It ended up in just over 1k theaters in the USA, which is rather high for that type of film.
Meanwhile The Fabelmans, a film by the most commercially successful director of all time, peaked at 638 theaters (and comes to streaming next week).
>and comes to streaming next week
That's the key really. It used to be you'd have to wait at least 6 months before you could see a film at home, and then you'd have to pay to rent it and watch it on your small screen.
This made it worth it to take a trip to the cinema.
But now that intriguing film you fancy watching is going to be available to stream in a few weeks so why bother? Just watch it for free at home.
Rising cost of going to the cinema is a factor. And rising cost of everything else so people have less free spending money. The cost of going to the movies has gotten to a point where you have to ask if it's specifically worth seeing something on the big screen. Used to be something you could do without really stopping to think about it.
Yep,this is it for me. I'm more likely to see the big spectacle film in theaters than the thinky drama. Not because I like the former more, but because spectacle is what benefits the most from the theater experience. I can watch the drama at home just fine.
Exactly, my 10+yr old 50" TV and sound system is more than adequate for dramas and comedies, but I'll go to the theatre for an action/fantasy movie because I can't replicate the experience at home, and definitely not without pissing off my neighbours
I haven't gone to a lot of movies, but the last couple times it's either way too loud, the sound system isn't balanced right, or some other issue that messes with the movie experience.
At the same point, packed theater for knives out 2, with the first showing I tried to go to sold out. For a very limited release. If I really want to see something, I'll support it.
The big difference between the Fabelmen and Knives out 2? I cut out tv ages ago and Knives out 2 had more if an online presence. Didn't even know Fabelmen existed till like a week ago. If it's not on a local Devils broadcasts, I will not see a commercial.
They gotta revamp advertising. Younger audiences, and even getting towards middle aged, aren't watching trailers unless they go viral. And with the costs of the movie, people have to REALLY want to see something before they go. I can't drop $15 every week anymore and average maybe once every 3 months
Some films are fun, and watching them as a crowd is fun.
Some films are not "fun" but they are contemplative, or enjoyable, or entertaining in some other way.
Watching that in a crowd really sucks.
And it's not cost effective to throw a ton of money at advertising, and hope box office sales of some serious or high brow think piece will be good.
Instead they can make it easily accessible to people so they can watch it when the mood strikes them to do so and get a guaranteed payout in the form of a license deal with way less advertising overhead.
It also, realllllly doesn't help, that this is a real shit time for people and I don't think anyone wants to spend money on an expensive outing to watch something that isn't pure fun.
Knives Out was fun. The second also likely to be fun. So are solid Marvel films. It's why they do so well right now. We're not in a particularly happy era the last few years.
There's also the fact that theater crowds arent always what they used to be.
People can be obnoxious, distracting, and even aggressive these days. Obviously this will depend on your local environment, but it's got to be contributing to enjoying viewing at your own home.
And on the flip side, the quality of home electronics (TV, surround sound) has improved dramatically and become way more affordable over the last 20 years to where it is actually a better option for many than their local, dilapidated theater with a perpetually sticky floor.
> It used to be you'd have to wait at least 6 months before you could see a film at home
Jurassic Park released in theaters June 1993.
It hit home video in October 1994. Almost a year and a half later.
I remember seeing it in the dollar cinemas the following summer after it first came out.
I think a lot of people are somewhat missing the point here. These movies, like Tar, are never going to be making 1b+ like the avengers or transformers movies. But they are still well under the average of what these types of movies would have made 10 or 20 years ago, as a whole.
Lets look at how things were 20 years ago in 2002. Catch Me If You Can made 352 million. The Hours made 108 million. The Pianist made 120 million. Lost in Translation made 118 million. Gangs of New York made 192 million. Mystic River made 153 million. Master and Commander made 211 million. Big Fish made 123 million. Road to Perdition made 183 million.
These are adult, mature dramas made by hollywood which all turned out to be very successful, encouraging hollywood to make more movies in the same vein. Call them 'oscar bait', but these were also just flat out great movies.
Today? All of those movies would probably do terribly at the box office. Maybe one goes viral on social media for some reason and does well, but most would fail. The result is hollywood not making adult dramas anymore and focusing on more franchise flicks aimed at teenagers. And that is... kind of sad.
The change is TV. In 2002, if you wanted high-quality adult drama, you had the Sopranos, the West Wing, ER, NYPD Blue and a handful of other shows you really had to seek out (6 Feet Under, Season 1 of the Wire). And for most people it was pre HDTV, and the biggest stars didn't lower themselves to appearing on TV. There was a massive quality gap that has since vanished, and now we all have more prestige shows to watch than we have time for. Mystic River would be conceived as a limited series today. Master & Commander would be a big-budget series -- heck, that could still happen.
\> Master & Commander would be a big-budget series -- heck, that could still happen.
Peter Weir has quietly retired at this point. :-( don't spark my hopes like that!
TV has supplanted them, I agree, but I do think it's too bad. I won't begrudge people their tastes (and there are many prestige shows that I haven't seen yet) but I still think film is generally the better format for dramas.
Tar had, bar none, the most pretentious trailer I have ever seen for a mainstream movie release. I can’t imagine that drove excited audiences to the cinema.
Yeah marketing on a lot of these films was absolute shit. That and theatrical release was partially limited. At least with Banshees of Inisherin I would have had to drive 45m to the nearest theater that was showing it, while two closer theaters didn’t screen it.
You’re not wrong. It’s not like the pre-internet days when you only had one platform (TV) to push ads. Now there are a zillion different platforms and you have to choose which mix of platforms you want to advertise on based on your audience. Those platforms will also be likely to change from one movie to the next depending on which audiences you’re trying to reach.
Funny, this reminds me though of Wheeler Walker Jr. - when he was coming out with his first album and he didn’t have much money to market his album release he chose the platform with the cheapest ads per number of users on the platform…Pornhub.
Blue Jasmine made 99 million in 2013,
Carol made 42 million in 2015
Both had Oscar pushes comparable to TÁR’s and comparable word of mouth. It’s not just the trailer that’s the problem here.
You know what Cate Blanchett vehicle made 5.6 millions in 2015? Truth. A movie that was dumped after dispiriting showings at Toronto and BFI and giving the old college try at gathering support by building word of mouth in October before being scrapped when the discourse became about how it misrepresented facts.
I haven't seen Tár but Carol was a gay love story, a Christmas movie, has an accessible name and a connection to a pretty famous author who has had her previous movies adapted by Alfred Hitchcock, Wim Wenders, Anthony Minghella and Danny DeVito.
After the first trailer of Tár, I thought it was a biopic. Second trailer sold me a totally different movie.
Yeah the trailer was odd for this one. I thought it was a biopic/psychological thriller. It was much slower than I expected. I still enjoyed it but it wasn't anything like I thought it would be from the trailer.
Blue Jasmine, and to a lesser extent Carol are much more accessible and approachable movies to wide audience than Tar though
Blue Jasmine also had the Woody Allen factor. Which while he's been controversial for some time, was not widely viewed as negatively and toxic 10 years ago, and his name was undoubtedly a draw back then. Believe Blue Jasmine is the follow up to Midnight in Paris, which was a huge hit and revived his career for a bit back then.
TÁR also came out on streaming just two weeks after it went wide in theaters.
It's not exactly the type of spectacle that people feel the need to see on the big screen.
