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March 15, 2006
Want Movies?
I'm not feeling so great about the mockery (here's Mark Caro's) of Dan Glickman's suggestion yesterday that the movie exhibitors and studios get together to promote the joys of the theatrical experience. It is one of the great forms of denial that somehow movies are not sold like pork chops. This is the same naivety that argues that “better movies” would improve theatrical box office… as though the top grossing movies were not generally disliked by critics and other deep thinkers.
Business is business and artistry is artistry and everyone is happy if they don’t get in the way of one another too often. Plausible deniability.
Ironically, that is not Dan Glickman’s way. He is, essentially, a straight shooter. This is not to say that Jack Valenti was a natural liar or that Dan G. doesn’t spin sometimes. I was not privy to Jack’s private arguments with the studio execs and I have no way of knowing whether stories of his muscling various people and governments are accurate or apocryphal. But Dan Glickman is not Jack. And when he wants to move forward, he seems to be a man who points to the target and heads off to work.
The stories making fun of Glickman for wanting to promote the good things about moviegoing while working with exhibitors and studios to make some things better really define why such an effort is needed. The media loves the negative. When John Horn writes that “No matter how many panel discussions were presented on new digital cinemas or the booming Korean market, the convention inevitably was reduced to figuring out how to get more butts in U.S. theaters,” what he is really saying is that he was engaging in a conversation about the box office last year with every person he talked to and that they are still sore.
But of course they are. That’s what happens when allegedly fact-based outlets like the LA Times publish sentences like, “That marketplace is now filled with state-of-the-art home theater systems, DVDs that cost but a few dollars and are sometimes available just weeks after a film's theatrical debut, and any number of electronic devices grabbing the precious free time of Hollywood's most important audience, teenage boys.” Journalists like Horn, who is way too skilled to be reduced to hyperbolic games, seem to love the negative and the realities of wealthy people in Los Angeles and not the actual marketplace.
The facts are that if you consider less than 10% of the audience owning new, massive TV screens and sound systems to be a “marketplace filled with state-of-the-art home theater systems” then that is accurate. If you look at a DVD price point for new films of about $20 and a minimum 3-month window for studio releases to be “a few dollars” and “just weeks,” then that is accurate. If you read an online survey that can be shot through with holes quite easily, but decide its true, you might be worried about teenage boys’ film going habits… though you would have to disregard the enormous success of titles directed squarely at that demographic last year… then that is accurate.
This is not to say that there aren’t problems. It is to say that the firm embrace of the “sky is falling” attitude is unfortunate and based in some seriously lazy thinking... and more than a little willfulness.
The big issues facing Hollywood are the piracy, windows, how to maximize both theatrical and post-theatrical revenues, minimizing marketing costs, stabilizing production costs, and whether the industry is heading towards the window on the entire economic life span of 95% of movie product becoming less than a year after release.
Ha ha.
And the mockers might want to know that according to industry stats, the primary force in reducing the comfort zone for piracy by Average Joes (which has been reduced to a surprsing degree) has been education, much of it in the form of those over-the-top, "how can anyone take these seriously" Piracy Is Stealing PSAs that run before movies all over the country combined with lawsuits, which most of the media seems to take as silly fishing expeditions.
Ha ha ha.
Just promotion won't work. But if exhibitors and studios take making the moviegoing experience better seriously and that movement is well promoted, good things should happen all around... even if the media doesn't find it cool.
Posted by poland at March 15, 2006 12:21 PM
Comments
"This is the same naivety that argues that “better movies” would improve theatrical box office..."
Sorry Pols but you'd be naive to think it wouldn't.
Posted by: Crow T Robot ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/nav-commenters.gif)
at March 15, 2006 08:10 PM
What is "better," Crow? And why would that inspire people to go to a movie theater? Why not just want to buy a DVD more... even if I bought the premise that quality by any group's standard was a Top Three determiner of the ticket purchase choice, which I don't?
Posted by: David Poland at March 15, 2006 10:13 PM
The problem of teenage boys' minds is not distraction, because distractions are their passions. But as wrong-headed as it is to say they are too distracted, it's also wrong to assume their current levels of distraction will remain fixed. Kids that come later will only be given more choices, and they will no doubt find those choices even better or perhaps not even realize it could be any different.
But even if the PSA campaign works, it just highlights another problem exhibitors face: they just love to blame distributors for failing to market the films and producers for failing to make "good" movies. Instead, they should be talking about making theater-going classier, inexpensive, and, for lack of a better word, more civilized.
Posted by: palmtree at March 15, 2006 10:17 PM
More appealing movies would make for better box office more so than better movies. Marketing and timing can matter a whole lot more than quality. Are any of the top movies from this year any better than the tops from last year? Not really, but box office is. Spider-Man 2 made money because it was appealing and great. Batman Begins made less money, because while good, it did not appeal to as many peopleMaking better movies is not going to help a lot, but making better movies that are more appealing will.
