Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: This summer has sucked, as if that wasn't obvious (Variety article)

This is topic This summer has sucked, as if that wasn't obvious (Variety article) 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=007520

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 07-11-2017, 03:20 PM:

How Too Many Aging Franchises Wrecked the Summer Box Office

The summer box office is sending out an SOS.

Once formidable franchises such as “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Transformers” keep hitting icebergs like poor reviews and tepid word of mouth. As these costly tentpoles take on water, the summer’s domestic ticket sales have so far sunk 9% from last year, leaving studio executives and industry insiders queasy.

“It’s been a dud by any definition,” said Jeff Bock, a box office analyst with Exhibitor Relations. “There are a lot of tired, creaky franchises out there. In the past, studios looked at sequels as safety nets meant to catch a lot of money, but they’re not catching as much as they used to.”

One shipwreck after another has extinguished prior hopes of a record summer. As high as expectations are for several July releases including “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” which had a successful debut this past weekend, and the July 14 release of “War for the Planet of the Apes,” a lackluster August without a “Suicide Squad” in sight will bring the business crashing back to Earth.

Part of the blame lands on studios’ engagement in release-date brinkmanship, a dangerous game that’s led executives to carve out the choicest opening weekends years in advance. Planting a flag that far ahead usually requires leveraging a well-known franchise or cinematic universe, which often means deciding when several sequels and spinoffs will debut before a script is even in place. This summer, fatigue appears to have set in, with many once popular film series failing to justify their continued existence. There’s no discernible reason for Johnny Depp to unfurl the Black Pearl’s skull-and-crossbows banner for yet another voyage or for Optimus Prime to save humanity from extinction for the fifth time in a decade. Perhaps the studios should have waited for filmmakers to be more inspired before giving their movies the greenlight.

“Your landscape is littered with sequels and fourth and fifth versions of movies,” said Chris Aronson, Fox’s distribution chief. “Not exactly a landscape that is littered with originality.”

When Hollywood has tried to create new hits, the results have been sobering. Warner Bros. once hoped that “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword,” a hyperkinetic Guy Ritchie-directed epic, would launch a new action series, but the film was greeted with withering reviews and paltry ticket sales. Likewise, “The Mummy,” once intended to kick off Universal’s Dark Universe of monsters and fantastical creatures, floundered, grossing a moribund $76.5 million stateside through July 6. It’s possible that some of these movies were out of step with the times, offering grit and darkness at a time when audiences are desperate for a reprieve from depressing headlines about global terrorism and healthcare cuts.

“The mood in the world is one of caution, and when you can go to a movie theater for a couple of hours and lose it all in the screen, that’s been the hallmark of the movie business for many, many years,” said Greg Foster, CEO of Imax Entertainment. “And I have felt in the last two or three months it’s never been more important.”

Even as the business’s fortunes fade (box office revenue to date stands at $2.29 billion, compared with last year’s $2.49 billion), there’s some help on the way. “Spider-Man: Homecoming” successfully rebooted the web-spinner franchise by replacing Andrew Garfield with a more youthful Tom Holland and sending the character back to high school. It opened to a sizable $117 million.

Buzz is also building for three upcoming summer releases — “Dunkirk,” Christopher Nolan’s World War II epic; “Atomic Blonde,” an action spy thriller with Charlize Theron; and “War for the Planet of the Apes,” the third installment in the science-fiction trilogy.

Still, even if those films deliver, and so far most of Hollywood’s offerings have fallen short of expectations, the domestic box office will likely end the summer down significantly from 2016. August looks like a dead zone. Last summer, “Suicide Squad” racked up $325.1 million at the tail end of the season, while “Don’t Breathe” and “Sausage Party” also did big business before school vacations ended. This year, fewer films seem guaranteed to do robust business. Still, studios are trying to maintain an optimistic front.

“It’s not surprising to see an ebb and flow from year to year — the market is dependent on a lot of factors, including the quality of the films, buzzworthiness and competition,” said Disney’s distribution chief Dave Hollis. “If there’s a film people are excited about, they don’t wait to see it.”

In many cases, what excites people in the U.S. is very different from what animates consumers abroad. Films such as “The Mummy” and “Transformers: The Last Knight” have struggled domestically while earning more than 75% of their grosses overseas. Splashy special effects still feel like novelties in countries like China.

“It’s getting harder to create content that appeals to every audience around the world,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at comScore. “There’s a real disconnect between the set of requirements for a big hit in North America and what people consider to be great fun in other parts of the world.”

