Known for hits such as Taxi Driver and Goodfellas, Martin Scorsese is widely considered the greatest living filmmaker. Yet, in 2018, Scorsese found himself under fire in the social media world for his scathing criticisms on Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe, citing that they aren’t necessarily traditional cinema. The critiques were written off as high brow pretentiousness from a Hollywood relic whose films were never blockbusters. Scorsese elaborated on the thought, doubling down in an New York Times op-ed instead of issuing a perfunctory apology, going as far in the piece to equate Alfred Hitchcock to the same phenomenon he gave to the MCU. “Many of the elements that define cinema as I know it are there in Marvel pictures. What’s not there is revelation, mystery or genuine emotional danger,” Scorsese explained. “Nothing is at risk. The pictures are made to satisfy a specific set of demands, and they are designed as variations on a finite number of themes.”
Scorsese is spot-on in his assessment. For the first time in history, the top ten box office movies of the year are all IP related. If it isn’t Deadpool and Wolverine as a direct sequel, it’s Wicked as a movie based on a stage production that was originally based on a beloved film. For the amount of people clamoring for original films, the biggest weekend of the year at the box office this year was when Wicked, Gladiator II, and Moana 2 took over almost every screen at cinemas across the world. For every Anora that turned a profit as an original film, there was a Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga that didn’t turn a profit yet still grossed $150M more. The social media ‘Hollywood’s out of ideas’ and ‘nobody wants to see sequels’ are not only off-base, but directly correlate. Hollywood had many great original films this year, including the aforementioned Anora, The Substance, The Wild Robot, We Live In Time, Civil War, Challengers, Heretic, Monkey Man, and others praised by both critics and audiences alike across all genres. The issue is that general audiences didn’t gravitate toward these films, but flocked to the theaters to see Inside Out 2, Despicable Me 4, Twisters, Alien: Romulus, Bad Boys: Ride or Die, and Venom 3: The Last Dance. In fact, the Moana/Glicked craze held almost every auditorium in their theaters for two weeks because it was the only movies people were going to see. This pushed many smaller and independent release dates back.
In a previous op-ed penned at for TWM on the box office back in October, an analysis of the box office success of Terrifier 3 compared to Joker: Folie a Deux, while noting that sequels are still the primary moneymaker in theaters. Folie a Deux is a great example as to what goes wrong when sequels go wrong: risk. Taking a movie with a King of Comedy (not to keep mentioning Scorsese movies) vibes and turning it into a jailhouse musical is the easiest way to turn off its general audience. Furthermore, social media exacerbates its problem by its critical-panning and the stigma surrounding a movie being called a flop. Yet, Joker: Folie a Deux still made more money than most theatrical hits this year, proving that it could have been profitable had the budget been reined it. Also in the piece, the then-upcoming Amazon Prime offering of Red One starring Chris Evans and Dwayne Johnson. The article questioned Dwayne Johnson’s star power, claiming that his movies haven’t made money in over half-a-decade. As Red One officially hit streaming a few days ago and is trudging its way to the finish line in its theatrical exhibition, it still needs at least $75M more at the box office to make its budget back, much less the near $500M it needs to turn a profit through theatrical exhibition. One can also argue Chris Evans is the stalwart example of a modern movie star. An argument is regularly put forth by older generations that are no more movie stars, only actors who become big names for playing one or two characters. Evans image is protected a bit from recent outputs such as The Gray Man and Pain Hustlers being Netflix originals and not receiving regular theatrical releases, but the ensemble Knives Out is his only non-MCU hit. All this being said, an original, non-IP Christmas movie that makes $175M at the box office should, in any sensical world, be a financially viable project. Yet, when a star who hasn’t made money in a non-IP film in nearly a decade gets paid $50M, has a co-star whose films have never been box office juggernauts outside of ensembles makes $15M, and your primary star regularly delays filming simply because he doesn’t want to show up, the film is financially doomed from the start.
