Disney (and others) at the Box Office - Current State of Affairs

[Disney Irish]

Short theatrical windows aren’t preventing people from going to see non-tentpole product. They simply have moved on to series, games, social media, etc.

And my guess is the U.S. will lose hundreds more screens in the next few years. Simply not enough demand year-round and it’s too cost prohibitive for studios to make $200M tentpoles that may or may not flop.

Its not like non-tent poles didn't exist before, they've always existed. It comes down to audience training, they have been trained to know that "hey if I wait 2-3 months (sometimes less) I can see it at home for cheaper and sometimes even included for free with my streaming service".

So yes the short theatrical window is actually helping in preventing audiences from showing up to non-tentpole films.

And yes, its a self fulfilling prophecy where streaming kills many theaters.

Sorry to double post but do you think Mickey 17 staying exclusive in theaters for another two months would make more or less than $10M more?

In the before times, yes I think it would have made more than $10M if kept in theaters for another month or two.

 

[Prince-1]

This is a rare occasion where I agree with everything you wrote here.

One of the great tragedies of the 1990’s was Hollywood’s insistence on making Val Kilmer a conventional action hero, when he was one of the greatest comedic actors of our time (that just happened to have action hero / matinee looks). Top Secret! and Real Genius are masterworks, and he should have been nominated for Doc Holliday.

Instead we got The Saint (which I like!) and Batman Forever.

I loved Kilmer's early movies but not sure anyone, including Kilmer himself, has ever said that he was one of the greatest comedic actors of our time. He did Top Secret which was very funny but was just another one of the Zucker Brothers joke-a-minute movies and Real Genius which was just ok to me. He then started doing movies that may have had comedic moments but certainly aren't considered comedies.

RIP Iceman!!

 

[TalkingHead]

But what to do when everyone else is launching their own streaming service and the majority of people stop buying dvds?

Not putting your entire library of lucrative canonical titles on the platform for the low, low price of $5.99 or whatever would’ve been one option.

 

[Agent H]

Not putting your entire library of lucrative canonical titles on the platform for the low, low price of $5.99 or whatever would’ve been one option.

So you’re saying they should charge more for Disney +? