Movies are on a downward trend in the box office, with Indiana Jones, Pixar's Elemental, and Dreamwork's Teenage Kraken fumbling and losing millions of dollars. - FOLLOW ME: Twitter ► / zeepsterd Instagram► / zeepsterd
Spiderverse, Puss in Boots 2, and Top Gun Maverick succeeded in the box office and to me that says to me that it isn't "people getting tired of the movie theaters", it says to me that post-pandemic people are more picky of what they see in the theater. You can't make millions off of "just okay" anymore
@@CosmicSponge2004 Indeed, Illumination has always invested heavily in its marketing. Which probably helps their (usually) mediocre movies a lot. I just hope other studios don't adopt the "Illumination approach" as a fix. Because that would just mean more bad movies that make money in spite of their quality. But eh, maybe that's looking at it a little too pessimistically. Perhaps these flops will inspire studios to be more innovative and try new things! ...hopefully.🌻
this is why the studios need to takes risks and make something unique instead of taking the boring and easy way instead sure you might lose millions but SO IS TAKING THE EASY WAY
People aren't getting tired of movies, People are getting tired of BAD movies. With the horrid state of the economy plus people being more conscious of how filthy public places can be, we're more selective of what we decide to see in theaters
im kinda glad the only movies that are doing well are the ones where the writers are given time to actually create a good product. artistry is being rewarded rn and here's hoping that'll lead to more artistry in the future
@@eduardomorales4324 I dunno if this was sarcastic or not, but the Mario movie looked like a 7/10 at worst, AKA pretty good when compared to its competition
@@vinniehatcher664 It's an okay 'dumb summer movie'. But in the general theater slowdown we're seeing right now, it was carried by it's IP license. If it were just another generic illumination film, I don't think it would have done nearly as well.
@@vinniehatcher664 Glad that you and a lot of fans of the franchise enjoyed the movie. I just find it hard to call a movie like that “artistic” or to say that movies with high artistry are getting the big paychecks. Sure, Spiderverse is doing great, but movies like Mario or Fast X did much better so let's not kid ourselves.
Standards are rising along with movie ticket prices. Spider-Verse raised the bar so ridiculously high for animation that we don't have patience for the safe, corporate stuff anymore. Movie theater tickets are so expensive now, we've become a lot more picky now.
I'm honestly not sure about that. Like, movie tickets HAVE gotten pricier, but not to quite such an insane degree. Adjusting for inflation, a movie ticket in 2000 was 9.71. I paid 12.50 for a matinee recently. So basically we're looking at around 2-3 dollars more per person adjusting for inflation over the last 23 years. 3-5 dollars if you go at non matinee times. That IS significant, mind you. But I think the bigger issue, and the one that no theater price cut beat, is that renting a movie costs the same whether one person is going to watch it or ten. Then you can add in the hassle of going to a theater, especially here in the US where that is inevitably going to be a dedicated car ride, probably an entire evening out, which means budgeting for a meal as well.
@@Bustermachine I think it's largely dependent on where you live. I used to go as a kid when tickets were 8 dollars a pop, now they're 12-15 base price. Doesn't matter if it's a weekend or weekday, busy or not.
@@Bustermachine Honestly it's not worth going to see a film at premiere. Tickets around me are costing $13 just for basic matinee. Majority of the time I just wait till Sunday for tickets to be $8 or Tuesday where the tickets are $5.25. Inflation has gotten really bad for theaters.
@@debrarenfro1452in my town tickets are $5 on tuesdays. even for new block busters. and another theater has then for $6 on wednesdays. it’s not that expensive
As someone who worked both the last summer and the current summer in a movie theater, there is a stark difference between the two. Last summer the weekends would be packed with people but this summer the weekends are as dead as the weekdays. It’s pretty sad tbh.
@@AggressiveSpaghetti A combination of digital streaming, insane inflation, social media & gaming becoming the dominant form of entertainment and ridiculous theater costs. It's forcing people and families to be stingier with the movies they see, as movies themselves are no longer a fun time-waster on weekends - but a monthly event you save money for.
@@anonymous-hz2un Elemental is a solid 7 or 8 out of ten. It's not the best Pixar's ever made, but it's also no the worst by. It's even a good looking movie, just more subtle than extravagant. But these days a movie has to be a real visual spectacle to get people's butts into seats and justify a theater ticket. The truth is, with the rise of streaming, I don't think a LOT of past great movies would have done well releasing today. People have gotten used to just waiting for it to come out on streaming platforms. On those platforms can't recoup the cost of production at the rate people want big budget films to be produced.
