Film Why are many blockbuster movies failing at the box office?

buckooo1978 said:
Fast X has made 722 million so far?!
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The SFX in that opening sequence swings wildly between exceptional and Sharknado. Insane use of effects. They could have chopped the bad SFX scenes out. One of the shots is just Momoa falling into water ffs. I could have shot it on my iPhone and turned in a better 5 seconds of film.

No idea why it’s all going so wrong in that space. It’s lazy to shrug and say ‘Money’ but not having the shot is free. Putting in something sh1t costs a fortune.

No movie looking that bad in 2023 should make single digit millions, let alone 722.
 
caid said:
I'm not sure that audience interaction thing exists in Ireland. I dont think i've ever seen an audience cheer at a movie. I guess i dont tend to go on opening weekends, maybe its more common there?
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It's of course an American nonsense that has sadly on occasion started happening in the UK.
 
pacifictheme said:
Cheering at the end of a movie is truly tragic carry on and going to the cinema is one of the least social activities I can think of.

COVID obviously has a big part to play, as well as people having better home movie set ups than ever and the speed at which lots of stuff comes out to rent or buy.

Cinemas can be a massive rip off, a family of four can pay over 40 quid to watch a film, it's not good value at all.

There has also been a rise in the quality of TV shows. Look at stuff like succession and that game of thrones spin off. Brilliant shows you can enjoy in your own home, much better than going to watch some abysmal marvel or Indiana Jones film.
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Nobody feckin cheered in Ireland. You'd be laughed out of it and so morto you'd never leave your home again.
 
Bebestation said:
For me movies have to be normal to do well/be widely liked on netflix. Ever since Netflix i dont see weird films pop up like Fight Club, Pulp Fiction, American beauty, Matrix, Kill Bill, The Mummy or even the Toy Story.

Movies would attract interest/money both in the cinema &/or by Blu Ray - now that 2nd burst of interest in a movie has stopped due to Netflix so Movies would rather be largely liked than minorly absolutely adorered.

This coupled with the decade or 2 of superhero films & triologies - hollywood found an easy way to make movies that are generally liked by the majority than absolutely loved by a minority.

The Dark Knight was a legendary film that changed Hollywood for the worse. The interest on that film due to ledgers death & performance was unreal & has never been the same.
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True. It's hard to get a cult hit now because if a movie doesn't do well at the box office, distributors like Netflix seem to have no interest in giving it a second run. It seems to get forgotten about.

Back in the day. you had companies like Film4, StudioCanal and Artificial Eye picking up a lot of the slack when it came to marketing movies that didn't have a great first run. Film4 and SC especially because they produced them too.
 
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caid said:
I'm not sure that audience interaction thing exists in Ireland. I dont think i've ever seen an audience cheer at a movie. I guess i dont tend to go on opening weekends, maybe its more common there?
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I watched a film in America once or twice. Hellscapes. The audiences look like zoos. The American character trait of not being able to feel even the most understandable emotions without audibly demonstrating them is god awful.

Obvs not all Americans. But if you clap at the end of a movie, you’re one of them. If you want to show appreciation of the film, clear your seat and out your rubbish in the bin. The movie characters cannot hear you. The theatre workers can see you disrespect them.
 
Vidyoyo said:
Re: People being less inclined to watch movies, I wonder if the demise of professional critics might be a factor?

About 10 years ago the main way you'd hear about new movies is from professional critics and many of them did a good job curating what was good and not, whether through specialist film websites or mainstream newspaper outlets.

I would often tune in to things like Mark Kermode on a Radio 5, or check out the latest Peter Bradshaw review in the Guardian just because they usually had fairly decent opinions. I rarely do this anymore and I guess part of the reason is because we now have so many ways to gather an opinion now that it doesn't seem as valuable to get your view from an expert. I think in doing this we've ended up giving up on what was actually a very useful way of filtering out what was good and bad.
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Not sure, really. Particularly if we're talking about blockbuster movies. Because generally, people didn't give a toss what critics said about those films. There were so many movies that were critically panned that still went on to make a fortune at the box office. In fact, this was something that Kermode would regularly say. It doesn't matter what he (or other critics) said, a lot of these films were still making huge profits. He would absolutely savage the Transformers movies, and they killed it at the box office.
 
