Hollywood’s not what it used to be.
Whether it’s the recession, the changing tastes of American moviegoers, or a general lack of interest, tickets aren’t selling in quantity these days.
Estimates showed that attendance at American theaters in 2011 was the lowest since 1995, at only 1.28 billion. That figure has been in nearly constant decline since it peaked in 2002 at 1.58 billion tickets sold, but the film industry’s gross revenue has increased markedly over the same period.
Something changed in 2002 that can help to explain this phenomenon. In 2001, Hollywood started a few franchises – Shrek, The Lord of the Rings, and the king of all franchises, Harry Potter. They were all incredibly successful, and as a result, seven of the top ten worldwide grosses were franchise films.
Of course, the point of a franchise is making the sequel – the enemy of discerning moviegoers everywhere. Most of the creative leg-work has been done already in making the first film; a sequel is almost always more profitable than an original film. From 2002 onward, Hollywood became well-acquainted with this concept, and we were treated to round after round of action movies, animated family films, and big budget fantasy/adventure movies. By 2011, nine of the top ten grossing films were franchises. The only outlier was The Smurfs, which wasn’t locked in as a franchise at the time, but now has two sequels in production.
Unfortunately, American audiences will only go to see so many sequels. One need look no further than the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, which has had four installments to date. Curse of the Black Pearl performed well at home, bringing in over $300 million domestically. The second movie, 2006’s Dead Man’s Chest, was another hit, making $423 million in the United States alone. The adoration seems to have ended there, though, with 2007’s At World’s End – on a $300 million budget – making only $309 million domestically and 2011’s On Stranger Tides racking up only $241 million against a $250 million budget.
In spite of all this, a fifth film is in development and there’s talk of shooting a sixth back-to-back. Something is seriously wrong here, but on closer examination it makes perfect sense.
Poor domestic performance notwithstanding, all three sequels blew the original out of the water, with Dead Man’s Chest and On Stranger Tides breaking the magic $1 billion barrier worldwide. Here’s the effective pattern that began in 2001 and has continued ever since:
- Hollywood makes a movie with a reasonably high budget.
- It does well in the US and abroad, splitting sales around 50-50 domestic and elsewhere.
- Hollywood pumps out a sequel with a higher budget.
- It does pretty well in the US, but foreign sales account for a significantly larger chunk.
- Repeat.
The percentage of foreign gross revenue is the key. With Curse of the Black Pearl, overseas gross revenue accounted for 53.3 percent. With the three sequels, the overseas revenue percentages were 60.3, 67.9, and 76.9, respectively. That’s right, On Stranger Tides made more than three-fourths of its money abroad. This is all thanks to global audiences’ willingness to eat up sequels that the US is largely indifferent to. The critical reception suffered, too; Rotten Tomatoes shows a drop in favorable critical responses with each successive film, starting with Curse of the Black Pearl’s respectable 79 percent and ending with On Stranger Tides’ deplorable 34 percent.
Who’s buying all these tickets overseas? This year’s number one film – The Avengers – has made almost $900 million abroad, and the top five foreign markets have been China, the UK, Brazil, Mexico, and Australia. There isn’t a particular region dominating the box office; all that can be said is that films with more plot and needing more translation have done better with English and Romance language speaking audiences. It’s also worth saying that some countries – like the UK – have excellent film industries of their own, which is why they don’t need to turn out for low or mid-level budget American films but might enjoy blockbusters.
All things considered, it’s fair to say that Hollywood is paying the bills with international blockbusters, and that’s having a profound effect on the industry as a whole.
Whether or not they’ve noticed it, American moviegoers are growing jaded about the theater experience because so many of the films available are unoriginal. Even new franchises’ futures can be mapped out according to their demographics and early performance. The Hunger Games is now taking over for Twilight as the draw for young readers, and both franchises started with strong domestic performance because the fan base was already here. From what Twilight did next, we can predict the course of the Hunger Games trilogy – or quadrilogy, because the people at Lionsgate are going to make two movies out of the final Hunger Games book, just like they did with Twilight. And now that Twilight is wrapping up, its perennial late November release date is going to the second Hunger Games film in 2013. This science of theirs is starting to get repetitive.
Even as the American market for action films appears saturated, Hollywood continues to churn them out at a record pace because they’re popular overseas and require very little linguistic or cultural translation. This phenomenon can be seen on a smaller scale in lower-budget films, when studio consideration for the foreign box office might end up axing plot or character development to shoehorn in an extra car chase. Of course, the most obvious trend is the bombardment of action franchise sequels. The Fast and the Furious will have a sixth installment next year, and let’s not forget our friends at Marvel. They currently have eight films announced or in development for release between 2013 and 2015; seven of them are sequels.
Perhaps it’s not so peculiar that domestic theater attendance is down. When all is said and done, Americans may have a threshold for manufactured schlock. To be fair, we still turn out in droves to see film critic punching bags starring Adam Sandler or Kevin James (and in the case of Grown Ups, both) but we can be thankful that comedies don’t translate well overseas. If foreign audiences wanted more goofy comedies, we’d have to deal with lowbrow franchises even more prolific than Police Academy.
The real shame of it is that Hollywood can and does make brilliant films. Solid, American-made Oscar movies – Moneyball and The Social Network come to mind – do as well domestically as some huge, manufactured sequels. The Social Network had a $225 million worldwide gross, compared with a $415 million gross for The Chronicles of Naria: Voyage of the Dawn Treader, but their domestic performance was roughly the same. That’s a $40 million movie going punch for punch with a $155 million movie at the US box office. American audiences can discern quality; they’re just not getting enough of it.
Hollywood’s new philosophy is, “If there’s anything people don’t want to pay for, it’s a good movie.” With the global recession, they’re taking enormous risks on big-budget action films (and often losing – see Green Lantern…or better yet, don’t) and throwing scraps to tiny films that aren’t expected to go anywhere. For all the money studios are betting on blockbusters, it seems like they’re doing it without sufficient consideration. This is how we end up with movies like Battleship – a $200 million flop based on a board game.
The only hope for a medium-budget, non-action film is a huge name attached to it to guarantee a minimum level of success. If someone who isn’t a surefire box office draw has a fantastic script for a $60 million movie, they’ll have to shop it around for years. At this point in time, there must be countless amazing scripts floating around Hollywood that would have been made in the 50s or the 70s, but will never see the light of day in this decade. No matter how many movies like The Social Network end up successful, they’ll be dismissed as pleasant flukes by the Hollywood bean counters.
It’s only filmmakers like Spielberg and Scorsese, actors like Pitt and Clooney – these guys can get good stuff made if and when they want. But if they or others like them sell out completely, we’re really screwed. Hollywood will continue producing for the foreign markets, and their taste in American movies is pretty awful.
