have been able to hide down years for Hollywood. The studios could use catalog title sales to greatly improve an otherwise bad slate of current titles. Now that most DVD player owners have bought up their favority titles Hollywood won't have the luxury of bringing up the past. More and more their balance sheets are going to have to stand on what they released over the past year.

2006 could be a rough year for video sales for several factors. Many people have just been renting DVDs due to the collectively lesser quality of 2005 titles on the whole. Who wants to actually own a copy of "Bewitched" or "The Dukes of Hazzard"? The brewing format war between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray will also hurt DVD player hardware and software sales. Now that both formats are definitely coming to the marketplace many folks will resist buying movies in standard DVD-V format. Gotta have "The Matrix" in HD-DVD -whenever I can get a HDTV that's worth a damn for less than a king's ransom.

On the HD front, sales are sure to be SLLLOOOOOOWWWW on those new HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players. Lots of people will be fully satisfied with the standard DVD format. The new players will need phone line or broadband Internet connections to authenticate players and discs. Who needs that complicated anti-customer bullshit? More reason to stick with DVD.

Anyway, the market in home video is getting murky and will put more pressure on Hollywood to deliver decent movies that play well immediately in theatrical release. They're going to need to do that, or those studios are going to wind up getting into a lot of financial trouble.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-07-2006, 12:27 PM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
Lots of DVD player owners have already populated their movie libraries with their favorite titles and buying habits are leveling off.

That describes me. I haven't bought a new-movie DVD in at least 3 years, I own most of the "oldies" that I want and most of my buying these days is TV show collections. And I'm running out of desirables there too.

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 01-07-2006, 05:20 PM:

Gosh Mike and Bobby, I don't agree with that. I keep updating my DVDs with some of my favorite new and old TV shows and features.

I think many people keep buying DVDs even knowing that a HD disc of some format is around the corner.

[ 01-08-2006, 07:27 AM: Message edited by: Phil Hill ]

Posted by Steve Scott (Member # 630) on 01-07-2006, 10:54 PM:

Format wars may stifle a stalled market once these films come to stores this quarter, but retail stores will try to excite the buying public into buying both new formats and accepting none of the blame for the obsolete units sitting in joe blow's rack system. By the time its all sorted out, the winning format will have found its compatibility in $99 Home-Theatre-in-a-box systems, and I'll die just a little bit more inside.