As for Evans and Johnson, it isn’t necessarily that they’re lesser movie stars than the previous generation, nor are stars such as Scarlett Johansson, Robert Downey Jr., Joaquin Phoenix, or the upcoming generation of stars such as Paul Mescal or Timothee Chalamet. An argument can be made that they’re not only following the exact career trajectories, but there are two reasons older generations feel like they’re less visible. The first is because social media has created a paradox that makes the opportunity to become famous larger while making their visibility smaller algorithmically. The second is simply that they’re no longer in the key demographics that follow or stay up-to-date as much. Of course actors seemed more famous to somebody when they were actively seeking out film and television hits more.
Paradise Alley and FIST were two of Hollywood’s biggest bombs in 1978. In 1981, Victory crumbled at the box office, failing to become a financial success. In 1984, Rhinestone didn’t exactly deliver a gem financially. In fact, outside of Cobra, it took Sylvester Stallone well into the 1990s to have a financially successful movie where his character wasn’t named Rocky or Rambo, and it came after even more bombs. While films such as Stop! or My Mom Will Shoot and Tango and Cash made enough to recoup their budget, they still lost money due to backend costs. This problem worsened as Stallone hit a stretch that included Over The Top, Lock Up, and Oscar which didn’t even recoup their budgets until finally garnering a non-franchise profitable hit with Cliffhanger in 1993. Between the cost of creating the films, marketing the films, and the cost of distributing the films, Stallone lost more money on original films in his peak than most movie stars in their career. This isn’t to pick on Stallone, in fact, as the success of two of Hollywood’s biggest franchises rest solely on two generation-defining performances from an actor who has never really gotten his due in terms of how tremendous a dramatic actor he can be when he’s not in big blockbusters. The point here is that the idea that there ‘isn’t a Stallone level’ movie star where people go to see the picture simply because it’s Stallone is not only not true even in the 1980s, but Stallone’s career is the trajectory of the modern movie star itself. There is nothing wrong with Stallone’s career: an artist made his movies, made his money, and is rightfully a Hollywood legend. But Stallone, following the massive payoff in the risk of Rocky, stopped taking risks the moment it wasn’t viable, and has since become yet another in a longline of mindless action stars. Even still, the ‘low-risk’ action genre hasn’t been good for Stallone or other action heroes. For example, Stallone’s most recent film, the fourth installment of The Expendables franchise, lost its studio a minimum of $200M, following a third installment that missed turning a profit. The performance of these films were so poor that the franchise has turned into the red in terms of overall profitability across the four films. The idea that people will go see the old stars or even would just walk up to the theater for the old stars have always been anecdotal, and perhaps Stallone’s reputation is heavily based in the rose-colored glasses glorification of 1980s culture, and the same trajectory happened to Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Harrison Ford, and other action stars of the seemingly Teflon generation that don’t receive the same criticisms of modern movie stars.
The bigger issue for modern movie stars that didn’t change the public perception for stars such as Stallone or actors that have their successful tentpole franchises such as Ford with Indiana Jones and Star Wars is that they delivered their famous characters in an era where people didn’t look at the box office the way they do now. In a 2018 interview at the Seattle International Film Festival, actor Ethan Hawke, known for mainstream successes Dead Poet Society and Training Day as well as being a staple in American arthouse with hits such as the Before Trilogy, Boyhood, and First Reformed, noted that the box office is the biggest thing hurting cinema. To generalize his point, Hawke used Black Panther as an example of ‘box office and rotten tomato scores’ driving people to and from the theater itself. When Hawke was growing up, nobody knew whether the film was successful or not and enjoyed it as what it is as a piece of art, yet nowadays the internet plugs anything negative such as audience scores or audience turnout and people use that to say it sucks before going to see it. The lack of going in blind has essentially set up for preconceived notions.
What’s ultimately hurting the cinema industry the most?
The notion that the box office is at its all-time worst, again, is false. 2019 saw more $1B movies than any other year in history. 2022 was the third highest year in box office history as people itched to get back to their normal day-to-day lives reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic. 2023 saw the massive successes of Oppenheimer, Barbie, Super Mario Bros, Across the Spiderverse, et. al. In fact, some of its biggest ‘bombs’ include Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning. Dead Reckoning pulled in over $500M while Dial of Destiny brought in over $300M. The idea that these movies didn’t have general public interest is just not accurate. In 2024, the yearly domestic box office totals are down by less than $500M in regards to 2024. That seems like of money, but in reality, it’s one successful movie. 2024 isn’t as far from 2023 as pundits spent most of the year crying. Yet there are issues that keep it from being a healthy box office.