I agree. I feel like every movie that comes out around the summer just bombs hard. I didn’t even know Ruby Gilman came out even though I saw 2 ads, both of which were just the trailer. And don’t even get me started with Elemental. I saw a bunch of ads for it, but I never watched it because it’s the same movie we’ve seen time and time again. Spiderverse actually did good (despite the bad working conditions)
I'm kinda bot excited n worried cuz of teenage kraken complete failure Dreamworld will legit abandon the standard 3d animation art style and will completely go wif the "spiderverse" animation art style
I think that since theatre trips are getting more expensive, and also the fact that movies get on streaming quickly nowadays, they’re only going to see movies they really want to see such as spider-verse, and the others they just wait to release on streaming
Just the fact that it’s a trip, a chore. Gives me time to end up not feeling like it plus its a lesser experience. Big screen doesn’t outweigh freedom and immersion. Hard to be immersed with other people making noise
i don’t entirely agree. my city has $5 tuesdays at a theater, even for new block busters. i think it’s the releasing on streaming so soon is what’s killing the theater
The Percy Jackson one is needed IMO. The original movies were so bad the author tells people not to watch them. It’s a nice second chance for a series that has always deserved TV attention
The movies were bad. They weren't as bad as his books became after a point. He milked his own franchise to absolute oblivion. So i find it hypocritical he is so judgemental about the directors when he's basically doing the same thing to his own work for more money..
Yes, thank you! Of course the big studios won't want to spend a ton of money into franchises that weren't successful on the box office, I get it, but it is absolutely what they shoud be doing. I mean, the Golden Compass movie was a pretty big failure, but HBO's His Dark Matherials? Amazing. The original Dune movie? Eh. The new one? Great. I hope Percy Jackson can have the same luck.
I doubt its going to be good anyways... Producers and investors are so touchy on projects anymore that I doubt that its going to be accurate to the source material.
I’m so tired of seeing videos saying “theaters are dead”, “all movies flop now”, or “blockbusters are over”. That’s not the case at all! There are just SO MANY movies coming out nowadays, and theaters are getting more and more expensive, the result is just that people are just getting more selective. If something doesn’t grab their interest, they aren’t gonna go see it and that’s totally fair (especially when taking the price into account)! Spiderverse, GOTG3, Puss in Boots and Top Gun have all been box office hits because they grabbed people’s attention and were well made films that kept drawing audiences in. Indiana Jones 5, The Flash, Elemental, and Ruby Gilman were all just mid, and their marketing didn’t grab people, that’s all it is. Plus not only did Spiderverse just come out like a month ago (and everyone’s been going out to see it), but in a few weeks, Oppenheimer and Barbie are releasing on the same day, and I feel that a ton of people are going to go see both (both for the memes, and because they both look good). TLDR, blockbusters aren’t dead, and theaters aren’t dead, you just can’t win people over with mid-tier films anymore, people have caught onto it, and I personally think that’s a very good thing! It hopefully means that we’re at a turning point where studios will actually realize that the smartest course of action for future movies is to slow down and focus on quality over quantity. Trying to bring people in with clever ideas and concepts, rather than just quippy jokes and flashy visuals.
I think allot of people are sick of cinemas tho. Its more of a chore and allot of us have entertainment systems at home. It feels kinda scammy like they have just kinda convinced people that the theater provides a better experience but bullshit. How many times did u miss some shit cuz u had to pee or someone with a baby ruined the movie? We need to quit kidding ourselves. That shits annoying
Going to the cinema is like going to a theatre performance, sports event or live music show, there will always be an audience for it. If you don’t care for it, that’s fine, but a lot of people are willing to put up with the issues in order to get a collective experience with a crowd, which is impossible to get sitting on a couch at home. I think it’s fully possible that the amount of movie theaters will decrease in the coming decade(s), but I fully believe that going to the theater will always remain a consistent form of entertainment in society (especially when you consider not only how prevalent other forms of crowd entertainment are, like live shows and sports events, but also how theatre has remained prevalent in society since like Ancient Rome).
I think guardians of the galaxy vol 3 and across the spiderverse really proved that people arent getting superhero fatigue, theyre getting tired of these movies being done poorly and lazily with 0 heart put into them.
As someone who loves GoTG and ADORED GOTG3, I think the whole reason that it did so well wasn’t that it was better (which it definitely was!) than the other MCU movies that have come out since Endgame, but it’s also a conclusion movie to one of the MCU’s most popular groups, and seems to be many people’s “bowing out” point from the MCU. I think people are just tired of following it tbh
I agree that we are not tierd of superheros but lazy writing and same formula but,for me at least,there's definitely a fatigue for this "shared/cinematic universe" stuff. I think the reason I loved GOTG and spider verse so much it's because they focused on the characters and they tell they're OWN STORY instead of being a little piece of a puzzle in a big universe witch right now has no idea of what he's doing.
The problem is the death of movies with reasonable budgets. Most blockbusters have to be one of the biggest box office successes of all time to even break even. Raiders of the Lost Arc was such a massive hit because it was made for only $20 million, Dial of Destiny cost nearly as much to make as Raiders made at the box office.
The two Spiderverse series is actually pretty cheap compared to other animated/superhero movies, with the budget just clocking in between $90-100 million per movie. And i think that's at least one of the keys to their success so far. Like, Into the Spiderverse made about $390 million, roughly as much as Black Adam. But what made ITSV a success and Black Adam a bomb was that Sony didn't pump $260 million in the hopes they'd do Avatar numbers. And that doesn't even take advertising into account. And right now, we're seeing Across the Spiderverse already making back $600 million as of writing this.