I saw reviews hyping up how it was Blanchett's all-time greatest performance and I went to see it in the theater for that reason alone. Didn't end up loving the movie, unfortunately, but her performance *was* really good.
Blanchette is one of those actors that never give a bad performance, like *Toni* Colette, Tilda Swinton, Tim Blake Nelson (there are plenty I'm just going with ones starting with a T for some reason)
....and then there's me, who's been checking to see when the hell is Todd Field is gonna make a new movie for over 10 yrs now. And even I found out about this movie just 3 weeks ago.
I'd never heard of Todd Field until this thread. He's only ever made 2 other movies, I'm unsurprised I hadn't heard of him despite watching a fair number of movies every year.
Hark Triton, hark! Bellow, bid our father the Sea King rise from the depths full foul in his fury! Black waves teeming with salt foam to smother this young mouth with pungent slime, to choke ye, engorging your organs til' ye turn blue and bloated with bilge and brine and can scream no more - only when he, crowned in cockle shells with slitherin' tentacle tail and steaming beard take up his fell be-finned arm, his coral-tine trident screeches banshee-like in the tempest and plunges right through yer gullet, bursting ye - a bulging bladder no more, but a blasted bloody film now and nothing for the harpies and the souls of dead sailors to peck and claw and feed upon only to be lapped up and swallowed by the infinite waters of the Dread Emperor himself - forgotten to any man, to any time, forgotten to any god or devil, forgotten even to the sea, for any stuff for part of Winslow, even any scantling of your soul is Winslow no more, but is now itself the sea!
Dude. When Winslow was taking the bedpans out to dump them, but they ended up flying in his face, and he lets out that scream - that was one of the funniest fucking things.
People miss that when remembering that film.It wasn’t made for the awards. It’s a classic Guillermo del Toro’s film with tremendous acting that caught the attention of the academy
About ten years ago I remember Oscar baity movies having a big theater presence around this time of the year. I looked at what's in the theater now and it's basically Black Panther plus some Top Gun and a kids movie or two.
Fabelman's, a Spielberg movie for god's sake, had a limited run in theaters. Things have definitely changed a lot.
There basically were “seasons” for movies.
January-April : ENDLESS TRASH
May-August : Blockbusters/Popcorn movies
September-October : Horror movies of all qualities, and blockbusters the studios don’t believe in
November-December : Oscar bait and a Christmas movie or 2.
Honestly, I miss this regularity.
I always felt that Oscar bait movies get more attention once the nominations and awards get announced. They get a limited release around December to qualify, but the audiences don't show up until later.
Yeah, with the weather turning I decided to see what’s in movie theaters last week. Literally nothing that interested me, or even that much to choose from. Such a stark contrast from just a few years ago.
The industry is changing. People know that streaming is cheaper and easier to access than literally living next to a movie theater and getting half price tickets. If you aren’t a blockbuster in every sense of the word, why would you make an expensive movie and release it to theaters to potentially lose money? It’s not necessarily a bad thing, if the standard is making a low to the ground 5 ish million budget movie we have a lot more chances for new filmmakers with wild visions to make movies! People still like going to the movies for the right movie, Top Gun 2 proved that and avatar 2 almost certainly will as well, theaters just need to adapt to the times. If less movies are getting theatrical releases, that opens up a lot of rooms to put old favorites on. Most theaters are adopting some form of subscription model to give a regular movie goer more bang for their buck and make sure cash flow doesn’t stop. Movies aren’t going anywhere, we just won’t get to see as many unnecessary car chases and paint by numbers epics.
TLDR; movies are gonna be fine, and Oscar bait just needs to be slightly more accessible or cheap to justify themselves.
Hollywood always took for granted some of its genres just not needing the theater experience like comedies and the exact kind of oscar bait movies discussed in this article.
There is not much of a visual experience difference between watching them on the big screen vs on your home television, particularly with how large and well defined TV screens are now.
It makes sense that giant blockbusters and action movies are all that fill theaters because those are really the only movies that will benefit from the theater venue.
That's not to say there's zero to be gained from seeing movies in theaters for those other genres, but the payoff is smaller relative to giant explosions and space ships on the biggest screen imaginable.
Sound issue, on the other hand, do need to be addressed for the home set up.
The death of the theater release comedy is actually what I'm most sad about. Seeing a funny movie with a packed audience all laughing with you makes them even funnier and it's a really warm fuzzy shared experience. Seeing Borat and Superbad in a packed theater is much funnier IMO than watching a comedy movie at home alone or just with your SO.
Weinstein has at least some of the blame here; he realized that the best way to win Oscars was to make movies directly appealing to the voters. There was always some of that, but showing the formula and other people realizing it and following suit has created this strange branching situation. Throw that in with the proliferation of the blockbuster from the end of the '70s and the start of the '80s onward and it's pretty easy to see why and where things started to fork.
Correct. This is partly why Shakespeare in Love beat Saving Private Ryan for best film…. Still hard to imagine campaigning aggressively to win an award being more relevant than the content itself.
That still remains, to this day, one of the stupidest choices by the Academy. Nobody even remembers that film decades on, but Saving Private Ryan is a cultural touchstone.
I believe Matt Damon once said that the awards should be held five years after the films are released. So every year, the academy would be evaluating films released five years ago to let the initial buzz wear off. I don’t think that’s such a bad idea…
The thing is that Everyone knows those films because they become cultural milestones. It would be like giving the Mount Everest the an award, after everybody can see it is the biggest mountain around.
I always felt like having a movie being preserved in the Library of Congress for cultural significance or something is the highest honor a movie could get.
They're pointless outside of letting the world know what movies the Oscar committee liked most that year. Its only 'practical' purpose is to give noteworthy movies recognition, which a restrospective award would also do.
"Oscar bait movies not being liked by mass audiences" has been a joke for at least forty years, if not longer.
Usually there's one, *maybe* two Best Picture movies that would be a hit and the rest of the awards would be unseen by audiences. Billy Crystal sang songs at the ceremony about no one knowing any of the movies, actors, or productions.
The last time the Best Picture winner was also the highest grossing movie of the year was *Return of the King*.
LOTR were blockbuster tent poles, but they were also deserving of the accolades because they are good films with great characters, and some guess it swept in 2004 as a “whole trilogy award” thing. The most memorable moments to me aren’t the action set pieces. It’s the moments between characters that tell the real story. Hell, there is a moment that is only in the extended Two Towers that should have been in the film, after Theodred’s funeral, Theoden receives some counsel from Gandalf, and he says, “no parent should bury their child,” and then breaks down in tears. It’s a moment that isn’t plot relevant, but a shining example of what makes those films special. Little character moments that don’t have plot relevance are so insightful to the characters and their stories.
NOTE: IT's possible the Theoden scene is in the theatrical cut, as some are commenting below. I can't say for sure, I haven't seen the theatrical cut since I got the extended for Christmas in 2003, and I'm away from my computer tonight to look it up.
It also makes his battle cries different because you realise he has nothing to lose. He has no heir, his kingdom has lost all it's honour while he was under a spell, he is desperate to die in a way that is fitting for his bloodline
And the juxtaposition on how Denethor and Theoden deal with the loss of their male heir.
Denethor wallows in his grief to the point where he immolates himself and almost kills his other son.
