Box Office boo-hooing again

[Headbanger's Ball]

http://www.news24.com/News24/Entertainment/Abroad/0,,2-1225-1243_1850573,00.html

"Is it the movies? Is it the ticket prices? Is it because of home theatre and DVD?," pondered Exhibitor Relations Co's chief Paul Dergarabedian."I think is it because all this happening at the same time, it is a combination of facts."

At least it's not being blamed on priacy...yet.

What do they expect us to do; not buy presents for our kids just to keep in the black?

Making less money than the previous year does mean they lost money, it just means they made less or spent more, nothing else.

[mattso]

Make good movies, we'll all get blown away!

[GullyFoyle]

Make good movies, we'll all get blown away!

Yep.
Good scripts. Good actors. And Good films.
But notice they are also complaining about how it is cheaper to have production in other countries.
Um duh.
Roger Corman mentioned this briefly IFC's Dinner for Five. There are quality personell in eastern European nations and the Soviet Union that he worked with. New Zealand is getting a lot of action and many US shows ( at least on Scifi, Showtime and Fox) are filmed in canada.

[Xylob the Destroyer]

yeh, stop cranking out the exact same formula crapola and I'll start going back to the theatre.
the last movie I saw on the big screen was Episode III, and before that it was The Incredibles...

[GullyFoyle]

I haven't been to a movie since Blade.
Before that it was Batman.
Not much of interest for all the hassle.
Like concerts.
What really pisses me is actors don't act anymore. Most of them walk through their roles. I remember reading a review of Eddy Murphy in the another 48 hours. The reviewer said Eddie wasn't as funny, he wasn't hungry anymore.
Most of these people get famous and don't want to put their all out anymore. They start getting paid for name recognition not acting ability.
How stupid is that?
Compare that to a Lee Marvin William Holden Jimmy Cagney or Kirk Douglas.
They gave every role their best.
Even a disabled Kirk Douglas is still better than most of todays Hollywood.

[Xylob the Destroyer]

yeh, nobody gets into character anymore, nobody acts.
they're the same in every movie they're in.

[Rich86]

It seems to me that there is only so much time and money available from average households to be spent on entertainment. With all the focus on home theater, and available sales and rentals of movies on dvd - I would expect theater attendance to slow down a bit. Don't they understand they are in competition with each other? Movie theaters vs. dvd's vs. music cd's vs. local theater vs. sporting events vs. concerts, etc.

[adam]

Making less money than the previous year does mean they lost money, it just means they made less or spent more, nothing else.

The article didn't say anything about profits or lack thereof, the statistics taken into account are only box office revenue, meaning how many people actually went to the theatre. As the article said, its just been an incredibly shitty year. It is the lowest in 15 years. I think the quality of the movies this year is to blame more than anything else.

This year's movies may still turn a profit eventually through DVD, PPV, rentals, syndication, etc... They'll just have to make more here since they didn't recapture as much at the box office. Movies don't make a profit at the box office, they simply don't and the studio's don't try to. I think its less than %3 break even and they are total anomolies and typically low budget/little marketing films. You earn as much as you can in the theatre and then rake it in on DVD. That's the way the industry operates now, the expenses are completely front loaded so there's no way to get it all back in the initial run of the film.

Its the theatres that are really hurting. They make virtually no money off of ticket sales. All their money is made in concessions and people are just sick of paying $6 for nachos.

[shelbyGT]

I just hate all the remakes. King Kong is another example. I really don't care to see it that much.

[gadgetguy]

"It's not just a slump in box office, but also in sales of DVDs," Kyser said.

That sentence is a clear indicator that the CONTENT is the problem. The movies they put out were not interesting enough for people to want to see them, much less purchase them.

[GullyFoyle]

It seems to me that there is only so much time and money available from average households to be spent on entertainment. With all the focus on home theater, and available sales and rentals of movies on dvd - I would expect theater attendance to slow down a bit. Don't they understand they are in competition with each other? Movie theaters vs. dvd's vs. music cd's vs. local theater vs. sporting events vs. concerts, etc.

