So Many Movies, So Little Time
The LA Times has another piece about the crowded movie marketplace this morning, this one from the angle of movie executives battling over the summer calendar. Before David Poland comes along and dismisses it as a non-story or something he’s been saying himself for years (or pick your dismissal), I thought I’d take a look at it from an audience perspective. What does it mean, if anything, to movie lovers?
According to the article, the big studios and independent distributors combined released an average of 10 movies a week last year with one weekend alone seeing 16 new releases. This is up 49% from a decade ago. How it compares to other decades isn’t mentioned, but it’s still a lot of movies no matter how you slice it. It doesn’t help that the studios are bent on cramming most of their movies into 8 months out of the year, but even if the schedule was evenly spread out, not many people see 10 movies a week in a theater.
In one sense, a greater selection should be a good thing. Audiences have more to choose from than ever before so it’s a great time to be a movie fan, right? The problem is that not all movies are worth seeing and it’s not easy to tell good from bad until it’s too late. An expanded market is a watered down market. For every mediocre movie that you see, are you missing out on a great one?
The market will probably correct itself as markets do and there will be some kind of shakeout. In the short term, it seems unlikely that movies will get cheaper overall. There’s too much money at stake and Hollywood’s solution seems to be to throw money at any problem. An ideal situation for everyone would be if fewer movies were made overall with a greater percentage of good ones. I don’t see that happening either. What I’m afraid will happen however is that, instead of fewer and better movies, there will be fewer and bigger movies.
If I’m right, what will become of the little guys? Once again it’s not hard to see the theatrical screening of smaller movies disappearing altogether with people hitting the theater on the weekend for the blockbusters and watching the indies at home in isolation. From a business standpoint, this actually makes a lot of sense for studios and distributors because theatrical exhibition is expensive, but what does it mean for audiences? Are you content to exchange the communal experience of movie watching for the comfort and convenience of your own home?
Are you happy with the number and quality of movies? Do you feel like you’re missing out on things or are you just happy there is plenty to choose from on any given weekend?
Filed under: Analysis
“What I’m afraid will happen however is that, instead of fewer and better movies there wil be fewer and bigger movies.”
Exactly. I think there actually should if anything be more films, with restrained budgets, rather than the studios invest so heavily into excessively expensive tentpoles but I’m afraid that it’s going in precisely the opposite direction. The market of Hollywood is increasingly becoming like a third world country’s economy, with a very small, select group of juggernaut films with lavish, out-of-this-world budgets with a large pool of under-marketed “indies” and quasi-”indies” made on the cheap, with fewer and fewer “average” movies (in terms of budget especially).
No matter what Ben Bernanke has to say, inflation is in the process of dealing some very harsh blows to all areas of the economy, though, including the entertainment industry.
Word to that, Alexander. The skyrocketing cost of corn is going to hit theater owners hard in the next year. Expect popcorn prices to rise a bit, along with softdrinks (corn syrup) and because the theater owners make MOST of their profit off concessions and advertising, expect ticket prices to rise to make up the difference (theater owners acknowledge that concessions are already expensive).
The good news for theater chains and Hollywood is that as people are trimming back their travel plans in the face of $4-5 a gallon gas, movie-going and DVD sales will increase. People still need to be entertained.
I’m a big fan of the idea of a large number of releases with relatively low budgets – you might not get to see them all, but in theory those movies will probably be better than a smaller number of movies with higher budgets that have more producers and marketing people messing with them.
Even the quasi-indies are getting more and more expensive, though there already appears to be some shakeout in that area with New Line, Picturehouse and Warner Independent getting folded into Warner Bros. and the recent cutbacks at Paramount Vantage.
But I see things continuing to spiral out of control. The only way studios can get through the clutter is to spend more money, more money raises the risk, higher risk encourages them to spend more money…
Thinking of it in economic terms as Alexander has done, I wonder if there’s the danger of some kind of dramatic crash or if this is just typical ebb and flow. I haven’t been paying attention to the business end of Hollywood for long enough to know blips from trends.
Yet, every time I think about the business, I keep coming back to the idea that it makes increasingly less sense for small movies to be shown in big theaters, both for distibutors and audiences. If so, I wonder what this is going to mean as far as the experience is concerned, and I wonder what it will mean for movie blogging.
