2017: The Year That Horror Saved Hollywood (qz.com)

A reader shares a report: If there's a silver lining in any of that for America's film industry, it's that the horror genre is still plugging merrily along, seemingly immune to the financial troubles that have befallen most studios. As the rest of Hollywood flounders in 2017, horror is in the midst of its highest-grossing year ever. On the backs of huge hits like It and Get Out, the horror genre has combined for a record $733.5 million in the US this year, according to box office data compiled by the New York Times (paywall). The year has proven that horror films are more than just cheaply made movies for niche audiences and can still cross into the mainstream to become bona fide successes. Ticket sales during the 2017 summer movie season, billed by Variety as "The Summer of Hell," were down nearly 11% from last year due to a series of epic flops, namely King Arthur: Legend of the Sword and The Dark Tower. Arguably the only saving grace was It, the adaptation of the novel of the same name by Stephen King that became the highest-grossing horror film of all time in September (not adjusted for inflation). Today, it has made a very fitting $666.6 million (seriously) worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo. Following a solid first half of 2017 with Dunkirk and Wonder Woman, It helped Warner Bros. rebound from the disastrous King Arthur and the disappointing Blade Runner 2049 -- to say nothing of this month's box office catastrophe, Geostorm.

Comments

Horror not immune to studio woes

[ranton]

for America's film industry, it's that the horror genre is still plugging merrily along, seemingly immune to the financial troubles that have befallen most studios

The horror genre is not immune to the studios' problems, there just happen to be some very good horror genre movies this year. The studios should be ignoring any trends like these and simply make good movies. Entertaining movies nearly always do well at the box office. If Get Out or It were bad movies, they would have done bad at the box office regardless of being horror movies.

Re:Horror not immune to studio woes

[Anonymous Coward]

The studios should be ignoring any trends like these and simply make good movies. Entertaining movies nearly always do well at the box office.

The problem is Hollywood has no idea what's a good movie.

There have been good movies, and usually they try to just copy those and expect them to work. Or they use a committee to tell you what a movie looks like. They probably have computer algorithms to tell you what's a good movie, which gives you a formula for how exactly that movie should go.

And then they'll make an endless stream of movies which suck, but otherwise check all of the boxes of what they think a good movie should be. I strongly suspect that in much of Hollywood, good movies occasionally get made despite their best efforts, not because of them.

This is why they keep making sequels, or rebooting things which have already worked. They just keep flogging that dead horse.

The actual studio system in Hollywood hasn't really got the faintest idea of what is needed to make "good movies", they just know what other good movies did, and they try to copy it ... and often miss the point completely and make crap.

Like everything Tom Cruise does these days or the fucking Emoji movie or yet another goddamned Transformer movie. And somehow nobody ever seems to realize internally it's a terrible movie before or during the making of it.

Re:Horror not immune to studio woes

[Green Mountain Bot]

"To calculate ROI, the benefit (or return) of an investment is divided by the cost of the investment, and the result is expressed as a percentage or a ratio."

You are are incorrect. Return on investment is intended to differentiate the quality of an investment, not a total number. Someone who invested 1,000,000 in "Beauty and the Beast" would have earned back 7,000,000. Someone who invested 1,000,000 in "Get Out" would have earned back 55,000,000. "Get Out" was a far greater return on investment, even if "Beauty and the Beast" earned gross profit. And you'd better believe executives - regardless of the industry - pay attention when one product outperforms other similar products in ROI by a fact of 8.

Now, there is an argument to be made that it's okay to get lesser returns on greater volume. I wouldn't dispute that. But it doesn't change the fact that "Get Out" was a huge hit, and that it had a massive Return on Investment.

Re:Does anyone even go to the movies anymore?

[grub]

Some movies just have to be seen on the big screen. I saw Blade Runner 2049 twice on IMAX and was blown away (granted I'm a huge BR fan and oozing with bias). Our home theatre setup is no slouch, but even when I get BR2049 in 4K, it won't be the same experience.

Greed killed Blade Runner 2

[damn_registrars]

I was considering going to Blade Runner with my wife. However it had been so long since I had last seen the first one I thought it would be nice to see it again before seeing the new one. So I checked the usual retailers - in my case Best Buy, Target, WalMart - and couldn't get it there as it was not available. I can't stream it on NetFlix either. I checked Barnes and Noble as well, no dice. I checked Amazon; they couldn't guarantee it either (only available through third parties).

Disney did the same thing with Tron when they released the new one a few years ago. If you shut out the fans who want to see it, you'll end up getting less money for the new product. In my case I just simply gave up and figured it's not that important. I can go spend my money on something else.

Re:Greed killed Blade Runner 2

[grub]

Blade Runner seems to be available all over here. In fact they recently released a 4K UHD BD.

But wait..