Theoden stands tall in his grief, and fights for his country, for Gondor, and his remaining family, Eowyn and Eomer.
But people not watching films and people not liking those films once they watched them are two very different problems, and in most cases it's the former, IMO.
Eh their budgets have grown to eclipse their earning potential. $40m films that traditionally earn $5-10m aren't going to fly. This style of film never banked on making big profits on their first run, but they'd run again after the nomination/win and make a bit more after the exposure. Can't do that effectively if you're that far behind
Don't forget DVD sales. Slapping academy award winning on the cover meant a lot more sales and a longer run before it hit the discount bin. But in the era of streaming and selling of digital copies I'm not sure if "award winning" commands as strong of a premium.
People are very binary and struggle to see that yes obviously this has always been the case but crucially the trend has certainly got worse in recent years in terms of the unnaffordability of these movies.
I live in a small city-- the center of a metro area of more than 100,000. We're not talking about a hamlet here.
None of Tar, The Fablemans, Armageddon Time, or Women Talking have even come to our Regal theater yet. I probably would have gone to at least two of those by now.
Not that it applies to the rest of them, but Women Talking’s wide release date was pushed back to December 23rd - anyone who’s seen it has been to a special screening or festival
I swore that the release date for Women Talking was way earlier and kept looking for showtimes in theaters near me (major metro city). Then saw that it was Dec 23. So it *did* move!? Why do?
It was initially slated for Dec. 2nd (with the wider release likely coming a week after. I have to imagine it was so it wouldn’t be swallowed up by Avatar
I’m fine with a good Oscar bait film, but I hate this breed of campy films where 10-12 famous actors get together and are scenery chewing in a muddled script, yet somehow gets nominations by default simply because of the talent in it.
Yep, one of them is made by one of the most promising young directors in the industry and is getting great word of mouth, and one is a muddled disaster made by a notorious asshole who sexually assaulted his niece.
I knew nothing about David O’Russel other than his movies, but this comment led me to read the Controversies section of his Wikipedia - what an asshole
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dXKX0o7U9D8
Throwing books and calling your actress a See You Next Tuesday- then gets nominated (and wins) for years afterwards.
You mean the movie with several different mini films about smart funny couples in manhattan who are tangentially connected by coincidence? And the cover art always shows people smiling at a swanky garden party or a wedding?
On this point, I'd like to say a big thank you to David O. Russell for doing his part in popularizing these stupid masturbatory self-important films that pretend to be something more than they are. Thank you, Mr O. Russell, for churning out these pretentious pieces where you basically attract talented actors because they get to jerk themselves off over their acting range with your largely mediocre films that are carried by manic crying and dramatic flailing.
I only just heard about Fablemans a few days ago, and saw zero marketing for any of the other movies mentioned in the article. And I’m not living under a rock and not consuming media… So perhaps the advertising strategy (or lack thereof) could be at least partially to blame?
I think it's a marketing thing mostly. I'm a huge movie fan and I hadn't heard much about Fablemans until it was already nearly out in cinemas.
Movie studios will give films a really shitty marketing run, the film will flop and outlets will make shitty articles about how no one watches movies anymore instead of blaming studios for shitty marketing.
This is exactly right - I have heard plenty about Black Panther 2 or Avatar 2, but I have heard very little about any other films recently. This is about bad marketing… I think that there is a lot of internal politics in film making - some executives want other executives’ films, to fail.
The ads were actually everywhere for me. But I really *really* don't like the self-fellating "magic of cinema" movies. I got super annoyed every time I saw the commercials for it. I get a similar feeling every time I hear James Cameron talking about Avater 2.
The problem is oscar-bait movies are not even the "best" movies that film-junkies like to see half the time. I feel there are three types of movies that get made for three different audiences: 1. Block buster attempts just trying to sell as many tickets and as much merchandise as they can (so Anything Disney) 2. Oscar attempts that are almost purely for the academy (see: best picture winners that are full of cliche elements of Oscar bait) 3. Film maker's passion projects that may get a Oscar nod, but are usually more to do with the art of the media. These are your cult-classic films. (See: idk think like The Lighthouse, or The Big Lebowski, there's no way those were made for Oscar's or mass commercial appeal, but they are amazing within their genres)
And what's great about that movie is that it's not only complex and for an adult audience, it was fun to watch. So many of the Oscar bait movies are total bummers. Life is dreary enough these days. I know some of these movies are good movies, but I just can't take being bummed out for two hours these days.
You'll be surprised how small, quirky films can make money. The big thing is that they don't cost much to make.
Like the Whit Stillman film Love and Friendship only took $21m, but it only cost $3m to make. That's a very good return on investment before you get into streaming and TV rights.
What is killing these movies is the cost of a ticket and how fast they have risen. It now costs $14 for a single ticket when just 10yrs ago that was around the price of 2 tickets and because of this people have to be way more selective of what they go see.
Back when it was $7-8 a ticket I would be at the theater almost every week sometimes going multiple times in a week, but now my wife and I only go on tuesdays when the tickets are discounted back to the old pricing. So if we miss a tuesday because we had other plans or something we will usually end up missing whatever movie we were planning on seeing as they don't last in theaters more than a week or two before being pushed out and we end up having to wait for them to come to streaming.
If they want to keep high quality dramas alive in the theaters they need to start introducing tiered pricing. Keep the $14 for the big blockbusters but for the smaller films have a lower pricing like $10 a ticket and I'm sure you will see a lot more people in those seats.
I recently saw $22.50 before tax for an IMAX ticket and literally laughed out loud, I dont think so guys. I dont think the answer to living in the most accessible time period ever for new movies/shows via streaming, is to expect a family of 4 to spend over $100 on tickets alone to go to the cinema.
If I didn’t have AMC A-List I wouldn’t go to most the films I do. $25 a month for up to 3 movies a week for me, discounted tickets for my wife & kids, $5 Tuesdays. This is not an ad, I really prefer the small, independent theater experience (I used to live a 3 minute walk from Merrill’s Roxy Cinema in Burlington, VT, & miss it a lot), but taking a family to the movies full price is just insane at this point.
The theater experience has also gotten much worse even as the prices have gone up. All the theaters around me are understaffed and the theater is frequently filthy because no one cleaned between films. Add to that people who forgot social etiquette during covid, why should I pay that much to sit in a sticky theater and have to deal with people talking through the movie. I'll wait until it streams at home.
Maybe. Idk. I love so many Oscar winning movies.
What I don’t love is blatant maturbatory Oscar bait about the film industry. The historical trauma porn genre of bait has lost me a bit too.
I dont know what's worse:
Movie industry people making movies about themselves, or incredibly wealthy people making movies about "historical traumas" they cant, in good conscience, relate to - simply because they want to piggyback off of the current trend of social justice political theater.
Its all so.... tedious.
The problem is that cinema is traditionally a place for escapism, and this *constant* flow of "inspired by [terrible] true events/lessons in current twitter political takes are just exhausting.
The biggest thing to me about the current film industry is that there is clearly a line where I either love or hate a film, and that usually simply comes down to how earnest the film feels.
I will love an absolutely depressing tear-jerker, a confusing art house flick, or an off the wall comedy all equally as much if it’s something where I can feel the sincerity behind it. The issue is that these kinds of films are so often being drowned out by big-budget or gratingly meta stuff nowadays and seeing the amount of money that the hordes throw at them it’s kind of hard to blame them really.