Dvd sales are dwindling as well. I'm sure they will blame it on YAARGH PIRATES, instead of the poor product being marketed.
I can pick up just about any Korean romantic comedy and find it funny and touching. I can't say that about a hollywood production.
nearly every Asian action film is much better than the special effects laden covering of bad plot Hollywood version.
Most of the best horror I've seen recently are low budget indy or foriegn films.
Does anyone really want to compare Anime to Holly toons?
Now Hollywood wants to jump on the band wagon by working with HK production companies. Are they purposely trying to ruin asian film?

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/12/13/051213173239.bo5ciosh.html
Plummeting 2005 box office sparks Hollywood crisis

Even a much-hyped giant gorilla, a geisha and a schoolboy magician won't be able to create a happy ending at the US box office, as Hollywood ends its most disappointing year in nearly two decades. Plunging movie ticket sales, after a string of uninspiring remakes and movie sequels coupled with an explosion of the DVD and video game markets, are keeping audiences at home and have sent Hollywood into a deep existential crisis.


"This industry is facing significant challenges said Jack Kyser, chief economist of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp, a business support and research body.

Ticket sale revenues dropped five percent in the first 11 months of 2005 while the number of Americans going to the cinema fell by 6.2 percent compared with the same period in 2004, according to box office trackers Exhibitor Relations Co Inc.

The result is Tinseltown's most disappointing box office performance in 15 years as audiences, dazzled by their entertainment choices and disappointed by the mediocre films on offer, turned away from the cinema in droves.

Even the late November and December releases of blockbusters "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," "King Kong", "Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe" and "Memoirs of a Geisha" are unlikely to turn around the downward trend.

"It's not just a slump in box office, but also in sales of DVDs," Kyser told AFP. "This is mainly because of unattractive movies that don't appeal to young male audiences, the cost of movie tickets, parking, the shrinking window a movie's theatrical and DVD releases.

In addition, Hollywood faces a major external threat: runaway production costs, the growing trend of movie producers to shoot in places such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand to cash in on much lower staff and production charges.

"Some studios are doing some moderate lay offs. LA's future is at stake," Kyser said, demonstrating the depth of despair in the nine-billion-dollar a year industry.

Industry movers are battling to isolate the true causes of the slump, crossing their fingers that the big-budget money-spinners up Hollywood's sleeve will help ease the pain.

"Is it the movies? Is it the ticket prices? Is it because home theater and DVD?," pondered Exhibitor Relations Co's chief Paul Dergarabedian."I think is it because all this happening at the same time, it is a combination of facts."

But he was optimistic for the future of the industry, saying that when Hollywood does dish up a good film, audiences still go rushing to see it.

"'Harry Potter' is showing that people still want to go to the movies but still they need a good reason to go," Dergarabedian told AFP.

The fourth film of JK Rowling's cult novels opened on November 18 and has so far raked in 244 million dollars, making it second most successful film of 2005, behind "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith".

"When a good movie strikes, people go to the theatres," said Dergarabedian.

The last in the "Star Wars" series raked in a whopping 380 million dollars in North American box office, "War of the Worlds," starring Tom Cruise took 234 million, the comedy "Wedding Crashers" notched up 208 million in ticket receipts and Tim Burton's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" took 206 million.

But the successes were few and far between in 2005.

Ron Howard's 88-million-dollar biopic "Cinderella Man," starring Oscar winners Russell Crowe and Renee Zellweger, took only 61 million dollars, while Ridley Scott's crusade epic "Kingdom of Heaven," which cost 130 million dollars to make, reaped only 47 million at the all-important domestic the box office.