@@marionann6746 Yeah! Puss in Boots the last wish was also made affordably with a 90 million dollar budget, about half that of what the original puss in boots over a decade ago cost, and thats not even accounting for inflation! But even then that won't save a movie if its not fundementally strong. I mean Ruby Gillman Teenage Kraken, Dreamworks newest movie is even cheaper at just 70 million to make. They probably new it wasn't gonna be as strong but man that movie has NOT done well. But also I gotta say I really hope this doesnt mean studios will then begin screwing their workforce over even more. Like making a good movie on a smaller budget is good but only if the people involved in making it are rewarded fairly for their work.
But most midbudget movies lost money that's why the studios that specialized in them went out of business or had one big tentpole franchise to float them the rest of the year
@@drdewott9154 That's a really good point about the workforce. I mean, Across the Spiderverse has gotten controversy over some behind the scenes mistreatment of their workers. As much as I appreciate Spiderverse, I do hope this sort of thing doesn't become the industry standard. I mean, look at how Japan severely underpays their animators. As for Ruby Gillman, I think its failure had more do with Universal botching the marketing. Like, Dreamworks has made plenty of mid level kids schlock before, but that's never stopped Trolls and The Croods from being profitable shlock. At the very least, I think there's more going on with the movie's failure than being mediocre.
I remember after the success of Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, all the comments revolving around Teenage Kraken were optimistic, saying people were super excited and that Dreamworks was so clever for making fun of Disney with their mermaid villain, and that everyone was excited to see it.... This didn't age well it seems.
I honestly think the youtube professional opinion havers are devolving into conspiracy theorists trying to find specific determinate reasons why some movies succeed and some fail purely on the merits of the films themselves.
I was disappointed how by the books it was. With how heavily the trailers leaned on the mermaids vs krakens thing, I was hoping they would give Chelsea some hidden depths as a twist, but no, she was just a generic manipulative baddie.
Just today I’ve seen the OG Little Mermaid and honestly I really liked it. I think most of the hate directed towards the movie are from people who misunderstand stuff as “she gave up everything for a man!” when the more you analyze the situation is a bit more complex than that. I think simply copying and pasting Ariel’s design and making her evil is not an interesting idea and it’s clear they’re doing this out of spite
@@malenaavalos7829 Dreamworks also likes subverting expectations too... Usually the mermaids are the heroes and krakens are the scary villain monsters. They switched it up this time.
The thing is, Dial of Destiny has the second best opening in the franchise. It's not that they're making too little money, it's that they're putting too much money on the table.
Kind of weird how the more visually and theatrically impressive movies can cost so much less than the mediocre ones. Puss In Boots 2 had a budget of about 90 to 110 million while Elemental had a budget of about 200 million. Almost if not more than twice the budget. Yet Puss In Boots is more visually diverse and unique and stands out a lot more while Elemental looks very basic by comparison. It's pretty but not eye catching that makes you glued to the screen like Puss.
Teenage Kraken feels like a weird mix of anything related to the basic idea of a Kraken hiding as a normal teenie: - "haha she is blue but everyone things she is a human haha" - well if the Kraken are the good guys lets make the mermaids evil (Sirens & Nixies leave the room unseen) - oh lets copy becomign red and give her magical puberty - oh lets give her a boyfriend but *plot twist* he doesnt know that shes a Kraken the thing whhich annoys me the most (alongside they spoilered this whole basic plot) is that: SHE HAS 5 LIMBS, WHY?! Octodopes have 8 (which are called Kraken in some languages) and giant squids have 10 WHY 5
Usually cartoon cephalopods are shown with less than 8 limbs (Squidward, Hank, Ursula, etc.) because it’s easier to animate. But yeah 5 is a pretty weird number. If it were 6 like usual it’d at least be even.
Yeah I just had no idea why it sounds interesting haha it sounds like they used an automatic idea generator or ai or something to come up with plot or ads (or both)
Ruby Gillman's marketing was horrendous. Giving the first teaser only 3 months before it's theatre release. Along with Indiana Jones 5. They released early reactions one MONTH in advance. Which I think was purposeful because Disney wants a reason to fire Kathleen Kennedy without everyone claiming sexism.
Honestly, Kathleen should've been fired either after Solo bombing or Rise of Skywalker underperforming - by that point, everyone knew or would've known that it wasn't a sexism issue but a management issue, and that she needed to go.
A big reason WALL-E works so well is that it tells a love story WITHOUT DIALOGUE. The first act of the movie has no dialogue outside of the characters saying their names and the occasional ad slogan from Buy N Large. The entire setting and plot setup is delivered through “show, don’t tell” in a charming manner. That’s why WALL-E works so well.
I think this is actually less about plot/bad movies and more about other factors. It's easy to forget this when we are as into film and their plot and decisions as we are, but most people don't know the plot going into the film and don't know much about continuities and director drama. Lots of people even really enjoy movies despite them being flawed (crazy I know). I think that it's more a mix of the current bad economy and access to streaming services. People don't go to the theater anymore because they have less money to go around, and it's going to hit D+ or some other streaming service in a month or two anyways. Also just Spiderverse. It's hard to describe how well this movie is doing and it has completely taken over theaters. There's less overall cinema visits to go around, cinema revenue is down 25% from 2019 vs 2022, and lots of the summer ticket sales are going to Spiderverse because its the big thing everyone is talking about.