International ticket sales this summer are up 2% from 2016.

While it may be too early to write obituaries for the movie theaters, the downturn couldn’t come at a worse time for the business. Theater stocks have been pummeled as investors grow skittish about the possibility that exhibitors will reach a deal that would allow studios to release movies on demand early. AMC, the world’s largest chain, for instance, has seen its share price slip nearly 29% to $21.70 from just over $30 in the past three months, while Regal’s share price dropped 10% to $19.40 from $21.60. Studios are offering to cut theater owners in on a slice of the profits, but Wall Street is concerned that exhibitors may be hastening their own demise by enabling consumers to skip the multiplexes and just wait a few weeks for a movie to come out on home entertainment platforms.

Box office prognosticators and exhibition analysts believe that even if the summer ends on a sour note, the rest of 2017 seems more promising. They believe that “Justice League,” Pixar’s “Coco,” and, particularly, “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” all of which hit theaters in the final quarter of the year, will lure audiences back to the cinema. Maybe, just maybe, they’ll prove potent enough to propel ticket sales to another record.

“Nothing seems to cure the ills of the movie business better than a ‘Star Wars’ movie,” said Imax’s Foster.

Variety article

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 07-11-2017, 04:31 PM:

I don't think it's just fatigue for sequels, but also for genres. Had the exact same Wonder Woman film opened 2-3 years ago, I suspect it would have opened stronger and done better overall. At least it's had legs which should allow it to top $400 million.

And then there are the adult comedies which have been completely forgettable.

On the other hand, a very well reviewed original movie in Baby Driver has failed to catch on and find an audience. This is one that's concerning to me because it may show a deeper issue than just fatigue over franchises, sequels/prequels/spinoffs, and forgettable movies.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 07-11-2017, 04:38 PM:

I certainly haven't had a great number of movies here this year that draw much of a crowd. The wonderful thing about a theatre, of course, is that I keep thinking, "Next week it's going to pick up!" [Smile]

Given the right movie I can pack this place all week. But the right movie is pretty scarce these days.

Posted by Harold Hallikainen (Member # 5405) on 07-11-2017, 04:48 PM:

These sequels and super-hero movies are not going to get any ticket purchases from me. The latest movies we've seen and enjoyed include: Get Out, Obit, The Big Sick, Monterey Pop, Deconstructing Sgt. Pepper. This week we're going to see Maudie.

Harold

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 07-11-2017, 05:18 PM:

quote: Justin Hamaker
On the other hand, a very well reviewed original movie in Baby Driver has failed to catch on and find an audience. This is one that's concerning to me because it may show a deeper issue than just fatigue over franchises, sequels/prequels/spinoffs, and forgettable movies.

Things are often a little different across the pond, but the signs of the times are pretty similar if you look at the big picture.

But it's not like we didn't see this coming, I remember somewhat heated discussions about just this a year or two ago on this same forum.

But, over here Baby Driver seems to do pretty fine, it actually drew in more people last weekend than Transformers and The Mummy combined. It's one of those movies that needs to build a crowd, it wasn't heavily advertised and it seems to grow on word of mouth.

What I hear from everyone I speak about it though is pretty simple: People are really tired of this constant franchise reheat. Besides the obvious fans of superhero movies, nobody really seems to care anymore about the latest and greatest superhero movie. Many of them already lost track. Most of them even don't know the difference between DC and Marvel franchises, most of them don't even care.

Besides the endless barrage of reheat this year, even the "original" releases were utter meh, like "King Arthur", which is also just a hodgepodge of old stories mixed into something "new" and totally forgettable.

I have a little hope for Dunkirk, but most people around me have indicated they feel pretty little for yet another WW2 movie.

There are so many good stories out there, why is it so difficult for Hollywood to pick the right ones? Why do we need to see the same movie over and over again?

Let's just end this Groundhog Day situation and start telling stories again. Maybe we should ask politicians to impose a temporary maximum budget for movies, as it turns out that right now, the amount of money poured into a movie seems to be inversely related to the quality of said movie.

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 07-11-2017, 05:30 PM:

quote: Marcel Birgelen
as it turns out that right now, the amount of money poured into a movie seems to be inversely related to the quality of said movie.

Time for a return to Dogme 95? [Wink]

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 07-11-2017, 06:05 PM:

Maybe we should install Dogme 17, a bail-out fund for failed Hollywood Studios, but in order to participate, your movies have to conform our rules.