On one hand, if movie viewing is broken into hundreds of little niches, it’ll be hard to get a critical mass of interest about any one thing, but then again the nature of blogging doesn’t require the same critical mass to survive and thrive that the print media does. Plus perhaps the internet will be more important than ever in connecting widely distributed knots of peope with similar interests.
I’m a big fan of the same idea Jeff, but the market and the mindset seem to work counter to that being a reality. All the studios would have to magically agree to spend less on budgets and on marketing.
There’s a chance they could just wise up, but it seems like the temptation is too great to just say “If I spend a little more on this movie, I’ll get the leg up over the other guys” and it snowballs.
It’ll only last as long as the current marketing scheme (huge TV ads and marketing pushes) continues to hold sway. In some ways, a crash may be inevitable along the lines of the big shakedown the movie business suffered in the 1960s, when the old-fashioned studio model collapsed, MGM went bankrupt, WB got sold to a parking lot company, Paramount went to an conglomerate, and a whole bunch of smaller companies came in to flil the void. I’d like to hope, even though it may take years, that the online movie culture will adapt so that people can feed each other reviews and recommendations and we can get back to a word-of-mouth system.
Oh, and I totally agree about David “What is there to say?” Poland.
“I wonder if there’s the danger of some kind of dramatic crash or if this is just typical ebb and flow.”
Well, the big crash of a few expensive flops in a short period is what typically has wiped out all the now dead-and-gone studios. If they continue to cram more movies into theaters than folks can see and spend massive sums on tentpole extravaganzas, the odds say at least a few of these studios will suffer significant losses that could put them out of business…or up for sale to one of the other studios.
I’m sure it will happen, but will it be enough to change the way Hollywood does business? That’s the question.
In the past, I think the DVD market has kept the studio battleships afloat but everyone keeps saying how that’s flattening out too. Unless they figure out a way to make money on streaming the way they did DVD, the support for the way they do things now could vanish and maybe a crash really could happen.
As a little guy, it’s my job to take shots at Poland, but attitude aside, I generally like his take on the business end of things much better than, say, Nikki Finke.
On the other hand, as I’ve said before the business end is only of limited interest to me in the first place.
I know next to nothing about the theatre distribution side of film, but I was thinking lately about just how strange it is to distribute reeled film now a days. If you’re a really small film wouldn’t electronic distribution to theatres be the way to go? With HD improving all the time, do we need 35MM (or whatever the standard is now) for smaller lower budget film? I am just happy I get to see some of the smaller films in the theatre. I live in a large market, if I was in a small town market, wouldn’t film that can be streamed to a small theatre be perferable to not getting the film at all.
Again I know nothing about this side of the industry so I could be smoking crack on this one!
No, I think he’s excellent as far as his coverage goes as well. I mostly just have a problem with his attitude, which is very ‘If I don’t write it, it doesn’t matter’.
Yeah Colleen, theoretically that would save distributors and filmmakers a lot of hassle and open up a wealth of options for theater owners but the investment of installing digital projection equipment and creating a wide-spread digital distribution system has kept the majority of theater chains, large and small out of it.
Hopefully that will change.
I don’t know the business side either Colleen, but I think you’re right that it DOES make a lot of sense, especially for the smaller movies to go the electronic distribution route. Unfortunately, as far as that goes for theatrical distribution, all the expense and little of the benefit falls on the theaters.
I guess studios and theater chains are trying to work that out as we speak, but the transition seems to be going slower than anyone would like.
The other option is just to skip the theater altogether and leave the equipment costs up to the home viewer. I have mixed feelings about that though as I do still enjoy seeing movies with a group of strangers, even if the environment isn’t always pristine.
I have very limited space wear I live. All home video is viewed on a 19″ computer monitor. Lawrence of Arabis is still a fantastic film, but something is lost on the small screen.
I just checked my local theatres (within 10 minutes of my house) 30 total screens, 12 films showing.
I have to drive an hour to see Son of Rambow. There is no justice in the world
Whatever, I would love to have an opinion on this topic, but I just get all your crap when you do, and all your good stuff 8 months later, so I am not happy. Ever.
Cheer up, Nicky. My grandmother had a saying: Everything passes. You dig?
