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Highbrow Films Aimed at Winning Oscars Are Losing Audiences


A year ago, Hollywood was desperate to see Oscar-winning films like “Licorice Pizza” and “Nightmare Alley.” straight ahead at the box office. The day seemed to have finally arrived when prestige films were no longer viable in theaters and streaming changed cinema forever.

But the studios raised their hopes, deciding that November 2022 would give a more accurate market result. By then, the coronavirus won’t be such a complicating factor. This fall will be the “last stop,” as some say, an opportunity to show that it’s not just superheroes and sequels that can succeed.

It was massacred.

Adult movies, in turn, have been Can’t find an audience? large enough to justify their cost. “Armageddon time” cost approximately $30 million to produce and market and grossed $1.9 million at the North American box office. “tar” spend at least $35 million, including marketing; ticket sales totaled $5.3 million. Universal spent about $55 million on production and marketing.”She speaks,” also grossed $5.3 million. “conscientious” cost over $100 million and generated $14 million in ticket sales.

Even one box office charmer, Steven Spielberg, got off to a dull start. “Fabelman’s house,” based on Spielberg’s teenage years, grossed $5.7 million after four weeks of limited screening. Its budget is $40 million, excluding marketing.

What is happening?

It’s not the quality that matters: The reviews are exceptional. Instead, “people have become more comfortable watching these movies at home,” said David A. Gross, a film consultant who has published a book. news on box office revenue.

Ever since Oscar-directed movies started appearing on streaming services in the late 2010s, Hollywood has worried that such films will one day disappear from theater clusters. The diminishing importance of the big screen was highlighted in March, when a streaming movie, “CODA” from Apple TV+, won the award for the first time. Oscar for best picture.

It’s not just a matter of money: Hollywood sees this change as an affront to their identity. Cinema power players have long clung to the illusion that the world of culture revolves around them, as if it were 1940. But that illusion is hard to sustain when their lone measure — people sitting in a chair — revealed that the masses couldn’t be bothered to come and see the movies they appreciated the most. Hollywood equates this with cultural mismatch.

Sure, a core crowd of moviegoers is still emerging. “until,” focusing on Mamie Till-Mobley, whose son, Emmett Till, was murdered in Mississippi in 1955, has grossed $8.9 million in the United States and Canada. That’s not for nothing for an emotionally challenging film. The Banshees of Inisherin, a dark comedy with accented dialogue, also brought in $8 million, with overseas ticket buyers contributing an additional $20 million.

Searchlight Pictures said: “While it is clear that the theatrical film market has not fully recovered, we have seen ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’ continue to perform strongly and capture conversation among moviegoers. ,” Searchlight Pictures said in a statement. “We firmly believe that there will be room in theaters for films that can offer audiences a wide variety of cinematic experiences.”

However, cross attention is almost always the goal, as highlighted by the amount of money that movie companies are spending on some of these productions. For example, “Till” cost at least $33 million to produce and market.

And remember: Cinemas keep about half of ticket sales.

The hope is for results that are more consistent with “Queen.” Starring Viola Davis as the leader of an all-female African warrior group, The Woman King grossed nearly $70 million in domestic theaters ($92 million worldwide). It cost $50 million to produce and tens of millions more to bring to market.

Oscar-directed dramas rarely become blockbusters. Even so, these films used to do well at the box office. The World War I movie “1917” grossed $159 million in North America in 2019 and $385 million worldwide. In 2010, Black Swan, starring Natalie Portman as an amnesiac ballerina, grossed $107 million ($329 million worldwide).

Most studios either declined to comment on this article or make comforting statements about being proud of the hit dramas they’ve released recently, regardless of ticket sales.

The unwillingness to engage publicly on this issue may reflect the annual prize race. Having a candidate labeled box office burn isn’t a great thing to gather votes for. (The Oscar nominations will be announced on January 24.) Or maybe it’s because behind the scenes, the studios still seem to be searching for answers.

Ask 10 different specialty film executives to explain box office returns and you’ll get 10 different answers. Recently, there have been too many dramas in theaters, leading to cannibalism; there are too few, leaving audiences looking for options on streaming services. Everyone is busy watching the World Cup on television. No, it was dramas like “The Crown” that undercut these films.

Some are still blaming the coronavirus. But that doesn’t hold water. According to box office analysts, citing surveys, although initially reluctant to return to theaters, the majority of older audiences went to theaters as a safe activity from the virus. Nearly 60% of Woman King ticket buyers are over the age of 35, according to Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Hollywood considers anyone over the age of 35 to be “old,” and these are the people who often come to watch TV series.

Perhaps it is more nuanced? A longtime studio executive suggested, but older audiences have returned. delicate Older audiences aren’t — in part because some of their favorite art-house theaters are closed and they don’t want to mingle with the movie theater crowds. (He’s serious. “Too many people, most likely to encounter a sticky floor.”)

Others see a problem with the content. Most films that are struggling at the box office fail, coming at a time when audiences want to escape. Check out the successful spring launch of the hit movie “Everything, Anywhere, All At Once,” which grossed $70 million in North America. Baz Luhrmann’s gorgeous Elvis brought in $151 million in domestic ticket sales.

Jeanine Basinger, film scholar, said: “People like to call it ‘escape’, but it’s not. “It is entertainment. By the way, it can be a serious topic. But when movies get too introspective, like so many Oscar-winning films these days, audiences are forgotten.

“Give us a laugh or two in there! When I think about going out to see the misery, degradation, racism and all the other wrong things in our lives, I’m too depressed to put my coat on,” she said. Basinger, author of the latest book, “Hollywood: The Oral History,” co-written with Sam Wasson, arrived last month.

Some studio executives insist that gross box office gross is an old-fashioned way of gauging whether a film is generating a financial return. For example, Focus Features has evolved its business model over the past two years. The company’s movies, including “Tár” and “Armageddon Time,” are now available for video-on-demand rental — at a premium price — after just three weeks in theaters. (Previously, theaters had an exclusivity period of about 90 days.) Focus said the proceeds from its high-end home rentals are substantial, though it declined to provide financial information for support that assertion.

The worry in Hollywood is that such efforts will remain unsuccessful — that the corporations that own specialized studios will decide that there are not enough profits from the hit movies hitting theaters to continue their release. them that way. Disney owns the Search Lights. Comcast owns Spotlight. Amazon owns United Artists. The CEOs of these companies love being invited to the Oscars. But they prefer profit.

“The good news is that we now have a very large streaming business that we can take and redirect that content to those channels,” said Bob Chapek, a former Disney executive, at a public event on November 8, referring to film prestige. (Robert A. Iger, who was back to running Disneymay feel different.)

Others continue to advocate patience. Gross points out that “The Fabelmans” will hit more theaters next month, hoping to capitalize on the buzz of awards — it’s a leading contender for the best picture Oscar in 2023 — and the holidays. year-end ceremony. Damien Chazelle’s Babylon, a drug and sex fever dream about early Hollywood, is scheduled for wide release on December 23.

“I think movies will come back,” Spielberg recently told The New York Times. “I really do.”

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