I'm willing to pony up $10 and 2 cents. The great thing is, if we use Dogma 95 as template, we can get like 10 movies out of those $10.02 and still have 2 cents left. [Wink]

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 07-11-2017, 06:12 PM:

and the great confessions afterwards!

Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 07-11-2017, 10:33 PM:

quote: Justin Hamaker
I don't think it's just fatigue for sequels, but also for genres.

Exactly on point. Enough superhero movies. My wife and I went to see Baby Driver for no reason other than it was something different. It wasn't as good as I expected but at least it wasn't yet another "save the cat" superhero movie.

The good superhero movies like Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Spider-Man 1 & 2 (Toby Maguire) were story driven with a superhero as the protagonist. The normal Avengers type movie with people flying around in costumes having pointless battles that you know they will win just get boring the 15th time you see the same thing with different characters/actors.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 07-12-2017, 09:06 AM:

quote: Justin Hamaker
On the other hand, a very well reviewed original movie in Baby Driver has failed to catch on and find an audience. This is one that's concerning to me because it may show a deeper issue than just fatigue over franchises, sequels/prequels/spinoffs, and forgettable movies.

Multiple factors are possible, but with a movie as good as Baby Driver struggling I think there is a broader, more sinister issue affecting theater traffic: the broad downturn in retail.

Rhetorical question: where are most movie theaters located? Retail shopping centers. They might be built inside an old fashioned indoor shopping mall or built on a large pad site next to the mall. Most stand-alone theaters are at least within rock-throwing distance of a big box strip of stores. I've seen a lot of theaters built as a focal point or even center piece of outlet malls and trendy outdoor "town center" malls.

Brick and mortar retail has been getting killed lately by online merchants. Big retail chains of all types and market segments have been closing hundreds of locations. JCPenney is in bankruptcy. Sears, a 100+ year old icon of American retail, probably won't survive to the end of this decade. Neiman Marcus, Macys and many other big box stores are struggling badly. Lots of smaller chains have gone out of business. Remember video rental stores? They're not extinct yet, but are well on that path. The same goes for music stores. Very few stores that have a store front are immune to the threat from online merchants.

One thing that really angers me is how both average Americans and the media apparently love this situation. They regard it as "the future of retail." Here's a little news flash for these idiots: 80% of America's jobs base is in the services provided sector. Countless millions of jobs are in those places with retail store fronts. If enough physical stores close the economy will go to shit. Movie theaters are already feeling it via the lack of foot traffic in shopping centers. As the contagion spreads, with more and more retail buildings sitting empty, real estate values will plummet and job losses will spread. If this cannibalistic trend of killing retail persists it will put me out of my job designing signs.

It takes a hell of a lot more than just sales tax receipts to support a local economy. And most online merchants don't even collect sales tax. They return ZERO to the local economy where a purchased product was shipped.

A locally owned and operated business re-circulates much of what it earns back into the local economy. The business owner and his employees live in or near the community. They pay property tax to support local schools and other taxes to support infrastructure, police, fire dept, city operations, etc. Local businesses often do business with each other (like buying signs from my work place). Walmart and other similar stores were a destructive force against locally owned businesses. However, even big box chains need to hire electricians, plumbers, landscapers and others to keep their operations running. Online merchants don't do any of that.

Amazon's CEO, Jeff Bezos is now the 3rd richest man in the world. He's made no secret he wants Amazon eating into every market that has a store front. I wonder if he understands many of his customers are working in those places that have a store front. What's he going to do when he and his fellow online merchants put all those businesses out of business? It's going to be kind of difficult for those customers to buy anything from Amazon when they don't have a damned job.

Aside from the crisis in retail, this bad situation for movie theaters is being compounded by all the self-inflicted problems in the movie industry.

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 07-12-2017, 09:09 AM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
What's he going to do when he and his fellow online merchants put all those businesses out of business?

Cash out, retire and watch the new order consume each other?

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 07-12-2017, 09:23 AM:

If that's really Bezos' plan then he had better isolate himself on some tropical island just like a Bond villain. Otherwise, when America's next great economic depression takes hold, crowds will drag him out of his estate and have their way with him in the street.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 07-12-2017, 09:34 AM:

quote:
and the great confessions afterwards!

Maybe we should combine that with an Alan Smithee reunion tour.

We should make an A. Smithee mask for directors who really don't want to be recognized. I'd say we take the face of Michael Bay as template. I'm not entirely sure if we should paint a target on the forehead or not.

quote: Bobby Henderson
Aside from the crisis in retail, this bad situation for movie theaters is being compounded by all the self-inflicted problems in the movie industry.

