Deadline's Anthony D'Alessandro recently reported that in the four month January-April period the cinematic box office in 2024 ran 21 percent behind the preceding year--and that the summer was likely to see 2024 continue to run well behind 2023 that way. (Last summer the box office took in over $4 billion; this summer it may be lucky to get to $3 billion.) The result is that, with January-April over a half billion behind the preceding third for the year, and summer likely to mean the season being another billion short of last year, the $8 billion projection for 2024 we had at the end of last year.
And that, of course, is while remembering that 2023 itself was a very disappointing year, seeing as it did not the return of the box office to pre-pandemic levels but finishing up a third of the way down from the 2019 level that itself reflected a decade of erosion. The result is that 2024 is only confirming what last year seemed to suggest, namely the box office's stabilizing at a lower level, the pandemic-era collapse more or less enduringly reducing theatergoing--such that North Americans might now be expected to go to the theater just a couple of times a year now, as against the 3-4 times a year before the pandemic (never mind the 4-5 times that were the norm before the Great Recession).
Saturday, May 11, 2024
David Walsh Looks Back at the New Hollywood
This year can seem a fairly good time to look back on the history of film, and especially the film of the past half century. After all, the model of "high concept" filmmaking that emerged from it, long in decay, seems to be in the last stages of its breakdown amid a protracted, structural crisis in the cinematic market all too tied to the bigger crises through which we have been living these past many years. (It seems no accident that American theatergoing slipped importantly in the wake of the Great Recession, continued to erode in the years that followed, and collapsed after the pandemic only to stabilize well below the pre-pandemic level.) This can seem underscored by the extraordinary commercial success of Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, a film that from the high concept standpoint was an exceedingly unlikely hit--and may suggest a return to "adult" cinema making for big hits in the way that we saw before high concept, in the New Hollywood era of the late 1960s and 1970s.
As it happens, David Walsh recently announced just such a look back, marking the 50th anniversary of what he considers the peak of New Hollywood in 1974 with a series of articles about the films that made that year what it was. To date he and his colleagues have published three of those promised pieces, remembering Roman Polanski's Chinatown, Hal Ashby's The Last Detail (both of which films, not coincidentally, were written by Robert Towne and starred Jack Nicholson), and Robert Altman's Thieves Like Us. Critical to Walsh's interest, and for many others looking at the New Hollywood's output, these were socially critical films, making for a sharp contrast with what we have got out of a Hollywood whose neoliberalism was evident not just in the structure and functioning of the business, but the politics of its content (as Walsh, of course, has remarked just about every year in his annual Oscar coverage). However, for critics like Walsh the limits to New Hollywood's more critical work also seem significant. If more than was to be the case later (as in this era in which wealth, power, status, traditional institutions and values, etc. are treated with so much respect by "artists") the makers of those movies looked at the world around them and saw much wrong in it and said so, they were also pessimistic about anything being done about the evils they identified--even though this did not wholly deny their criticisms force, or the richness their feel for and about the world brought to the films.
As it happens, David Walsh recently announced just such a look back, marking the 50th anniversary of what he considers the peak of New Hollywood in 1974 with a series of articles about the films that made that year what it was. To date he and his colleagues have published three of those promised pieces, remembering Roman Polanski's Chinatown, Hal Ashby's The Last Detail (both of which films, not coincidentally, were written by Robert Towne and starred Jack Nicholson), and Robert Altman's Thieves Like Us. Critical to Walsh's interest, and for many others looking at the New Hollywood's output, these were socially critical films, making for a sharp contrast with what we have got out of a Hollywood whose neoliberalism was evident not just in the structure and functioning of the business, but the politics of its content (as Walsh, of course, has remarked just about every year in his annual Oscar coverage). However, for critics like Walsh the limits to New Hollywood's more critical work also seem significant. If more than was to be the case later (as in this era in which wealth, power, status, traditional institutions and values, etc. are treated with so much respect by "artists") the makers of those movies looked at the world around them and saw much wrong in it and said so, they were also pessimistic about anything being done about the evils they identified--even though this did not wholly deny their criticisms force, or the richness their feel for and about the world brought to the films.
Back to the Planet of the Apes
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes hits theaters this weekend.
Boxoffice Pro, which only this week returned to the issuance of long-range forecasts (of a more limited nature than we were accustomed to in the past), predicted a $40-$50 million opening weekend for the film, and a $100-$140 million overall run, back in early April.
Their prediction this week is for an opening in the $40-$45 million range--not much different, save that the ceiling has fallen a bit.
Given what I argued about the film's prospects this does not bode well for the film. The preceding film in the series, which made rather more money domestically and globally than this one seems likely to do, failed to make Deadline's list of the more profitable films of its year--such that if 2024's film is budgeted the same way the backers will have a tough time breaking even, let alone turning a profit on this extension of what seemed to many an already concluded series.*
* War for the Planet of the Apes made $490 million in the summer of 2017, which is $600 million+ in 2024 dollars, whereas my prediction was for a much lower range of $250-$450 million globally for Kingdom.
Boxoffice Pro, which only this week returned to the issuance of long-range forecasts (of a more limited nature than we were accustomed to in the past), predicted a $40-$50 million opening weekend for the film, and a $100-$140 million overall run, back in early April.
Their prediction this week is for an opening in the $40-$45 million range--not much different, save that the ceiling has fallen a bit.
Given what I argued about the film's prospects this does not bode well for the film. The preceding film in the series, which made rather more money domestically and globally than this one seems likely to do, failed to make Deadline's list of the more profitable films of its year--such that if 2024's film is budgeted the same way the backers will have a tough time breaking even, let alone turning a profit on this extension of what seemed to many an already concluded series.*
* War for the Planet of the Apes made $490 million in the summer of 2017, which is $600 million+ in 2024 dollars, whereas my prediction was for a much lower range of $250-$450 million globally for Kingdom.
The High Concept Model of Popular Filmmaking and its Decline
Look for my thoughts on that in an upcoming post.
Thursday, May 9, 2024
Deadline's "Most Valuable Blockbusters" Tournament, 2023 Edition: Eight Observations
Deadline has wrapped up its latest "Most Valuable Blockbuster" tournament--rounded off its lists of 2023's most profitable, and least profitable, films.