Other fizzlers that did not recoup their budgets included the much-touted sci-fi flop "The Island," which hauled in only 35 million dollars, while Jamie Foxx's military drama "Stealth" bombed with a US and Canadian haul of 31 million dollars. It quickly disappeared from screens.

"Movie goers are very picky and they want the price of the ticket to be worthwhile, the studios had to offer more," said Gitesh Pandya of movie industry tracker Box Office Guru.

"There should be more creativity and new ideas, not just sequels and remake. Let's hope Hollywood listens to the audiences," he added.

On the other hand you have this
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/04/hollywood_crisis_no_crisis/

The Hollywood crisis that isn't
By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco
Published Tuesday 4th October 2005 20:31 GMT

Analysis Barely a week has gone by without reports of Hollywood's great box office slump of 2005. So our thanks go to screenwriter John August for pointing out that on closer examination, the 'slump' is as elusive as missing Weapons of Mass Destruction.

"Every Monday brought new speculation about just what was causing the downturn, and What It Really Meant. Could the problem be the poor state of movie theaters, the growth of DVD, the price of gasoline?" observes John.
Click Here

"What makes this self-flagellation so annoying and unwarranted is that the 'box office slump' is basically a myth," he points out.

In fact 2005's box office returns mirror 2004's very closely, and box office receipts are down just six per cent this year. One more blockbuster would have turned the slump into a boom.

"Is there really an industry crisis if just one movie would eliminate it?" asks John.

Of course not. But a better question is why do so many people want you to engender this panic?

Because it suits them, that's why.
Phony crisis

Listening to our old friend Lawrence Lessig and former MPAA boss Jack Valenti debate each other on National Public Radio last week, it became clear. The dears sounded like a couple of senior citizens grumbling their way a cold day trip to Brighton Beach - but in reality the phony crisis suits them both.

Representing the pigopolist lobby, Valenti wants to instil widespread panic so he can outlaw new technologies of storage and distribution. History tells us that rights holders have always profited from such new technologies, and it's a point Lessig has himself made superbly in the past.

Representing the technology determinists, Lessig also wanted to tell us the sky is falling, because copyright was the real obstacle to technical innovation. The favorite narrative of today's techno-utopians goes "X is the end of Y as we know it!" (or "Z changes everything!") - it's a recurring adolescent fantasy.

History tells us that copyright has always bent to accommodate the new technologies, and the social contract always engineers new compensation models. Instead, Lessig concluded with a little Hallmark Card homily to the power of creativity, citing "14 million blogs" as a testament to human ingenuity. No, really.

The geek lobby sees the power of computer networks being frustrated by rights holders, and wishes those rights away. The rights lobby sees its value being eroded by the lack of new compensation models to go with new technology, and so wishes the technology away. But neither those rights, nor the technology, are going to be wished away.

So a permanent war suits both lobbies.

"We'll make every sample an infringement!" cry the rights holders - as if to encourage the view that looking at something is a crime. (For technophobes like Jack, that's probably true). "It's the end of creativity as we know it!" scream the nerds - encouraging the view that creativity is defined by the computer (For literalists like Larry, that's almost certainly true).

But it's a very phony war. The MPAA is only too happy to play the cartoon role the techno utopians have created for them, in a narrative dominated by fear, domination and control. Like small children playing a game of ghost, they've succeeded only in frightening the bejesus out of each other.

And this thoroughly dishonest debate - you could call it the artistic versus the autistic (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/29/creativity_computers_copyright_letters/) - is lopsided to begin with. It's Jack, not Larry, who has Sin City and Mean Streets. But only by taking the long view can you see how irrelevant both of their phony stances really are.

Don't Panic. ®

[whitejremiah]

Yea, i dunno what the movie studio's sudden obsession with remaking stuff is...and it started like 2 or 3 years ago, and they have been doing it ever since....thirteen ghosts, cheaper by the dozen, ocean's eleven, house of wax, king kong, dark water, the ring, the ring two, well you get the point...ALL REMAKES. What's worse, is they screw em up somehow EVERY TIME.......

