This weekend marked a growing trend at the box office this summer--
--Disappointment.
Revenues were once again down from this time last year. Both of the new releases this week--"Killers" with Katherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher and "Get Him to the Greek"--failed to generate much cash.
This comes after "Sex and the City 2" and "Shrek Forever After" suffered weak openings and in SATC2's case--weak reviews.
Well, to be fair, summer isn't exactly known for producing Oscar-worthy films, but it is supposed to be known for breaking box office records.
So what's going on?
I have a few theories:
1) Things Can't Go Up Forever--Meaning that it's hard to constantly compare how films are doing based on how movies that came out last year did. This week last year "The Hang-over" and "Up" were ruling the box office. Both of those movies were much stronger simply in appearance than either of the two releases that came out this week were. Not to mention that people are feeling a bigger economic hit this year. They're finding cheaper things to do, and now that everything is in 3-D, it's a lot more expensive to go to the movies. So yes, less money is being made, but I think it's still important to acknowledge that money still IS being made, and lots of it. SATC2 is now at $75 million which is exactly where the studios thought it would be at week two. It just didn't make what they expected in its first weekend.
2) It's a lot easier to tell that the movies suck. Based on the trailers alone, you could tell that SATC2 and Shrek 4 had lousy (if any) plots. The lack of attraction between Heigl and Kutcher in "Killers" is palpable even in the posters. For too long, I think the movie industry has assumed that people will go see a lousy summer movie as long as it's a sequel or if it has big enough stars in it, and I think they're going to find if they don't start putting out better products, they're going to see the numbers keep shrinking, especially after a movie's been out for a few weeks.
Now, it's still very premature to call this summer a failure.
For one thing, kids aren't even out of school yet. Still, this doesn't bode well for studios that have been trying to push the summer months back into March so they can have bigger openings by cashing in on everyone's July anticipation when it's still snowing outside.
Maybe that's the root of the problem. Maybe people are starting to feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of movies being thrown at them that they're told they HAVE to see, and maybe, just maybe--
They're not buying it.
--Disappointment.
Revenues were once again down from this time last year. Both of the new releases this week--"Killers" with Katherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher and "Get Him to the Greek"--failed to generate much cash.
This comes after "Sex and the City 2" and "Shrek Forever After" suffered weak openings and in SATC2's case--weak reviews.
Well, to be fair, summer isn't exactly known for producing Oscar-worthy films, but it is supposed to be known for breaking box office records.
So what's going on?
I have a few theories:
1) Things Can't Go Up Forever--Meaning that it's hard to constantly compare how films are doing based on how movies that came out last year did. This week last year "The Hang-over" and "Up" were ruling the box office. Both of those movies were much stronger simply in appearance than either of the two releases that came out this week were. Not to mention that people are feeling a bigger economic hit this year. They're finding cheaper things to do, and now that everything is in 3-D, it's a lot more expensive to go to the movies. So yes, less money is being made, but I think it's still important to acknowledge that money still IS being made, and lots of it. SATC2 is now at $75 million which is exactly where the studios thought it would be at week two. It just didn't make what they expected in its first weekend.
2) It's a lot easier to tell that the movies suck. Based on the trailers alone, you could tell that SATC2 and Shrek 4 had lousy (if any) plots. The lack of attraction between Heigl and Kutcher in "Killers" is palpable even in the posters. For too long, I think the movie industry has assumed that people will go see a lousy summer movie as long as it's a sequel or if it has big enough stars in it, and I think they're going to find if they don't start putting out better products, they're going to see the numbers keep shrinking, especially after a movie's been out for a few weeks.
Now, it's still very premature to call this summer a failure.
For one thing, kids aren't even out of school yet. Still, this doesn't bode well for studios that have been trying to push the summer months back into March so they can have bigger openings by cashing in on everyone's July anticipation when it's still snowing outside.
Maybe that's the root of the problem. Maybe people are starting to feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of movies being thrown at them that they're told they HAVE to see, and maybe, just maybe--
They're not buying it.
Comments
Post a Comment