Movie Industry Blames Texting for Bad Box Office

cybercuzco writes "The movie industry is blaming poor sales of such movies as Gigli, The Hulk and Charlies Angels not on the fact that they were poor quality, but because people text message other people telling them that the movie stinks. Industry executives say that this undermines a carefully crafted marketing image. Expect texting to be banned by the MPAA in the near future."

Comments

Communication a problem?

[ryan76]

So they are saying that communication is the reason for movie's failure? They should get rid of free speech.

Re:Communication a problem?

[BWJones]

So they are saying that communication is the reason for movie's failure? They should get rid of free speech.

Not only communication, but they are blaming the free market. In other words, consumers are voting with their dollars and when their friends and critics say the show stinks, they spend their $$'s elsewhere. Lesson? Make decent movies and people (who think for themselves) will go see them.

The Movie Stinks

[harryman100]

Surely if the movie wasn't crap, people wouldn't send text messages saying it was.

The solution is to create good movies.

Hmm

Re:The Movie Stinks

[josh_freeman]

Maybe I'm just getting more discerning in my old age, but there has been a noticeable decline in film quality. Most of the huge summer blockbusters that I have seen in the last several years can be described as "What the !@#$ was the director smoking?!?!?!?!?!?"

Personally, I blame it all on CGI. What is has made films too easy to produce. Star Wars: A New Hope was brilliant, because Lucas had to tell a story. He couldn't rely on computer-generated anthropomorphic creatures to move the story along, or more importantly, to move overpriced tie-in merchandise of the shelves. Once the barrier for entry was removed, and just about anyone who could get financing could afford spectacular effects, that became the standard and the whole idea of telling a story was lost.

Films are nothing more than glorified story telling. Once they become a showcase for someone's l33t programming skillz, they are irrelevant

Re:The Movie Stinks

[Kibo]

I think he acctually comes close to the mark without knowing it though.

What made movies great, were the limitations, and the cleverness that had to be employed to tell the story inspite of those. In the case of movies made today, with the capabilities of computer graphics, the limit is really, cycles, money and imagination. If you've got the coin, then if you can think it, you can see it. With all that choice, it's easy to lose sight of the real aim, telling the story. The crappy animatronic shark in jaws, and its notorious unreliablity being one example. A swift look at the Star Wars prequel making of features makes this painfully appearent. (Not that Lucas has any ability at all to tell a decent story anymore) But look at all the time, money and effort manipulating crap in the computer that not only added nothing in any way to the story, not only would have certainly gone unnoticed even by people who were in the movie, but could have just been done right the first time anyway.

It probably takes a person with a very special talent for clarity to helm a big budget movie now days. To see their story, and find there way to it undistracted by the innumerable possibilities.

This is new?

[Christopher Thomas]

So, text-messaging allows people to spread the word about a bad movie too fast?

As opposed to, oh, checking the Tomatometer at or before the day of release? Or reading reviews you trust? Or just making a _phone call_ to your friends instead of texting them?

Text messaging is an incremental improvement in our communications ability, not a revolution.

what I'm not going to do

[kootch]

I'm not going to go to watch a stupid movie when it costs $20 without food/drinks for me and my woman ($35 if you get 2 tickets, 2 drinks, and a box of popcorn in NYC)

I'm not going to buy a cd when it costs $15+ for a cd of 8 tracks, 6 of which suck

I'm not going to listen to the radio since all of the radio stations I get are the same 30 songs in rotation, some at the same time

You know what I'm going to do? Pick up a book and go to the park. At least the view is nice (still warm enough for women in skimpy clothes) and there are still decent books to be read

The Death of the Captive Market

[kalidasa]

The studios are relying on the fact that they'll get at least good sales on opening night even for a bad movie, as long as the marketing campaign makes it look good. Instead, the first viewers are warning their friends on Thursday and Friday nights "naw, go see something else, Gigli stinks." The Thursday/Friday night opening night crowds used to be a captive market.

It seems never to have occurred to them that some people might be texting to say "you have to see this movie!" for movies that didn't get the full court marketing press? And that the whole thing just cancels out (well, it would if there were as many surprise good movies as there are expensive bad movies).

Grassroots word of mouth is without a doubt the best marketing tool any product can have. If the word of mouth is against you, it's because you don't have good product.

Re:let's blame everything but the obvious....

[Thud457]

These people sound as greedy and stupid as three-year-olds!

Next they'll steal a page from Microsoft, and flash a EULA on the screen saying that by viewing the film, you agree not to make negative comments about it to friends and family!

Re:Yep

[Anonymous Coward]

Naw. Expect a counter attack. Hire spammers, to pimp movies via text messaging. If they can manage to make it appear as if it came from someone in your address book, so to speak, so much the better.

If I was evil, and wanted to sell crap that no one wanted to people, that's what I would do.

What they're really missing is, how this means they don't have to pay for advertising.