[ROF]

This seems like a yearly thing now. At the end of the year the movie industry claims they are in a slump. This might be true but there are so many factors involved that can and probably have caused the slump that it's hard to narrow down which has caused the most disruption to their cash flow.

Ticket prices have been rising. That makes sense. It costs more to heat, air condition, light, and run the electricity which brings these movies to life while keeping the patrons somewhat comfortable for their 2 hour visit.

The cost of Digital Home Theaters has come down tremendously each year. This keeps people away from the theaters which have uncomfortable rows of seating, sticky soda stained floors, and annoying movie patrons who bash, sing along, or cheer.

The movies are also considered lackluster or not "Must See" movies. This perception factor is usually combined with other factors and in my opinion doesn't really stand by itself as a reason for losses.

Piracy, the dreadnaught of the movie industry is often touted as the cause of this lost income. I don't necessary agree with this. It's a factor but people have been passing along bootleg tapes and selling VCDs of the latest movies for generations now. Granted it might be somewhat more widescale but I dare say for every 20 people who receive a pirated copy only 1 might have paid for a ticket. The rest would just wait for a cheaper media outlet such as movie of the week on cable or even their premium television stations.

Another factor is that in years past movies took half the year or better before they were released for media purchase. Now with most movie turn around being released to DVD within 90-120 days from theatrical release the movie industry has actually cut their ticket sales prices by allowing people to wait a few weeks to watch the movie under one of the other factors here.

It's all very interesting that the movie theater industry claims loses each year yet they continue to cut their own throat by raising movie prices without subsequent benefits added to the theaters, creating sequel after sequel and dreaded TV shows made into movies, having their hardware sections bringing quality home theater experiences at reasonable prices, and releasing movies to quickly to other media forms.

How can this all be stopped or slowed down so the movie theater industry can continue to thrive? I don't know really but maybe offering something to theater patrons that are unavailable to non-ticket holders. Maybe adding more to the experience instead of just raising prices. I don't know but it's all quite interesting when you push home theater down peoples throats and then complain that your losing revenue in uncomfortably mostly overcrowded theater houses.

I also must add although I'd imagine quite a few will disagree with me. What smokers out there like to sit through a 2+ hour movie without lighting up? uncomfortable? It's downright jittery.

[RottenFoxBreath]

well heres one,the new upcoming superman movie,has a budget of $250 million.---an exhorbitant amount if ever there was one..hell,they cant help people after a storm,but $250 million for a movie-methinks theres dumb logic there.
now,me for one,am not holding my breath for it being a smash hit,ok it stars an unknown,a good thing,but,it will never grab as many people as the original tv series,or indeed the legendary christopher reeves portrayal of the hero,if the plot is anything like some of the recent comic book tranfers...*shudders* fancrapstic four anyone??
i can just see the execs crying now when it doesnt break even.

[ROF]

Christopher Reeve was a relatively unknown actor when cast in the Superman role. He had just graduated from acting school at the time. Fantastic Four was a great movie to see in the theater at least from my experience at the Drive-In this summer. When you can hear cheers and people clapping before the movie is over at the Drive-In it's usually a sign that people enjoyed themselves. I watched it again on DVD and I must admit it lost some of it's excitement. Not because I had already seen it but because it just wasn't the same experience.

[GullyFoyle]

I also must add although I'd imagine quite a few will disagree with me. What smokers out there like to sit through a 2+ hour movie without lighting up? uncomfortable? It's downright jittery.

Nope I agree with you.
Of course I'm an exsmoker who is outraged at the measures pushed through as anti-smoking bans.
Why not make cigarettes and tobacco products illegal?
They virtually are anyway.
I have deep doubts about the effects of second hand smoking.
It is also someones right to do any damn thing to their own body they choose.
Oh well back to crappy hollywood fare.
I should add that pg 13 is what really killed Hollywood.
Nearly every rated movie for adults way back when was worth watching.
The teenybopper gumchewing crowd films suck.