Because they forgot that movies need writing and acting to really captivate the mind.
 
My ex girlfriend and I used to go to the cinema quite often, usually at least once every two weeks, because we both really enjoyed the cinema/going out for a meal after experience, so we quite often ended up seeing most movies out that were interesting. Naturally our plans were synced up so it always worked out well.

Since then, it's been a real pain to work out catching a movie with my friends. We all have to be interested in seeing the movie, and then working around the times that multiple people are free, it's been quite challenging, and I don't like seeing movies alone so my attendance has dropped off massively because of how much harder it's become. Loads of movies came and went in the last couple years (post covid) that I didn't go see because the zeal just wasn't there.
 
BusbyMalone said:
Not sure, really. Particularly if we're talking about blockbuster movies. Because generally, people didn't give a toss what critics said about those films. There were so many movies that were critically panned that still went on to make a fortune at the box office. In fact, this was something that Kermode would regularly say. It doesn't matter what he (or other critics) said, a lot of these films were still making huge profits. He would absolutely savage the Transformers movies, and they killed it at the box office.
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I never understand people's problems with the Transformers movies. When I go to see one of them, I am paying to watch giant robots fighting. I don't care for the quality of acting, or the plot, or cinematography or the depth or whatever self flagellating thing movie critics (and I am referring to the amateur ones who criticize everything as well) go on about. I go there to see giant robots fighting, and that is what I get. I leave as a satisfied patron.
 
Scarlett Dracarys said:
I think people have forgotten how fun it is to go the the theatre. The cool recliners here are a hit. Nothing beats watching a movie with the audience reaction in the background and eating shit popcorn. People nowadays are more antisocial and most of this generation are the ones who prefer to stay home and play video games. Human interaction isn't at the top of their list.
Nothing can top the audience's reaction when Legolas killed that Mammoth in LOTR. The cheering at the end too. We can't get that at home.
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Conversely, there are also many bad experiences of going to the cinema, which seem to be more prevalent now, unfortunately. Especially with these big movies that bring in a lot of people. You obviously have no control over who's there, so you end up with people talking throughout, dicking about on their phones, generally being a pain in the arse. I've had a few of these experiences and they completely take you out of the film.

Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy going, and I completely take your point about sharing an experience with a good audience. Comedy and horror movies are obviously the best when it comes to that.

But yeah, I can see people saying "feck it" to all of that. Especially if they have a nice set-up in the comfort of their home.
 
BusbyMalone said:
Not sure, really. Particularly if we're talking about blockbuster movies. Because generally, people didn't give a toss what critics said about those films. There were so many movies that were critically panned that still went on to make a fortune at the box office. In fact, this was something that Kermode would regularly say. It doesn't matter what he (or other critics) said, a lot of these films were still making huge profits. He would absolutely savage the Transformers movies, and they killed it at the box office.
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Agree but I wasn't talking about blockbusters failing. I was responding to the general tone in this thread which is people saying can't be arsed with going to the cinema and taking a chance on something they might not like.

I realise this is a tangential point to the actual purpose of this thread :)
 
BusbyMalone said:
It did do well internationally. I think domestically is where it wasn't so good. The two movies before this one performed better.

Also, the film cost $340 million dollars!
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Yeah with a cast salary like that im not surprised. The Manchester United of movies
 
Cloud7 said:
I never understand people's problems with the Transformers movies. When I go to see one of them, I am paying to watch giant robots fighting. I don't care for the quality of acting, or the plot, or cinematography or the depth or whatever self flagellating thing movie critics (and I am referring to the amateur ones who criticize everything as well) go on about. I go there to see giant robots fighting, and that is what I get. I leave as a satisfied patron.
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That's fair enough. Personally, I hate them! :lol:

The first one was tolerable. I watched 2 and 3 in the cinema and that was enough for me. Like most blockbuster movies now, they were overly long and bloated and full of incomprehensible action scenes, with nails-on-a-chalkboard-type characters. For movies that had an explosion every 2 minutes, they were also mind-numbingly boring. A Transformer movie does not need to be two and a half hours long. Most movies don't, to be fair
 
BusbyMalone said:
That's fair enough. Personally, I hate them! :lol:

The first one was tolerable. I watched 2 and 3 in the cinema and that was enough for me. Like most blockbuster movies now, they were overly long and bloated and full of incomprehensible action scenes, with nails-on-a-chalkboard-type characters. For movies that had an explosion every 2 minutes, they were also mind-numbingly boring. A Transformer movie does not need to be two and a half hours long. Most movies don't, to be fair
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Agree. Most tv shows don't need to be 9 seasons either.
 
Scarlett Dracarys said:
I think people have forgotten how fun it is to go the the theatre. The cool recliners here are a hit. Nothing beats watching a movie with the audience reaction in the background and eating shit popcorn. People nowadays are more antisocial and most of this generation are the ones who prefer to stay home and play video games. Human interaction isn't at the top of their list.
Nothing can top the audience's reaction when Legolas killed that Mammoth in LOTR. The cheering at the end too. We can't get that at home.
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Cinemas aren't really a social experience because you're not actually interacting. I think it's more of a communal experience because you feel like a part of a group.

I personally hate all of that. Audience noise, people kicking your seat, people blocking my view, and expensive prices all put me off.

If I want a communal experience, I'd much rather go to a football match or a gig. Movies are better viewed in complete isolation/darkness/silence/comfort imo .
 
Vidyoyo said:
Agree but I wasn't talking about blockbusters failing. I was responding to the general tone in this thread which is people saying can't be arsed with going to the cinema and taking a chance on something they might not like.

I realise this is a tangential point to the actual purpose of this thread :)
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Ah, fair enough.

In that case, I would agree that good movie criticism is important for highlighting the movies that you would otherwise miss out on. Not just that, but good movie criticism can also enhance your enjoyment of a film. I know people like to shit on the "elitism" of movie criticism, but they play an important role, IMO. If they're good at it, of course. There are plenty of hacks out there.

I used to love reading Roger Ebert. I used to disagree with many of his reviews, but it wasn't the point, really. Fundamentally, he was just a great writer who happened to write about movies. And he did it in such a way that was convincing and honest, even if you disagreed. But yeah, maybe a discussion for another thread!
 
El General 1994 said:
1) Films are rubbish these days.
2) TV series are way better.
3) Folks are aware of naughty Kodi. They are happy to wait 45-90 days for films to become 'available'.
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Feels like every man and his dog has a dodgy firestick these days and access to new movies a matter of weeks after release, some the same week.
 
In this case of The Flash, they're two things working against it. The first is Ezra Miller. Some people are not in any way interested in supporting him after his recent antics. There hasn't been enough time and distance put between what he did and the movie. The second issue is that it's a dead franchise. Some people have no interest in investing time and money in something thats going nowhere. We saw the same thing happen to Shazam 2 and will no doubt see the same thing happen again with Aquaman. The Snyderverse is done. the Gunnverse is where the future lies, although personally I can already see that taking a shit as it seems to making some of the same mistakes that BvS made. Shoehorning a bunch of characters in before the setup is really complete. Will DC ever learn not to rush playing catch up?

In the case of Indiana Jones, the word of mouth out of Cannes was that it was terrible. Most of the reviews hung around for a full month going unchallenged. Even positive reviews were shitting on it like this little snippet from the BBC

Like another of Fords so called "legacy sequels", Star Wars The Force Awakens, this one brings back old characters(John Rhys-Davis's Sallah has a pointless cameo), introduces new ones who are strangly similar to the old characters(Ethann Isidore plays a substandard copy of Short Round from Temple of Doom), and has the air of a film passing the torch(or whip) to the next generation. But it does all this in an even gloomier fashion than The Force Awakens did. I'm not sure how many fans want to see Indiana Jones as a broken, helpless old man who cowers in the corner while his patronising goddaughter takes the lead, but thats what we're given and its as bleak as it sounds.
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When even the positive reviews aren't very positive, it's hard to get many people interested. A lot of people did not like what was done to previous lucusfilm characters and so my guess was that there wasn't a very big appetite to see more of it. Some people on here have said this is very unfair on the movie and it's no where near as bad as the general feeling towards the movie is. And if thats the case, it's not what most people think it is, then thats the fault of the marketing team who let things like the above sit unchallenged for a month on ratings sites.
 