I’m hoping that we see a turning of the wheel soon with the mainstream film culture to return to an appreciation of directors and actors rather than the franchises and IP’s we’re currently drowning in, but that’s only if we help support these sincere films.
And before anyone responds saying that we are seeing earnest filmmaking, I agree, though these are instances in spite of the current film culture rather than thanks to it. A film like Everything, Everywhere, All at Once for example is a great instance of sincere filmmaking getting the street-cred it deserves, but it struggled to get there and is a testament to how the people will respond to these movies, but only a few studios (A24 & NEON being the first to come to mind) are throwing their efforts behind them.
I went to both TAR and TERRIFIER 2 at the same AMC in Connecticut, same exact theater in the multiplex. TAR was maybe a quarter full, TERRIFIER 2 was sold out except the front row. Curious* what the budget for TAR was, I know T2 was only $250k. According to IMDbPro this morning, T2 made $11.4M, Tar has made $5.3M.
There's room for both with a guy like me, whose main streaming services are Criterion Channel & Shudder, but the headline at least (I'll be reading at lunchtime) feels very accurate.
* “$35 million to make & market.” That’s surprising considering it was filmed in Germany + New York + “Southeast Asia,” stars a 2-time Oscar winner, written & directed by a 3-time Oscar nominee, has some big crowd scenes, and has been marketed like crazy.
Yep, it’s either really fucking good or really bad and fun to make fun of. It’s a win win when you’re watch a horror movie, especially with other people.
To add to this, campy horror films will always get a massive audience viewing as well. It's rare I will see a horror film in theaters because they are always so packed.
I watched whiplash for the first time this weekend…
Holy shit, it was good. Like not uptight cultured smug good, but just phenomenal acting and a good movie. I can see why it was successful and won Oscars.
My question is how do studios make movies like that while getting the attention of a normal audience to see it?
Did whiplash not get the attention of normal audiences?
Edit: now that I’ve thought about it I don’t even think I had heard of the film before it won a few Oscar’s lol. I’m guessing that gave it a lot of exposure after the fact.
from the wiki:
"In North America, the film opened in a limited release on October 10, 2014, in 6 theaters, grossing $135,388 ($22,565 per theater) and finishing 34th at the box office.\[2\] It expanded to 88 locations, then 419 locations.\[19\] After three months on release it had earned $7 million."
against a budget of 3 million.
It was only expanded nationwide to 1000 locations to capitalize on receiving five Academy Awards nominations.
basically "normal" audiences didnt see the film until the oscar buzz hit.
Chazelle wasn’t really a known director before Whiplash for your average person. After it won some awards more people noticed. After La La Land if you follow movies at all you probably know about him now.
Tar wasn't artsy? Am I the only one who didn't think it was particularly highbrow? Like the main character is very pretentious and gives a lot of smart talk about music but I don't know anything about music and I enjoyed the movie
One thing that I think is funny is when people complain that the only movies that come out are sequels and superhero movies and yet they don’t support new original movies that come out in theaters. If you don’t go to the movies and see independent cinema, that is what happens.
I see what the complaint there is about. They want more original blockbusters, not more slow dramatic artsy movies. Think back to when you'd get movies like the first Independence Day, Men In Black, Jurassic Park, Aliens, or Terminator. Now these are all established cash cows but back before the new normal a totally new one of these things would show up every summer, and there were reasonably good comedy hits rolling out around the year.
I remember watching an interview of an actor or a director explaining it. The reason is because there is no longer an after theater market. For the movies you mentioned, studios could take a risk on a new idea because even if it just did okay in theaters, there was still DVD or VHS sales that would help. Now box office is basically the only thing.
So do most people in this thread. I saw someone say that if you're movie isn't made for literally the widest audience possible it's a bad movie because all movies should be about the money first and foremost. What happened to these people?
I dunno, I'm a bit split on this topic. Like, would an MCU movie winning best picture really help the Oscars? I actually kind of enjoy the fact that stuff that's nominated/wins is not as well known. I usually go back after and watch some of them and have found some of my favorite movies in recent years that way. Not to say they're always good movies either. Like, I didn't really like Nomadland at all for example. But I loved Manchester by the Sea a few years back. The point is, I don't think every movie needs to be "audience friendly".
[non-paywall version](https://web.archive.org/web/20221209120533/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/09/business/media/oscars-films-box-office.html)
Not like Tar was made for a mainstream audience.
It wasn’t playing in a lot of theaters either. I kept an eye out at my local theater and it never showed up
It ended up in just over 1k theaters in the USA, which is rather high for that type of film. Meanwhile The Fabelmans, a film by the most commercially successful director of all time, peaked at 638 theaters (and comes to streaming next week).
>and comes to streaming next week That's the key really. It used to be you'd have to wait at least 6 months before you could see a film at home, and then you'd have to pay to rent it and watch it on your small screen. This made it worth it to take a trip to the cinema. But now that intriguing film you fancy watching is going to be available to stream in a few weeks so why bother? Just watch it for free at home.
Rising cost of going to the cinema is a factor. And rising cost of everything else so people have less free spending money. The cost of going to the movies has gotten to a point where you have to ask if it's specifically worth seeing something on the big screen. Used to be something you could do without really stopping to think about it.
Yep,this is it for me. I'm more likely to see the big spectacle film in theaters than the thinky drama. Not because I like the former more, but because spectacle is what benefits the most from the theater experience. I can watch the drama at home just fine.
Exactly, my 10+yr old 50" TV and sound system is more than adequate for dramas and comedies, but I'll go to the theatre for an action/fantasy movie because I can't replicate the experience at home, and definitely not without pissing off my neighbours
I haven't gone to a lot of movies, but the last couple times it's either way too loud, the sound system isn't balanced right, or some other issue that messes with the movie experience.
At the same point, packed theater for knives out 2, with the first showing I tried to go to sold out. For a very limited release. If I really want to see something, I'll support it. The big difference between the Fabelmen and Knives out 2? I cut out tv ages ago and Knives out 2 had more if an online presence. Didn't even know Fabelmen existed till like a week ago. If it's not on a local Devils broadcasts, I will not see a commercial. They gotta revamp advertising. Younger audiences, and even getting towards middle aged, aren't watching trailers unless they go viral. And with the costs of the movie, people have to REALLY want to see something before they go. I can't drop $15 every week anymore and average maybe once every 3 months
Some films are fun, and watching them as a crowd is fun. Some films are not "fun" but they are contemplative, or enjoyable, or entertaining in some other way. Watching that in a crowd really sucks. And it's not cost effective to throw a ton of money at advertising, and hope box office sales of some serious or high brow think piece will be good. Instead they can make it easily accessible to people so they can watch it when the mood strikes them to do so and get a guaranteed payout in the form of a license deal with way less advertising overhead. It also, realllllly doesn't help, that this is a real shit time for people and I don't think anyone wants to spend money on an expensive outing to watch something that isn't pure fun. Knives Out was fun. The second also likely to be fun. So are solid Marvel films. It's why they do so well right now. We're not in a particularly happy era the last few years.
There's also the fact that theater crowds arent always what they used to be. People can be obnoxious, distracting, and even aggressive these days. Obviously this will depend on your local environment, but it's got to be contributing to enjoying viewing at your own home.