Things can change FAST…
So many men. So little time. Difficult to fit all of them in…and you only live so long. Plus there are only 24 hours in a day.
Oh…But we were talking about movies, weren’t we?
Well, I have no stats pre 80s. But I do know from what I’ve read that there were FAR fewer films made in the 80s then there are being produced today. Certainly (as happens in all movie eras – even the most horrendous) there were some marvelous pictures made. Even some classics. But the 80s doesn’t exactly live and breathe as a golden age of cinema or a time of great innovation. That’s when all the suits and the hardcore business people took over.
There has always been a certain amount of gloom and doom in entertainment whenever things change drastically or there’s any kind of expansion. When movies came along, radio was supposed to go straight to hell. A hundred odd years later, it’s still with us, albeit in a very different form.
Television was supposed to be the death knell for film in the 50s. But it didn’t happen quite that way, did it?
In the 80s when video exploded everyone supposedly said that that was the end of film exhibition too. Why would anyone want to leave the comfort of their homes and pay good money to see a movie at a theatre? (Well, I DEFINITELY would. But that’s another story…)
But it ended up having the opposite effect. Video rentals got people interested in the theatrical experience once again. Attendance at theatres increased and more films started being made.
DVDs and theatres have coexisted comfortably for a while. I personally DON’T think that DVDs are killing the theatres. It’s the excessively short window of time that the studios are giving films these days. The product is barely out in theatres before it’s released on DVD. Sometimes the shelf life is as short as three months from theatrical release to DVD. That means that films have no time to build an audience.
But the studios are effectively ruining all of this because they want a quick pay off. The small movies and the arthouse pictures don’t have the actual time to build word of mouth or to attract a substantial audience. The blockbusters will take care of themselves.
I’m wondering if all this current pressurized DVD nonsense isn’t impacting our newly fractured theatrical release schedules. I’m sure it’s made at least a minor dent. I’ve said it before & I’ll say it again. I live in one of the largest movie markets in North America. This year, we got an Italian film the week before New York got it. When does that ever happen? We also NEVER got Cassandra’s Dream before it went to DVD. That’s the FIRST WOODY ALLEN movie in 35 years that never played here. (Yeah, I checked.)
I know what I’ve stated is a DRASTIC oversimplification. But I think that my points are valid.
As for choice, BRING IT ON…
I’d rather have far too much to look forward to then not enough. Sure, it may be harder to keep up. But you can sort out the great from the good from the mediocre to the awful. It’s not that difficult – and everyone knows what their personal preferences and avid dislikes are. You will always be able to discover the gems wherever they are. If not enough product comes out, you won’t have to search for them. But by the law of averages there’s going to be much less of everything good and intriguing as well.
If there’s not enough, it’s boring. More product out there in the marketplace just contributes to increased innovation, more platforms for actors, directors and writers to showcase their talents etc. How can less possibly be a better deal?
I think more product and varied choices benefits everyone, especially the filmgoer.
But those are merely my personal views…
Yep Miranda, everything passes. Generally through America first then through South Africa 8 months later. ;-)
Love ya Nicky! Don’t hate me. :-D
This may be part of the reason the studio specialty divisions are going under. The marketplace is just so crowded the smaller films are getting lost in the shuffle more and more.
I agree with Miranda that the biggest problem is that you basically HAVE to go see a movie on opening weekend, because a few weeks later it’ll prolly be gone.
What happened to the model in which movies would start in the huge movie palaces and then slowly shift down to let fancy venues, with the ticket prize getting lower along the way? Maybe it’s not possibly with so many movies, but that model appeals to me. You could even charge (even) more, just a little, for the opening weekend crowd, as long as in a movie’s fourth week, you could go see it in a small, comfy, cinema for 4/5 bucks.
Anyway, just dreaming I suppose. In the Netherlands things often do stick around, thank god. And everything’s close together, so if you’re willing to travel 1.5 for your movies, you can see A LOT.
Some things stick around here forever, like “As It Is In Heaven” – I think that one played for over a year. However, some things, like “Sweeney Todd,” do not last more than a week and a bit, which is odd.