As sophisticated box office-watchers know, the tournaments are an imperfect source of data. Just consider how in the past the production budgets they reported proved understated in the wake of later revelations (the more significant in that some of these figures are lower than we were told they were before, as with the $100 million rather than $150 million figure for Spider-Man), the inconsistent use of information about the part subsidies played in the making of the bottom line (we were told the net production cost of Captain Marvel 2 was $220 million after a significant subsidy, but this is not acknowledged here), the similarly inconsistent use of merchandising data, the ambiguities involved in the related-party transaction that is a studio selling the streaming rights to its own movies to its own platform, etc.. However, for lack of any comparably systematic round-up it seems well to go with this report's findings for now, reading which I was struck by the following:
1. There Were Four Superhero Films on the List, But . . .
We hear much talk these days of superhero fatigue--and much sneering about that talk. "Look at all the superhero films on this list!" some might say. However, one could equally well say, look at all the superhero films that did not make the list, among them two of the year's Marvel Cinematic Universe films (Ant-Man 3 and Captain Marvel 2), and four WBD/DC films (Shazam 2, Blue Beetle, The Flash, Aquaman 2), while two of these topped the list of the year's biggest money-losers (with Captain Marvel 2 heading the list, and The Flash right behind it in second place). One may also note that the one live-action superhero film placing among the top ten this year (a very low proportion by recent standards, especially when one considers the number of releases in this genre the year had), Guardians of the Galaxy 3, was down in ninth place (and the least profitable entry in that series to date). Of the other three superhero films two--PAW Patrol and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles--were Paramount productions that were low grossers (failing to make the list of the top 30 worldwide grossers of the year), but whose low costs, and the inclusion of merchandising revenue in their cases, enabled them to place among the top ten in a year of weak competition. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, which considerably bettered the gross of the well-received original, can more justly be regarded as a cinematic hit--though it may be noted, its performance is still a far cry from what the Spider-Man franchise accomplished at its strongest (exemplified by the near $2 billion take of Spider-Man: No Way Home back in late 2021). The result is that I would consider the fuller picture evidence for, rather than against, superhero fatigue.
2. There Were Four Animated Films, But . . .
Per usual animation was well-represented on the list of the biggest money-makers of the year. However, in line with what was stated above low budgets were key to their reported profitability (each and every one of the movies reported as having a production cost of $100 million or less), the more in as, gross-wise, only The Super Mario Bros. Movie really soared at the global box office. (Spider-Man was more respectable than sensational internationally, adding just $300 million in those markets to its North American gross--as compared with Super Mario's $800 million in the international market.) And again, merchandising revenue was key to the profitability of two of the four (PAW Patrol and Turtles). As the titles, and low budgets, imply, Disney was not represented here--Pixar's Elemental, if reportedly turning a profit in the end, still failing to make the cut here, while Wish ended up one of the year's biggest flops.
3. Most of the Films Were Surprise Overperformers Rather Than the Predicted Successes.
As the big superhero films and franchise films generally and the Disney productions underwhelmed, the way was cleared for other movies that would ordinarily not have ranked very highly--those lower-budget and less "conventional" blockbusters--to top the charts. According to my reading of the market at a minimum six of the listed movies fall into this category--namely The Super Mario Bros. Movie (few if any anticipated $1 billion+ for this one), the animated Spider-Man film (which so much bettered the performance of the original), Barbie (Boxoffice Pro's prediction for the domestic gross had been in the vicinity of a mere $200 million for this one mere weeks before a release that launched it far, far past that mark), Oppenheimer (ditto), Taylor Swift's concert film (an extraordinary performer by concert movie standards), and Five Nights at Freddy's (again, going above and beyond as it approached $300 million globally).
4. The Profits Were Low, Individually and Collectively.
Together the ten films on the list of most valuable blockbusters made a bit under $2.5 billion in profit. This sounds like a lot. However, compare it to the figures for the 2015-2019 period before the pandemic, when the studios established their current pattern. During this period the profits for the top ten movies, when adjusted for 2023 prices, ranged from $3.3 billion in the lowest-earning year (2016) to $5.4 billion in the highest (2019), and averaged $4.2 billion (leaving 2023 about 40 percent down). Granted, later revelations suggest those profits were overstated--with reports of the third and fourth Avengers films having been much more expensive than originally indicated quite enough to skew the figures. However, the gap is quite large enough that it would take a lot of downward adjustment to narrow it much, while, again, the figures for 2023 are at least as suspect as in prior years. The result is that it seems worth taking the figures at face value for now--the more in as the way in which those films became profitable varies significantly over the period.
5. Those Profits Tended to Reflect Low Costs Rather Than Colossal Grosses.
While I raised the point earlier in relation to the animated films, the truth is that this pattern of low costs translating to surprising profitability--far better profitability than the megabudget movies had--carried over to the year's more successful releases broadly in this year when of the top 10 most profitable films four did not make the list of the top 10 grossers worldwide, three did not make the top 20, and two did not even make the top 30 (with Freddy's at #19, Taylor Swift at #23, PAW Patrol at #31, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at #34 on the box office charts, despite which the Turtles movie was #4 on the "Most Valuable" list). If Guardians of the Galaxy 3 was a standard megabuck Marvel production (running the studio $250 million), the production cost of every other movie here was reportedly under $150 million--and in many cases much less (Barbie coming in just below that, Wonka lower still at $125 million, Oppenheimer, Spider-Man and Super Mario Bros. as "mere" $100 million productions, and the rest even less, with the Turtles movie made for $70 million, PAW Patrol $30 million, Freddy's $20 million, the Taylor Swift film a mere $15 million). The more striking given the galloping inflation of recent years, it is more striking still in comparison with the films on the flop list--the $200 million reported for The Flash and Wish, the $270 million for Captain Marvel 2, the $300 million for Indiana Jones 5 (by itself, exceeding the combined production costs of the five cheapest of the "most valuable blockbusters" list combined).
6. Thematically it Seems Notable That So Many Movies Were Based on Toys.
I can remember how not so long ago sneering at the video game-based movie as such was virtually universal. Going by the reviews of Super Mario Bros. and Five Nights at Freddy's films the critics' attitude toward such films remains less than kind. (Even as critics grew insanely generous in their evaluations of movies in general those two movies got a mere 59 and 32 percent ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, respectively.) Still, in contrast with before the broader audience has made clear that it does not necessarily feel the same way as the professional critics--with those two movies, again, making the list of the top ten moneymakers of the year and Super Mario in the #1 spot. The movie that came right after it was Barbie--also a movie based on a popular toy. Meanwhile those two lower-cost animated hits, the PAW Patrol and the Turtles, also have a significant toy angle, rounding out the picture.
7. Disney No Longer Rules Hollywood.
Those who have been watching the box office for some time likely remember how back in the 2010s Disney seemed unstoppable. However, between how few hits it scored in 2023, and how many flops it suffered as those very expensive would-be hits proved the opposite, those days seem long past-- Disney's sole representation on the top profit-makers list Guardians at #9, and four of the five biggest money-losers (Captain Marvel 2, Indiana Jones 5, Wish, the remake-no-one-asked-for of Haunted Mansion), including the biggest loser of all (Captain Marvel 2), are Disney productions, with each of these reported as losing $100 million+ and the lot a combined $600 million+. Taking into account the at best lackluster performance of other major Disney productions--like Ant-Man 3 and the live-action adaptation The Little Mermaid--makes Disney's situation look worse still.
8. The Cinematic Market Has Shrunken--and Fragmented.
Listening to the reports of Disney's troubles we hear much about the mismanagement of particular films, usually blaming anyone and everyone but the executives who actually have the power and responsibility in the situation (as in the whining about a lack of "supervision" on the projects, and the stupid and shabby scapegoating of the writers). However, the problem looks structural. During its glory days in the '10s Disney managed to dominate the market through a particular strategy, but that market appears to have since changed, particularly with respect to what moviegoers think is an "event" worth the trip to the theater calling that strategy into question. Until recently it was obvious that a new Star Wars, Marvel or Pixar movie, for example, was usually regarded by a critical mass of moviegoers worthy of being identified with the "general audience" as such an event. However, this has become less clear, the bar for what constitutes an event for the audience raised, so that really wide-audience events are more elusive, and relative to mass audience hits we are seeing more movies become hits on the basis of intense appeal to a limited but very enthusiastic portion of the audience, and particularly a young portion of the audience. Thus did Freddy's, and those Paramount cartoons, become moneymakers--part of the audience really excited about them, the rest not caring at all. Thus did it go with Taylor Swift's film. Even those really big hits, Super Mario and Barbie, seem to have had something of that flavor about them, just on a larger scale (the more in as Barbie was such a divisive, polarizing, film).
As that last especially shows, 2023 was anything but the business as usual to which I had thought the year returning--and it does not seem implausible to imagine that it portends changes in the business.
Look for my thoughts about that in an upcoming post.
As sophisticated box office-watchers know, the tournaments are an imperfect source of data. Just consider how in the past the production budgets they reported proved understated in the wake of later revelations (the more significant in that some of these figures are lower than we were told they were before, as with the $100 million rather than $150 million figure for Spider-Man), the inconsistent use of information about the part subsidies played in the making of the bottom line (we were told the net production cost of Captain Marvel 2 was $220 million after a significant subsidy, but this is not acknowledged here), the similarly inconsistent use of merchandising data, the ambiguities involved in the related-party transaction that is a studio selling the streaming rights to its own movies to its own platform, etc.. However, for lack of any comparably systematic round-up it seems well to go with this report's findings for now, reading which I was struck by the following:
1. There Were Four Superhero Films on the List, But . . .
We hear much talk these days of superhero fatigue--and much sneering about that talk. "Look at all the superhero films on this list!" some might say. However, one could equally well say, look at all the superhero films that did not make the list, among them two of the year's Marvel Cinematic Universe films (Ant-Man 3 and Captain Marvel 2), and four WBD/DC films (Shazam 2, Blue Beetle, The Flash, Aquaman 2), while two of these topped the list of the year's biggest money-losers (with Captain Marvel 2 heading the list, and The Flash right behind it in second place). One may also note that the one live-action superhero film placing among the top ten this year (a very low proportion by recent standards, especially when one considers the number of releases in this genre the year had), Guardians of the Galaxy 3, was down in ninth place (and the least profitable entry in that series to date). Of the other three superhero films two--PAW Patrol and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles--were Paramount productions that were low grossers (failing to make the list of the top 30 worldwide grossers of the year), but whose low costs, and the inclusion of merchandising revenue in their cases, enabled them to place among the top ten in a year of weak competition. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, which considerably bettered the gross of the well-received original, can more justly be regarded as a cinematic hit--though it may be noted, its performance is still a far cry from what the Spider-Man franchise accomplished at its strongest (exemplified by the near $2 billion take of Spider-Man: No Way Home back in late 2021). The result is that I would consider the fuller picture evidence for, rather than against, superhero fatigue.
2. There Were Four Animated Films, But . . .
Per usual animation was well-represented on the list of the biggest money-makers of the year. However, in line with what was stated above low budgets were key to their reported profitability (each and every one of the movies reported as having a production cost of $100 million or less), the more in as, gross-wise, only The Super Mario Bros. Movie really soared at the global box office. (Spider-Man was more respectable than sensational internationally, adding just $300 million in those markets to its North American gross--as compared with Super Mario's $800 million in the international market.) And again, merchandising revenue was key to the profitability of two of the four (PAW Patrol and Turtles). As the titles, and low budgets, imply, Disney was not represented here--Pixar's Elemental, if reportedly turning a profit in the end, still failing to make the cut here, while Wish ended up one of the year's biggest flops.
3. Most of the Films Were Surprise Overperformers Rather Than the Predicted Successes.
As the big superhero films and franchise films generally and the Disney productions underwhelmed, the way was cleared for other movies that would ordinarily not have ranked very highly--those lower-budget and less "conventional" blockbusters--to top the charts. According to my reading of the market at a minimum six of the listed movies fall into this category--namely The Super Mario Bros. Movie (few if any anticipated $1 billion+ for this one), the animated Spider-Man film (which so much bettered the performance of the original), Barbie (Boxoffice Pro's prediction for the domestic gross had been in the vicinity of a mere $200 million for this one mere weeks before a release that launched it far, far past that mark), Oppenheimer (ditto), Taylor Swift's concert film (an extraordinary performer by concert movie standards), and Five Nights at Freddy's (again, going above and beyond as it approached $300 million globally).
4. The Profits Were Low, Individually and Collectively.
Together the ten films on the list of most valuable blockbusters made a bit under $2.5 billion in profit. This sounds like a lot. However, compare it to the figures for the 2015-2019 period before the pandemic, when the studios established their current pattern. During this period the profits for the top ten movies, when adjusted for 2023 prices, ranged from $3.3 billion in the lowest-earning year (2016) to $5.4 billion in the highest (2019), and averaged $4.2 billion (leaving 2023 about 40 percent down). Granted, later revelations suggest those profits were overstated--with reports of the third and fourth Avengers films having been much more expensive than originally indicated quite enough to skew the figures. However, the gap is quite large enough that it would take a lot of downward adjustment to narrow it much, while, again, the figures for 2023 are at least as suspect as in prior years. The result is that it seems worth taking the figures at face value for now--the more in as the way in which those films became profitable varies significantly over the period.