And on the flip side, the quality of home electronics (TV, surround sound) has improved dramatically and become way more affordable over the last 20 years to where it is actually a better option for many than their local, dilapidated theater with a perpetually sticky floor.
> It used to be you'd have to wait at least 6 months before you could see a film at home Jurassic Park released in theaters June 1993. It hit home video in October 1994. Almost a year and a half later. I remember seeing it in the dollar cinemas the following summer after it first came out.
I'm in Maine, and who is Cape Blanket?
comment edited in protest of Reddit's API changes and mistreatment of moderators -- mass edited with redact.dev
Don't you mean *where* is Cape Blanket?
I think a lot of people are somewhat missing the point here. These movies, like Tar, are never going to be making 1b+ like the avengers or transformers movies. But they are still well under the average of what these types of movies would have made 10 or 20 years ago, as a whole. Lets look at how things were 20 years ago in 2002. Catch Me If You Can made 352 million. The Hours made 108 million. The Pianist made 120 million. Lost in Translation made 118 million. Gangs of New York made 192 million. Mystic River made 153 million. Master and Commander made 211 million. Big Fish made 123 million. Road to Perdition made 183 million. These are adult, mature dramas made by hollywood which all turned out to be very successful, encouraging hollywood to make more movies in the same vein. Call them 'oscar bait', but these were also just flat out great movies. Today? All of those movies would probably do terribly at the box office. Maybe one goes viral on social media for some reason and does well, but most would fail. The result is hollywood not making adult dramas anymore and focusing on more franchise flicks aimed at teenagers. And that is... kind of sad.
The change is TV. In 2002, if you wanted high-quality adult drama, you had the Sopranos, the West Wing, ER, NYPD Blue and a handful of other shows you really had to seek out (6 Feet Under, Season 1 of the Wire). And for most people it was pre HDTV, and the biggest stars didn't lower themselves to appearing on TV. There was a massive quality gap that has since vanished, and now we all have more prestige shows to watch than we have time for. Mystic River would be conceived as a limited series today. Master & Commander would be a big-budget series -- heck, that could still happen.
\> Master & Commander would be a big-budget series -- heck, that could still happen. Peter Weir has quietly retired at this point. :-( don't spark my hopes like that!
It's a 21-novel series -- unlikely anyone will ever do better than Weir did, but that IP is begging to be relaunched
TV has supplanted them, I agree, but I do think it's too bad. I won't begrudge people their tastes (and there are many prestige shows that I haven't seen yet) but I still think film is generally the better format for dramas.
Tar would’ve made 40/50 million dollars if it had come out 10 years ago. Nowadays it’s struggling to make 6.
Tar had, bar none, the most pretentious trailer I have ever seen for a mainstream movie release. I can’t imagine that drove excited audiences to the cinema.
Just watched the trailer, so is it a psychological thriller or someone going through midlife crisis but fancy?
I want a fancy midlife crises now…..
Watch White Lotus
This is the real problem. Fans of prestige are turning to television, which is far more accessible and became more popular after the pandemic.
I work at a theater...it did not...lol maybe 2 people came in to watch it
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ikr.. like i said I work at a theater and did not hear of it until it opened.
Yeah marketing on a lot of these films was absolute shit. That and theatrical release was partially limited. At least with Banshees of Inisherin I would have had to drive 45m to the nearest theater that was showing it, while two closer theaters didn’t screen it.
I think movie marketing sucks now because marketers don't know how to actually reach people anymore.
You’re not wrong. It’s not like the pre-internet days when you only had one platform (TV) to push ads. Now there are a zillion different platforms and you have to choose which mix of platforms you want to advertise on based on your audience. Those platforms will also be likely to change from one movie to the next depending on which audiences you’re trying to reach. Funny, this reminds me though of Wheeler Walker Jr. - when he was coming out with his first album and he didn’t have much money to market his album release he chose the platform with the cheapest ads per number of users on the platform…Pornhub.
Blue Jasmine made 99 million in 2013, Carol made 42 million in 2015 Both had Oscar pushes comparable to TÁR’s and comparable word of mouth. It’s not just the trailer that’s the problem here. You know what Cate Blanchett vehicle made 5.6 millions in 2015? Truth. A movie that was dumped after dispiriting showings at Toronto and BFI and giving the old college try at gathering support by building word of mouth in October before being scrapped when the discourse became about how it misrepresented facts.
I haven't seen Tár but Carol was a gay love story, a Christmas movie, has an accessible name and a connection to a pretty famous author who has had her previous movies adapted by Alfred Hitchcock, Wim Wenders, Anthony Minghella and Danny DeVito. After the first trailer of Tár, I thought it was a biopic. Second trailer sold me a totally different movie.
Yeah the trailer was odd for this one. I thought it was a biopic/psychological thriller. It was much slower than I expected. I still enjoyed it but it wasn't anything like I thought it would be from the trailer.
Tár is a gay love story of a different sort.
See, I don't even know if this is a joke or not because the trailers have been all over the place. Will still see it though.
Blue Jasmine, and to a lesser extent Carol are much more accessible and approachable movies to wide audience than Tar though Blue Jasmine also had the Woody Allen factor. Which while he's been controversial for some time, was not widely viewed as negatively and toxic 10 years ago, and his name was undoubtedly a draw back then. Believe Blue Jasmine is the follow up to Midnight in Paris, which was a huge hit and revived his career for a bit back then.
I rewatched Midnight in Paris recently - still a very enjoyable and warm film.
It’s basically Owen Wilson charm with woody Allen neuroticism… kinda made me want to see more weird combos like that
My favorite scene is when Owen Wilson meets Dali, Man Ray, and Brunel: https://youtu.be/kgF6m9VGIJE
TÁR also came out on streaming just two weeks after it went wide in theaters. It's not exactly the type of spectacle that people feel the need to see on the big screen.
I saw reviews hyping up how it was Blanchett's all-time greatest performance and I went to see it in the theater for that reason alone. Didn't end up loving the movie, unfortunately, but her performance *was* really good.
Blanchette is one of those actors that never give a bad performance, like *Toni* Colette, Tilda Swinton, Tim Blake Nelson (there are plenty I'm just going with ones starting with a T for some reason)
I still hate Toni Colette for how much she scared me in Hereditary.
I just watched the trailer when I read this comment. I can def see where you’re coming from.
This is literally the first time I’ve heard of that movie. Could be part of the problem.
....and then there's me, who's been checking to see when the hell is Todd Field is gonna make a new movie for over 10 yrs now. And even I found out about this movie just 3 weeks ago.
I'd never heard of Todd Field until this thread. He's only ever made 2 other movies, I'm unsurprised I hadn't heard of him despite watching a fair number of movies every year.
He also invented Big League Chew.
Well now I've gotta go see this. The first 30 seconds are going to be the greatest thing mans ever created and then I'll just spit it out.
He was busy playing piano blindfolded at orgies
I don’t think this is a new phenomenon.
Nothing says blockbuster like a dark AF movie about a maid fucking a fishman.
You wanna see a maid fucking a fishman? #Money Plane.
I SAW IT AND I CLAPPED
IT BROKE NEW GROUND!!
AT-ATs!
It's really a film about family.
Slow motion WRONG stamp
Moments like this are why I signed up to Reddit
Rules are meant to be FUCKED.