Sure, press screenings are helping, and there is a certain amount of comfort in knowing that I never really have to narrow down my choices of what to see each weekend, there are usually only one or two viable options anyway. I am trying to embrace the download culture, just so I don’t have to remain behind all the time, and while I do bitch and moan about not being able to see this or that because it hasn’t opened in SA yet, truth be told, I would go INSANE if I had as many options as you all do in the US, I really do not have the time for that many options.
SA is catching on though, and the development of our Art House cinemas is pretty unbelievable, more time is spent on making those as great as possible, compared to the normal commercial ones, and that makes me really happy. I have about 4 cinemas near where I live, in about a 5 to 10 km radius, so I never have to go very far to get to the movies. The problem is, these are all cinema chains, and we do not have many {if any} independent cinemas like in the US, so getting the indie stuff you get is harder.
I want to see smaller, indie movies you know, screw those huge releases that stick around for ages, they usually suck anyway.
Matthew I think you’re right about the specialty divisions, and I also think those movies are just getting too expensive as they’re marketed more and more like the big boys.
I’m still not sold on the idea of more choices, but then I kind of miss the days when there were only a handful of TV channels and EVERYONE was talking about the same thing the next day. Now everyone has their own niche. Even in a single household one person will be watching one thing and another person something else. Odd that I’d be a big fan of the community angle when in fact I’m kind of a misanthrope, but there it is.
Also, while I’m perfectly comfortable making my own choices and accepting the occasional clinker (my track record for satisfaction is pretty good), I don’t trust ‘the masses’ to do the same. They’ll believe whatever they’re sold by the marketers. That’s why so many crappy movies make so much money and so many good movies fall through the cracks. Too many choices in this case leads to worse movies being made and that’s bad for everyone.
I bring it back to my suggestion from a couple of months ago: a literal movie “season.” One that starts and ends – with nothing in between. Pick a day (I mentioned Oscar day) and that’s the end of the season. There are no new releases for…I don’t know, a couple weeks, a couple months? This way studios might not be so ready to just dump their garbage on all of us for the months of Feb-April (by the way, Easter weekend is the new Memorial Day weekend for summer releases?). If they know that we’re all going to be sitting and waiting for Indy 5 to come out on the predetermined Opening Day, are they really going to put Big Momma’s House 3 up against it?
So what would be in theaters during the off-season? I don’t know, the stuff that was just opening at the end of the season. Maybe classics – we don’t see enough of those in theaters anymore because every screen is used for six prints of the new release or 2 prints of the old, bad release from two months ago.
I’m babbling, can you tell? My REAL reason for advocating a season is that it would give me time to catch up…
Admission prices rising? Better believe it.
I was resistant to your suggestion at first Daniel, but it also makes a lot of sense. I’m seeing new movies in theaters at a faster clip than ever before and I don’t know if I’ll be able to hold out. It would be nice to be able to pause and rest and reflect.
The most interesting part of that link, was that ticket prices have actually dropped since 1977. Interesting, but when I read why it all makes sense.
It didnt occur to me that ticket prices would rise because of the corn thing though, I just assumed the price of popcorn would go up. They’re already pushing it as it is I guess.
Man, I can’t imagine ticket prices going any higher right now. I know it’s coming but I’m just not prepared for the damage. It’s going to make an already difficult choice more difficult. I might be waiting out the bigger releases in anticipation of them ending up in the cheaper second run theaters.
It’ll never happen, Daniel.
And to Joel’s point, one sad development is that second run theatres are dying out. There really are none to speak of in my vicinity. My little town’s theatre used to be second-run way back about ten-twelve years ago and before, but they went to first release like everybody else somewhere around 2000.
Hmmm…
I thought that the prevailing thought on the matter was that we were actually going to get A BREAK on ticket prices. Movie attendance had fallen so drastically in two cities off the top of my head (forgive me, but I do believe they were Winnipeg and Montreal) that they were bringing back discount Tuesdays and slashing the prices on matinees.
From the 80s right up until about a half dozen years ago, that’s what we had here. Tuesday was the discount day. Even for all the major chains. EVEN the ones that didn’t want to participate had to get with the program so they could possess some competitive edge. I have no idea how much pricing was in the 80s. Maybe $4.00 or $5.00?
I do recall in the 90s that theatres were always crammed to the rafters on Tuesdays all over town. Big long lineups. Lots of crowds. But all of that began to lose its popularity as the decade progressed.
