Depending upon which website you look at, box office revenue is down anywhere from 10 to 15 percent.
Why do you think that is?
A NYT article indicates that the problem is with Rotten Tomatoes, the review aggregator website.
Others share that opinion as well…
I’m of the opinion that’s a ludicrous idea, and RT is being scapegoated.
First of all, RT is an aggregator; they just publish reviews. I don’t think the editors of RT go out and seek only negative reviews.
IMHO movie revenues are down for many reasons; the least of which is Rotten Tomatoes.
Why pay $50-$100 for a movie and refreshments (and people using cell phones, and being noisy and messy) when I can get a great movie experience at home with my 60 inch TV and surround sound?
I’m not interested in watching movies anymore now that the lead actor has used their celebrity status as a platform for their political opinions or religious views. Sorry, but I’m OK paying to watch you perform your craft; but if you make me dislike you as a person it takes away from my experience watching you perform.
The entertainment field has changed. In the olden days Johnny Carson got unbelievable numbers; but his only real competition was ABC and CBS. Likewise, going to the movies used to be a choice out of much fewer alternatives. Americans views, especially with millennials coming of age, have changed the idea of entertainment. Americans are more active and health conscience; and have a shorter attention span . A first date used to be going to a movie; now it might be biking, disk golf, or any of a million other activities that never really existed before. For the non active people there are a ton more entertainment options too. All of the major streaming providers are dumping money into original content and it’s paying off.
So, why do you think revenues are down? Let’s discuss.
I don’t think there are enough Batman, Superman, Spiderman, Avengers, or other comic book movies. I think the comic book fan is being grossly underserved.
That article about Rotten Tomatoes is pretty funny… gee, why can’t we dupe an unsuspecting public into seeing our dumb movies anymore? I can’t think of any movie that I saw in the theater this year that was especially memorable. There are so many alternative (usually much more cost-effective!) entertainment options these days…
Audiences are fickle and this is essentially impossible to manage consistently. X movie was insanely popular in 2015, let’s fast track a sequel that is basically the same movie (see: Transformers 5, Despicable Me 3) This usually works to a point (see: Transformers 1-4, Despicable Me 1-2 + Minions) but I don’t think you can reliably predict when that gravy train will come to an end.
The current model seems unsustainable to me; at least Movie Pass is an attempt to shake things up a bit. I think people would be more likely to “take a chance” on smaller/weirder movies when there’s limited incremental cost involved.
LOL, If this were Reddit, you’d get an upvote. Every time my wife sees a super hero movie trailer she’ll comment it on it then say “yeah yeah I know, you have Super Hero Movie ‘Fatigue’” I guess I’ve said that to her a few times.
I’m pretty much only interested in Deadpool right now; and I HATE super hero ensemble movies. The exception being The Avengers.
I couldn’t agree more. I forgot about the Movie Pass idea. I could see me getting into that. It’s good for me; because I can take chances on movies I wouldn’t otherwise pay to see in a theater; it’s good for the distributors/theaters/Hollywood because ultimately it’ll provide some recurring revenue. (Isn’t that Costco’s model? Sell goods at nearly cost and the real revenue stream is from the memberships?) Creative movies just don’t get made anymore. Sequels sell because there more of a guaranteed income. One way to reduce the risk is to reduce the cost of making a movie. Like any business the most expensive part is human capital. Sorry actors, you need to take a pay cut.
It always blows my mind when people talk about set designers, costume designers, etc. “We found a picture of this sneaker that was only available in 1939 and recreated it exactly at a cost of just $18,000 per pair.” What person in the audience would know or care about that sort of thing unless it’s pointed out to them? I think a lot of film makers are weirdly proud of their ridiculous budgets, and it’s not just actor salaries (although that’s certainly a big part of it!)
My 2 main reasons I don’t go out to the moives as often as Hollywood would like.
#1 - Time invested. A typical movie is around 120 minutes and it’s becoming more comon for them to run into the 135 minute range. No problem with that except nowdays they run 20 minutes of ads and trailers before the film. Add another 20 minutes for driving to and from the theatre and it’s almost a 3 hour comittment I have to make along with being subject to random start times.
#2 - Shortened movie lifecycles. The time between a movie’s opening and when it hits blu-ray or on-demand is getting shorter and shorter. Guardians V2 opened on May 5th this year and was available for download by Aug 8th and dvd by Aug 22nd. Why rush out to see a summer blockbuster if you can catch it at home 3 months later?
So many of the movies are remakes of old movies (usually not better)
Not a fan of super hero movies
The movies that aren’t remakes aren’t any better than the movies/shows I can find from the comfort of my couch on Netflix or Amazon.
