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Bad Movies to Blame for Box Office Slump
macklin01 writes "The LA Times is reporting that box office executives are finally fessing up and taking the blame. Poor box office receipts over the summer weren't caused by surging fuel costs, changes in audience preferences, or anything else. As Slashdot readers might have put it (and as it comes out in the article), 'It's the movies, stupid.'"
It's almost amazing the movie industry gets away with this. They scream and throw tantrums over any overtures, any market that dares step foot in their domain. How? By threatening to sue almost anyone! How? By demanding the electronics industry put "safeguards" in dvd players (more on that in a second). How? By spending millions in D.C. demanding laws be passed to protect their eroding stranglehold on an evolving market place. How? By doing everything in their power to prevent evolution (read: progress).
In the meantime, they approve pap for movie plots and ideas, pander to the idiotic mainstream thinking that's their meal ticket (it mostly is). But their offerings have become so predictable, so terrible, and so terribly produced and directed people are starting to feel ripped off for the small fortune they must spend for a night out of movies and popcorn. They've sown these seeds, they're reaping their own rewards.
What I think funny in the article is their collective sigh of relief some recent movies are getting viewers. I suspect when movies like "Transporter 2 are raking in blockbuster revenues it's more about their concerted ramped-up advertising and less about the quality of their movies.
It does appear there may be some good movies this fall ("History of Violence" is high on my list), I'm guessing we'll see more of the same crap. I don't know how many times they can go to the well with their overproduced special effects stories with no plot or believable ideas and keep the public coming back (but don't underestimate the masses to continue to believe, ever heard of Charlie Brown and Lucy?), but they're creating their own misery.
As for their heavy handed fingers-in-the-distribution-and-technology pie, give me a break. I set up a dvd recorder for my dad. I LOVED how simple it was to operate, and it did an excellent job of recording shows for him. He was a happy camper too. He loves to watch PBS, and was excited to record a recent Civil War special on his new dvd recorder and wanted to send the dvd to me to watch. He was concerned because his dvd would not play on other dvd players, something about a region code violation (we know what that is).
Anyway, the disk arrived today, and it's NOT playable on my player. Fuck the movie and entertainment industry. They've made my dad unhappy, they've prevented me from watching a show which, had I watched, could only have helped their cause (exposure, exposure, exposure).
This isn't the first time I've had this technology dance with my dad, and I'm sure it won't be the last. But, I hate it, and the sooner the entertainment industry cleans up their act, the better. Sigh.
...Fire is hot!
It's not the movies. Well, maybe it is, but it's not JUST the movies. It's the fact that there's more competition right now for the entertainment dollar then ever before, and it's going to get worse for them. Put on top of that the negative cultural ideal of the movie theatre right now (talking+cell phones..not my experience but I'm sure this thread will be full of the stories.) So what's the solution? I suspect cut the theatres loose. 0-day DVD/PVP-Online AND theatre releases. Allow the theatres to show more movies more often. So if you rally like The Empire Strikes Back, for example, then maybe next Tuesday evening there's going to be a screening. Digital distribution makes this possible
It's not because of Steve Job's $.99 price model?
Tim
At least they're no longer in denial, and they're now willing to produce movies their customers will want to see.
Hopefully that means "Naked and Petrified" starring Natalie Portman will finally hit the big screen in 2006.
One can only dream...
At least Serenity came out yesterday. The wife and I are seeing it on Sunday! Stupid goram MPAA.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
I think it is changes in audience preferences. Audiences don't want bad movies anymore. The Hollywood formula is starting to wear off on people.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
"Overabundance of Commercials and Tons of Bad Reality Shows - Not TiVo - To Blame For Decline in Television Audience."
Slashdot - News for Nerds, Stuff you Already Knew.
Many Bothans died to bring you this sig.
Duh, that was The New York Times coverage, this is The LA Times coverage. Everyone knows that PST is behind EST, don't they? The first story was for people on the US's Atlantic seaboard, this one is for people on the US's Pacific seaboard, nothing more, nothing less.