5. Those Profits Tended to Reflect Low Costs Rather Than Colossal Grosses.
While I raised the point earlier in relation to the animated films, the truth is that this pattern of low costs translating to surprising profitability--far better profitability than the megabudget movies had--carried over to the year's more successful releases broadly in this year when of the top 10 most profitable films four did not make the list of the top 10 grossers worldwide, three did not make the top 20, and two did not even make the top 30 (with Freddy's at #19, Taylor Swift at #23, PAW Patrol at #31, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at #34 on the box office charts, despite which the Turtles movie was #4 on the "Most Valuable" list). If Guardians of the Galaxy 3 was a standard megabuck Marvel production (running the studio $250 million), the production cost of every other movie here was reportedly under $150 million--and in many cases much less (Barbie coming in just below that, Wonka lower still at $125 million, Oppenheimer, Spider-Man and Super Mario Bros. as "mere" $100 million productions, and the rest even less, with the Turtles movie made for $70 million, PAW Patrol $30 million, Freddy's $20 million, the Taylor Swift film a mere $15 million). The more striking given the galloping inflation of recent years, it is more striking still in comparison with the films on the flop list--the $200 million reported for The Flash and Wish, the $270 million for Captain Marvel 2, the $300 million for Indiana Jones 5 (by itself, exceeding the combined production costs of the five cheapest of the "most valuable blockbusters" list combined).
6. Thematically it Seems Notable That So Many Movies Were Based on Toys.
I can remember how not so long ago sneering at the video game-based movie as such was virtually universal. Going by the reviews of Super Mario Bros. and Five Nights at Freddy's films the critics' attitude toward such films remains less than kind. (Even as critics grew insanely generous in their evaluations of movies in general those two movies got a mere 59 and 32 percent ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, respectively.) Still, in contrast with before the broader audience has made clear that it does not necessarily feel the same way as the professional critics--with those two movies, again, making the list of the top ten moneymakers of the year and Super Mario in the #1 spot. The movie that came right after it was Barbie--also a movie based on a popular toy. Meanwhile those two lower-cost animated hits, the PAW Patrol and the Turtles, also have a significant toy angle, rounding out the picture.
7. Disney No Longer Rules Hollywood.
Those who have been watching the box office for some time likely remember how back in the 2010s Disney seemed unstoppable. However, between how few hits it scored in 2023, and how many flops it suffered as those very expensive would-be hits proved the opposite, those days seem long past-- Disney's sole representation on the top profit-makers list Guardians at #9, and four of the five biggest money-losers (Captain Marvel 2, Indiana Jones 5, Wish, the remake-no-one-asked-for of Haunted Mansion), including the biggest loser of all (Captain Marvel 2), are Disney productions, with each of these reported as losing $100 million+ and the lot a combined $600 million+. Taking into account the at best lackluster performance of other major Disney productions--like Ant-Man 3 and the live-action adaptation The Little Mermaid--makes Disney's situation look worse still.
8. The Cinematic Market Has Shrunken--and Fragmented.
Listening to the reports of Disney's troubles we hear much about the mismanagement of particular films, usually blaming anyone and everyone but the executives who actually have the power and responsibility in the situation (as in the whining about a lack of "supervision" on the projects, and the stupid and shabby scapegoating of the writers). However, the problem looks structural. During its glory days in the '10s Disney managed to dominate the market through a particular strategy, but that market appears to have since changed, particularly with respect to what moviegoers think is an "event" worth the trip to the theater calling that strategy into question. Until recently it was obvious that a new Star Wars, Marvel or Pixar movie, for example, was usually regarded by a critical mass of moviegoers worthy of being identified with the "general audience" as such an event. However, this has become less clear, the bar for what constitutes an event for the audience raised, so that really wide-audience events are more elusive, and relative to mass audience hits we are seeing more movies become hits on the basis of intense appeal to a limited but very enthusiastic portion of the audience, and particularly a young portion of the audience. Thus did Freddy's, and those Paramount cartoons, become moneymakers--part of the audience really excited about them, the rest not caring at all. Thus did it go with Taylor Swift's film. Even those really big hits, Super Mario and Barbie, seem to have had something of that flavor about them, just on a larger scale (the more in as Barbie was such a divisive, polarizing, film).
As that last especially shows, 2023 was anything but the business as usual to which I had thought the year returning--and it does not seem implausible to imagine that it portends changes in the business.
Look for my thoughts about that in an upcoming post.
How Did The Fall Guy Do in the End?
This past weekend The Fall Guy hit theaters. It ended up making a bit under $28 million--under the bottom end of the range projected by Boxoffice Pro, and well under the $35 million that seems to have been conventionally projected for it.
That is to say it performed below even the very low expectations held for the film--with the result that the movie was not only outgrossed by 2005's Kingdom of Heaven, but by every first weekend of May release going back to the 1990s, back when the blockbuster season properly began only a little later. (Consider, for instance, how things stood in 1998, when the first real summer release was Deep Impact--which appeared the second weekend in May, and collected $41 million then, as that first weekend of May was left to a Spike Lee movie.*)
Of course, one can counter that the film's being given this release date was not quite what was never Plan A, that this would never have happened but for last year's strikes, that it is unfair to judge it by big summer movie standards. (Indeed, as Anthony D'Alessandro remarked, "it's a movie you find either in August, the second weekend of June or even the off season, which is where this was originally scheduled on March 1.") However, no one forced the studio to opt for that release date--they had plenty of other choices over the course of this so far very weak year, while one can add that the Ryan "Kenough" Gosling hype may have conduced to more optimism than was warranted. Moreover the money they sank into it (which has had some analysts scratching their heads) is not dump month money but summer month money, such that the studio hoped the prime stretch of year in which it launched it would give the studio a better chance of recouping a considerable investment than otherwise.
Alas, the movie will have to have a lot of staying power at the box office to do that--enjoy very good week-to-week holds again and again. Where this is concerned the fact that those bothering to show seem to like it (the audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes is 87 percent, not rapturous but not bad), and the weakness of the competition in coming weeks, may make this a possibility. Still, it is an inauspicious opening for the movie--and for the summer season that was so thinned out as to make this one look like it "coulda been a contender," and as yet all too likely to end up looking like 2023 would have, minus its eleventh hour rescue by Barbie and Oppenheimer.