[ROF]

if PG13 killed holywood and I agree, NC17 helped return it to life.

[paulw]

Why not make cigarettes and tobacco products illegal?
They virtually are anyway..

Because Gvts would loose all that tax revenue from the sales of tabacco..

[GullyFoyle]

Why not make cigarettes and tobacco products illegal?
They virtually are anyway..

Because Gvts would loose all that tax revenue from the sales of tabacco..

California is shooting for $6.50 a pack, with taxes.
Washington state has just started the most restrictive ban anywhere.
With that what is the point.
I'm still stumped why they don't legalize pot ( or all drugs) and tax the hell out of them.
Better yet, drugs,gambling and prostitution and tax them. Put that money back into social programs for real addicts. Stop tying up the courts and cops. let them go after murders and pedophiles.
Real criminals.

[GullyFoyle]

if PG13 killed holywood and I agree, NC17 helped return it to life.

I don't even know what nc17 compares to.
The I understood R and X and PG. Disney was PG, bare boobs were R and penetration ( real or fake) was X. Seems simple.
What the hell is XXX?
Snuff flicks?

[slacker]

I stopped going when popcorn reached $5 a bucket and tickets reached $9.75! With a family of 5, no way Jose.

[Wile_E]

Make good movies, we'll all get blown away!

Yep.
Good scripts. Good actors. And Good films.
But notice they are also complaining about how it is cheaper to have production in other countries.
Um duh.

Well if they are going to start doing like the Tech Industry, and moving jobs overseas, then I won't go see their shitty films. We already lost thousands of tech jobs to India and other countries, with more on the way. Americans are tired of this mess. We want jobs too, good ones, not just Sales/Marketing/telephone answering crap. I didn't go to school and get a technical degree to be answering phones for a living.

The movie industry can shove it, if they start producing more films overseas. America has plenty of good working people, and good locations to film.

[ROF]

NC17 replaced X at the movie theaters. It's typically reserved for movies with extreme violence and sexual content that would otherwise not by allowed in general movie theaters. Quite a few theater chains refuse to play NC17 movies just like those theaters who refused to show X rated movies in the past. NC17 is almost a kiss of death for a movies largest income. That's why you see movies sometimes listed as unrated. NC17 means nobody under 17 is admitted period. While some theaters ignore this because of liberal managers it's generally consider a bad movie to release a movie under this rating.

[ROF]

The movie industry can shove it, if they start producing more films overseas. America has plenty of good working people, and good locations to film.

While this maybe true it's also these same americans who demand large salaries and municpalities who demand large payments for the use of their locations that push the film/tech industry overseas. Filming in the US especially inside a city corporate line can significantly raise the cost of production. That's why whenever possible both jobs and film locations are in other countries. The american workforce and it's local governments are too dependent on making a quick buck.

[somebodeez]

Fantastic Four was a great movie to see in the theater at least from my experience at the Drive-In this summer. When you can hear cheers and people clapping before the movie is over at the Drive-In it's usually a sign that people enjoyed themselves.

Oh how I miss drive-ins!
There aren't any left in my area AFAIK

[ROF]

There are two drive-ins in our area. One is two doors down from Walmart. The other is about 20 minutes drive away. There used to be 4 in this area but 2 of the closed. In the summertime Walmart dims their parking lot lights at 9PM which is nice as the first 20 minutes of the first movie is somewhat washed out by them. It used to be surrounded by swamps, but now businesses are all around it. The one good thing about all the businesses is that the bug population is now reduced but the first movie if it's a dark one can be hard to see. there is no movie experience quite like packing up the kids and going to the drive in.

[Headbanger's Ball]

Let's not foget comsumer's money doesn't go as far now.

We had hurricanes this year, sky-high gas prices, and winter heating prices going way up (and the cold & snow has already started.) And, it's the x-mas season. Other forms of entertainment are competing for the same dollar.

