Films for Grown-Ups

I'm really getting annoyed by this endless stream of "trend articles" we're seeing based on this bogus Hollywood Box Office Slump narrative. You know what I'm talking about? Every week in some publication, there's another barely sensible piece of blather about how movie studios are going bankrupt and no one is seeing movies any more. Apparently, and I don't know if you've heard this, but the ability to watch a music video on a tiny screen attached to your iPod has hereby rendered the cinematic experience obsolete. Didn't you get the memo?

Here are a few of my opinions that are constantly contradicted by these silly "think pieces."

(1) Just because there are fewer huge blockbusters, or a certain weekend produces less profits than that same weekend produced the year before, does not mean that movie studios are going to go broke soon or that no one wants to see any movies any more. At this point, movie studios make more money selling DVD's and plugging cheap products in their movies than they do on box office receipts.

(2) The ones hurting the most because of a box office slump are movie theaters, which is why they have to run 500,000,000,000 commercials before every goddamn movie. But even if these big, bloated, corporate-run megaplexes start going out of business because less people go to theatrically-run films, there will still be movies and movie theaters. Maybe they will just start producing smaller, more intimate theaters with fewer screens. Or maybe the theaters will fill their extra screening rooms with older films, or smaller films, or cheaper films that enhance the theater's profit margin. (Often, 75-80% of first-weekend box office revenues go to the studios and distributors, but for a revival of an old film or an independantly-release movie, you could cut that number way way down.)

(3) Handheld video devices and file-sharing and DVD's are all totally neat, but they are never ever ever going to replace going to a theater to watch a movie. You can't get to second base by inviting a girl to watch a movie on your iPod. Movies have a community value that has nothing to do with actually watching movies, in addition to the enhance aesthetic and social value of watching a movie projected on a large screen along with a live audience.

(4) A given movie's box office take has nothing to do with the quality of the movie. There, I said it. So many of these articles conclude that "no one is seeing movies any more because all the movies are really bad." This is horseshit. Look at any year's Top Grossing Films. Are they the best movies that came out that year? Absolutely not. People don't know if a movie's good before they see it, and even if someone pays to see a bad movie, they don't then stop going to movies. They just be sure not to see another film by that director or with that actor or whatever.

Okay, so keeping those four principles in mind, let's look at this article from Slate.com. It's written by a guy named Edward Jay Epstein who wrote a book called "The Big Picture: The New Logic of Money and Power in Hollywood." He makes a lot of crucial points that aren't often made in the media, but I still feel like his argument kind of falls apart.

From January 2005 to September 2005, the movies of the six Hollywood studios earned $4.7 billion compared to $4.5 billion in the same period in 2004. Their share of the American box office rose from 68 percent in 2004 to 75 percent in 2005. (Click here for all the studio numbers for the past nine months.) The big losers were independent studios who specialize in more adult movies, such as Lions Gate and Newmarket Films, and the so-called "studioless" studios, DreamWorks and MGM, which suffered 40 percent box-office declines.

What he's pointing out here is that, as you would expect from a business that's suffering from setbacks, the smaller fish are the ones getting picked off first. The larger companies have enough capital and leverage to weather the storm, essentially, unfettered.

Moreover, the reason that some studios did not do as well in 2005 is that they had too few, not too many, amusement-park films for juveniles. Sony, for example, had no Spider-Man 3 to match the $373 million U.S. box-office gross it had from Spider-Man 2 in 2004 (Spider-Man 3 is scheduled for 2007). DreamWorks had no Shrek 3 in 2005 to match the $476 million U.S. box-office gross it garnered from Shrek 2. On the other hand, the studios that scored the biggest box-office gains in 2005, Fox and Warner Bros., generated them through amusement-park movies such as Star Wars—Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (Fox) and Batman Begins (Warner Bros.).

And this really brings me to my central point. These articles always complain that there are "no more good films for grown-ups!" But the evidence clearly shows that grown-ups and kids alike enjoy immature, teenage-boy-oriented films. Because it's not like there isn't alternative fare out there. People simply reject non-traditional filmmaking. Movies like Waking Life and I Heart Huckabees and Grizzly Man and Good Night and Good Luck hit American theaters each and every week, including some smaller markets, and no one cares. If there's no Spider-Man 3 movie in theaters, they don't go see something else, something maybe a bit more daring. They just stay home or rent Spider-Man 2.

I see this every day at the video store. We put out a tremendous variety of films each Tuesday, when the new release DVD's come out. Today, even though it was kind of a thin release day, new rental selections included a political documentary, a human-interest documentary, a French thriller, a French romance, a couple of 80's wacky comedies (including one directed by Robert Altman), a 70's Italian cop thriller, an indie comedy from the director of The Opposite of Sex and exploitation classic Bikini Chain Gang.

And what was the day's biggest renter? Stealth.

Second place? Madagascar.

And these are full-grown adults. I didn't have any 15 year old dudes lining up to buy DVD's in the middle of the day. I guess they were all at home uploading bit-torrent-retrieved versions of Get Rich or Die Tryin' into their Sony PSP's.

With the overall audience for movies in decline, the lesson of 2005 is that the studios need youth-oriented franchises supported by massive advertising budgets to fill theaters. As a top Sony executive explained, "Franchises are the name of the game." He added that one reason Sony bought MGM was to get its James Bond franchise. Once established, a franchise that appeals to youth enables studios to acquire merchandising tie-ins from fast-food chains and licensing commitments from toy and game manufacturers—all of which help promote the film.

So, Epstein has all his facts correct, he just misidentifies these so-called "amusement park movies" as solely appealing to teenagers. The fact is, everyone in America seems to prefer this sort of event filmmaking. And I would actually take issue with identifying films like Star Wars and Batman Begins as exclusively "youth-oriented." That's an indication, to me, that Epstein is somewhat out of touch with today's generation of 30-something adults. These people grew up with Star Wars, grew up with comic books, and don't think of them as childish in any way, myself included. I would wager that I and my colleagues at the video store got far more enjoyment out of Revenge of the Sith than any 10 year old possibly could, because of our enhanced emotional attachment to the Star Wars universe.

And then he really goes and fucks it all up in the last paragraph:

The studios, recognizing that most of the former habitual moviegoing audience is at home watching television—and soon their iPods—create audiences for each of their movies through advertising on television, an enormously expensive—and risky—enterprise. To make it work, the studios look for a group of people that both regularly tune into TV programs on which the studios can afford to buy commercials and who can be motivated by a 30-second ad to leave the comfort of their houses to go to the multiplexes. And for better or worse, that means teenagers.

Wrong on several counts. People will never watch movies primarily on a device like an iPod. It's impractical and not nearly as engrossing as watching a movie on a big TV screen. Those are useful for travel and as a new and exciting fad, not a real venue for movie-viewing. Also, "people that regularly tune into TV programs" are all teenagers? Huh? Am I crazy, or doesn't almost everyone watch at least some television? When a old fart show like "Law and Order" spawns 200 spin-offs and a show beloved by teenagers like "Arrested Development' can't survive for 2 full seasons, doesn't that indicate that, while teens may watch more TV than their elders, they are not as reliable as viewers? And, finally, advertising on TV isn't exactly a risky venture. Moviemaking is a risky venture. TV advertising is a way to essentially guarantee awareness of your product. The film won't always make money, but a commercial will always attract eyeballs.