This is absolute nonsense puss in boots both Spider-Man films top gun avatar 2 for goodness sake all prove that everything you said is foolish when are people going to accept the fact that pushing agendas in movies is a big deal
Yes. I had to make an active financial decision just to watch the Spiderverse, because if I don't, I fear that I might bury myself in debt because of rising electricity and food prices.
Disney+ first aired in November 2019. Most people who're already subscribed to D+ know that every Disney, Pixar, Marvel, and Star Wars movie will be released to the service within 1-3 months. Disney+ was also released in November 2019. Consumer trends seem to be shifting, which is a constant.
Puss in Boots 2 made 6 million in its first 2 days. It had to crawl it's way to 480 million. Nowadays, you have to wait and see if a movie will crawl its way to success, unless it has iconic levels of fan loyalty. People just sit at home and watch pirated youtube clips of new releases. One thing helping dreamworks is that their film budgets are lower than others.
The circumstances puss in boots 2 faced are rare though. Look at every movie recently that underperformed. They didn’t manage to crawl back up after a bad opening weekend like puss did. They kept stuck at the bottom. That or they either did really well on their opening weekends but fell off hard afterwards
I think Covid made people realize they should treat going to the theater as a bigger deal. They'll likely only be going for things that get really good word of mouth or the initial premise has something unique about it
i won't be shock if dune part 2 ended up wining a shit load of money despite beeing mostly slow because at least it look diferent from the competition plus it was made to be exclusive for imax like top gun maverick and avatar 2
@@acutelilmint8035 yes. Sure it wasn't a mega hit like no way home, but it earn its money back (since despite the looks it wasn't an over budget production like indiana jones or transforners) and it was really a streaming delight in HBOMAX. Plus outside of a hunger games spinn off no one ask for, it barelly has competition on november
I think that both Oppenheimer and Barbie will do very well when they come out. They seem original enough and well done in a way that might get more people into theatres.
Also the trend a lot of people are doing (myself included) is seeing them both on the same day which will definitely help their chances at the box office
These movies are failing for three reasons - terrible marketing campaign - costing a lot - being sandwiched between two highly anticipated movies (Across the Spiderverse on one side, Barbie on the other)
People are definitely still willing to go to the theatres for a good movie. Spiderverse and John Wick 4 were both highly anticipated and received well.
The reason Morbius was such a big talk on the internet is because it was historically bad in terms of what we expect from blockbusters. A teacher once said to me "bad advertisement is also advertisement", and that's correct. Bad is still fascinating and something worth the money to see just how awful it could be. Boring movies are nothing but white noise that you would rather just skip, because all you're missing is the 2 hours you could've spent watching it instead of literally anything else.
This is something I've been noticing recently too. Or rather, I HAVEN'T been noticing. I genuinely don't even know these movies exist until people are complaining about them on youtube. Half of the problem is probably that people rock ad-blockers or pay for add free experiences these days. But honestly, I don't know where the heck all this marketing money is going XD
Poor writing quality is the major problem. The prior generation of writers cut their teeth writing in other mediums. Many were playwrights and novelists turned screenwriters. They learned the basics of their craft and how to tell compelling narrative with bare bone essentials. The current generation of writers never had to expose their skills so nakedly. They have had the luxury of high production values and VFX in the digital era to lean on like a crutch and it's showing.
you're identifying the problem correctly but not the cause, which is horrible working conditions. VFX is overused because their workers aren't unionized, and thus extremely cheap, and writers are just. i assume you have heard about the WGA strike. the popular reason is AI outpacing writers. the REAL reason is predatory contracts, bad pay, and general exploitation of workers. highly recommend looking into it, it's a really interesting topic
@@theworldlookswhite AI is barely a factor in the writer's strike. The Media has completely overblown that angle of the strike because it's sensational. But I stand by my opinion that current screenwriters have grown up in an era when VFX and high production values have been able to carry movies for them. The notion of a Paddy Chayefsky or Billy Wilder emerging from today's crop of screenwriters is pretty slim. That generation had to find a voice outside of screenwriting which enriched their writing immeasurably.