* Of course, that $41 million is, before inflation, about 50 percent more than The Fall Guy picked up, and adjusted for 2024 dollars $79 million, or almost three times as much.
That is to say it performed below even the very low expectations held for the film--with the result that the movie was not only outgrossed by 2005's Kingdom of Heaven, but by every first weekend of May release going back to the 1990s, back when the blockbuster season properly began only a little later. (Consider, for instance, how things stood in 1998, when the first real summer release was Deep Impact--which appeared the second weekend in May, and collected $41 million then, as that first weekend of May was left to a Spike Lee movie.*)
Of course, one can counter that the film's being given this release date was not quite what was never Plan A, that this would never have happened but for last year's strikes, that it is unfair to judge it by big summer movie standards. (Indeed, as Anthony D'Alessandro remarked, "it's a movie you find either in August, the second weekend of June or even the off season, which is where this was originally scheduled on March 1.") However, no one forced the studio to opt for that release date--they had plenty of other choices over the course of this so far very weak year, while one can add that the Ryan "Kenough" Gosling hype may have conduced to more optimism than was warranted. Moreover the money they sank into it (which has had some analysts scratching their heads) is not dump month money but summer month money, such that the studio hoped the prime stretch of year in which it launched it would give the studio a better chance of recouping a considerable investment than otherwise.
Alas, the movie will have to have a lot of staying power at the box office to do that--enjoy very good week-to-week holds again and again. Where this is concerned the fact that those bothering to show seem to like it (the audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes is 87 percent, not rapturous but not bad), and the weakness of the competition in coming weeks, may make this a possibility. Still, it is an inauspicious opening for the movie--and for the summer season that was so thinned out as to make this one look like it "coulda been a contender," and as yet all too likely to end up looking like 2023 would have, minus its eleventh hour rescue by Barbie and Oppenheimer.
* Of course, that $41 million is, before inflation, about 50 percent more than The Fall Guy picked up, and adjusted for 2024 dollars $79 million, or almost three times as much.
Centrism and the Mainstream News Media's Complete Incapacity for Substantive Self-Criticism
A couple of years ago I took up the issue of "media bias", and identified six traits of the mainstream news media's modus operandi that seemed to me to be caused, or at least rationalized, by its centrist political tendency, namely:
1. A tendency to deluge audiences with disconnected and uncontextualized bits of information.
2. A tendency to treat experts, and especially "Establishment" experts, as authorities, and make a reliance on their judgments the alternative to coping with the disconnected bits of information.
3. A deference to--and promotion of--Establishment sources, experts and figures generally (and disregard of those who are not), translating to a deference to Establishment opinions (and disregard of other views).
4. The drawing of the boundaries of the acceptable spectrum of political opinion so that they extend much further to the right of center than they do to the left of center.
5. A tendency to "both sidesism" within the above parameters over striving for the truth about a contentious matter.
6. An emphasis on politics over policy.
One may debate whether the tendencies above really are problematic. Certainly from the standpoint of centrist ideology they are not wrong. That the news media gives audiences disconnected bits of information, or Establishment expert opinions, rather than endeavoring to explain the issues to them; that it is more prone to provide a platform to the right than the left, and to treat many a subject as a "both sides" matter; that it devotes so much attention to politics over policy; can, from the standpoint of a centrist deeply pessimistic about the public's capacity to understand complex issues; deferential to Established expertise and its judgments as the sole alternative to being overwhelmed by a confusing reality; viewing the right as legitimate but the left as not on the grounds that they are "ideologues"; and stressing the formation of consensus rather than truth-seeking, and on the political process rather than the ends they treat as generally and appropriately only small adjustments; as quite appropriate.
However, not all will agree with that judgment--that the media has a responsibility to attempt to explain the issues to the public, the more in as there is no understanding of democracy which does not require that the public be given the opportunity to educate itself and make informed decisions about the matters set before it--the more in as Authority has been an imperfect guide in the past, wrong again and again. (Just consider, for instance, how Authority said that a financial crisis like 2007 was impossible; and then when it did happen said "No one could have seen it coming"; and then after the impossible and unforeseeable happened said that the world got over it quickly, when in fact, as Adam Tooze realized, the crisis "broke the world," and we have been living with the aftermath ever since; Authority was wrong, disastrously wrong, at every turn.)
However, within the media respect for authority prevails, with the result that those who are authorities can never be held to account for being wrong, and command the same respect as ever they did as a result, while those who do not enjoy standing as authorities can never be given credit for being right when they were right, period, such that they can never win a way into the conversation. According to the same logic the media has not been wrong in covering these matters in the manner that it has, those among the public questioning it are instead the ones who are wrong from the centrist's standpoint--while the media's feeble shows of self-criticism when the undesirability of what it is doing appears undeniable only underscore this in such self-criticism generally ending in a declaration that someone else was really at fault. (Thus, as Hiram Lee noted, amid its breathless coverage of O.J. Simpson the talking heads "occasionally pose the question 'Why are we so interested in O.J. Simpson?'"--blaming the public for "forcing" them to attend to tabloid idiocies when the reality was the other way around.)
Given what in the view of anyone not blinded by its ideology are the news media's colossal failings it seems less implausible that those discontented with the quality of the news coverage available to them should look beyond the most mainstream sources--to which course of action the media, in line with all that brought everyone to this point, respond not by endeavoring to do better, but by screaming for the gatekeepers. Ironically, the mess that the Internet is means that the alternatives people are most likely to find are the ones that the mainstream media itself has promoted in ways from abundant mention of them in its coverage to mainstreaming their views and even their personalities, even as they put on a big show of criticizing them and all they do, the Establishment media never worrying about their massive role in the relentless manufacture of "fake news" in which we are all drowning.
1. A tendency to deluge audiences with disconnected and uncontextualized bits of information.
2. A tendency to treat experts, and especially "Establishment" experts, as authorities, and make a reliance on their judgments the alternative to coping with the disconnected bits of information.
3. A deference to--and promotion of--Establishment sources, experts and figures generally (and disregard of those who are not), translating to a deference to Establishment opinions (and disregard of other views).
4. The drawing of the boundaries of the acceptable spectrum of political opinion so that they extend much further to the right of center than they do to the left of center.