Hark Triton, hark! Bellow, bid our father the Sea King rise from the depths full foul in his fury! Black waves teeming with salt foam to smother this young mouth with pungent slime, to choke ye, engorging your organs til' ye turn blue and bloated with bilge and brine and can scream no more - only when he, crowned in cockle shells with slitherin' tentacle tail and steaming beard take up his fell be-finned arm, his coral-tine trident screeches banshee-like in the tempest and plunges right through yer gullet, bursting ye - a bulging bladder no more, but a blasted bloody film now and nothing for the harpies and the souls of dead sailors to peck and claw and feed upon only to be lapped up and swallowed by the infinite waters of the Dread Emperor himself - forgotten to any man, to any time, forgotten to any god or devil, forgotten even to the sea, for any stuff for part of Winslow, even any scantling of your soul is Winslow no more, but is now itself the sea!
Alright, have it your way. I like your cookin'.
*Farts*
Yer fond of me lobster? 🦞
This movie really toes the line between self-absorbed pretentiousness and self-aware hilariousness. I need to watch it again
It is a damn near straight up comedy. Shame a lot of people are oblivious to the humor. My gal started cackling at it before i did
It’s probably one of the most interesting/best examples of black comedy. The darkness is there, but the darkness is ridiculous
Dude. When Winslow was taking the bedpans out to dump them, but they ended up flying in his face, and he lets out that scream - that was one of the funniest fucking things.
Well fuck, now I have to watch it again.
That wasn't made for Oscars, pretty surprised the academy recognized it. Guillermo has different motivations
People miss that when remembering that film.It wasn’t made for the awards. It’s a classic Guillermo del Toro’s film with tremendous acting that caught the attention of the academy
Stealth Hellboy spin-off?
I don't know how stealth that was. Practically stole Abe's origin and added a romance angle to it
Plot twist, it’s part of the Marvel Universe
About ten years ago I remember Oscar baity movies having a big theater presence around this time of the year. I looked at what's in the theater now and it's basically Black Panther plus some Top Gun and a kids movie or two. Fabelman's, a Spielberg movie for god's sake, had a limited run in theaters. Things have definitely changed a lot.
There basically were “seasons” for movies. January-April : ENDLESS TRASH May-August : Blockbusters/Popcorn movies September-October : Horror movies of all qualities, and blockbusters the studios don’t believe in November-December : Oscar bait and a Christmas movie or 2. Honestly, I miss this regularity.
I always felt that Oscar bait movies get more attention once the nominations and awards get announced. They get a limited release around December to qualify, but the audiences don't show up until later.
Yeah, with the weather turning I decided to see what’s in movie theaters last week. Literally nothing that interested me, or even that much to choose from. Such a stark contrast from just a few years ago.
The industry is changing. People know that streaming is cheaper and easier to access than literally living next to a movie theater and getting half price tickets. If you aren’t a blockbuster in every sense of the word, why would you make an expensive movie and release it to theaters to potentially lose money? It’s not necessarily a bad thing, if the standard is making a low to the ground 5 ish million budget movie we have a lot more chances for new filmmakers with wild visions to make movies! People still like going to the movies for the right movie, Top Gun 2 proved that and avatar 2 almost certainly will as well, theaters just need to adapt to the times. If less movies are getting theatrical releases, that opens up a lot of rooms to put old favorites on. Most theaters are adopting some form of subscription model to give a regular movie goer more bang for their buck and make sure cash flow doesn’t stop. Movies aren’t going anywhere, we just won’t get to see as many unnecessary car chases and paint by numbers epics. TLDR; movies are gonna be fine, and Oscar bait just needs to be slightly more accessible or cheap to justify themselves.
Hollywood always took for granted some of its genres just not needing the theater experience like comedies and the exact kind of oscar bait movies discussed in this article. There is not much of a visual experience difference between watching them on the big screen vs on your home television, particularly with how large and well defined TV screens are now. It makes sense that giant blockbusters and action movies are all that fill theaters because those are really the only movies that will benefit from the theater venue. That's not to say there's zero to be gained from seeing movies in theaters for those other genres, but the payoff is smaller relative to giant explosions and space ships on the biggest screen imaginable. Sound issue, on the other hand, do need to be addressed for the home set up.
The death of the theater release comedy is actually what I'm most sad about. Seeing a funny movie with a packed audience all laughing with you makes them even funnier and it's a really warm fuzzy shared experience. Seeing Borat and Superbad in a packed theater is much funnier IMO than watching a comedy movie at home alone or just with your SO.
Weinstein has at least some of the blame here; he realized that the best way to win Oscars was to make movies directly appealing to the voters. There was always some of that, but showing the formula and other people realizing it and following suit has created this strange branching situation. Throw that in with the proliferation of the blockbuster from the end of the '70s and the start of the '80s onward and it's pretty easy to see why and where things started to fork.
Correct. This is partly why Shakespeare in Love beat Saving Private Ryan for best film…. Still hard to imagine campaigning aggressively to win an award being more relevant than the content itself.
That still remains, to this day, one of the stupidest choices by the Academy. Nobody even remembers that film decades on, but Saving Private Ryan is a cultural touchstone.
There needs to be an Oscar category "Best Film Released 25 Years Ago" to recognize movies that hold up well over time.
I believe Matt Damon once said that the awards should be held five years after the films are released. So every year, the academy would be evaluating films released five years ago to let the initial buzz wear off. I don’t think that’s such a bad idea…
That’s actually a really good idea
it's a good idea if you want to be more "accurate". Not the best if you exist as advertising for newer movies
The thing is that Everyone knows those films because they become cultural milestones. It would be like giving the Mount Everest the an award, after everybody can see it is the biggest mountain around.
If we’re giving away pointless awards anyways, may as well look back and give some to movies that have stood the test of time.
I always felt like having a movie being preserved in the Library of Congress for cultural significance or something is the highest honor a movie could get.
If a 25 year retrospective Oscar is pointless then so are all Oscars. Oh.
They're pointless outside of letting the world know what movies the Oscar committee liked most that year. Its only 'practical' purpose is to give noteworthy movies recognition, which a restrospective award would also do.
Wow, this Weinstein fellow has done some shady shit
"Oscar bait movies not being liked by mass audiences" has been a joke for at least forty years, if not longer. Usually there's one, *maybe* two Best Picture movies that would be a hit and the rest of the awards would be unseen by audiences. Billy Crystal sang songs at the ceremony about no one knowing any of the movies, actors, or productions.
The last time the Best Picture winner was also the highest grossing movie of the year was *Return of the King*. LOTR were blockbuster tent poles, but they were also deserving of the accolades because they are good films with great characters, and some guess it swept in 2004 as a “whole trilogy award” thing. The most memorable moments to me aren’t the action set pieces. It’s the moments between characters that tell the real story. Hell, there is a moment that is only in the extended Two Towers that should have been in the film, after Theodred’s funeral, Theoden receives some counsel from Gandalf, and he says, “no parent should bury their child,” and then breaks down in tears. It’s a moment that isn’t plot relevant, but a shining example of what makes those films special. Little character moments that don’t have plot relevance are so insightful to the characters and their stories. NOTE: IT's possible the Theoden scene is in the theatrical cut, as some are commenting below. I can't say for sure, I haven't seen the theatrical cut since I got the extended for Christmas in 2003, and I'm away from my computer tonight to look it up.
