Barry Diller believes the movie business is dead.

I never understood why the financials of movies are so prominent in the news. Would you make a decision to buy a product or shop at a store based on company earnings?

Without looking at the numbers I would say movie studios will still be profitable but their revenue will switch from box office to streaming and licensing agreements. The companies who will be hurt the most are the brick and mortar theaters. The demand for content isn’t decreasing but method of distribution has changed.
 
That one was from Variety, which is an industry paper. Otherwise, most major industries have decent coverage if you know where to look.

In terms of a particular film, its box office gross is usually a reflection of its quality. In the old USSR, the measuring statistics was "tickets sold".

And the brick&mortar theaters are up the Reddit creek.
 
DLD said:
Just because it's not your market ...
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Well, I think that box office is sometimes a reflection of "quality" (and I reserve the right to be the sole arbiter of quality) but more often a reflection of advertising/hype success
 
ahalpert said:
Well, I think that box office is sometimes a reflection of "quality" (and I reserve the right to be the sole arbiter of quality) but more often a reflection of advertising/hype success
Click to expand...

But all major releases spend huge funds on marketing and, as a rule, the same people are responsible for that marketing for years. Yet some movies click with audiences and others don't. I have no interest in glorified cartoons such as the F&F, Star Wars or Iron Man whatsoever but I also have to assume that those who do, can tell when a sequel runs out of steam creatively. And that will be reflected in the box office results and in future sequels ... or lack thereof.

PS. Marketing costs are a huge plus for the streamers because they advertise both a film and their service simultaneously and a giant portion of the budget is now addressed to a "captive audience", i.e., the already existing subscribers. Add the fact that a streamer keeps close to the 100% of the revenues (vs. 50-55% in the US, 40% in Europe and 33% in China in theatrical distribution) and it's easy to see why the new form is so appealing to the studios. In the pre-Covid era, this shift would have been gradual but 2020 was a hammer blow to theaters.
 
DLD said:
But all major releases spend huge funds on marketing and, as a rule, the same people are responsible for that marketing for years. Yet some movies click with audiences and others don't.
Click to expand...

There's no validity to this point. Different movies with the same budget can have different quality. The same director can create a good movie and a bad movie. So why wouldn't different marketing campaigns produced by the same team with the same budget vary in their quality and success? So much of this comes down to inspiration, which really can't be bought.

Take Avatar - it was a totally inspired marketing campaign. Crappy movie, imo. (And I was excited for it. I saw it in IMAX 3D on opening night stoned with my friends.) But Cameron wrote the script in 2 weeks, apparently. It was a tired old story. Parts of the movie felt like watching someone else play a video game. 3D has never been that enjoyable or added that much to the movies, and his new process was no exception.

But as a marketing concept of the synthesis of his novel 3D technique (which also merited an upcharge by theaters and an effect that you couldn't get at home, an effect that you could tell people you saw)... The 3D technique with the story of taking over someone else's body and the idea of a new sci-fi universe... It all came together.

But the show Firefly (which got canceled in one season) was a WAY better story. It had far more compelling characters and a more interesting new sci-fi universe. Excellent directing. (The movie follow-up (Serenity) did not live up to the quality of the show.)
 
Audiences suck. I'd sooner watch a movie at home. The cellphone craze destroyed theater-going.
 
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