Posted by: jrains1 at March 15, 2006 10:19 PM
Ugh, better movies has nothing to do with it unless we're talking blockbusters. The Summer period could indeed help with some better movies.
But, really, look back over the '80s and '70s. Many of the highest grossing movies were straight-forward ADULT dramas. Movies like Million Dollar Baby and Capote (just two random examples) would've easily doubled their domestic takes back then, but nowadays a movie like Capote barely gets to $30mil and M$B only just gets to $100mil. There was a time when movies like Kramer Vs Kramer grossed something like $250mil!
Posted by: KamikazeCamelV2.0 at March 15, 2006 10:42 PM
I don't think M$B would have ever made $200 mil, but yes, something had happened to the adult drama -- and that something is TV, which has really usurped that kind of storytelling. Kramer vs. Kramer would fight a hard battle today not to be tagged as a "Lifetime movie," despite its quality.
Posted by: James Leer at March 16, 2006 12:16 AM
Oh come on, theaters have survived every media plague you can name... TELEVISION, VCR, CABLE, DIRECT-TO-VIDEO, THE NET, PAULY SHORE... simply due to the cultural communal experience of sitting in a theater. Believe me, as long as there are people congregating for sporting events and sunday church and public sex with George Michael they'll do the same for this medium. But just like the others, if there's something better on the menu (or in the bathroom stall), they'll most certainly seek it out. People aren't looking for newer or sexier or most distracting... they're looking for the real deal. That's all in quality.
To put it to you in movie terms: Audiences are like Sabrina coming home from Paris, mature, worldly, a knockout... while Hollywood is still in William Holden mode, trying to fuck her with the old charm and tricks instead of making the effort of the enduring, substantial, (and classically entertaining) Humphery Bogart.
Just look at The Wedding Crashers... the success of that film is all about its quality of charm. No CGI, no niche, no bullshit... just smart storytelling that happened to be R-rated. I'm not saying all movies have to get to that place, but let's face the facts, acceptable entertainment has been degraded these past few years by a cynical, cowardly industry that has no understanding of cinema's role in our culture (even the critics seemed to have dulled themselves to this -- busting a nut over Crash and Brokeback more for their ideas than craft).
But you said it yourself, DP, the Oscars this year weren't anything to get excited about. And that's not the fault of marketing or technology or the rising costs of whatever. No sir, that's just a simple case of excitement-free movies.
Posted by: Crow T Robot at March 16, 2006 01:09 AM
Oh I dunno James. It mightn't have made that much actually in the 1970s, but if today's audiences today still had the same mentality for adult films that they did back then I'm sure it could've done a lot more. Okay, maybe not $200mil, but definitely much more than $100mil (which is not to say that $100mil for an adult drama is bad).
But that was also the time when horror movies like Wolf Creek and Hostel could've made $100mil on limited late night circuits alone. So... things have definitely changed.
Posted by: KamikazeCamelV2.0 at March 16, 2006 05:32 AM
Ticket sales were down an estimated 10 percent last year -- 10 percent of 1 billion+ tickets sold. To a big industry it's a drop in the bucket. To the unaided eye it's a helluva lot.
One reason ticket sales were down in '05 was a summer slate that was heavy on franchises, remakes and sequels. Summer '06 looks to be heavy on franchises, remakes and sequels.
"M:I3", "X-Men 3" and whatever installment of "Superman" are not going to save Hollywood.
Posted by: Chucky in Jersey at March 16, 2006 09:27 AM
2004, the best single year for box office ever, was also heavy on franchises, remakes, and sequels. Alot of 2005's big films were "original," some did well like Wedding Crashers and some failed miserably like The Island and Stealth. It's true that Superman won't save Hollywood (in the sense that it won't require them to innovate the way they make and sell films), but it's probably not going to make ticket sales go down either.
Posted by: palmtree at March 16, 2006 12:45 PM
Know Your Timing
After a series of very dark blockbuster, Fantastic Four quickly capitalized by being the only thing remotely for kids. As mentioned before, there was an old-fashioned simplicity to Wedding Crashers. Hell, look at the surprise success of Four Brothers, a movie that was totally off the radar. You know why Cinderella Man did so poorly? It arrived too soon in a summer that was already off to a late start, with none of the CGI blockbusters to serve as a palette cleanser to.
Your Enemy's Enemy Is Not Your Friend
People seem to live under the bizarre assumption that anyone who doesn't want to see Van Helsing wants to see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. "Movies for adults" doesn't neccessarily mean "Mature and challenging". The marketplace is starting to become a warped version of only the kinds of movies movie-geeks watch. There's not enough mashed potato type films out--movies that are not particularly rich with epic settings, or too full of vegtable nutrients. Or just plain junk food.
No remakes that are against the point
Why remake The Manchurian Candidate? You just get the remake stigma, very dangerous when you're trying to appeal to an older audience. Come on.
For God's Sake, Sell it Like it's the Best Movie in the World
You don't have to market harder, just smarter, people.
Posted by: Skyblade at March 17, 2006 02:23 AM
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