Personally, I think people will always have the need for entertainment and distraction. The movie industry might not be the oldest industry in the world, but still it has managed to keep itself in position during many crises. Baby Driver is an R-rated movie that might not have the same broad appeal like many of those big budget tent-pole releases, but if we could've just two or three more "Baby Drivers" this summer, then I'm pretty sure the situation would look a bit different.

quote: Bobby Henderson
What's he going to do when he and his fellow online merchants put all those businesses out of business? It's going to be kind of difficult for those customers to buy anything from Amazon when they don't have a damned job.

It's rather off-topic, but this is one of the core problems we're facing in the "western world" at large. How we react to those challenges will greatly define what our future will look like and how much we'll still matter in this world.

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 07-12-2017, 10:26 AM:

The success of online merchants are the symptom, not the illness. These national brick and mortar retailers who are now hurting spent decades crushing their locally owned competition by better meeting consumer needs. Unfortunately, once they drove all but a few local competitors out of business, they got lazy. By building the same big department stores in every mall, they started competing with their own stores. In many major markets, they all but stopped television advertising. They either went high end selling items for significantly more than they could be obtained online, or low end with no sales staff and insufficient cashiers. Why wait for 20 minutes to checkout when I can point, click, and the next day the item will be on my doorstep.

> Sears, a 100+ year old icon of American retail, probably won't survive to the end of this decade.

In 1985, I went to Sears to buy a dishwasher. I was explicitly told the one I wanted was in stock. I was explicitly told that Sunday delivery was available. After purchase, I called the phone number that I was provided to confirm delivery, and was told that Sunday delivery was NOT available. I took a day off from work to get a weekday delivery. They did not show up. When I called, I was told it was not in stock, but backordered. I drove back to the store, got my money refunded, and have not set foot in a Sears store since. Good Riddance.

I miss Radio Shack, but they priced themselves out of the market, and discontinued everything that made them unique. My closest Radio Shack was in a strip mall with a supermarket, which sold batteries for significantly less than RS. I stopped going into RS for batteries, and with that, stopped buying the many nifty gadgets that they at one time sold.

I used to buy all my underwear at Walmart. Either they did not have the brand I wanted, or when they did, not the size I needed. Then, a few years ago, I discovered that I could point, click and Amazon would have exactly what I wanted on my doorstep 2 days later, and cheaper.

I have just gotten use to the convenience of buying online for almost everything. While I still prefer to buy at Brick & Mortar stores, it has gotten to the point I don't even look anymore, I just go online.

Online merchants just give people another option for people who are not being served by their local stores.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 07-12-2017, 11:07 AM:

quote: Marcel Birgelen
Personally, I think people will always have the need for entertainment and distraction. The movie industry might not be the oldest industry in the world, but still it has managed to keep itself in position during many crises. Baby Driver is an R-rated movie that might not have the same broad appeal like many of those big budget tent-pole releases, but if we could've just two or three more "Baby Drivers" this summer, then I'm pretty sure the situation would look a bit different.

Past examples of history don't really apply here. We're in uncharted territory with this situation. For instance, Sears is just as old as the movie industry (started in 1886, 131 years ago). That icon of American retail has been through all sorts of ups and downs, but it looks like Sears is now on its death bed. Some of its problems were created a decade ago by the idiot hedge fund managers who own it and Kmart. But online competition is clearly pushing the century old chain into its grave.

People may always have a need for entertainment and distraction, but they're consuming more and more of their entertainment and distraction at home. Every business with a store front needs enough foot traffic coming into the place to make payroll, rent, cover utilities, maintenance and on and on. Online merchants don't have nearly as much overhead. If the foot traffic drops below a certain threshold that brick and mortar business will go out of business.

Hardly anyone is going to say, declaritively, "I'm only buying stuff online!" People are just getting more in the habit of staying at home, being seduced by the convenience of buying, renting or pirating something with a few button clicks.

The movie industry, consumed with gaming positive cash flow, doesn't realize how it is making this problem worse -how they're making it so much easier for their customers to just stay at home. A 3 month theatrical release window is nothing. And the studios are demanding to shrink that further. When the content they're selling has only marginal appeal, due largely to the stinky fumes of "seen that 1000 times already," it makes it even easier to skip the theater and wait for the movie to show up on TV. Compound the problem with high ticket prices, high concession prices and the need to pay even more if you want projection and surround sound worth a damn. Even worse yet, lots of people (especially younger adults) have these modded Fire Sticks loaded with piracy apps. To me it looks like the movie theater business could be drifting into the same dire circumstance as video rental stores, retail music stores and retail book stores.

quote: Mitchell Dvoskin
Online merchants just give people another option for people who are not being served by their local stores.