Budgets are inflated by tech companies:
2025, from the onset, is already looking at its slew of guaranteed box office disasters, even if the films were to deliver. Take, for instance, Brad Pitt’s upcoming F1 flick. It was reported in May that the budget is $300M for the Apple original. One of the producers has put forth that the report is wildly inaccurate, as rebates lower the budget down. Yet, that doesn’t conflict the original budget allocation being $300M. Judging from a box office perspective of the original budget, the movie requires a $750M return-on-investment to be a theatrical success as its $300M budget, the idea that a studio allocates the same amount in its budget toward marketing, and the fact that the theaters take a 50% cut of the box office. There’s a few things to look at: F1 is footing the bill for a large portion of its budget, tax deductions in areas they shoot could give them money back after shooting, and lack of backend costs for its star. With Apple running like a tech company, high budgets aren’t necessarily a new thing. An argument could be made that the way Apple runs their finances is the way of the future, seeing as they’re the biggest primary streamer that still does theatrical releases. Having moved Brad Pitt’s 2024 vehicle Wolfs from theatrical to streaming exclusive, Pitt didn’t make any of the money in the backend that movie stars traditionally make from its box office totals, thus inflating his traditional salary. For movies such as Killers of the Flower Moon and Fly Me To The Moon that had high budgets for Apple, theatrical success wasn’t what the films were designed for, rather movies made with the best people by the best people to give their streaming service an edge and solidify their studios through award contention. While the Scarlett Johansson-Channing Tatum moon landing comedy failed to deliver on its award contention, Killers of the Flower Moon absolutely did for Scorsese and company as it landed a Best Picture nominee while also scoring acting nominations for Lily Gladstone and Robert De Niro this past year.
This is comparable to Amazon. Red One, as discussed earlier in the article, never came close to recouping its budget in theaters. The project was originally slated for a Prime exclusive release. This means any money the film made at the box office is in addition to the way it originally hoped to make money: subscriptions. Prime operates as the main loss-leader for Amazon as its service is tied to a far, far more lucrative deal as an online retailer. Should somebody sign up because it has a movie or TV show they want to watch, suddenly the convenience of Prime convinces people to do their shopping with prime. Apple works similarly with their tech brands being tied in with Apple TV.
This artificially raises salaries in the marketplaces for traditionally-ran studios, but it also artificially creates a world of more flops. Disney operates in similar fashion, though instead of being a tech company they’re a theme park company that uses their IP to drive people to their theme parks, where the real money is at. The fact that Apple, Amazon, and Disney are the three most financially successful studios have little-to-do with the studios as much as it does being able to allow these studios to operate at a loss while they drive business elsewhere.
Meanwhile, Netflix is also run similarly, but without theatrical releases. Another Dwayne Johnson movie, Red Notice, set a record for the highest-budgeted Netflix film at $200M until the Ryan Gosling-starring The Gray Man broke the record the next year. Its original model as a disruptor made it the primary streamer that everybody knows. Studios that then-chased the Netflix model gave up its tried-and-true model that had worked for a hundred years in favor of streaming and Netflix is still, to this day, the only profitable streamer. Their films being so exclusive, as well as the brand being the most marketable and reliable due to it being the first are the major drivers. Yet, their CEO has been vocal recently that they don’t want people at theaters because it’s less time people spend on their site. The fewer time spent on site not only means fewer ads watched, but also less interest in their publicly-traded product. While they don’t make money on these movies being the most-viewed by minutes, they do make money through total minutes viewed on all programs on their service because it’s interest from consumers on their brand which drives shareholder value. Netflix isn’t in the movie-business, they’re in the stock market business. At a $907.55 price-per-share at closing time on December 27th, Netflix has one of the most valuable stocks in the world. Their stock price sits much higher than Amazon, Apple, Tesla, Disney, Meta, JP Morgan Chase, Eli Lilly and some of the biggest stocks on the stock exchange, while their market cap is currently a top-25 property, ahead of brands such as McDonalds and Coca-Cola.
