For the last few years franchise movies like star wars, marvel, etc. made money regardless of quality. However now it seems like audiences are being choosier when it comes to these kinds of tentpole releases. I’ve seen some people online say that the movie/theater industry is losing people in general but I don’t think that’s the case.
Super Mario and spiderverse made a lot of money. And Oppenheimer, Barbie, and Dune seem to be tracking well. I think the problem is that people are getting sick of the same old stuff and need more than just a brand name to go to the theater. What do you you think?
You’re making the assumption that, since the pandemic ended, people actually want to go to the theater to see movies. They demonstrably do not. People will not go to see a movie they’re interested in in the theater; they will only go to the theater to see a movie they are absolutely driven to see immediately. It has to have huge visual spectacle and be truly worthy of their time to waste the time and money to sit in a theater, which no one seems to want to do anymore. It has to be something that needs to be seen on a large screen.
I’m sure Dune will do well later this year and there’s been plenty of movies recently that did fine in theaters. But there’s going to be plenty more along the way that fall by the wayside despite the fact that they would have been tent pole pictures with guaranteed box office in past years. But people aren’t going to show up for things like Indiana Jones or Flash after major failures previously in both of those series.
I’m so excited for Dune, definitely going to the cinema.