Cheimoon said:
Marketing costs are mind-boggling. I have no idea for this film, but they might well be only starting to get near break-even with that income.
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Marketing will be around the $150-$200m mark... so they'll be making money now with a Box office over $700m
 
BusbyMalone said:
Conversely, there are also many bad experiences of going to the cinema, which seem to be more prevalent now, unfortunately. Especially with these big movies that bring in a lot of people. You obviously have no control over who's there, so you end up with people talking throughout, dicking about on their phones, generally being a pain in the arse. I've had a few of these experiences and they completely take you out of the film.

Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy going, and I completely take your point about sharing an experience with a good audience. Comedy and horror movies are obviously the best when it comes to that.

But yeah, I can see people saying "feck it" to all of that. Especially if they have a nice set-up in the comfort of their home.
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I agree with most of this. Comedies are really fun in the cinema (I remember having a great time watching Borat with a crowd) as are some action movies (there were a bunch of meat heads watching F&F 5 and I actually had fun watching them having orgasms over the stunt scenes :lol: )

However, I completely disagree about watching horror at the cinema. It's the worst ever, especially at prime time. It attracts the worst crowd with macho cnuts who laugh at every scare to hide their own insecurities. My worst experience in the cinema was watching Sinister in a crowd, completely ruined by people talking and laughing.

Now when I watch horror at the cinema (like I did yesterday with Insidious), I go to a random 3pm showing on a week day.
 
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Norman Brownbutter said:
In this case of The Flash, they're two things working against it. The first is Ezra Miller. Some people are not in any way interested in supporting him after his recent antics. There hasn't been enough time and distance put between what he did and the movie. The second issue is that it's a dead franchise. Some people have no interest in investing time and money in something thats going nowhere. We saw the same thing happen to Shazam 2 and will no doubt see the same thing happen again with Aquaman. The Snyderverse is done. the Gunnverse is where the future lies, although personally I can already see that taking a shit as it seems to making some of the same mistakes that BvS made. Shoehorning a bunch of characters in before the setup is really complete. Will DC ever learn not to rush playing catch up?

In the case of Indiana Jones, the word of mouth out of Cannes was that it was terrible. Most of the reviews hung around for a full month going unchallenged. Even positive reviews were shitting on it like this little snippet from the BBC



When even the positive reviews aren't very positive, it's hard to get many people interested. A lot of people did not like what was done to previous lucusfilm characters and so my guess was that there wasn't a very big appetite to see more of it. Some people on here have said this is very unfair on the movie and it's no where near as bad as the general feeling towards the movie is. And if thats the case, it's not what most people think it is, then thats the fault of the marketing team who let things like the above sit unchallenged for a month on ratings sites.
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Yeah the most positive thing I've seen from people who have seen the new Indie film is that it's "not too bad, actually" That's basically the most enthusiasm that can be mustered. "Not as bad as i thought it would be" "decent" 'it wasn't terrible". Phrases like that.

All ringing recommendations!

I haven't seen it so not going to comment. But when you come out of a movie and the general vibe is "well, it wasn't as bad as i thought it would be" then, yeah...
 
Annihilate Now! said:
Marketing will be around the $150-$200m mark... so they'll be making money now with a Box office over $700m
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Don't think it works like that though, really. It had a $340m budget. If we were to be conservative and say they had a $100m marketing budget, that obviously puts it at $440m all together. They need to make at least double that to even be seen as a mediocre success. We're talking over a Billion in box office revenue to be seen as an unmitigated success.
 