Limited Releases:
In an economy where a big chunk of people work two jobs, getting off work to even go to the movies is a massive opportunity cost. Taking off one or two jobs to clear a day to go to the cinema costs money, gas to the theater cost money and ticket prices. Ticket prices aren’t necessarily an issue: the average ticket price in the States is under $12 and has yet to be price-gouged against inflation, however, certain formats and cities have higher prices. That being said, between AMC A-List that allows any movie and any format up to three films a week for a price of only $20-25, Regal Unlimited that for a similar price allows you to see any film in standard digital for free as many times as you please, as well as deals with Alamo Drafthouse and Cinemark, it’s never been easier to afford tickets to the theater if you’re somebody who enjoys the experience enough to go weekly. It’s essentially an additional streaming service just for new movies at the theater. The real price of the movie theater is found in its concession, which makes sense as they’re in the exhibition business rather than the movie-making business.
The issue isn’t the price of the ticket so much as the schedule. Barring films from a major distributor such as Warner Bros., Disney, or Sony, most films stay in theaters for only two-weeks at a time and expand if they’re among the top three at the box office. Should Disney dominate screens like they did with Moana 2 or are currently doing with their Mufasa prequel, that allows even fewer showtimes in fewer locations. This has fostered an environment where non-blockbusters see weird showtimes, primarily late at night or early in the afternoon, at limited locations, for only two weeks. Thus, if you want to see a movie in theaters, even if you live in a bustling metropolitan city with more than a handful of multiplexes, you have to: know exactly when it releases, know which theater in your area it’s playing at because it won’t be all or sometimes even most, and go at an inconvenient time either in the workday or cut into your sleep schedule, and that’s with going immediately. More peculiarly, marketing teams have been advertising the release date as its Manhattan/Beverly Hills market date, which for most films come well before their wide release as studios such as A24 do rollout distributions. This not only markets the release date as a time where less than five percent of the United States can see it, but also doesn’t confirm an actual release date for the remaining markets in the U.S.
Even films that land interest will struggle due to a weird film economy, and this has made most projects that aren’t major blockbusters barren from major studios. It’s also created a world where every film needs to be an event, though streaming has just as much to do with that issue. Most movies aren’t convenient enough for the average person to prioritize at such a high level in a world where the options for entertainment and/or stimulation are virtually endless. Not only are studios facing distributions costs, but they’re shooting themselves in the foot by spending those costs and still not putting their films in the best position to make spending those costs matter.
Streaming and proliferation of home media has led the way in fewer original films:
A direct correlation to the previous two reasons, films struggle in limited release because of the streaming model. Instead of having to go through the inconvenience of finding a showtime, knowing that films are going to be on streaming, or at least PVOD, within a month makes it unlikely for them to go to the theater unless it’s an event. Not to mention, one industry that is recession-proof is television manufacturing, as the advancement of television aligns with the affordability of the television. The average range of televisions sold in the United States is 55”-65”, with LED and 4K becoming common place as screens become crisper and audio systems become sharper. This isn’t to say that home viewing tops what theaters can offer— it’s not—, but it’s also a significant upgrade than what the average consumer grew up with. For instance, one can buy a 75” 4K QLED television from Best Buy right now for under $800. Adjusted for inflation, an 8-by-10 screen that didn’t even have color capability would go for over $10,000 when it first came out. Televisions are much cheaper and far more dynamic now than ever before for their quality. This not only creates a much better home viewing experience, but also an issue theaters can’t combat as there isn’t as many new revolutions in the theatrical experience. As the experience has stagnated theatrically, the home viewing experience continues to become better over time. With so many things vying for attention at the fingertips of the consumer at home, it’s not a surprise that most people are willing to wait unless it feels like an event that they can’t miss or have spoiled before it exits theaters. This is also a reason why no matter how many times people complain about sequels and reboots, they’ll always do better numbers than original content: they can’t miss seeing what the characters they’re already familiar with do next.
