What lessons are there to be learned from a disastrous summer blockbuster season?
Hollywood isn’t in the best of places right now.
The ongoing writers and actors strikes are still in full swing, with no sign of a resolution before the Fall festival season starts. This is a problem not only for the festivals, but for the production companies seeking to promote their films and start potential awards campaigns. Beyond the festivals, if the strikes persist, the release slate for 2024 will also have to be rejigged.
Then there’s the fact that 2023 has been, so far, a blockbuster graveyard.
Barbie and Oppenheimer aside, almost all huge movies have underperformed – mostly critically, and definitely at the box office. From Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania to Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, The Flash to Fast X, Shazam! Fury of the Gods to Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, a great many films have struggled to make a profit.
This is a sizeable concern for Hollywood, as many had hoped that 2023 would be the first post-pandemic year with a return to the usual numbers. And the numbers just aren’t there.
Here are some of the reasons why major productions have failed this year and the lessons that Hollywood needs to learn in order to ensure that the coming years aren’t a repeat performance of 2023’s summer blockbuster fiasco.
Mind your budgets, especially post-pandemic
One common denominator with this year’s flops is that the movies had massive budgets.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny had an estimated $295 million budget (€270 million) while Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One was also edging towards the $300 million mark. Fast X, the latest instalment in the seemingly never-ending series, cost a staggering $340 million (€312 million), making it the eighth most expensive movie of all time behind the likes of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, several Avengers films and Avatar: The Way of Water.
To put that Fast X figure into perspective, you could have made Mad Max: Fury Road twice or produced both Frozen and Frozen II with that sum, and still had some change left.
Makes you think – especially considering the piss poor quality of Fast X…
When you accept that a blockbuster needs to gross more than double its production budget to be considered a commercial success (plus the extra spent in order to market the films), the goal to reach theatrical-run profitability becomes harder to reach.
The aforementioned 2023 titles have failed in this respect. Both Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One seemed like guaranteed hits but they could lose upwards of $100 million each. As for Shazam! Fury of the Gods, it lost an estimated $150 million, and The Flash ended its theatrical run with a $268 million gross worldwide, on a budget originally stated as $220 million (but is apparently closer to $300 million) and a marketing campaign of $150 million.
This means that the film might have losses in excess of $200 million.
Ouch.
This shows that the bigger the budgets, the bigger the problems. Especially in a post-pandemic landscape, as audience habits have changed radically since COVID-19.
While recovery is on the way, as Barbenheimer has proven, there hasn’t yet been that rush back to the multiplexes many were hoping for.
Moreover, shortened theatrical windows have not helped. Movies hit streaming services faster since the pandemic, and that shorter gap between theatrical release and streaming availability not only diminishes the potential for big-screen revenues but seems to have accustomed audiences to wait for the film to come out for home viewing. Even more so if it’s a film they’re not completely sold on.
Barbie and Oppenheimer are exemptions to the rule, purely because they were a) successfully marketed and b) sold as an unmissable must-see event, especially if you wanted to be part of the Barbenheimer cultural conversation and not be eaten alive by FOMO.
If there isn’t that incentive, why pay for a cinema ticket? The cost of living crisis has meant less disposable income for moviegoing, and people are having to pick what they choose to watch on the big screen more carefully, especially with inflation and price increases.
An evening with the family at the talkies is now expensive – alarmingly so if you’re watching in 3D, IMAX or if you’re adding the costs of snacks.
Should global economic conditions improve, the landscape might change in theatres’ favour. But for now, splashing out on several films per month seems like a tall order considering more pressing (and depressing) priorities like bills and filled fridges.
