So Movies are bombing right now.
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Seems like every week now that there's a major release that underperforms at the box off
and recently Disney have had a string of flops that have left the company potentially losing
close to a billion. Elementals has done terribly and now Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny
has opened to just $60 million dollars off the back of what's at least a $300 million
budget.
But what exactly is going on right now?
Well throughout this video we're gonna be going through the key factors and reasons
as to why there's a lot of things at play here that are stopping films from doing well
right now.
Obviously there's a lot to talk about too so if you have you own opinion on it then
drop it in the comments section below and also make sure you hit the thumbs up or down
if you agree or disagree with our thoughts.
With that out the way, I'm your host Paul, now let's get into the video.
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So up top I think it's important to say that you shouldn't just a movie by it's box office.
There's a countless list of films that have done terribly when it comes to takings but
they've been amazing movies overall. Juxtaposing this there's been some right s**t sandwiches
that have made Michael Bay a lot of money and all in all the money doesn't make a movie.
However, Hollywood is a business as well and with investor, shareholders and an industry
reliant on profit you have to make money. Let's say youre a big billionaire and a studio
come to you looking for an investment. If you gave them even $10 million...yes...just
$10 million to go off and make an Indiana Jones movie, you wouldn't want just $15 million
back.
Investors are wanting major returns on their investments and I think this and the Flash
could've potentially killed off the possibility of studios going crazy with their money.
Now first up I think we need to talk about the facts of the situation and what Indiana
Jones brought in opening weekend.
Domestically in the US the movie opened to $60 million with it taking in $70 million
overseas. Coming in at $130 million worldwide that's less than half of the Crystal Skulls
opening back in 2008. That opened to $272 million and adjusted for inflation that's
about £384 million in todays money.
Now we are noticing this trend with Hollywood where so many movies are struggling at the
box office and the first point I wanna talk about is a 'fool me once' mentality that the
audience have.
In general we've hit a point now where there's been so many of these sorts of legacy sequels
where people have left disappointed that they almost don't wanna take the risk anymore.
Now Lucasfilm especially has managed to cause a lot of backlash with Star Wars due to how
they handled the sequel trilogy. I thought that the Dial Of Destiny was ok but I definitely
don't think that it was necessary.
We're at a point now where they've made the quote unquote final indiana jones film three
times now and people might just be worn out by the whole idea. Add to the fact that Jones
isn't exactly a hero that's stayed in the zeitgeist forever and you can see why audience
interest wasn't that high.
Now what I mean by that is that Star Wars was released roughly the same time as the
original trilogy was. These were big successes in the 80s and both did big numbers for George
Lucas. However, Star Wars has managed to maintain an active fan base and this has come with
toys, cons, comics, books, video games, the expanded lore, tv shows and films.
Indiana Jones hasn't and though it's had the odd piece of media drop there's not been this
consistent wave of content to keep people hooked.
I think it's difficult to expect the younger generation to go and see an 80 year old hero
when even 15 year olds probably weren't alive when his last movie came out. Now normally
what studios do when this happens is that they hire younger actors with big following
but Pheobe Waller Bridge hasn't really got a fanbase that's gonna deliver big bucks.
Now there's also the fact that the last film was widely disliked by fans. I know there
will be some people out there who like it but overall I think we can all admit that
the general sentiment towards it was that it was the worst out of the franchise.
When a movie does well then it's sequel normally follows suit and it has to be said that the
MCU has used this in the past to great effect. Avengers Infinity War was of course a massive
movie and then Endgame dropped to an opening weekend of over a billion. Batman Begins wasn't
a crazy hit but people enjoyed it on DVD so much that by the time the sequel came we were
all onboard.
Into the Spider-verse did ok but Across the Spider-verse is where the numbers have really
come in.
You can find these examples in Hollywood everywhere and the opposite is often true of movies that
don't do well. If a film let's people down then it's sequel tends to underperform no
matter how good that people think it is.
Now kinda jumping back to DVDs I think that Hollywood have stupidly eliminated what used
to be one of their big earners.
Back in the day a lot of movies could tank at the box office but then the physical media
market is where studios would recoup things. If a film bombed but it was popular on VHS
or DVD then in the end it didn't really matter. I'm a big collector of 4k blu rays but the
markets almost non existent now and streaming and digital have completely killed it off.