Online merchants are not immune to customer service screw-ups like the one you experienced at a Sears store. They also have their own limitations, like not providing a way for the customer to check out the product in person. But then that's why we have "show-rooming," where some jackass comes into the Sears store where my mother works, talks her ear off about a refrigerator and then goes home to order it from an online outlet sales tax free.

None of my neighbors work for online merchants. There aren't any online merchants buying anything from my place of work, helping me make my living.

If this apocalypse of brick and mortar retail really gets out of hand and the contagion of it takes down movie theaters, restaurants and other out of home outlets of entertainment I'm not going to be nice about it. When Americans are crying over it, crying over their job losses, their de-valued homes and all sorts of other stuff and looking for someone to blame I'll say "go look in the mirror."

Posted by Harold Hallikainen (Member # 5405) on 07-12-2017, 11:15 AM:

On sales tax from online merchants, I just read that Colorado has a new law that's similar to an idea I've had for quite a while. If a retailer sells in Colorado and does not collect Colorado sales tax, they are required to send buyers an annual statement of the amount they purchased without paying sales tax. Consumers can then pay use tax on these purchases. A copy of the statement is also sent to the state.

Having an annual statement from retailers should help consumers comply with the use tax laws. As it is now, it's really difficult to determine how much use tax you owe since some purchases have sales tax collected and others don't. It's pretty unusual for someone to keep track of all this.

On Sears, they were one of the original "online" retailers since they started out as a mail order catalog. Their catalog was very widely distributed. Improvements in communications (Internet eliminating the several day delay in your order reaching them) and in shipping (overnight or two day shipping) have made the new catalog merchants (like Amazon) very practical.

Back on movies, my wife and I go to the movies every week or two but do not watch superhero movies. I listed some of the movies we've seen and enjoyed in an earlier post in this thread. We liked them, though they may not have been number one at the box office.

Harold

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 07-12-2017, 12:13 PM:

Agreed, Harold.

Recently, my wife and I spent a couple of days in the town I grew up in. We had dinner with the widow of the man who taught me the booth, but then watched a movie at the competition's place, where we hadn't yet visited. It was a little room on a 3rd floor of an old, Victorian building. Seating was on couches, love seats, etc... blackout curtains, pulled by the host at showtime, covered views of the downtown area and nearby bay... electric roll-down screen, and food sales where they attach an old movie-star name to your order and page you when it's ready. Popcorn in bowls they have to run through a dishwasher after the show.

The movie was a documentary... way out of the norm for our movie-going habit.... yet it was one of our best movie experiences in recent memory.

I think the thread here about too much super-hero fantasy is probably on track. Looking over a typical trailer pack at my place, it's almost embarrassing, how many "jump out of the sky", "shoot em up", "drive like an idiot", "swing by a string", "run around in your shorts" and "kick totally improbable ass" trailers have been playing out here... one after another, with scene changes averaging 4 - 6 per second. Earlier in the year, finding a place in that group to put "Beauty and the Beast" wasn't easy!

Granted, we've had a good season with the stuff, so I'm not sure I'm really complaining... yet... but I do sense fatigue coming on. How do you continue to top the last season?

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 07-12-2017, 01:29 PM:

The Summer of 2016 was not all that great either. There were plenty of flops last Summer too. It was only a fluke that Suicide Squad helped improve theater earnings (even though that movie was honestly pretty bad).

Regarding online merchants sending consumers statements of what they owe in sales tax, good luck getting consumers to pay the "use tax." Oklahoma has had a similar law in the books for years, but very few people complied with it. The whole thing was a joke. Unless the tax is collected at the time of purchase it just isn't going to get collected at all.

Even if everything is on the up and up with sales tax collection from online merchants, they still don't pay the other taxes and costs of doing business locally that are paid by brick and mortar retailers. It's still quite a gigantic imbalance. The merchants who have physical store fronts are still caught in a severe competitive disadvantage.

So many people are hooked by the convenience and cost savings of ordering goods from online companies. I'm worried the short term gains will lead to huge long term losses. We all know this is a serious problem, but many of us rationalize going the online route anyway. I've even seen economists toss out the "everything will be alright" vibe, waxing nostalgic over the resilience of Americans and vague ideas of our innovative spirit. The problem is if you kill off a huge sector of the jobs base specifically what jobs can all these millions of displaced service industry workers expect to find?