5. A tendency to "both sidesism" within the above parameters over striving for the truth about a contentious matter.
6. An emphasis on politics over policy.
One may debate whether the tendencies above really are problematic. Certainly from the standpoint of centrist ideology they are not wrong. That the news media gives audiences disconnected bits of information, or Establishment expert opinions, rather than endeavoring to explain the issues to them; that it is more prone to provide a platform to the right than the left, and to treat many a subject as a "both sides" matter; that it devotes so much attention to politics over policy; can, from the standpoint of a centrist deeply pessimistic about the public's capacity to understand complex issues; deferential to Established expertise and its judgments as the sole alternative to being overwhelmed by a confusing reality; viewing the right as legitimate but the left as not on the grounds that they are "ideologues"; and stressing the formation of consensus rather than truth-seeking, and on the political process rather than the ends they treat as generally and appropriately only small adjustments; as quite appropriate.
However, not all will agree with that judgment--that the media has a responsibility to attempt to explain the issues to the public, the more in as there is no understanding of democracy which does not require that the public be given the opportunity to educate itself and make informed decisions about the matters set before it--the more in as Authority has been an imperfect guide in the past, wrong again and again. (Just consider, for instance, how Authority said that a financial crisis like 2007 was impossible; and then when it did happen said "No one could have seen it coming"; and then after the impossible and unforeseeable happened said that the world got over it quickly, when in fact, as Adam Tooze realized, the crisis "broke the world," and we have been living with the aftermath ever since; Authority was wrong, disastrously wrong, at every turn.)
However, within the media respect for authority prevails, with the result that those who are authorities can never be held to account for being wrong, and command the same respect as ever they did as a result, while those who do not enjoy standing as authorities can never be given credit for being right when they were right, period, such that they can never win a way into the conversation. According to the same logic the media has not been wrong in covering these matters in the manner that it has, those among the public questioning it are instead the ones who are wrong from the centrist's standpoint--while the media's feeble shows of self-criticism when the undesirability of what it is doing appears undeniable only underscore this in such self-criticism generally ending in a declaration that someone else was really at fault. (Thus, as Hiram Lee noted, amid its breathless coverage of O.J. Simpson the talking heads "occasionally pose the question 'Why are we so interested in O.J. Simpson?'"--blaming the public for "forcing" them to attend to tabloid idiocies when the reality was the other way around.)
Given what in the view of anyone not blinded by its ideology are the news media's colossal failings it seems less implausible that those discontented with the quality of the news coverage available to them should look beyond the most mainstream sources--to which course of action the media, in line with all that brought everyone to this point, respond not by endeavoring to do better, but by screaming for the gatekeepers. Ironically, the mess that the Internet is means that the alternatives people are most likely to find are the ones that the mainstream media itself has promoted in ways from abundant mention of them in its coverage to mainstreaming their views and even their personalities, even as they put on a big show of criticizing them and all they do, the Establishment media never worrying about their massive role in the relentless manufacture of "fake news" in which we are all drowning.
The "Americanness" of the Superhero: A Few Thoughts
As any decent history of the superhero will tell you--not just the superhero in a broad sense going back to Gilgamesh but the comic book-based superhero tradition defined by Superman, the concept of the superhero has not been exclusively American, nor without its popularity outside the United States. (Indeed, just consider how much Marvel owes to the international markets, with these providing 69 percent of the nearly $3 billion gross of Avengers: Endgame.)
Still, it is common for observers to remark the idea of the superhero--the costumed, public persona-possessing comic book superhero--as having struck a particular chord in the United States, to somehow appeal more widely and deeply here than in many other places. I can think of at least two reasons for that, both suggested by my reading of Umberto Eco's essay "The Myth of Superman" (which I previously discussed here):
1. In the aforementioned essay Umberto Eco treated Superman as a myth--while noting that this myth differs from other myth in being a myth of the present-day rather than the past. The idea of a present-day myth seems to me to befit a country that, as the clichés have had it, has always been less preoccupied with the past than other countries, and more preoccupied with the present and future.
2. The attraction of the superhero is for many a sort of vicarious grandiose compensation for the mediocrity, inferiority, frustration that characterize the lot of most in this world, for many reasons. Of course, the desire for such compensation is universal, but again, in a society so atomized, individualistic, unequal, restless, insecure; so saturated with aspirationalism and thwarted aspirationalism and blame and self-blame of the thwarted for what they suffer; and offering so little else to hope for, ever fixing their eyes ever on individual "success," ever encouraging identification with such success and those who have it in that way that C. Wright Mills wrote about in White Collar; the desire, and the superhero as a way of gratifying it, seems likely to be the stronger. Indeed, if it is really the case that poor Americans see themselves as "temporarily embarrassed millionaires," this is probably an easier sell--habituating people to the thought that they are exemplary in some way temporarily unrecognized by others, as if the real them is some more glamorous self behind the mundane surface and its unenviable treatment by others, or that the transformation of their situation is somehow always very close at hand, that they are ever just a radioactive spider bite away from greatness.*
* In light of inflation we should probably revise that to "temporarily embarrassed billionaires." I put the reader on notice that that is the form I will use from here on out.
Still, it is common for observers to remark the idea of the superhero--the costumed, public persona-possessing comic book superhero--as having struck a particular chord in the United States, to somehow appeal more widely and deeply here than in many other places. I can think of at least two reasons for that, both suggested by my reading of Umberto Eco's essay "The Myth of Superman" (which I previously discussed here):
1. In the aforementioned essay Umberto Eco treated Superman as a myth--while noting that this myth differs from other myth in being a myth of the present-day rather than the past. The idea of a present-day myth seems to me to befit a country that, as the clichés have had it, has always been less preoccupied with the past than other countries, and more preoccupied with the present and future.
2. The attraction of the superhero is for many a sort of vicarious grandiose compensation for the mediocrity, inferiority, frustration that characterize the lot of most in this world, for many reasons. Of course, the desire for such compensation is universal, but again, in a society so atomized, individualistic, unequal, restless, insecure; so saturated with aspirationalism and thwarted aspirationalism and blame and self-blame of the thwarted for what they suffer; and offering so little else to hope for, ever fixing their eyes ever on individual "success," ever encouraging identification with such success and those who have it in that way that C. Wright Mills wrote about in White Collar; the desire, and the superhero as a way of gratifying it, seems likely to be the stronger. Indeed, if it is really the case that poor Americans see themselves as "temporarily embarrassed millionaires," this is probably an easier sell--habituating people to the thought that they are exemplary in some way temporarily unrecognized by others, as if the real them is some more glamorous self behind the mundane surface and its unenviable treatment by others, or that the transformation of their situation is somehow always very close at hand, that they are ever just a radioactive spider bite away from greatness.*
* In light of inflation we should probably revise that to "temporarily embarrassed billionaires." I put the reader on notice that that is the form I will use from here on out.