Recently we've seen in some cases where a movie does bad at the box office and then
it gets released on Streaming just 3 weeks later. Sometimes though even if it does ok
they still go that route and to me all it's gonna do is change peoples behaviours. For
example, both Creed 3 and Evil dead released just weeks after showing in cinemas and they
were announced as going digital just the weekend after.
I was gearing up and getting ready to go see em cos I missed the first weekend release
due to being busy.
However when I saw that I thought I could just happily wait another week and sure enough
I just watched the films when I was at home.
Nowadays we know that movies come to digital really quick and streaming services tend to
have a 45 day window. The films that don't do this, i.e. avatar and top gun, they had
success for months just being in the theatre. Now I know that not every movie is gonna be
that big and that studios wanna recoup as much money as they can after that opening
weekend drop off.
However I think overall this has altered peoples habits and again, fool me once, shame on you,
fool me twice, i'll just wait for it to drop digitally in three weeks. Pixar especially
have suffered because of this and they're now seen as a streaming studio which has killed
their movies.
Now there's also the general dislike towards Disney as a brand these days. You only have
to throw a like on this video and then go on the home tab to see not only anti-disney
videos but also anti-kathleen kennedy ones.
Even if this was just 10% of the audience that's still enough to harm the box office
by tens of millions.
Now there's a massive culture war going on right now that Disney have placed themselves
in. Whether you think thats a good or bad thing is up to you but it's always gonna come
with a cost and I think if we're analysing this as best we can then that has to play
in as a factor. I was even weighing up whether to bring it up on this video or not as it
can be a touchy subject but I do think that it at least could be
a factor.
Studios like Paramount and Universal have kept themselves out of it and so far they've
done well by not getting involved.
Again how you come down on that is entirely up to you but it is gonna come with a cost
that costs these films money.
Now Kathleen Kennedy is arguably one of the most disliked execs in any fanbase right now.
Don't quote me on this but I'm sure that the dislike button on Youtube itself got removed
after she did some speech that got millions of them. We've had the sequel trilogy which
has been met with a lot of backlash and so many projects that Lucasfilm have now shelved
because of poor mismanagement.
There's been countless Star Wars movies announced with up and coming directors that have then
been shelved once directors popularity seems to wain. Often put down to creative differences
it seems like complete mismanagement on the studios behalf.
Josh Trank, D&D, Rian Johnson, Patti Jenkins and so on, they've all had star wars films
announced that have either been cancelled or quietly shuffled off the slates. Same thing
seems to be happening with James Mangold too where they announce a movie with them when
the directors seen as the next best thing and then when their next project releases
it causes issues with teh studio.
I'm telling you yeah, that Taika Waititi star wars movie...I will be surprised if that gets
made.
Anyway Kathleen is seen as being bad for the brand and there definitely feels like a section
of the fan base will just boycott anything involved with her.
There has been talk that she could even get fired off the back of this but we'll see.
Her contract runs out in 2024 so they might just let her have some dignity and ride that
out but I think if she stays at the studio then we're gonna run into more problems like
this.
Unfortunately what tends to happen in these situations is that it's the little guys that
suffer and we normally get layoffs lower down the chain rather than at the top. When I've
worked in shops and stuff yeah, if we've hit a point where there's no profit, it's always
janine on the tills who gets minimum wage that gets fired instead of the boss who's
ran the business into the ground. I think that will be the case here too and it will
probably be those lower down the line that get hit.
Now you have exceeded your video rate limit and must now join the channel as a member
to see any more of the video. I'm just kidding. I love ya.
Now on top of Kathleen Kennedy we also have another member of the creative team that could
have caused issues.
You might remember that elements of the film apparently leaked last year and then James
Mangold got into it with people online. Look I totally get it mate, like I get people talking
crap about me but I dont think it ever gives you any positive publicity to engage with
it. All it does is cause a negative aura around your film and you have headlines that thrive
off drama rather than the film itself.
I've argued with people online and then the next day I've woken up regretting it because
in the end it doesn't do anything to benefit you.
I doubt that this had a major major effect on the box office but even a little one is
enough to cost a couple million.