@@badpuppy3 I think the problem is more nuanced than that. Or rather, there's room for a lot of different overlapping causes. What you say here is part of it, though I have hard time blaming individual writers given that a lot of employment pipeline is beyond their control. The way I see it, some of the big problems are - 1. There's a sort of red queen's race currently taking place in the streaming wars. Studios are burning huge amounts of money pushing every increasing amounts of 'content' as quickly as possible. Quantity matters more to them than quality, just to have something new to throw up on the splash page every week. It's an insane attempt at infinite, unsustainable growth that's just exhausting everyone so executives can squeeze out another bonus. 2. Streaming is also turning out to be not nearly as profitable as was previously imagined, but the big ticket spectacle shows and movies are still viewed as necessary to get people to subscribe and thus to bring in operating revenue. But it's not enough, it's stemming the bleeding rather than making money. 3. At the same time, the low end of sitcoms and mid budget dramas, the life blood of old school television, have struggled to find a place on streaming services. Much of what is hosted is legacy shows from broadcast. Things like the Office, or old episode of Law Order, Monk, Suits, etc . . . 4. Mid budget and sitcoms were where a lot of writers cut their teeth and got experience. You were doing lots of small and complete stories, with a clearly defined beginning, middle, and end, and as you say, you couldn't rely as much on VFX. It was phenomenal practice and work experience. But now season episode counts are shrinking. What use to be 24 episode season are now 12, 10, or even 8. Rather than doing a limited series though, where a complete closed story could be told, they still pretend shows will go for multiple seasons. 5. As spectacle has increased, its become expected, and honestly at this point tiring. We can basically put anything you could imagine on the screen. So what? That's alone is not special anymore, but it is still tempting. We know we want good writing, much like we know we want a satisfying meal but that would require us to take a risk and step outside our comfort zone. The bag of Cheetohs is open right in front of us, so we don't seek out smaller well written stories. 6. The sheer quantity of stuff is also just overwhelming at this point and has contributed to a sort of fatigue. When everything is trying to feel special . . . nothing feels special. 'Epic' is a word that now means nothing. Streaming makes it trivial to saturate ourselves, to wonder off from a show or movie in the middle, or to fast forward past a slow but necessary piece of pacing. The sad thing is, I really enjoyed Elemental. It wasn't perfect, but it also wasn't bad. I didn't anything about it was insincere, although some of it was corny. And part of the enjoyment was the ritual of actually going to the theater, sitting down, and dedicating two hours of my life to watching this THING I'd never seen before. It was honestly the best Saturday I've had in years.
Back in 2008, a night at the movies might cost $5, $10 with snacks. Now, it's more like $25-$30. At that price point, I'd rather just wait for the movie to come out on DVD and watch it at home... without hearing other people's kids talking through the movie or the annoyance of people's cell phones buzzing, dinging, and whatever every two seconds while sitting in a sticky seat in a room with a badly-configured sound system.
This is actually a good trend for movies moving forward. Viewers are actually voting with their dollar for quality, and the film industry is only going to get motivated to improve their work as a result.
Something I don’t get is everyone is acting like dreamworks is now this perfect studio Just because of bad guys and puss and boots 2 and to that I’ll say that they’ve always have had a mixed output For every Shrek 2 you get a shark tale For every captain underpants the first epic movie you get a boss baby For every kung fu panda 3 you get a trolls And for every mega mind you get a monsters vs aliens So the fact that ruby gillmen isn’t doing that well critically at least makes sense for this studio
@@ghoulbuster1 I mean yeah I guess but the story is really played out like elementals I’m a teenage girl who’s trying to fit in mixed with a Kalju Fight
It's insane, it's true that inflation makes older films look less expensive but still, even after adjusting, they're rarely over half of what the average film costs now.
When you watch it and compare it to modern superhero movies (besides GOTG 3 and ATSV) you sense a drop in passion of these movies being made throughout the years.
it is kind of funny that the new Spiderverse is one of the only films that actually succeeded at a time where every movie hits historic lows, talk about breaking the cannon
Actually if u dig deeper.. u will know spiderverse artist were poorly treated. A lot of abuse. And it shouldn’t be cheered cause now the artist are saying they can’t make the 2024 deadline.. it’s impossible. The entire industry is crap.. just some aspects are prettier than other..but in general artist are being f in the ass with deadlines
A mild correction: 2022 was also a really bad year for movies. Roughly HALF of the American Box Office was split between two movies: Top Gun 2 and Avatar 2. Essentially, instead of people watching multiple movies everyone decided to watch the same two movies, so while Top Gun and Avatar did well, everything else did terrible.
To me, Teenage Kraken looks like a 3D animated version of the generic corporate characters Facebook, Google and a bunch of giant companies love to use.
@@HelloHelloe I think you’re trolling but I wanna share my 2 cents anyways. Any political propaganda/pandering- no matter from which direction- will flop. If movies make it a huge deal that a character is lgbt (in the over-the-top rainbow capitalism fashion- not just having a good character that happens to be lgbt), then homophobes will think its “brainwashing” and the lgbt audience will not watch bc of “bad rep”. If movies are racist or anything along those lines, people will avoid it or just hate on it (think “Oye Primos”) because most people just don’t want to watch that stuff. People just need a good story (bonus points for good visuals) and they’ll get the cash they’re so hungry for.
I hope we get more good original blockbusters. More movies like Jaws, they could make some money if they're smart about marketing. Nope has been the most recent original blockbusrer.
As a hard-core movie buff, I welcome the imminent demise of Hollywood. I want smaller scale, creative movies in the spirit of the old B movies. You know, when movies were fun.