BusbyMalone said:
Yeah, I think Mission Impossible is going to smash it. Cruise seems like he's on a one-man mission to save the blockbuster. I think Barbie will do well, but not sure about Oppenheimer. The subject matter, and the fact that it's a three-hour epic, not sure how many will flock to see it. I definitely am.

Although Dunkirk did really well at the box office I think. So we'll see.
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Tom Cruise is very much an exception though. You could probably release a film that's just two hours of him taking a shit and it would still break $1B with ease.
 
Big Ben Foster said:
Tom Cruise is very much an exception though. You could probably release a film that's just two hours of him taking a shit and it would still break $1B with ease.
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Agreed. A guaranteed bogbuster.
 
Dirty Schwein said:
I agree with most of this. Comedies are really fun in the cinema (I remember having a great time watching Borat with a crowd) as are some action movies (there were a bunch of meat heads watching F&F 5 and I actually had fun watching them having orgasms over the stunt scenes :lol: )

However, I completely disagree about watching horror at the cinema. It's the worst ever, especially at prime time. It attracts the worst crowd with macho cnuts who laugh at every scare to hide their own insecurities. My worst experience in the cinema was watching Sinister in a crowd, completely ruined by people talking and laughing.

Now when I watch horror at the cinema (like I did yesterday with Insidious), I go to a random 3pm showing on a week day.
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I think that's just a general bad experience though. Not necessarily indicative of the genre. I've had some great experiences with horror films at the cinema. I went to watch Don't Breathe and that's a VERY quiet film. The audience were great. You could hear a pin drop. And you could just sense everyone on edge. Just added to the overall atmosphere.

Also, laughing at a horror film and particularly a big jump scare, is a very natural human response. It's a release, that's all. Obviously, the talking throughout the film is different; you're just being a bellend at that point.
 
Scarlett Dracarys said:
I think people have forgotten how fun it is to go the the theatre. The cool recliners here are a hit. Nothing beats watching a movie with the audience reaction in the background and eating shit popcorn. People nowadays are more antisocial and most of this generation are the ones who prefer to stay home and play video games. Human interaction isn't at the top of their list.
Nothing can top the audience's reaction when Legolas killed that Mammoth in LOTR. The cheering at the end too. We can't get that at home.
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On the flip side, the last movie I went to in a theatre was in the last century, it was ruined because it was full of teenage girls swooning and crying over Leo di Caprio in Titanic and the rest of the audience chomping on popcorn and slurping on soda every 2 seconds!
 
In all honesty its a mix of being able to afford it and getting child care. Its a solid £50 a go. Two tickets - £30, food in the cinema £15-20. Go for food before or after and its an extra £40. Just for one evening. Do that every week it just becomes unaffordable.
 
BusbyMalone said:
I think that's just a general bad experience though. Not necessarily indicative of the genre. I've had some great experiences with horror films at the cinema. I went to watch Don't Breathe and that's a VERY quiet film. The audience were great. You could hear a pin drop. And you could just sense everyone on edge. Just added to the overall atmosphere.

Also, laughing at a horror film and particularly a big jump scare, is a very natural human response. It's a release, that's all. Obviously, the talking throughout the film is different; you're just being a bellend at that point.
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Nah it's more than that. 90% of what I watch are horror movies and plenty have been ruined at the cinema. Quiet Place, Hereditary, Paranormal Activity etc. I don't mind laughing after a jump scare, that's fine, but laughing throughout and kissing teeth at every moment is just annoying.

I did enjoy Scream, Evil Dead and Saw at the box office though so there's that I guess
 
Also touched on this earlier in the thread, but I wonder if a movie's run time does have an effect. May not be the main reason, but I know I look at a movie's run time, and it can impact on whether I go to see it or not. Now if it’s a film I really wanna see, then I’ll go regardless. But if I'm on the fence, it can sway me. And blockbusters are getting longer. I didn't watch the new Avatar, for instance, and the run time was one of the reasons for it. Also, I think Avatar is pretty rubbish, but if it was like a 2 hour, or just over two-hour movie, then I would have gone just for the 3D cinema experience.

