A cursory glance at the last few years worth of movies and you’ll quickly notice that Hollywood is creatively bankrupt. Original movies these days are few and far between, as we’re living in the age of reboots, remakes, and re-imaginings. The sad part is that 9/10 times, these attempts to milk nostalgia and past success end up disgracing their source and falling flat at the box office.
The only leg the industry’s currently standing on is its rash of comic book movies, which is keeping money coming in and audiences somewhat interested, despite having become tiresome and over-done long ago. One might think that with all the big-time hero flicks coming out that Hollywood would be sitting pretty financially, but if you look at the figures, the exact opposite is true.
As reported at the Wrap, having grown tired of not only the lack of ideas and quality on the big screen, but also the never-ending preaching and preening done by celebrities in their films and in real life, Americans have simply stopped going to the movie theater.
The National Alliance of Theater Owners (NATO) announced Wednesday that in 2017 Hollywood suffered its lowest attendance in 24 years. Not only that, despite the lack viewers, ticket prices once again rose by 3.7 percent, leaving the average ticket price at $8.93.
As for overall tickets sold, it’s estimated that 1.23 billion were sold last year, which is the lowest number since 1993, when the classic “Jurassic Park” was dominated the year’s box office.
“2017 highlighted once again the importance of a balanced, 52-week movie calendar,” said NATO in its analysis. “A record Q1 (in box office and admissions) was offset by a disappointing summer, with a range of sequels that were not embraced by audiences in the numbers we are accustomed to. Summer 2017 was 92 million admissions short of summer 2016. An unusually empty August accounted for half of summer 2017’s shortfall. Q4 2017 was nearly equal to Q4 2016, with 315 million tickets sold, compared to 319 million.”
While annual box office revenue stayed above $11 billion for the third consecutive year, money made of the summer months collapsed to 18-year lows. Historic lows were also reached for Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends, which are usually holidays that bring in big numbers.
Hollywood ran out of ideas long ago and become reliant upon insanely expensive blockbusters. While some of these bring in huge numbers, a ridiculous amount of them flop. On top of that, it seems middle of the road movies ( budget wise) don’t exist anymore, which is where a lot of profit was once found.
Adding to all of this industry misery is the advent of streaming services like Netflix, which has done major damage by making it so easy and desirable for folks to skip a film in theaters, knowing they’ll be able to watch it from the comfort of their home soon enough.
Since 2005, attendance has been on the decline, with only minor rebounds in 2012 and 2015. This year, Hollywood will be hoping another, as massive tent-pole flicks like Disney’s “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Solo: A Star Wars Story” are expected to draw huge crowds. Even so, popcorn movies like these can only do so much to stop the financial and viewership hemorrhaging that Hollywood is suffering.
Source: Wrap