Of course, people inbetween the US's east and west coasts mainly voted for Bush, so their version, linking to Fox News, will follow later with a suitable spin ("It's the fault of those damn terrorists!"). Meanwhile, people outside the US will get their own frontpage story too, citing news sources such as the BBC, that will point out that it's the American film industry that's in decline, not the global one...
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
And it has nothing to do with the $8-$10 ticket prices that have sprung up across the country. It's not like I can get 3 used DVDs for $20. Oh wait a minute . . . yes I can.
It's all George Lucas' fault, Seriously! That guy redefined movie-making in the 70s and 80s, and then single-handedly destroyed it in the 90s and 00s!
Episode I) Fool us once, shame on you.
Episode II) Fool us twice, shame on us...
Episode III) Fool us three times, screw this shit.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
Cinema Fault:
Poor movies
Expensive Popcorn / Sweets / Drinks
Expensive Tickets
Can't use Gift Vouchers (Fully Paid) with new movies
Bad seating - I've seen some *shockers* in some cinemas
20 minutes of ads before the show
Those silly piracy ads on stealing music - yep thats right, we all have to put up with that
Customer Fault:
Noisy movie goers / pranksters
Mobile phone calls and constant rings
Children screaming in tense moments
Seat fighting
Its all just not worth it - wait a month or so, buy for it less than the cinema price, grab some take away and watch it on your nice big digital entertainment unit @ home - and keep the damn movie!
No wonder we don't bother going !
Duh.
DT
Is this thing on? Hello?
The critics rated all researched 2005 movies (those that were still in theaters by the end of August - slightly over 100) with 69%. For 2004 movies, it was 64.25%. The audience also posted better ratings for 2005 movies: 68.4% versus 67.9% (source: IMDB). In the case of blockbusters (defined as movies opening on more than 1000 screens), 2005 movies come up on top as well: 62% versus 59.5% by the critics and 63.1% versus 61.7% by the audience. Independent movies were an exception: while critics rated them higher in 2005 (76.25% vs. 71.5%), the audience rated them lower: 70.9% vs. 71.5%.
Despite these numbers, the opening weekend has seen a drop of 12.87%. For blockbusters this drop has been even more significant, despite the fact that they were rated higher and that they opened on 5.14% more screens. The drop in box office was 15.79%, compared to last year. Yet, the top 8 movies had an above-average per-screen revenue on the opening weekend, and the top 6 movies retained this statistic into the fourth week. In addition, the reviews have a positive correlation to the movie revenues (42.9%).
As a result, I don't believe that bad movies are to blame for the box office to slump. I can speculate (haven't run any statistical analysis for those), that the declining revenues are to blame on a set of other factors, such as rising ticket prices, rising gas prices, shorter time to DVD, commercials before movies, and others.
Kerry would have stopped those hurricanes!
Besides, the lack of good movies is hardly a new thing. Maybe the Internet has made people more aware of the problem, but do we really think that after a century people have just caught on, most movies suck? And if that was the case, wouldn't we expect Britney Spears and friends to take a hit as well?
No, I think they are barking up the wrong tree. Making better movies would probably help, but more likely they are facing an inevitable decline as newer technologies provide better entertainment. Now movie theatres have to compete with DVD, game consoles, online games, downloaded movies, web browsing, and probably other things that either weren't around or occupied far smaller niches ten (or even two) years ago.
Whoever corrects a mocker invites insult;
whoever rebukes a wicked man incurs abuse.
--Proverbs 9:7
Part of the reason they're 'fessing up is because movies like March of the Penguins were actually doing better than "blockbuster" titles like Fantastic Four. (Per screen, on release, March of the Penguins actually did make more money than Fantastic Four. It has now made more money than Fifth Element, in total, according to some articles.) It is hard to keep claiming that it's someone else's fault when even a French wildlife documentary can outsell multi-million dollar projects from Hollywood.