We have four major chains operating in this city right now – and then a few independents here and there. The discount pricing is in effect on Tuesdays at some places. But I get the distinct impression that the days of CONSISTENT enormous crowds are long gone. That only seems to happen when there’s an event film or a big popular hit that everyone wants to see.
Prices are fairly reasonable around town. I don’t have too many realistic complaints. EXCEPT FOR THE ONE CHAIN. The unfortunate thing is that this particular chain gets almost all of the highly anticipated pictures and all of the cooler “big” films. But you can’t walk out of there in a huff as THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE. No other theatres in town wil be showing these movies and if you flee to the inconvenience of the suburbs, the prices will be identical.
When this brand new nineplex opened here, they charged a grand total of $11.95. I do believe it’s $12.50 now. To my mind, that is bloody well RIDICULOUS. I suppose it’s decidedly unrealistic to expect movie prices to stay at a certain level when everything else is going up, but I personally think a ceiling of $10 is more than sufficient.
Fairly recently I threw my lot in and purchased the cards that are available for the two chains that have them. One entitles me to substantial discounts (at the box office AND at the concession) no matter when I attend. Even in the evening.
The other chain has me swipe the card every time I come in or purchase anything from the concession. After I accumulate a certain number of points I get a free admission.
It’s just easier. I do not expect the man in my life (or men, as the case may be) to pay for me all the time. I may be a glamourous princess, but I’m an egalitarian, liberated princess.
Craig, you may technically be a misanthrope, but it’s the crabby little Jimmy Stewart small town boy in you (yeah…I know, I know – you lived in a big city and then left there for an even larger metropolis – but bear with me) that has reverence and wistfulness for the days gone by and a longing for that lovely community based archetype.
This is why I’m endlessly fond of you.
But what do I know? I’m just a girl….
Looks like I may have sounded the death knell prematurely for my discount cinema in the West End of town. We happened to be in the area last night so I decided to find out exactly what was going on while we were in the vicinity.
They are going to be having (of all things) opera galas at the theatre on various dates throughout the month. I do recall now that the owners have advertised – fairly heavily – that the place is for rent at any point in time if someone wants to use it for an evening or two. In that case, they just suspend their showtimes and then resume the schedule when the special attraction is over.
But I panicked when I heard they were closing FOR THE SUMMER.
On the other hand, though, this may go so well for them they may NEVER reopen as a cinema. If they don’t, I may never go back. But I’d rather that they keep it open and use it as some type of theatrical venue. Even if they don’t show films there ever again.
Much better than nothing. It’s a glorious piece of property…
You’ve got me pegged as a cranky old man before my time Miranda and you are largely correct. All I need is a cane, a porch to stand on where I can shake it, and a yard I can shout kids out of. :)
That’s potentially great news about the theater you were worried about. I doubt they’d ever completely give the theater over to special presentations, but if they can suplement themselves with alternatives, hopefully it will help keep them afloat.
Well, even cranky old men have their irresistable charms some days.
Though I didn’t necessarily agree 100% with everything that you said in this thread, you made some excellent points that have extraordinary validity in any case.
There is something very appealing about a world where shared experiences have an impact and there aren’t endless niches where we all listen to completely different music, watch a wide variety of movies and TV etc. and sort of immerse ourselves in our own little worlds.
For now we’ve gone past it. But everything is cyclical. I can’t see it ever returning to those past golden days. But who knows? In another form, it is very possible.
Yeah, I hope my theatre NEVER closes for good. It’s in one of my favourite areas of town.
In the one little alcove on a side street (in a breathtakingly gorgeous neighbourhood) there’s the mall, the theatre that adjoins it (it’s not actually IN it) and a very classy lounge where all the cool folk take their new crushes to seduce them. Surprisingly, I’ve never been.
I hear they make excellent martinis and other kinds of cocktails there. But the food is fancy shmancy (those courses…) and far too unappealing to my palate. It’s a high level place and I prefer my food casual.
They have some awesome Mexican restaurants in the area and a Dairy Queen a few blocks over. I’d rather go there.
I think it’s likely the crab in you that makes you cranky, Craig. All that wonderful tradition and respect for the old way of life. Though I tend to run at a far more progressive speed, there is something lovely and uncomplicated about the past.
I surely can see the allure….