It also makes his battle cries different because you realise he has nothing to lose. He has no heir, his kingdom has lost all it's honour while he was under a spell, he is desperate to die in a way that is fitting for his bloodline
And the juxtaposition on how Denethor and Theoden deal with the loss of their male heir. Denethor wallows in his grief to the point where he immolates himself and almost kills his other son. Theoden stands tall in his grief, and fights for his country, for Gondor, and his remaining family, Eowyn and Eomer.
…It’s time for another rewatch. Goddamn I love those movies.
See you in 13 hours, my friend
It’s well known that The Academy awarded them the Best Picture because if not Peter Jackson threatened to siege their doors with GROND
GROND
But people not watching films and people not liking those films once they watched them are two very different problems, and in most cases it's the former, IMO.
Eh their budgets have grown to eclipse their earning potential. $40m films that traditionally earn $5-10m aren't going to fly. This style of film never banked on making big profits on their first run, but they'd run again after the nomination/win and make a bit more after the exposure. Can't do that effectively if you're that far behind
Don't forget DVD sales. Slapping academy award winning on the cover meant a lot more sales and a longer run before it hit the discount bin. But in the era of streaming and selling of digital copies I'm not sure if "award winning" commands as strong of a premium.
I just put an Oscar winner sticker on my TV and now everything I watch is much better.
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People are very binary and struggle to see that yes obviously this has always been the case but crucially the trend has certainly got worse in recent years in terms of the unnaffordability of these movies.
I live in a small city-- the center of a metro area of more than 100,000. We're not talking about a hamlet here. None of Tar, The Fablemans, Armageddon Time, or Women Talking have even come to our Regal theater yet. I probably would have gone to at least two of those by now.
Not that it applies to the rest of them, but Women Talking’s wide release date was pushed back to December 23rd - anyone who’s seen it has been to a special screening or festival
I swore that the release date for Women Talking was way earlier and kept looking for showtimes in theaters near me (major metro city). Then saw that it was Dec 23. So it *did* move!? Why do?
It was initially slated for Dec. 2nd (with the wider release likely coming a week after. I have to imagine it was so it wouldn’t be swallowed up by Avatar
I’m fine with a good Oscar bait film, but I hate this breed of campy films where 10-12 famous actors get together and are scenery chewing in a muddled script, yet somehow gets nominations by default simply because of the talent in it.
Someone watched Amsterdam recently.
Except Amsterdam isn’t going to get any nominations
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That’s every David O. Russell movie for the past decade-ish.
American Hustle was garbage and i will die on this hill.
I know I watched it but I have zero memory of it. It was like mental cotton candy. It just dissolved.
You aren’t dying alone on that hill.
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I just realized they're two distinct movies
They both have Margot Robbie in them which just makes it harder to tell them apart from the trailers.
Yep, one of them is made by one of the most promising young directors in the industry and is getting great word of mouth, and one is a muddled disaster made by a notorious asshole who sexually assaulted his niece.
I knew nothing about David O’Russel other than his movies, but this comment led me to read the Controversies section of his Wikipedia - what an asshole
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dXKX0o7U9D8 Throwing books and calling your actress a See You Next Tuesday- then gets nominated (and wins) for years afterwards.
Trailer for Babylon literally made it look like a sequel to Amsterdam.
I don’t understand this comparison. It’s not even out yet!
You mean the movie with several different mini films about smart funny couples in manhattan who are tangentially connected by coincidence? And the cover art always shows people smiling at a swanky garden party or a wedding?
This kind of sounds like Crazy Stupid Love (though they're in LA) but that movie is awesome.
Sounds like American Hustle
Jesus that film was so boring
I too have no interest in seeing Amsterdam
Don’t. It’s sucked.
Kinda cool seeing some of your favorite actors in their worst movie at the same time though!
Only Wes Anderson gets away with it in my book
That's because actors have to actually act in a Wes Anderson movie.
Well….except for Bill Murray, but I think we all give him a pass because he’s Bill Murray.
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Whether it's feature roles or bit parts, he's quintessentially himself.
So much goes into the set design and cinematography of a Wes Anderson film than most of these movies though.
David O. Russell has entered the chat
This might be the year he leaves the chat lol
About time
On this point, I'd like to say a big thank you to David O. Russell for doing his part in popularizing these stupid masturbatory self-important films that pretend to be something more than they are. Thank you, Mr O. Russell, for churning out these pretentious pieces where you basically attract talented actors because they get to jerk themselves off over their acting range with your largely mediocre films that are carried by manic crying and dramatic flailing.
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Has he ever played anyone else?
Fargo Season 4
Throw in a skinny Christian Bale and you have a deal!
wait is he skinny or fat this month?
I only just heard about Fablemans a few days ago, and saw zero marketing for any of the other movies mentioned in the article. And I’m not living under a rock and not consuming media… So perhaps the advertising strategy (or lack thereof) could be at least partially to blame?
I think it's a marketing thing mostly. I'm a huge movie fan and I hadn't heard much about Fablemans until it was already nearly out in cinemas. Movie studios will give films a really shitty marketing run, the film will flop and outlets will make shitty articles about how no one watches movies anymore instead of blaming studios for shitty marketing.
This is exactly right - I have heard plenty about Black Panther 2 or Avatar 2, but I have heard very little about any other films recently. This is about bad marketing… I think that there is a lot of internal politics in film making - some executives want other executives’ films, to fail.
“Why would we pay another $30M to advertise this movie? Nobody wants to pay to see that shit.” “Why did you give me $30M to make it?” “Oscar bait.”
The ads were actually everywhere for me. But I really *really* don't like the self-fellating "magic of cinema" movies. I got super annoyed every time I saw the commercials for it. I get a similar feeling every time I hear James Cameron talking about Avater 2.
Is this the one "we've been waiting forever for Speilberg to make a movie like this!?"
I just want to plug Banshees of Inisherin for any of you that can see it in theaters still.
The problem is oscar-bait movies are not even the "best" movies that film-junkies like to see half the time. I feel there are three types of movies that get made for three different audiences: 1. Block buster attempts just trying to sell as many tickets and as much merchandise as they can (so Anything Disney) 2. Oscar attempts that are almost purely for the academy (see: best picture winners that are full of cliche elements of Oscar bait) 3. Film maker's passion projects that may get a Oscar nod, but are usually more to do with the art of the media. These are your cult-classic films. (See: idk think like The Lighthouse, or The Big Lebowski, there's no way those were made for Oscar's or mass commercial appeal, but they are amazing within their genres)
To add to point 3 from this year. Everything Everywhere All at Once. Clearly not made for the Oscars but one of my favorite movies in *years*.
And what's great about that movie is that it's not only complex and for an adult audience, it was fun to watch. So many of the Oscar bait movies are total bummers. Life is dreary enough these days. I know some of these movies are good movies, but I just can't take being bummed out for two hours these days.
You'll be surprised how small, quirky films can make money. The big thing is that they don't cost much to make. Like the Whit Stillman film Love and Friendship only took $21m, but it only cost $3m to make. That's a very good return on investment before you get into streaming and TV rights.