This isn’t to say that there aren’t studios doing their largest numbers ever with new films that aren’t blockbusters, though, as just this month Searchlight, a subsidiary of Disney, did its largest opening weekend ever for Timothee Chalamet’s Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, while independent studios such as Mubi (The Substance) and Shudder (Late Night With The Devil) saw their biggest box office wins of all-time, while NEON’s Longlegs and A24’s Civil War scored the second largest box offices in studio history behind only Best Picture recipients Parasite and Everything Everywhere All At Once, respectively. It’s just that because of the lack of turnout comparatively, mid-budget movies are less likely to be greenlit as frequently, thus leaving fewer theatrical options. 20th Century Studios, for example, regularly put out an average of double-digit films per year for a majority of this century. For 2024, The First Omen, Alien: Romulus, and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes were their only releases as a studio. All three turned a profit in their theatrical run. The traditional job of tentpole films in a healthy industry is for franchises to make money so that they can fund non-franchise films in hopes that these films can become viable in their own right. Granted, the existence of streamers such as Netflix and the rise of studios such as NEON, A24, and FilmRise has allowed for more distributors to buy rights. The pandemic and recent Hollywood strikes have also slowed productions down, yet these aren’t the only issues at hand. An estimated 30% fewer films are being made per year than in the 2010s.
Some could argue that the volume of films released in the 2010s, particularly 2019, was unsustainable. The number of films released per year have always fluctuated, and always gone down as more technology became readily available. Among films to have a release in theaters, even if limited to two markets, there were over 800 in 2018. Compare that to 2023, since 2024’s data isn’t reliable or readily available just yet, which had 504. There were just 371 releases in 2000. The 2010s saw a much larger volume than the 2000s as a whole, making it arguable that mid-budget cinema exists in a larger way than it does now. The nuance becomes availability, tying back to the second point and tying into the third point. If a film doesn’t make money immediately, it doesn’t last in theaters and is put on PVOD or streaming within two weeks. Not only does this create a paradox where the second point truly hurts long term returns, but incentivizes the average movie-goer to wait because it’ll be available relatively soon. The average theatrical run in the United States in 2024, including the blockbusters with legs that play for months, comes out to only one month. Compared to the United States in the 1990s, a theatrical run had an average of three months. This doesn’t consider the general rule of thumb from the nineties for a six-month turnaround post-theatrical run you’d have to wait to rent it for blockbuster, as opposed to films being available at the consumers fingertips free-of-(additional) charge within days in 2024. Films such as E.T., Beverly Hills Cop, Jurassic Park, and Titanic in the 1980s and 1990s became such bona fide classics due to how long its word-of-mouth kept public interest in going to theaters. Word of mouth can be as good as oil that carries a theatrical run should the movie be easily accessible for a substantial period of time.
Algorithms:
Our final problem for original movies is something few have considered but has ravaged every industry in America. The idea that algorithms perfect our interest in the best way has since been found to be the opposite: it creates an echo chamber. With everything fighting for attention, finding room in the algorithm is difficult, especially when it only plugs things similar to products you’ve expressed interest in. Naturally, if you’re a big fan of The Last Crusade, you were most likely to only get ads for The Dial of Destiny last year. If you’re a big Ridley Scott fan, the two movies you likely saw the most for this year were Gladiator II and Alien: Romulus, even if the latter wasn’t exactly his picture. Marketing, and it isn’t a problem exclusive to movies, has become far more difficult to fight through the noise in the wake of algorithms that are supposed to make it easier to market. When the only movies audiences hear about are sequels to stuff they’ve expressed interest in, or movies from the biggest studios that can afford pricier ads to breakthrough algorithms, of course it seems as though there’s less. Movies, like every single other form in the entertainment industry, became far more expendable, obsolete, and niche the moment algorithms took over daily life.
No, Gen Z isn’t necessarily a problem.