A Closer Look at How Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer Did in Deadline's 2023 Most Valuable Blockbuster Tournament
Previously when speculating about the outcome of Deadline's Most Valuable Blockbuster tournament this year I guessed that Oppenheimer would make the top five--and indeed it did, making exactly the #5 position.
How did the economics of that work out? Deadline reports that the production cost $100 million. But, as is the case when a movie does really well, participations and residuals were hefty--making the eventual outlay over five times that. At the same time the revenue from ticket sales was lower than one might have thought given the near billion-dollar gross, just $422 million (43 percent of the worldwide gross, where often it approaches 50 percent). This may have been a function of the high share of international sales (the movie did two-thirds of its business internationally, which has been known to skew the cut downwards), and the film's "legs" (the usual arrangement with leggy movies being the studio keeping less and less of the take in return for theaters running the movie longer). All the same, if the participations and residuals took a big bite out of revenue that might have been a bit lower than one might have guessed from the gross, it still worked out to an over $200 million net on the production, an extraordinary sum for a film such as this one.
How did the economics of that work out? Deadline reports that the production cost $100 million. But, as is the case when a movie does really well, participations and residuals were hefty--making the eventual outlay over five times that. At the same time the revenue from ticket sales was lower than one might have thought given the near billion-dollar gross, just $422 million (43 percent of the worldwide gross, where often it approaches 50 percent). This may have been a function of the high share of international sales (the movie did two-thirds of its business internationally, which has been known to skew the cut downwards), and the film's "legs" (the usual arrangement with leggy movies being the studio keeping less and less of the take in return for theaters running the movie longer). All the same, if the participations and residuals took a big bite out of revenue that might have been a bit lower than one might have guessed from the gross, it still worked out to an over $200 million net on the production, an extraordinary sum for a film such as this one.
Martin Caidin's Steve Austin, and TV's
In adapting Martin Caidin's Cyborg novels the TV show The Six Million Dollar Man was rather more faithful to the original material than I had guessed before picking up the first of those books. Steve Austin's accident as a test pilot of a prototype shuttle; his physical reconstruction with all its mental as well as physical agonies; his promptly being packed off on missions to South America and the Middle East--we see all this in the TV movies, with most of the modifications probably understandable given censorship, budgetary constraints and the like. However, some were clearly more deliberate choices, not least the reimagining of Austin himself. Caidin, who could be very much the edgelord, had a fondness for extremely unlikeable protagonists--and while Austin is no Doug Stavers-like supervillain, the runners of the show took it on themselves to considerably humanize him. Given that the intent was a weekly TV series people could enjoy as easy viewing it seems to me that it was a sound decision--one that has probably helped to give the show its extremely long life in reruns.
Remembering The Six Million Dollar Man
One of the ironies of there being a Fall Guy movie is that we had for so long heard about a movie based on Lee Major's other, more successful, TV series The Six Million Dollar Man being in the works--but as yet to no result.
That show was an adaptation of Martin Caidin's Cyborg novels--initially as a trio of made-for-TV movies, and then a weekly series that ran for 99 additional one-hour episodes over five seasons, while launching a successful spin-off in The Bionic Woman, both of which can be credited with lingering in pop cultural memory to a far greater degree than The Fall Guy did. (I remember how those reruns were a staple of what became the Syfy Channel back in the 1990s and early 2000s, and they still seem to get a fair amount of play on the classic TV-oriented broadcast and streaming channels, while The Bionic Woman got a short-lived remake on NBC starring Michelle Ryan in the lead back in '08.)
Of course, even if it was being talked about in Hollywood offices the idea only became increasingly implausible. The salability of classic TV show-based feature films has only declined since the '90s, for many reasons, while in this case even the title came to seem dated, not least due to inflation, above all in the medical realm. (The Social Security Part B premium was $6.30 back in 1973; it is $174.70 this year, a 28-fold surge over the last half century. And never mind that the New York Times will tell us "Don't worry. Be happy" regarding the skyrocketing of prices.) Given that no one is becoming a Steve Austin-type cyborg on the basis of six million dollars even the title of the show and its associated brand name recognition would have to be dispensed with--which is all that the kind of people who run the studios really care about in the end.
That show was an adaptation of Martin Caidin's Cyborg novels--initially as a trio of made-for-TV movies, and then a weekly series that ran for 99 additional one-hour episodes over five seasons, while launching a successful spin-off in The Bionic Woman, both of which can be credited with lingering in pop cultural memory to a far greater degree than The Fall Guy did. (I remember how those reruns were a staple of what became the Syfy Channel back in the 1990s and early 2000s, and they still seem to get a fair amount of play on the classic TV-oriented broadcast and streaming channels, while The Bionic Woman got a short-lived remake on NBC starring Michelle Ryan in the lead back in '08.)
Of course, even if it was being talked about in Hollywood offices the idea only became increasingly implausible. The salability of classic TV show-based feature films has only declined since the '90s, for many reasons, while in this case even the title came to seem dated, not least due to inflation, above all in the medical realm. (The Social Security Part B premium was $6.30 back in 1973; it is $174.70 this year, a 28-fold surge over the last half century. And never mind that the New York Times will tell us "Don't worry. Be happy" regarding the skyrocketing of prices.) Given that no one is becoming a Steve Austin-type cyborg on the basis of six million dollars even the title of the show and its associated brand name recognition would have to be dispensed with--which is all that the kind of people who run the studios really care about in the end.
Martin Caidin's Cyborg as Proto-Techno-Thriller
Cyborg's military-espionage, technological and geopolitical themes, and its action-adventure-oriented and action-packed treatment of them, not least in its technically detailed flying sequences, are certainly consistent with the military techno-thriller's character. Still, there are reasons for thinking of the book as less techno-thriller than proto-techno-thriller. After all, if the flying scenes would do a later techno-thriller credit the real star of the show technologically is Austin's bionics, not a major theme of that form, not least because they are more than usually futuristic for the genre--science fiction-al, in a way that subsequent Steve Austin adventures were. Thus did the third book in the Cyborg series offer crypto-history involving "ancient astronauts," the fourth an artificially intelligent computer. such details Cyborg and its sequels look a lot more Clive Cussler than Tom Clancy, even if representative of the trend leading to the latter.