I think a larger problem is just that these studios are overspending. Both Elemental and that new Indiana Jones film had production budgets that exceeded 200 million dollars! That's an insane number to try to break even after marketing costs as well. Your movie has to be borderline spectacular or a meme to go in the black with those costs
Movies need to stop trying to appeal to “everyone” and go back to making movies that have target audiences. It’s ok to make a musical targeting young female viewers. It’s alright to make a superhero movie targeting young/teen males… more inclusive you get the more distant the movie feels for everyone.
It gets even worse when movies that appeal to everyone, try so hard to be inclusive that they never try to write their characters as their own uniquely interesting people. It is depressing to watch when writers care so much about inclusion brownie points, that they never think about putting any effort into making Rey and Finn compelling heroes to watch in their own right. It means they just see characters as an empty vessel to please the DEI - Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Not Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated, which is a much better DEI to have.
I like how nearly everybody on the internet saw Elemental’s ratings and were like “HA! TAKE *THAT* DISNEY!” But now two other high anticipated movies got bad ratings, and everybody is like “wait, something’s wrong here”
Complacency, that’s what’s killing Hollywood. Instead of searching for new and fresh ideas like they did in the old days they are now just content with telling a generic story with no style only if it’s tied to an established franchise. Modern movies care more about cameos and actors returning than actual twists and turns with the modern actors
So, where does all this leave Christopher Norfleet? Isn’t there like a……notebook to write and draw on or a bowl of ice cream..or does it leave me heartbroken with nothing to do.
I think it's corona + streaming platforms too. Why should you go to an expensive movie where people behave badly when you can just wait a bit to watch it in a stream.
Also, I feel like the marketing campaigns for these movies was quite bad since I didn't even know that any of these existed until at least a few days after they released
that's not even what Elemental was about, though? like the romance aspect is there and obviously a big part... but their families don't disapprove?? ember's dad just hates water and water people in general and wade's family is very welcoming of ember. the movie IS about a second generation immigrant trying to figure out what she wants to do with her life without disappointing her family, but also wanting to do her own thing.
There's a myriad of factors at play as to why blockbusters have been tanking recently. Inflation is causing costs to greatly outpace salaries, forcing most to be more conscious of their spending. Most major IPs have been extremely mismanaged and even downright disrespected for the past 8 years, leading to a breach in trust between audiences and film studios. Movies budgets have become increasingly more bloated, leading to producers playing it too safe, and releasing forgettably generic blockbusters. And of course, the extremely polarizing messaging and marketing tactics that have emerged in the last few years that's conditioned a lot of us to write off a ton of cinema before it's even released. Now, not all movies have been bombing, but it's clear that only a select few are actually turning a profit and being regarded positively as of late (The Northman, EEAAO, The Batman, Top Gun Maverick, The Whale, Avatar: The Way of Water, Puss in Boots: the Last Wish, Creed III, the Super Mario Bros. Movie, Across the Spider-Verse, etc). What do all of these films have in common? They prioritize humble storytelling, innovate, and give the audience exactly what they want. I don't think the blockbuster is dead (yet..), but we're certainly in an era similar to the 70s, where only the best of the best are making any capital
I'm just happy that Spider-man ATSV is still dominating. It deserves everything right now, and I hope other animated studios keep taking notes in how to make new movies that can stand out on their own. I'll wait and see how the new Ninja Turtles dropping on theaters in a month will put that further into practice. Because these innovative animation styles are absolutely limitless, unlike PIXAR always trying to achieve photorealism to the point it doesn't look interesting anymore.
I Think another reason (as least to me) is that it getting harder to spend on entertainment. With stuff like gas prices ,housing, and major importance of living/transportation going up not to mention jobs hour’s being cut it is getting a little bit harder for most people to choose what type of entertainment is worth spending money over or pacifically finding cheaper alternatives than the ladder to still enjoy being entertain. especially if it’s worth both their time and money that could be spent on other important things. It kind of sucks too because personally I kinda wanna support these movies but I don’t sacrifice my time & money if there are other things that I was looking forward to buying/spending time & worth it or just basically paying a major bill or just wait for it to be on streaming (Personally I just feel like most people economically are in a bad place right now for this year)
Hollywood doesn't care about making good art but product. I get that at the end of the day Hollywood is a business, but you have to have a worthwhile product for your customer to keep coming back.
It's not that people are tired of movies in theaters, it's the fact there are so many sources of entertainment now, price increases from theaters limit what people deem worth spending their time and money on (namely actual high quality movies like Spider-Verse, GOTG3, etc.). Not everyone is going to want to go spend $50+ for 2 people to go to a movie when it isn't going to be all that fun or good.
I think a big problem too is that a lot of these movies start to do the bulk of their advertising pretty close to the actual release, any movie that I can think of that had me really excited to go out and see it, would build up a sense of excitement over time with only a few short trailers every few months (which didn't just explain the plot of the entire movie, or show the best parts either). I think that's another good way to build hype and get viewers interested
@@chasehedges6775i think they banked on the "animation" rather than story to get sales. I never heard anything about the story as much as how "pretty" it looked
@@chasehedges6775 No. Avatar had the great world building, visuals (that are way more impressive because it's live action) and James Cameron behind it. And the story was good (simple but good)
Studios are failing because they're just regurgitating stuff by now, instead of truly creating something. But... a Percy Jackson reboot is very much needed 😂
Sad part for me is that Dreamworks is my favorite animation studio and they deserve to thrive especially after what theyve shown last year, the marketing was just so terrible that of course people didnt watch Teenage Kraken, I hope this doesnt hurt the idea of original projects in the future and especially KungFuPanda 4.