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 07-12-2017, 02:42 PM:

This is an extreme example (but still really interesting) but even for me here it's great to have access to online ordering for stuff that I would otherwise have to drive a hundred miles to get, or do without.

Amazon Prime does more for northern food security than federal subsidies, say Iqaluit residents

quote:
The consensus in Iqaluit seems to be that everyone with a credit card has an Amazon Prime membership. That's because people can often find groceries cheaper online than in local stores, despite government food subsidy programs.

"Amazon Prime has done more toward elevating the standard of living of my family than any territorial or federal program. Full stop. Period," a local principal, who declined to speak further, said on Facebook.

With an annual fee of about $80, Amazon Prime members can get free and faster shipping.

In 2015, Amazon re-evaluated its shipping to remote locations and dropped many Nunavut communities, but kept Iqaluit. Now, Iqalummiut live in perpetual fear that they will be next to get cut off by Amazon.

"We'd be limping," said Rhoda Cunningham outside the post office in June.

"It would be very, very bad, I don't want to say pandemonium, but maybe something akin to that," said David Marineau-Plante, after picking up his mail.

Food insecurity in Nunavut 'should be considered a national crisis,' expert says

Many in town rely on the service for everything from deodorant to hardware supplies to non-perishable food.

Alookie Itorcheak said she's been using Amazon for four years, to make being a mom more affordable.

A box of 180 Pampers costs about $70 off the shelf in Iqaluit; on Amazon, similar size boxes are around $35.

Diapers are not covered by Nutrition North, the federal program that gives subsidies to northern retailers. It was one of many items dropped from the eligibility list when the government replaced the former Food Mail program with Nutrition North in 2011.
Post office sees spike in orders

Many hold out hope that the sheer number of orders from Iqaluit spared the city from Amazon's first round of service cuts.

Canada Post says the Iqaluit post office is one of the busiest in the country and parcel shipping to the remote office is increasing at two to three times the national average.
Joanna Awa and Paul Crowley outside the post office

In the first five months of 2017, the post office delivered 88,500 parcels.

That's an increase of 27 per cent over last year and averages out to around 12 packages per person in Iqaluit.

While those numbers aren't specific to Amazon orders, Marineau-Plante, peeking behind the post office counter, estimates 80 to 90 per cent of the parcels bear the Amazon logo.
Not a long-term solution

But the president of the society that runs Iqaluit's soup kitchen points out that neither Nutrition North nor Amazon are designed to help those most in need.

Wade Thorhaug, with the Qayuqtuvik Society, said families with bad or no credit can't order online or spend thousands at a time to ship large quantities of food by sealift each summer.

"If there was something that was more targeted towards people who are genuinely food insecure that would have a bigger impact in the community," he said.

Nutrition North is under review after a report published at the end of April showed the program fails to make healthy food affordable.

Feds lay out issues northerners have with Nutrition North in new report

Nutrition North's impact on northerners uncertain, auditor general says

"It's completely unacceptable that so many northerners are still struggling to feed their families," Carolyn Bennett, the minister for Indigenous and northern affairs, said in question period on June 16.

Her department would not comment for this story, nor would Amazon.

Thorhaug says he's "baffled" by how Amazon ships heavy items, like flour, with no markup. He doesn't think relying on it is a long-term solution.

"I think that's wishful thinking, somebody somewhere is looking at the numbers and whether we talk about it or not, it's eating into somebody's profits."

But the mentality persists in the community, that if people don't talk about the deals, perhaps the city can fly under the radar.

"We joke with our friend — she's ordered furniture and appliances from them," Shirley Flack told CBC News outside the Iqaluit post office.

"We keep telling her that's it's going to be her fault when they stop sending us things."

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 07-12-2017, 03:12 PM:

quote: Mitchell Dvoskin
I used to buy all my underwear at Walmart. Either they did not have the brand I wanted, or when they did, not the size I needed. Then, a few years ago, I discovered that I could point, click and Amazon would have exactly what I wanted on my doorstep 2 days later, and cheaper.

I have just gotten use to the convenience of buying online for almost everything. While I still prefer to buy at Brick & Mortar stores, it has gotten to the point I don't even look anymore, I just go online.

Online merchants just give people another option for people who are not being served by their local stores.

Here at our parts store, we carry wiper blades. We have five lines of Trico, two lines of RainX, Kleenview (a discount brand) and Bosch. Yet I had a guy come in yesterday insisting he needed Goodyear blades, and since we didn't have THAT brand, he said he'd get'em online even though any of the brands we carry would have been equal or better quality than the Goodyear.