Look at successes like My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Whale Rider (by far the best acting in a movie ever). They can just make something good, do minimal promotion, and let the people advertise for them.

Re:Hrrmmm

[pboulang]

I disagree. I spent about $2000 getting a decent home theatre... 52" high-definition, digital sound (my point being not that I am so swell but that the cost barrier is so low that many people have similar or better setups) and every time a movie comes out, I think about the costs:

a) In Southern California, a movie costs $9.50 per person.

b) A DVD, which has the same + additional materials costs me around $20

c) Cannot bring in own food/bev, forced to spend $3.50 if you want to quench your thirst during a 2 hour movie

Also, there are quite a few disadvantages to being in the theatre such as:

a) Retarded people that think talking / cell phones / deep breaths of shock when the most obvious thing that has been foreshadowed all movie finally happens.

b) No pause button

c) Groping your girlfriend (for both you female-type slashdot readers, boyfriend) during the performance is frowned upon

d) Advertisements disguised as previews before the real previews

e) Most of the audience laughs about 2.5 seconds after I do at comedies and that makes me sad.

Basically, what I am trying to say is that the viewing experience is BETTER at my house, and if I take a date to a movie, I am paying just about the same if I buy the DVD which I can watch repeatedly. Long gone for me is the anticipation of watching something on the big screen with a couple hundred people.. I'll just wait 6-9 months for the DVD release.

It sure as hell isn't because a friend "saved" me from seeing something 'cause they caught an earlier showtime.

Ok, this post doesn't really reply well to your post, so here is an on topic response:

They're just explaining why their profits are down. It makes sense.

No it doesn't.

They aren't saying it's bad

[iabervon]

If you read the article (rather than just the blurb), nowhere do the movie people actually say that this is a bad thing, that they don't like this turn of events, or that they want to do anything to change it.

It could well be a good thing overall, such that they can release good movies with staying power rather than going for glitzy special effects that make good ads. The movie business, unlike the music business, actually likes to produce good stuff, but they haven't been able to do so successfully very often, because it was so much more effective to focus on advertizing than on good movies.

The old way was a case of a degenerate strategy which sucks for everyone but is successful; using a more pleasent strategy just isn't cost effective. If people ignore ads and hear whether movies are any good from their friends, there is a much better chance of good movies not flopping in the box office like they have before.

this movie stinks

[Purificator]

why would teenagers message their friends that a movie stinks?

maybe, just maybe, it's because the movie stinks.

Re:this movie stinks

[tkg]

They're not denying that the movies stink. They're complaining about the word getting out sooner that it used to.

From the article:
"In the old days, there used to be a term, 'buying your gross,' " Rick Sands, chief operating officer at Miramax, told the Los Angeles Times. "You could buy your gross for the weekend and overcome bad word of mouth, because it took time to filter out into the general audience."

But those days are over, because the technology of hand-held text-message devices has drastically cut down the time it takes for movie-goers to tell their friends that a heavily promoted summer action movie is a waste of time and money.

The fact that the movie industry depends on hype and an uninformed public to recoup their investment in a bomb doesn't surprise me, but their blatant admission does. Perhaps the realization that this won't work anymore will result in better quality pictures. Well, one can only hope.

Cost of Movies

[Ridgelift]

The internet may have made word of mouth travel faster, but I think three bigger reasons for bad ticket sales are:

1) The price of movies and condiments are just ludicrous. Prices have triped and quadrupled in the last 15 years.

2) Second run movie houses have become more popular. Why spend $15.00 to see a movie when you can wait 6 weeks and see the same flick for $6.00?

3) Home theatre systems have improved to the point where picture quality and sound are really, really good.

I get it, but the point's still the same

[siskbc]

Well, if they weren't on record already trying to limit or take away our freedoms , rights, and liberties, I think the /. community would be a little bit kinder.

Obviously, which I granted in my original post. But what we need to understand is 1) they could give two shits if the /. community is kind to them, and 2) the general geek lobby doesn't gain any credibility by turning any story about movies or music into a personal rights debate.

And that's what it comes down to. You have 20,000 flaming idiots on this site who don't read the actual article, reading instead the inflammatory titles posted by (invariably) michael. From this they garner that the industry is certainly attempting to steal their rights to text message someone, when this is preposterous and false.

The actual situation is that some poor exec is wishing for the good old days when they could make money of a shitty movie by promo'ing it. That's all. His job is to make money - his job is now harder. Allowing the poor bastard to be wistful for a moment without calling him a Nazi wouldn't kill us, would it?

Bottom line is I stand by my original point - save the flaming and foaming at the mouth for when something actually happens, stop crying "wolf"/"chicken little," and wait until something actually happens to bitch about the **AA. Or at least until the next SCO story.

And no, I don't need more **AA links. I read them when they come out. I'm no **AA fan (particularly Jack Valenti), but a little objectivity wouldn't kill us as a whole.