To be fair, Dreamworks films are always a toss up. They can be great, mid, or horrendous. No one expected Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Kung Fu Panda, or How to Train Your Dragon to be as great as they were. But with Pixar, we always expect greatness. They only have four (now five) films that are honestly mid at best. If Illumination (the guys who spawned Minions) released Elemental, The Good Dinosaur, or Brave, they’d be hailed as the best of their filmography.
The pandemic has hurt the theater experience, increased the acceptability of Streaming, and increased theater prices. With these things and other factors I am likely missing, people are interested in going to the theater if the film works best on the big screen. Instead, most movies now are something you might only watch on the small screen
we don't have movie fatigue, we have garbage fatigue. Honestly cocaine bear is better than the majority of the movies and shows coming out, and that one did not do very well. I just want them to slow down production and make new and interesting films. Into the spiderverse proves that its not only possible, but incredibly doable. Just put some heart into it.
The pinned comment mentioned that Spiderverse, Puss in Boots 2, and Top Gun Maverick all succeeded but it's also critical to note that all of these movies succeeded because of positive word of mouth. It was not a massive opening weekend and then die off, these films demonstrated consistency and even positive growth per week because people told their friends to watch the movies. The pinned comment is right "just okay" is not good enough, you need to be good enough to tell you friends. I like it, it tells me people are being smart consumers and not just buying into marketing hype or IP recognition. Studios need to realize it doesn't matter how famous their franchise is, if they don't put out quality people are eventually going to catch on and stop caring. That's why the MCU (while not unsuccessful by any means) is losing interest and making less money. That's why the MCU tv shows are failing (no one's talking about them), that's why Solo failed, that's why any franchise without quality no longer backing it up will fail. Audiences actually expect quality instead of brand recognition, that should not be too much to ask.
I’m so tired of reboots and sequels. I know they will always be a part of Hollywood but c’mon. Even if you can’t come up with a fresh new idea for a movie, why not at least start adapting more books into movies again?
I watched Teenage Kraken. I actually liked it a lot, and I'm sorry it didn't do better. But I will say that it would have been far better if it had been completely without any dialogue at all. That's a problem I have noticed in so many new animated movies. They tell when they are supposed to show.
I agree, movies treat the audience like they’re a bunch of idiots. Someone can make the excuse that its a kids movie, but even kids can tell when they’re being treated as stupid, and they won’t appreciate that.
im not joking when i say this, if it wasnt for people on the internet constantly bashing these movies shown this year, i would not know these movies even existed, i didnt even know about that teenage kraken movie until i saw this video and only found out there was an indy 5 just the other day and i legit thought it was a shitpost, the lack of marketing these movies had doesnt help at all
First off the theaters are greedy almost 20 dollars for two sodas and a couple handfuls of popcorn is insulting. To go to a place with awful, uncomfortable seating with no legroom (I'm 6-5 i do NOT fit in their seats) deal with rude people half of the time, sticky floors, overbearingly loud sound etc. Meanwhile i have a 76 inch tv and a bose surround. Ill wait till it streams or comes out on blue ray. A theater isnt an exclusive experience anymore.
Indiana Jones 4 is, in my opinion, a much a much more creative, action-packed, and entertaining film than the Dial of Destiny. I don't know how anyone can claim Indy 5 is better than Indy 4.
In my opinion, I think it's because Spider-Man: Across The Spiderverse is skyrocketing at the box office, and my other reason is that people are more used to watching movies on streaming apps. Elemental and Indiana Jones are both examples. They can wait 3-4 weeks, and it will be on Disney+. I'm not sure, what do you think?
That's what I'm doing. My girlfriend is watching through the films for the first time and loving them. All just to prepare to watch dial of destiny when it hits disney +. Although something I would argue is that they aren't pushing people to go watch these films immediately. People could have waited for GOTG3 to come out on D+ but they instead went out in droves to see it in theaters. It's becoming more of a matter of "Do I want to see this now, or wait a month?".
I live directly next to a movie theater and didn't even know Teenage Kraken or a new Indiana Jones even existed. I knew about Element but didn't watch it cause all they show is the guy trying to impress the girl in all the ads, like, I've seen 100 movies like that already.
"Wizard of Oz, because God knows we need a sequel to the 1930s classic." The Wizard of Oz is just one book in a massive book series, I'm honestly surprised people haven't tried to capitalize on it earlier. There's 14 books written by the original author L. Frank Baum alone, and only 3 of those books have been adapted, 2 of which were combined as 1 movie as Return to Oz.
Pixar's Elemental, and Dreamwork's Teenage Kraken deserved better. Very interesting movies with cool animation art styles but unfortunately they were box office bombs for terrible marketing campaign.