But at over three hours? Nah
 
iammemphis said:
In all honesty its a mix of being able to afford it and getting child care. Its a solid £50 a go. Two tickets - £30, food in the cinema £15-20. Go for food before or after and its an extra £40. Just for one evening. Do that every week it just becomes unaffordable.
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Without knowing anything about most of the recently released films, I assumed this was a key reason for recent low box office numbers.

I remember reading something recently about cinemas closing down around the UK and saying numbers just haven't got back to pre-covid levels.

And, yeah, with all the cost of living issues people have been dealing with over the last few years then I imagine something quite expensive like the cinema is one of the luxuries that people just haven't gone back to as much once the social distancing ended. Especially with so many streaming services, etc. I guess routine was helping the cinemas fight against all the other options until the two year break, and then people just haven't got back into it as frequently as before?
 
Dirty Schwein said:
Nah it's more than that. 90% of what I watch are horror movies and plenty have been ruined at the cinema. Quiet Place, Hereditary, Paranormal Activity etc. I don't mind laughing after a jump scare, that's fine, but laughing throughout and kissing teeth at every moment is just annoying.

I did enjoy Scream, Evil Dead and Saw at the box office though so there's that I guess
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Oh, Quiet Place was another great experience for me. I think you must live in an area with a lot of bellends!

My worst experiences have actually been in these huge, superhero movies. Just because they bring in a wide range of people.
 
1. Price. The cost for cinema tickets is now in the realm of ‘it’s not worth it’.

2. Home entertainment setups got a lot better in the last 20 years, by some stretch.

3. Star Wars, Marvel, Lord of the Rings, Avatar, etc. Everything has a ‘universe’ these days. Everything is a spin off of something that’s already established. The story has been told before and it was lame the first time round, it’s even shitter by the time the 12th adaptation comes along. Total fatigue at this point with some of these names that weren’t even popular outside their niche to begin with.

4. Streaming platforms have killed DVD sales which makes it harder for companies to take a risk on a film because if it bombs at box office they won’t recoup anything past that point, whereas they could recover with dvd sales in the past.

5. Quality. Movies have gotten really bad outside of the big directors doing what they do best. Horror is genuinely the best genre at the moment but they’re rarely better than a 6/10 so it doesn’t justify going to the cinema for it when you can watch it on a streaming platform in a couple of months anyway.

6. Other people. Unless you go to a fancy cinema in a decent area there will be at least two dickheads who don’t give a feck other people have paid to watch the film also.
 
dinostar77 said:
Cause many are utter garbage. Theres a reason Top Gun Maverick did so well and why the latest MI movie will do well. Its the quality of the movie.
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Came to post this. Top Gun: Maverick shares many traits with the new Indiana Jones movie. 80’s nostalgia with the key original actor still being there, etc. Only it was actually a really good movie.

Word of mouth and good reviews are still very powerful.
 
People have largely woken up to the fact that TV shows are miles better than movies.

Also people are generally annoying, so having to have them around you in a cinema can be an excruciating experience with people chatting, using phones, rustling sweets or whatever.

I’ll go to the cinema once every now and then for a film that justifies it. Last one was Maverick, and I’m intending to go see the new Mission: Impossible. I’ll go for a new Bond movie when that eventually happens too. Otherwise if I want to watch a movie I’ll watch it at home on a great TV in the comfort of my own home, where I can pause it when I need a piss half way through the 3 hour run time rather than missing something.
 
BusbyMalone said:
Also touched on this earlier in the thread, but I wonder if a movie's run time does have an effect. May not be the main reason, but I know I look at a movie's run time, and it can impact on whether I go to see it or not. Now if it’s a film I really wanna see, then I’ll go regardless. But if I'm on the fence, it can sway me. And blockbusters are getting longer. I didn't watch the new Avatar, for instance, and the run time was one of the reasons for it. Also, I think Avatar is pretty rubbish, but if it was like a 2 hour, or just over two-hour movie, then I would have gone just for the 3D cinema experience.

But at over three hours? Nah
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Good point. I personally have a hard time committing to anything longer than 150 minutes unless it's a film I was already extremely hyped for.
 
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