Saturday, May 4, 2024
The First Weekend of Summer is Upon Us. How Will The Fall Guy Do?
These days Boxoffice Pro seems to be out of the long-range forecasting business, and so all we had to go on from the first week of April up until now in regard to The Fall Guy has been its initial prediction of a $20-$40 million opening weekend for the movie, without the usual updates. The weekend forecasts, if less comprehensive than before, still appear, however--and the estimate they published Wednesday has that movie pulling in $30-$40 million, suggesting that the outlook has become a little more bullish over the past month, with regard to the bottom end of the range if not the top. Still, the publication's staff are not unmindful of the film's disadvantages, noting here that even compared with projects like Charlie's Angels (which did not do so well in 2019), the original "The Fall Guy did not leave a substantial cultural footprint," that indeed "[a] vast majority of audiences under the age of 30 probably wouldn't remember who Lee Majors was," while those who were actually fans of the original "may be put off" by what they have done with the material (certainly I think they would not care for "Kenough" crying in his truck to Taylor Swift, among much, much else in just the few bits of the film we saw in that "Everything" trailer), such that this movie "may be one of those cases where the filmmakers wind up pleasing no one in trying to please everyone."
Of course, the critics loved it--but then claquing is their job. The audience gets its say now, and we will see if the film's strengths will outweigh its all too numerous and obvious disadvantages. But where the bigger picture is concerned one does well to remember that even the $40 million of the high end of this film's range will still work out to the weakest opening for the first big movie of the summer in nearly two decades, making for an inauspicious beginning to this hugely important season for the industry.
Of course, the critics loved it--but then claquing is their job. The audience gets its say now, and we will see if the film's strengths will outweigh its all too numerous and obvious disadvantages. But where the bigger picture is concerned one does well to remember that even the $40 million of the high end of this film's range will still work out to the weakest opening for the first big movie of the summer in nearly two decades, making for an inauspicious beginning to this hugely important season for the industry.
The North American Box Office During the First Third of 2024
During 2015-2019 the first third of the year--the January through April period--the North American box office averaged $4.4 billion in 2023 dollars. In 2023 the figure was a comparatively meager $2.6 billion--about 59 percent of that total.
By contrast the North American box office just barely broke $2 billion (taking in $2.04 billion by April 30, or more like $1.97 billion when we adjust for inflation)--a more than one-fifth drop from 2023 for the same four-month period, and an even larger, more than halfway, drop, from the 2015-2019 average. Putting this situation more fully into context one may say that it continues the pattern from the last third of 2023, which had similarly been depressed--or, rather, the pattern evident for the last year. (The twelve month May 2023-April 2024 period saw just $8.25 billion collected in 2023 dollars--as against $14 billion for the equivalent periods between May 2014 and April 2019, with even that including the bump from the extreme overperformances of Barbie and Oppenheimer.)
Thus do the hard times continue.
By contrast the North American box office just barely broke $2 billion (taking in $2.04 billion by April 30, or more like $1.97 billion when we adjust for inflation)--a more than one-fifth drop from 2023 for the same four-month period, and an even larger, more than halfway, drop, from the 2015-2019 average. Putting this situation more fully into context one may say that it continues the pattern from the last third of 2023, which had similarly been depressed--or, rather, the pattern evident for the last year. (The twelve month May 2023-April 2024 period saw just $8.25 billion collected in 2023 dollars--as against $14 billion for the equivalent periods between May 2014 and April 2019, with even that including the bump from the extreme overperformances of Barbie and Oppenheimer.)
Thus do the hard times continue.
How Did April 2024 Go For the Box Office?
In 2015-2019 movie ticket sales in North America during the month of April averaged $1.1 billion in 2023 dollars. Admittedly the number was bumped up by summer beginning early in 2018-2019 with the release of the two parts of the big climax to the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Phase Three with Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, but the average for 2015-2017 is still $1 billion without them. In 2023 April did fall a bit short of that, but not by much--the mega-hit that The Super Mario Bros. Movie was raising the total to $900 million in the same terms--90 percent of the 2015-2017 figure. (Had the rest of the year gone as well we would have spoken of a near-complete recovery of the box office to its pre-pandemic level, rather than a "new normal" for it such as I am discussing now, with North Americans going to the theater a couple of times a year instead of four times a year as before.)
As I remarked a few weeks ago, while after a depressed fall, and January-February period, March saw the box office finally improve on the prior year's performance (largely thanks to Dune, with a little help from Ghostbusters and Godzilla), I expected that April would bring with it a return to the earlier, depressed condition. And indeed, while Godzilla performed more or less in line with reasonable expectations for the film, Ghostbusters less well than some hoped though far from the total flop some might also have feared in light of how unimpressed people were with it, it was far from enough to carry the month the way the releases of prior years have. Ending up with a mere $427 million grossed (assuming the 3.2 percent inflation seen over the past year, $414 million in 2023 dollars), this makes for a take about 38 percent of the 2015-2019 average, and 43 percent of even the more modest 2015-2017 average. The result is that the year continues to see the box office take run far behind that of the equivalent period in 2023, never mind the pre-pandemic years--with, for the time being at least, May not seeming to offer much respite, certainly going by the numbers I have seen for The Fall Guy, the next Planet of the Apes film and the plausible prospects of the next Mad Max movie.
As I remarked a few weeks ago, while after a depressed fall, and January-February period, March saw the box office finally improve on the prior year's performance (largely thanks to Dune, with a little help from Ghostbusters and Godzilla), I expected that April would bring with it a return to the earlier, depressed condition. And indeed, while Godzilla performed more or less in line with reasonable expectations for the film, Ghostbusters less well than some hoped though far from the total flop some might also have feared in light of how unimpressed people were with it, it was far from enough to carry the month the way the releases of prior years have. Ending up with a mere $427 million grossed (assuming the 3.2 percent inflation seen over the past year, $414 million in 2023 dollars), this makes for a take about 38 percent of the 2015-2019 average, and 43 percent of even the more modest 2015-2017 average. The result is that the year continues to see the box office take run far behind that of the equivalent period in 2023, never mind the pre-pandemic years--with, for the time being at least, May not seeming to offer much respite, certainly going by the numbers I have seen for The Fall Guy, the next Planet of the Apes film and the plausible prospects of the next Mad Max movie.
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