I think the other part of the reason is that the RIAA is starting to take a turn for the worse in the courts, and the MPAA wants a backup plan in case this spreads to their own lawsuits. In other words, if a movie does crap and fileswappers cases get kicked out, then they can now say "well, we TOLD you the script for that specific movie was no good!" It also didn't help the MPAA when eDonkey started talking about quitting. If there are no fileswapper companies to blame, it's going to get harder for them to push responsibility onto others.
(After all, they've known for HOW LONG that other people's movies were selling just fine? They were having a downturn for how many YEARS before fuel costs shot up? But it was only very recently that fileswapper cases stopped doing well, and only in the last week that eDonkey talked out quitting.)
Will this get Hollywood to make something worth watching? Uh, no. What it'll mean is that they'll spend even MORE on public relations to persuade people that the next movie is worth seeing. That's the usual corporate reaction - why change things, when you only have to convince people they're changed?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
moviegoing experience, read Kevin Murphy's hilarious and insightful book, "A Year at the Movies"
He is a self-professed cinephile, but he seems to really hate the whole corporate moviegoing experience, but loves some of the interesting independent places he has found. Ones that actually offer a REASON(a good environment) for going to the cinema
Plus he smuggles a whole Thanksgiving dinner into a theatre!
Monstar L
"The only conclusive thing I found was that bad movies are not to blame for lower box office tickets. Why? Because the movies were better than last year."
Bold claim, lets see if you can back it up.
There are so many things wrong with your analyses of data here. Lets go statement by statement.
You state that you ran a "statistical analysis," when the only statistic that you've given us are measurements of central tendency (means, in this case).
You reference a group known as "the critics," however you do not specify who you consider to be members of this group. Did you count only critics that are published in major newspapers, or did you include internet only critics? If you chose to include internet critics, how did you choose which to count? Anyone who can write a review and post it to the internet can be considered a critic (if sources such as rottentomatoes.com are to be relied upon). In addition, some critics approach and rate movies from a certain orientation (for example, some internet critics write their reviews solely from the perspective of a parent). Your statements would be a lot more believable if there was some sort of qualifications required to be counted as part of this group.
Which brings me to question how you managed to assign a quantitative number to such a subjective activity as analyzing a movie. On his tv show, famous critic Roger Ebert rates movies with a thumbs up or thumbs down, then occasionally augments that. What number would you assign a movie that got a "thumbs up" when compared to a movie that got a "thumbs way up"? What number would you assign a movie that received a C+ rating (some critics like to grade movies on the classic academic scale)? Or do you forgo that and follow rottentomatoes' style, by deciding that a movie got a positive review or a negative review, and assign it 1 point or 0 points, respectively. If you used that style, how did you deal with critics that gave a movie a mixed review (e.g. a review that says "If you liked X, then you'll like this movie. If not, then don't see it.")
Almost all of the differences between 2004 and 2005 mvoies are small, and while you did not include size of your rater pools, I suspect that most of them are not statistically significant. ("The audience also posted better ratings for 2005 movies: 68.4% versus 67.9%" I can assure you that this is NOT a statisticallly significant difference, thus your statement is not supported by the data.) If you actually did run a "statistical analysis," you'd have given stats rating the reliability of your results.
Certainly, while the precentages are maybe a bit higher for 2005 vs. 2004 (which a very astute poster suggested might have to do with the phenomenon of grade inflation), you don't account for the fact that this year is not over. What you might have done was only included 2004 movies released in January to September.
All in all, while your numbers are interesting, they don't support your broad generalization that "The only conclusive thing I found was that bad movies are not to blame for lower box office tickets. Why? Because the movies were better than last year." Instead, they show that there is actually no powerful difference one way or the other between the quality of movies from last year compared to this year.
Jon
Psychology is really Biology, Biology is really Chemistry, Chemistry is really Physics, and Physics is really Math.
We saw Serenity at 9 on Saturday night...the theater was only about a third full. Maybe the movie wasn't hyped as much as some of the summer blockbusters, or people didn't want to go to a film where they didn't know exactly what was going to happen (Anikin turns evil, Samuel Jackson kicks ass, animated critters crack wise). Either way, sometimes it seems like you can put good movies on the screen, and people just won't go!