When you start compounding these factors, it's no wonder people arent going out so much. I haven't been to the movies in over 10 years. I dont like paying high prices for a crappy time (sticky floors, outrageous food $, obnoxious people, ringing cell phones, etc.) I would have liked to see the Lord of the Rings trilogy on a huge screen but not with the crowds it would have had.

I'll stick with rentals & only buying the truly great movies.

[gadgetguy]

ringing cell phones

At my favorite theatre they have cell phone ejector seats.

[kisrum]

Adam wrote:

Its the theatres that are really hurting. They make virtually no money off of ticket sales. All their money is made in concessions and people are just sick of paying $6 for nachos.

Everything I read agrees with this view. Studios are finding it more feasible to issue DVDs soon after the movies leave the theaters so they don't have to spend so much re-advertising the movie. Just piggy back the DVD release onto the theater release and get double bang for your advertising buck. This kills the theater chains. I usually buy medium drinks and sneak the rest of the snacks in. A kind of piracy I guess.

I'm not sure piracy doesn't have something to do with it as well. My 15 year-old knows kids at her school who always seem to have DVDs of movies yet to be released in the US.

I don't find much to gloat about here. Theater chains swimming in red ink will reduce the quality of the movie-going experience. Remember the god-awful multiplexes of the 70s? Crappy seats, long skinny theaters with tiny screens, dirty floors. The reawakening of quality conscious theater chains in the 80s and 90s went a long way toward improving Hollywood product in general. As much as I despise watching commercials before a movie, I can't say I blame the owners, especially if it helps keep ticket prices down. I am sick, though, of what Ebert frequently complains about which is projectionists deliberately reducing bulb-brightness, presumably to lengthen the bulb lifetime. I saw the most recent Harry Potter at a high-end local theater and even the outdoor daytime scenes looked grey.

Now that a really high quality home entertainment experience is within reach for so many people, or at least within reach of their credit cards, theaters are going to have to come up with a new way to put butts back in the chairs. Alcohol?, Coffee shops? Many art house theaters have tried this. Nice touch, but I'm not sure they'll bring back the all-important 16-24 year-old demographic.

A brief list of new competition that theater owners didn't have to face in the past would include:
-high end video games - expensive, and lets face it, fun
-300-odd channels of digital TV
-beloved TV shows now on DVD
-HDTV
-beloved old movies now on DVD in better condition than they were ever seen before. These are in direct competition with new movies. Those of you too young to remember the world before VHS and HBO may not realize how hard it used to be to see an old favorite movie. Prime-time movies were either "made-for-TV" or predictable reruns of "Wizard of Oz", "Gone With The Wind", and various James Bonds, on your choice of three broadcast channels, if you lived in a large city. Otherwise you waited for a movie's "revival" at a local art house, or you combed the TV schedule for the 10:30 pm airings that were chopped up and often shortened by ads for the Ronco Kitchen Magician.

I recently checked out a brand new restored Criterion Collection version of Rashomon at the local library. Free. Should I watch it Friday night on a 32" flat screen with cheap snacks and people who are willing to shut up during the movie or go drop $40.00 to see "Herbie" with yapping ******** and ringing cell phones? Tough call.

[VideoTechMan]

I have never been to a drive-in. And movies nowadays arent even worth my time. King Kong? Cmon, I'll watch the original 1933 version anyday when there were no such things as CGI effects.

I havent been to a theater in years. The last movie I remembered seeing in the theater was Halloween: Resurrection, and even that movie wasnt that great. I dont like crowded theater and loud-mouth teenager idiots who cant shut their mouths up while the movie is playing. And don't get me started on the cell phones.

No thanks Follywood, I'll enjoy my own shows and worthy DVD purchases on my own HT system and widescreen TV, and not have to pay a car note for popcorn and drinks.

VTM