I think another thing with movies this summer is that a lot of the plot is revealed in the trailers like Teenage Krakens trailers makes people not want to see the movie if they already know what happens
A movie I was really excited to see was Asteroid City. It was really different from anything I've seen before, it wasn't this crazy massive production, and honestly I can't imagine feeling the same sort of satisfaction with any of the other movies you listed. Even if it was confusing, and weird, it's just nice to have a different experience, where you're not sure what you're gonna get or how you'll feel afterwards.
The blockbuster season NEVER dies. In itself, it's just a question of producing good movies, doing so with a contained budget and a structure that will steal your attention beginning to end. Going with "OK movies" is destined to flop, you will never need to pay for something that can be watched on TV at a fraction of the price without losing anything in terms of entertainment. Audience is picky and has a right to be. You want good money, gimme a darn good movie OR ELSE.
For the superhero part I don't think that its people being tired of seeing the genre i think its the lack of new hero's. I mean I'm a die hard batman fan, but seeing Batman come out every few years with someone else as Batman cause the one before denied the role its always had me weary on how the movie would be. I grew up with watching Christian Bale, and when I seen that Robert Pattinson was gonna play Batman I was like ehhh, idk. But it was a really good movie I loved him in The Batman I ended up at watching it at home but I wish I had gone to see it in the theaters now. And don't get me started on Superman. But I think it would be cool to explore smaller hero's or ones that just deserve a movie like Black Canary from the DC universe. I'm tired of seeing the same heroes put into the same situations or seeing them redone with different actors every now and then. For the Animation, its a shame but its really just become DreamWorks and Pixar trying to outdo each other or at least that's what it feels like for me. I mean the only trailer that i seen for elemental was on tik tok and it was them using stock audio and trying to make it look like the theater was hyped about it cause they KNEW it was gonna flop so bad. I didn't even hear a word about the Kraken movie that DreamWorks put out. And I don't want to shit on the animation studios because I know that they work so hard with shitty ass conditions plus there's the ongoing writers strike that's impacting all of these areas. And the Exec's of the company's are trying to play it safe.
I think what really hurt the box-office this summer is a perfect storm of a lot of things : - Indy 5 came out not only after 4, which was universally panned as the worst Indy movie of the saga, but also after all the criminal mishandling (to stay polite) of Lucasfilm (especially Star Wars) under Kathleen Kennedy. And Indy 5 was very much a Kennedy film, so with all that in mind, adding that Indy is now 80yo, and not as popular a character nowadays than he was in the 80's, it had a VERY steep hill to climb. - Flash had another series of steep hills to climb, namely its lead cast Ezra and all his (actual) criminal charges irl, leading the production not being able to make a worldwide press tour(which is usually the norm for such a big budget superhero movie), which definitely hurts its release, AND the fact that James Gunn already announced that the current DCEU is on its way out, so why the need of going to watch the last few petering farts of a dying universe ? That, and also the word of mouth being just okay, but with some horrible CG in the mix, and you could see why so many people were feeling pretty tepid about going to watch it. -Teenage kraken, I don't know, I haven't seen it myself, but coming recently from Puss in Boots 2, Super Mario, followed by Across the Spiderverse, animation showed us what's possible to do with the medium ! So, going back to a movie with character designs that looks like Strange World ? Nope. - Elemental suffers from a Pavlov's dog syndrom, where all the previous Pixars for the past 3 years (save for Lightyear) went straight to Disney+, so the audience is already used to that model (which is one of the reasons why Lightyear tanked, on top of it not being a great movie), so that's Elemental steep hill to climb, that and the marketing not having done the right job of marketing it as an immigrant story trying to fit in a new big city (could be an interesting angle for an animation movie) rather than a overused Romeo & Juliet story. Also, for all those examples and all the others that are coming out this summer, they had to deal with a surprise element : the fact that the summer opened with Guardians 3 and Across the Spiderverse, 2 absolute masterpieces overflowing with plenty of love, passion, personality and craftsmanship in their making, that basically showed us all what actual great movie looks like. So, following after with generic formulaic blockbuster stories is all the harder to make us, the audience, swallow the pill.
When there are too many blocks busted in such a short period of time, the wall is going to crumble, and nobody likes that. Essentially, because so many movies come out in summer, people are more picky and choosy about what they see and what they wait for until a streaming service uses it. This makes the box office numbers of all the movies suffer. Unless your name is Spiderverse.
I think they just advertised in the wrong spaces as no one has tv anymore and most people use ad block so its kind of a weird time for most stuff. I didn't even know most of these movies came out
something I don't see mentioned much is that there's sort of a spiral when movies don't do well. when a lot of movies stop generating as much money, then studios are much more hesitant to take as many risks and are much more likely to prefer going for a proven formula or franchise films. Ironically this causes oversaturation of movies whose plots we've already seen leading to less interest in current movies in general.
I'm happy this is happening, as a filmmaker myself I feel like companies have violated the art by making it so calculated. Just like social media, it feels like movies these days are more about engineering them in a way that psychologically manipulates kids with cheap tricks instead of making a deeper artistic expression. So I'm glad it's not working, but I worry for the future.