I live within walking distance of a theatre complex. I haven’t been to a movie in over a year and a half and that time was to take the grandkids for something to do on a crummy afternoon - just to get out of the house.
I think you guys are mostly on the right track in blaming the more varied entertainment options available to everyone combined with the high quality home viewing experience with the new HD tvs and surround systems.
This summer has been weird though. The super hero movies this year have generally had critical support. Wonder Woman, Guardins 2, and Spiderman all had good reviews. Not to mention Logan from earlier in the year. And there were plenty of good original movies as well like Dunkirk and Baby Driver (Girls Trip too, but I haven’t seen it yet).
What’s scary is that IMHO there are at least 6 or 7 movies in the summer top 10 that are at least good, with 1 or 2 that are pretty great. Compared to last year where that are 4, maybe 5 decent movies, with only 1 possibly 2 that I’d say were great. So even while the quality of movies was better (IMHO) the box office total dropped. I don’t know what kind of lesson that gives to the studios.
The one thing that no one has yet mentioned though is worldwide box office. Many of these giant sequels that have disappointing domestic runs do well over seas. Though I think even this may have turned a bit this year.
For those of us who live in 4 season climates, summers are busy! This quick turnover of movies in the theatre means that I often can’t get to see a particular movie until it’s either out of the theatre completely or it’s is down to one or two showings a day.
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good post. don’t know if i blame our insatiable appetite for news (that isn’t especially informative) or schadenfreude (that might or might not be legit).
I love the movie-going experience and would go more often, but there just weren’t that many that pulled me in this summer. I liked Spider-man and loved Baby Driver and Dunkirk – that may be the last one I’ve seen in the theaters, over a month ago. There weren’t even any major releases over the Labor Day weekend. Blaming it on RottenTomatoes is silly - the solution is to make movies more good.
Wait, I forgot that at the end of August I went to see All Saints at the theater - mainly because I was close to the actual events and people it depicts, and it was filmed on location at places I know well. But it’s a fairly low-budget “faith-based” movie and probably didn’t have blockbuster ambitions (although it was not bad, and featured good performances from John Corbett and Barry Corbin).
One thing that has dampened my movie-going enthusiasm is the near ubiquity of 3-D movies. I hate 3-D! I find it a distraction from the storytelling. Yet every blockbuster seems to have 50% of their showings in 3-D, making it much harder to schedule it into my day. And by the time I get around to seeing a movie, it’s usually down to one 3-D and one regular showing per day.
I got see movies in theaters when the value of the large screen and big sounds systems adds to the experience. I won’t go see a movie that looks crappy and will only be marginally less crappy in theaters and I won’t go see a movie that looks great but will be equally great on my 60" 4k. That leaves a very small slice of movies that are worth it for me to go to theaters and most of them are marvel and star wars movies.
Of course, I’m in the weird demo with a small child who isn’t old enough to be interested in kids movies. So my cost for movies go up and my time to see them goes down.
I am also in that demo, but even before small child came along, I was seeing a lot fewer movies in the theater.
Mostly because the replacement goods are so much better than they used to be.
20 years ago I went to a movie almost every week. The alternative was waiting 6 months for a crappy pan and scan version from Blockbuster on our 30" TV.
Now I have a 92" screen, surround sound, and an HD projector at home, my local library lends Blurays of recent blockbusters for free, and there’s so much good stuff on Netflix alone that I don’t have time to watch it, let alone Amazon and HBO and Hulu and Youtube and on and on.
The theater experience has arguably gotten worse in that time, since I didn’t used to have morons texting on their phones in front of me.
If there is a problem, it certainly isn’t too many superhero movies, because those are still doing quite well, probably better than any other category of movies right now. It’s not really fair to complain about fatigue from them, either, since if you don’t want to see them, at most all you’ll get is trailers (and the movies with trailers for superhero movies are mostly… other superhero movies).
But to the filmmakers, if you find that Rotten Tomatoes is steering people away from your movies, the solution isn’t to blame Rotten Tomatoes; it’s to make movies that people will like.
I would push back on this a little bit. I think over the last 3-5 years the theater experience has generally gotten better. Assigned seats, reclining seats, more Dolby/IMAX/etc type screens and better concession options. Obviously YMMV. And while cell phone lights can be distracting, I think the stadium seating at least makes up for it as I haven’t had an obstructed view of the screen in years.
And on the 3D front, while the studios do still put their blockbusters out in 3D, they don’t seem to be pushing it as much as they were a few years ago.
. A first date used to be going to a movie; now it might be biking, disk golf, or any of a million other activities that never really existed before. For the non active people there are a ton more entertainment options too. All of the major streaming providers are dumping money into original content and it’s paying off.
I guess I’ve said that to her a few times.