In my early days in retail, people would compromise. The wiper blade guy would have said fine, give me the best you have. Nowadays they have less flexibility and, especially, less patience.

There is a great value in being able to get the thing you need right now without even having to wait for "free overnight shipping" to arrive. But people don't care (and don't want to care) about the consequences of online shopping, they just keep doing it because it's easier, fun, and cheaper.

I don't know how we go about educating people about WHY something might cost a little more in a store, and WHY a store can't have all 250 brands and 15 sizes (per brand) of every individual item. It's even a harder task to educate people when THEY DON'T WANT TO KNOW.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 07-12-2017, 03:54 PM:

Looks like after Spiderman, the rest of the summer and well into the fall looks like a mediocre season.

Granted, we got Nolan's Dunkirk, but that's a selective audience film.

Leap might be the last push for a kid show related feature until Ninjago Lego Movie, and Coco.

outside of that, just content to light up the screens with.

-Monte

Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 07-13-2017, 06:32 AM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
What's he going to do when he and his fellow online merchants put all those businesses out of business? It's going to be kind of difficult for those customers to buy anything from Amazon when they don't have a damned job.

What are you worried about? Won't everybody just be an Amazon delivery driver delivering to each other?

I definitely get your point. Of course, Amazon seems to be starting to get into brick and mortar locations with their purchase of Whole Foods (pending) and various other concepts.

quote: Harold Hallikainen
On sales tax from online merchants, I just read that Colorado has a new law that's similar to an idea I've had for quite a while. If a retailer sells in Colorado and does not collect Colorado sales tax, they are required to send buyers an annual statement of the amount they purchased without paying sales tax. Consumers can then pay use tax on these purchases. A copy of the statement is also sent to the state.

The problem is that a law like that is unenforceable for the same reason that they can't force collection of the sales tax. If the company doesn't "do business" in the state, they do not have to follow the laws of that state. Shipping things to the state fall under the interstate commerce clause in the constitution.

The only way to solve the problem would be for the federal government to pass a law that collects sales tax on any transaction not subject to collection and then distributes the money back to the state where an item was shipped to.

Back to the topic at hand, the biggest issue is lack of movies people want to see. My wife and I are huge fans of "mainstream" movies. We have never really enjoyed the arty stuff or documentaries with a few exceptions.

During the summer, we used to go to a movie almost weekly. This summer, we have seen 3. They were "Alien: Covenant" (which was seen more as a break from the heat during a weekend at Disney World), Wonder Woman and Baby Driver.

Frankly Baby Driver was not nearly as good as expected. It had some cool car chases but not enough of them. The plot got very convoluted and had many holes in it. Also, the soundtrack had some very strange choices and didn't enhance the movie as much as it should have. It's biggest flaw with respect to box office gross is the title is absolutely terrible. It sounds like it is a cartoon where a baby (with an adult voice) is driving cars.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 07-13-2017, 07:01 AM:

No one else is excited about Dunkirk? Whether in 70mm or not, it will probably be an excellent film. At least, I hope so.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 07-13-2017, 10:00 AM:

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Dunkirk is actually a good movie. 70mm film or not, the movie will tank if it sucks at all. Interstellar was admirable for the hype it put behind 70mm & IMAX, but the movie's cinematography wasn't all that great and the movie had a few painfully bad moments (Murrrfff!!!).

I'm a little nervous about Dunkirk since there is still no Rotten Tomatoes aggregate score on it. The 90%+ scores on movies like Baby Driver, Spiderman: Homecoming and War for the Planet of the Apes were out earlier than this. All too often when reviews are held back until the day before a movie opens the movie itself turns out to be a stinker. Unfortunately not so many Americans are really familiar with the history of Dunkirk. I think the movie may need some great response from critics and good press to convince the average Fast and Furious movie-goer to give Dunkirk a chance.

quote: Lyle Romer
What are you worried about? Won't everybody just be an Amazon delivery driver delivering to each other?

Perhaps for a short time. That is until Jeff Bezos replaces them all with drones and robot cars.

If this process goes full swing America's cities and towns may end up looking more like cold war, Soviet-era Russia. No hustle and bustle, just lots of apartment buildings and warehouses and everything else so freaking drab and uncolorful looking you just want to slit your wrists to add some "warmth" to it. Everyone will be coccooned in their living space and work space with no need to get out of the house. Because getting out of the house will just be a bland, crushing bore.