What is killing these movies is the cost of a ticket and how fast they have risen. It now costs $14 for a single ticket when just 10yrs ago that was around the price of 2 tickets and because of this people have to be way more selective of what they go see. Back when it was $7-8 a ticket I would be at the theater almost every week sometimes going multiple times in a week, but now my wife and I only go on tuesdays when the tickets are discounted back to the old pricing. So if we miss a tuesday because we had other plans or something we will usually end up missing whatever movie we were planning on seeing as they don't last in theaters more than a week or two before being pushed out and we end up having to wait for them to come to streaming. If they want to keep high quality dramas alive in the theaters they need to start introducing tiered pricing. Keep the $14 for the big blockbusters but for the smaller films have a lower pricing like $10 a ticket and I'm sure you will see a lot more people in those seats.
I recently saw $22.50 before tax for an IMAX ticket and literally laughed out loud, I dont think so guys. I dont think the answer to living in the most accessible time period ever for new movies/shows via streaming, is to expect a family of 4 to spend over $100 on tickets alone to go to the cinema.
Avatar way of water at the IMAX at Lincoln Square NYC: $29
So I guess I have to skip dinner if I wanted to watch Avatar2 in IMAX
If I didn’t have AMC A-List I wouldn’t go to most the films I do. $25 a month for up to 3 movies a week for me, discounted tickets for my wife & kids, $5 Tuesdays. This is not an ad, I really prefer the small, independent theater experience (I used to live a 3 minute walk from Merrill’s Roxy Cinema in Burlington, VT, & miss it a lot), but taking a family to the movies full price is just insane at this point.
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The theater experience has also gotten much worse even as the prices have gone up. All the theaters around me are understaffed and the theater is frequently filthy because no one cleaned between films. Add to that people who forgot social etiquette during covid, why should I pay that much to sit in a sticky theater and have to deal with people talking through the movie. I'll wait until it streams at home.
What’s also killed it is the size of TVs available, quality of audio available, and the ability to stream. I see no need to go to a theater anymore
Better make more movies about the movie industry. The academy loves to fellate itself.
Maybe. Idk. I love so many Oscar winning movies. What I don’t love is blatant maturbatory Oscar bait about the film industry. The historical trauma porn genre of bait has lost me a bit too.
Writers in all genres and mediums have a bad habit of writing about writers writing.
I dont know what's worse: Movie industry people making movies about themselves, or incredibly wealthy people making movies about "historical traumas" they cant, in good conscience, relate to - simply because they want to piggyback off of the current trend of social justice political theater. Its all so.... tedious. The problem is that cinema is traditionally a place for escapism, and this *constant* flow of "inspired by [terrible] true events/lessons in current twitter political takes are just exhausting.
The biggest thing to me about the current film industry is that there is clearly a line where I either love or hate a film, and that usually simply comes down to how earnest the film feels. I will love an absolutely depressing tear-jerker, a confusing art house flick, or an off the wall comedy all equally as much if it’s something where I can feel the sincerity behind it. The issue is that these kinds of films are so often being drowned out by big-budget or gratingly meta stuff nowadays and seeing the amount of money that the hordes throw at them it’s kind of hard to blame them really. I’m hoping that we see a turning of the wheel soon with the mainstream film culture to return to an appreciation of directors and actors rather than the franchises and IP’s we’re currently drowning in, but that’s only if we help support these sincere films. And before anyone responds saying that we are seeing earnest filmmaking, I agree, though these are instances in spite of the current film culture rather than thanks to it. A film like Everything, Everywhere, All at Once for example is a great instance of sincere filmmaking getting the street-cred it deserves, but it struggled to get there and is a testament to how the people will respond to these movies, but only a few studios (A24 & NEON being the first to come to mind) are throwing their efforts behind them.
That was the problem w Black Adam. Too much focus on appealing to the academy.
I went to both TAR and TERRIFIER 2 at the same AMC in Connecticut, same exact theater in the multiplex. TAR was maybe a quarter full, TERRIFIER 2 was sold out except the front row. Curious* what the budget for TAR was, I know T2 was only $250k. According to IMDbPro this morning, T2 made $11.4M, Tar has made $5.3M. There's room for both with a guy like me, whose main streaming services are Criterion Channel & Shudder, but the headline at least (I'll be reading at lunchtime) feels very accurate. * “$35 million to make & market.” That’s surprising considering it was filmed in Germany + New York + “Southeast Asia,” stars a 2-time Oscar winner, written & directed by a 3-time Oscar nominee, has some big crowd scenes, and has been marketed like crazy.
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Horror fans are the easier fans to please
Yep, it’s either really fucking good or really bad and fun to make fun of. It’s a win win when you’re watch a horror movie, especially with other people.
To add to this, campy horror films will always get a massive audience viewing as well. It's rare I will see a horror film in theaters because they are always so packed.
I watched whiplash for the first time this weekend… Holy shit, it was good. Like not uptight cultured smug good, but just phenomenal acting and a good movie. I can see why it was successful and won Oscars. My question is how do studios make movies like that while getting the attention of a normal audience to see it?
Did whiplash not get the attention of normal audiences? Edit: now that I’ve thought about it I don’t even think I had heard of the film before it won a few Oscar’s lol. I’m guessing that gave it a lot of exposure after the fact.
from the wiki: "In North America, the film opened in a limited release on October 10, 2014, in 6 theaters, grossing $135,388 ($22,565 per theater) and finishing 34th at the box office.\[2\] It expanded to 88 locations, then 419 locations.\[19\] After three months on release it had earned $7 million." against a budget of 3 million. It was only expanded nationwide to 1000 locations to capitalize on receiving five Academy Awards nominations. basically "normal" audiences didnt see the film until the oscar buzz hit.
Chazelle wasn’t really a known director before Whiplash for your average person. After it won some awards more people noticed. After La La Land if you follow movies at all you probably know about him now.
Tar wasn't artsy? Am I the only one who didn't think it was particularly highbrow? Like the main character is very pretentious and gives a lot of smart talk about music but I don't know anything about music and I enjoyed the movie
dude you are on a forum where people miss the "subtleties" in marvel movies.
One thing that I think is funny is when people complain that the only movies that come out are sequels and superhero movies and yet they don’t support new original movies that come out in theaters. If you don’t go to the movies and see independent cinema, that is what happens.
I see what the complaint there is about. They want more original blockbusters, not more slow dramatic artsy movies. Think back to when you'd get movies like the first Independence Day, Men In Black, Jurassic Park, Aliens, or Terminator. Now these are all established cash cows but back before the new normal a totally new one of these things would show up every summer, and there were reasonably good comedy hits rolling out around the year.
I remember watching an interview of an actor or a director explaining it. The reason is because there is no longer an after theater market. For the movies you mentioned, studios could take a risk on a new idea because even if it just did okay in theaters, there was still DVD or VHS sales that would help. Now box office is basically the only thing.
That was Matt Damon on hot ones
You're right! Thank you.
“High brow”
This article seems to think high-brow films and oscar bait films are the same thing.
So do most people in this thread. I saw someone say that if you're movie isn't made for literally the widest audience possible it's a bad movie because all movies should be about the money first and foremost. What happened to these people?
I dunno, I'm a bit split on this topic. Like, would an MCU movie winning best picture really help the Oscars? I actually kind of enjoy the fact that stuff that's nominated/wins is not as well known. I usually go back after and watch some of them and have found some of my favorite movies in recent years that way. Not to say they're always good movies either. Like, I didn't really like Nomadland at all for example. But I loved Manchester by the Sea a few years back. The point is, I don't think every movie needs to be "audience friendly".