Basically yeah, the point I'm trying to get across in this video is that there's LOTS
of different reasons why the film didn't do well and all these coming together make for
an underperformer.
Now lets say you don't exactly have a lot of positivity around your studio. You wanna
build some hype right?
So what do you do?
Well you screen it for people to get some good word of mouth.
Both Indy and The Flash did this and in the case of both we saw how it backfired.
Flash was shown at cinemacon earlier in the year and Indiana Jones dropped at the Cannes
Film Festival. The former got good word of mouth whereas the latter didn't and indy really
struggled to bat off those negative first reviews. Now I dont wanna say them people
at cannes are snobs yeah...but...I dunno if a film like this wouldve ever done well there.
Them guys like to watch black and white silent movies made in 1912 so the new old man cgi
face movie was always gonna struggle.
Either way though I think showing it this early didn't help either as they both had
to try and maintain the hype for weeks and weeks and weeks.
When the buzz online dies down cos so many have already seen it, it's difficult for the
general audience to feel like they should care.
There's very much this idea of 'well everyones seen it, I've not...it comes out on digital
soon...I can probably wait another couple weeks' which again ties back into our earlier
point.
Those negative reviews clouded the film for weeks and again it was another bad move by
Kathleen Kennedy.
Plus yeah, the movie isn't really that feel good of a story. I think a lot of people wanted
Indy to go out in a blaze of glory. Instead what we get is a movie about a sad old man
and the film takes away from him more than it gives.
That final act you know, I was thinking like...ah they're gonna have the final indiana jones
adventure, it'll be a big swing he'll save the day, it'll be a bombastic end to this
cinema legend. But instead what we get is him getting knocked out and then waking up
three days later with no idea what really happened. You're sat there asking like...how
did they all fit in that little plane and questioning the time travel instead of seeing
what should be Indy at his best.
So the word of mouth around this wasn't there to sell it to others cos there wasn't the
idea that this was the last hurrah. Even now I dont feel like that ending feels like the
final indiana jones film and from the guy who made Logan I was expecting more.
Now I think we definitely have to talk about the state of the world in general and how
it's left a lot of movies with very little chance.
So one of the main reasons that the budgets so high on this is due to the fact that it
was filmed during the pandemic. Production was constantly stopping and starting and with
it being a worldwide film you had different rules in different countries. So things were
delayed, testing added a lot and you had several different factors here racking up the money.
The budget spiralled out of control anyway and you had them hit a point where they had
to make about a billion just to break even.
We've also gone from the pandemic into a cost of living crisis and people just dont have
the mony to go and see films every week. If youre taking out a whole family it can rack
up a lot and if it's that or just waiting three weeks, most people will choose the latter.
Now on top of this all the studios have a backlog of films where they've not really
been able to push things to audience capacity.
Because of this the entire industry is over saturated and it seems like we've got a big
film almost every week. It's difficult for a movie to stand out and when youve got a
sequel to an old franchise it's difficult to feel like it's new and fresh.
So it kinda gets lost amongst things like Across The Spider-verse which even 5 weeks
in is still doing really well.
I think in the end though these guys just spent too much and this is something that
was seen in the flash too.
$300 million is difficult to justify and a film like this was almost always gonna be
impossible to profit from. If you overspend and under deliver then youre gonna be left
at a loss and it's something that disney dont seem to want to learn from.
I do think that this film though will change the industry and that we'll probably get more
conservative amounts when theyre greenlighting their pictures.
What it really comes down to is making good business decisions and a movie like this was
always gonna struggle to succeed. Whether it was the state of the industry with their
straight to streaming methods or the fact that audiences have been let down so much
in the past.
The switch away from physical media is us just moving with the times but it also hurts
the back end profits that these films make.
The poor leadership and depressing nature to the movie was hampered by mixed reviews
that didn't capture the young audiences interest.
In the end there was so much riding against it and that's why I feel that this movie failed.
Now obviously there's a lot that we've gone over here and if you agree or not then let
me know below. I think stuff like this can be a big learning thing and I'm sure there's
lots I can learn from you guys as well.
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Now if you want something else to watch we have a video on screen right now _____________________
With that out the way, huge thank you for sitting through the video, I've been your
host and I'll see you next time. Take care, Peace.