I like the business centers of cities and towns to have vibrant, neon-encrusted city-scapes. A lot of that is already disappearing in many areas due to very restrictive sign ordinances. Street signs are getting banned completely in some places, leaving businesses only able to use building signs. Good luck seeing those things when you're trying to look through a dense forest worth of landscaping next to the street. Maybe I can find the business with Google Maps! Nah, I'll go back home and buy my shit from Amazon instead. There won't be much need for any "bright lights, big city" flavor in the town and city centers once all the brick and mortar retailers bite the dust.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 07-13-2017, 01:22 PM:

quote:
Frankly Baby Driver was not nearly as good as expected. ... It's biggest flaw with respect to box office gross is the title is absolutely terrible. It sounds like it is a cartoon where a baby (with an adult voice) is driving cars.

I thought the same thing. I think that title is just ruining its chances.

Posted by James Wyrembelski (Member # 9037) on 07-14-2017, 10:49 PM:

While online sales are growing, they still only account for maybe 8% of retail sales in total. I find this alarming when taking into account that shopping centers and storefronts are going belly up. Some stats about brick and mortar I have found.

94% of total retail sales are still generated in brick & mortar stores.

Half of brick & mortar retailers are “showrooming”.

72% of young shoppers research online before purchasing in a store.

In the U.S., 3.8 million retail establishments support 42 million jobs

Even the restaurant industry is in its own little recession. Mom and pops are doing better, but chain restaurants are in a bit of a pickle.

So, its not only the movie industry feeling this. I'll admit too that the point made about genre fatigue is spot on. The last one I went to see in theaters (Pirates) I felt pretty bored.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 07-14-2017, 10:59 PM:

In a lot of industries it's that last few percent of the sales that makes up 100% of the profit. So what appears to be a small dip in sales can be catastrophic to the bottom line.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 07-15-2017, 04:13 PM:

I think that 8% figure is old. The figures I've seen have online merchants now accounting for 12% of retail sales. And that percentage is growing. The figure may be much higher when you look at specific market segments, like consumer electronics, popular music and movies.

quote:
Half of brick & mortar retailers are “showrooming”.

I'm not sure I understand that statement. To me "showrooming" is the act of a consumer visiting a brick and mortar retail store to check out something like a new TV set in person and then going home to order it from a different online retailer, sometimes to get the product for a lower price but most often to avoid paying sales tax. For big ticket items sales tax will add a lot to the overall purchase price.

Every major retailer has their own online presence, even dying retailers like Sears. But you're not getting much, if any price break versus buying in the store and you're not getting out of paying sales tax. 40% of all e-commerce sales go through Amazon. More and more states are collecting sales tax from Amazon. But that doesn't stop consumers from buying the product from other online merchants not charging sales tax. Plenty are out there.

quote: James Wyrembelski
Even the restaurant industry is in its own little recession. Mom and pops are doing better, but chain restaurants are in a bit of a pickle.

The big chain restaurants are usually the ones taking up the pad sites around the perimeter of shopping malls or paying the high rents to be in the food courts of indoor shopping malls. When foot traffic is down at the mall it's going to affect the restaurants (and movie theaters) nearby. The mom and pop restaurants are usually in other locations. The good ones will have a more loyal, local following. Plus they're probably not paying nearly as much in rent and other overhead for their lower profile locations.

quote: Frank Cox
In a lot of industries it's that last few percent of the sales that makes up 100% of the profit. So what appears to be a small dip in sales can be catastrophic to the bottom line.

To add another wrinkle to it, many of these retailers, restaurant chains, movie theaters and other brick & mortar businesses are all publicly traded companies. They have a bunch of their life blood leveraged in the stock market. Bean counters have already squeezed many "efficiencies" out of these companies to improve the bottom line and the stock price, leaving little room for error or economic downturn. When one of these companies reports a quarterly drop in sales it can be pretty damned bloody for them in the stock market. When Amazon announced it was buying Whole Foods the Kroger grocery chain's stock took a beating through no fault of its own.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 07-15-2017, 08:57 PM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
The mom and pop restaurants are usually in other locations. The good ones will have a more loyal, local following. Plus they're probably not paying nearly as much in rent and other overhead for their lower profile locations.

There's also the fact that "the food is better" in the mom and pop locations. I love me a good steak, and I could reel off a half dozen places around here (some in towns of 200 people or less) that put out a steak that'll run rings around the steaks you get in the "brand name" establishments in the cities.