A glaring omission for a lot of readers is likely to be that there isn’t much here about how young people consume content. A lot of people seem to argue Gen Z’s general attention span, or rather lack thereof, as a reason streaming does so well. In fact, a report this past week notes that Netflix executives tell their screenplay writers to have characters announce what their actions are so that viewers don’t have to actively watch their films to understand them. Not to defend an inherently anti-art and dull edict from a studio, but that has less to do with attention span as much as it does the average media consumption at home has always been background noise that you can put on while cleaning and easily follow. The most successful cable shows before streaming upended everything ranged from sitcoms that wrap up plotlines within a 25-minute window and legal procedurals that are run-of-the-mill. Paint by numbers content has always sold, as evident from the successes of the Hallmark Channel, Lifetime, and other more traditional television stations. Ultimately, this seems more like a fallacy than it does rule.
Attention span is almost entirely irrelevant to which films make money theatrically. The highest grossers of the last decade include a plethora of Marvel movies over two and a half hours in length, especially the three-hour Avengers: Endgame that wraps up about 124 hours worth of the MCU saga that almost the entire generation binged. Oppenheimer, a three-hour biopic about a physicist is one of the biggest theatrical events of the century, as is Avatar: Way of the Water, with both clocking in at over three hours. The average film length in 2023 was clocked at 2 hours and 23 minutes, the highest at any point in the history of the medium, and that has yet to be criticized in the public zeitgeist. There are three major flaws in Gen Z patterns. The first is that Gen Z doesn’t exactly have a ‘star’ that caters to them. The mid-budget action movies, romcoms, and raunchier Rogen-style comedies seem passe due to other flaws in the industry, but the bigger issue is that the action stars and heartthrobs we do have don’t get Gen Z to the theater on name value alone. It likely doesn’t help that Gen Z doesn’t have a star known for these genres that test themselves or are particularly strong actors; as mentioned earlier, The Rock is on his eighth consecutive year without a Hollywood hit as a leading man, and the demographics for the people who do go to his movies skew out of the 18-39 demo or are children going to see one animated franchise where he’s a supporting voice. Not to necessarily pick on The Rock, but he’s become the social media golden boy of ‘plays the same one-note character in every movie,’ thus making it harder for this generation to differentiate his movies and part with the little money they do have. The second issue isn’t rocket science: Gen Z has no money and it’s hard for them to find it.
Gen Z seems to be the target demographic for most modern entertainment, yet despite endless free entertainment being tailored toward them, a recent UCLA study found that the average teenager prefers movie theaters to any other recreational activity. This could be that teenagers no longer have cheap places to hangout in society, but the fact that the only time other media takes over a larger percentage is when cost is involved turns the discussion back around to the biggest challenge facing movie theaters today: it’s a luxury that people need to know they’ll like before they take a risk. In most cases, they find themselves actively wanting to attend the theaters because it’s one of the few places that they can go for a sense of community. Everything geared toward adolescents are typically geared toward elementary-aged students, while other hangout places such as bars tend to be exclusive for adults. The movies are one of the few places they can go to actively get off their phone and still have something to experience.
The third issue is discussing in the hyperlinked article from AOL on the UCLA study. The people making film and television make it primarily for people of all ages, yet Gen Z’s life experiences in a world post-Columbine and post-9/11 are very different than each generation before them, making it hard for their stories to be shared and heard before Gen Z ages into it. Unfortunately for Gen Z, art is inherently found within experience and their experiences aren’t yet to be reflected in art because the art isn’t being made by artists with their specific generational upbringings. This will change over time as more enter into the workforce, but it should make for some leaner years in one of Hollywood’s target demographics.
Outlook
Ultimately, the post-pandemic film market seems to be on the upswing, but they have a lot of issues beyond public health concerns to combat with a number being self-inflicted. As streamer prices continue to rise, the market looks far more volatile with or without the strikes. Yet, the film industry survived Hays Code, the rise of New Hollywood nearly bankrupting the studio system, and the streaming wars. With streaming consolidating and the average users spending less on streaming in 2024 than previous years, theaters seemed to ride the wave pretty well.
Premium formats such as IMAX, Dolby, RPX, and 4DX seem to be the way of the future, ultimately set to become the test for the exhibitors as they put more money into larger screens with crisper picture and more booming sound to combat the rise of home media capabilities. Ultimately, most other issues seem to be on the studios. Content toward Gen Z, reigning in the budgets, shifting from a tech-first business model, and better marketing of non-tentpole films seem to be the kinks in desperate need of solutions.
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