[A5un]

Are we going to talk about the abomination called Mother! ? Is that horror too?

Horror better fits today's oversimplified formula

[Khopesh]

Modern movies all fit a very tight formula, which is admittedly very powerful and compelling, but it prevents certain types of creativity from shining. Atop that, movie studios refuse to take risks on new material, instead making adaptations, reboots, remakes, and encores. This further limits what a movie can do.

This is an arena that televisions series have stolen from movies; most episodes are designed to fit that tight formula while advancing a larger arc (better yet, multiple larger arcs!) while a few can break the mold with minimal risk to audience retention (for example, instead of the plot twist being half to three-quarters through, it can be elsewhere, or even a build-up for a larger surprise in the next episode).

Horror movies are rarely heavy in sophistication. They just go in for emotional investment so they can lead you to a series of surprises, some of which will startle you and others that might haunt you. This adapts to that oversimplified formula very very well. Additionally, horror has its own tight formulae, so audiences get what they expect and are only disappointed when there wasn't the anticipated level of startles, eeriness, or innuendo. There's no risk to the hook being problematic since it's pretty much always shown in full force in the movie's trailer.

(Also note that It is a remake (and an adaptation), though Get Out is not.)

Formula for success

[LeftCoastThinker]

Honestly, until Hollywood stops trying to shove their alt left agenda down our throat, they will continue to do poorly. The fact about the left is that their ideology is just theoretical, and when they try to apply it in the real world, it is jarring, as in ruin the entire movie jarring (the hero, after killing mountains of henchmen, spares the evil mastermind because he is "better than that" even though the dude murdered the hero's children and made his wife a zombie plaything. Everyone knows that in reality that the villain would be red paste on the wall, or at the very least, beaten within an inch of his life. (This is why The Walking Dead did so well and Fear the Walking Dead spin-off is total garbage, one is a realistic drama about how normal people would act, the other is a liberal jerk off session about how they think they would act in the same situation). That is why the superhero movies did so well, at least at first. They were based on what is by today's standards, a conservative narrative, with a struggle between good and evil. But now even those stories are being polluted by the liberal agenda (Iron Man sequels anyone?) instead of staying true to the original material.

We need to get back to the classical theorem for our action/epic movies, where there are good guys (albeit still flawed humans) and some evil to overcome (not corporate suits, not CEOs, or other stupid Hollywood retardedness) who do evil things because evil is in their hearts and they want more power to spread their evil. Pick a genre (fantasy, scifi, horror, post apocalypse, apocalyptic, etc.) and away you go.

I predict that Hollywood knows this, and they will make a few "pandering" movies next year to refill the coffers, then go back to putting out their dog shit laced libtard brownies...

Re:Formula for success

[doctorvo]

Hollywood is doomed and they know it. Computer graphics and AI is going to replace most acting, animation, and sets. It's probably going to replace a lot of screenwriting too. What does that leave? You might say that viewers might not want to identify with virtual characters, but why not? What does Hollywood have to offer in terms of real humans? A bunch of sex-obsessed, vain, self-absorbed jerks with eating disorders and skeletons in the closet. Do you want to identify with any of the actors you see on screen as people?

Hollywood is going down the same drain as journalism. Like journalists, they are going to be kicking and screaming all the way, and like journalists, they think they can hold on to power by allying with powerful political elites. But it's not going to work: the outcome is pretty much inevitable. And society will be better off for it.

Neither acting nor journalism should ever have achieved the kind of obscene power and influence that they had in the 20th century.

Re:Formula for success

[Tablizer]

we don't actually need a bad guy, just two opposing people with differing value judgement

I will agree such makes a much more compelling and perhaps realistic story. However, the movie maker risks offending those who disagree with the dominant or winning view. Simplistic good versus simplistic evil avoids such alienation. An alien invasion is a good example: conquerors arrive from space to enslave or kill humanity, and we fight back to defend ourselves. Nobody disagrees with defending humanity's existence. (Cockroaches might, but they don't buy movie tickets.)

I suppose compromise, cooperation, and nuance can be added to stories of differing value judgments, but those tend not to do well at the box office for some reason. Perhaps the right story teller hasn't been given a chance to make movies yet...

Re:Formula for success

[LeftCoastThinker]

Penetrating logic from a proud product of our public schools no doubt...

The only brown shirts in 2017 are Antifa, and they are on your side of the aisle.

Re:Indeed

[Kohath]

Yeah, sexual harassment and rape are big news topics now that the Clintons’ political viability no longer needs to be protected.

Re:Geostorm - who didn't see this coming?

[Quirkz]

I saw the trailer for Geostorm the other day and said, "Gee, that looks exactly like Day After Tomorrow." And my friend remarked, "No, it reminds me of 2012." We eventually agreed we were both right.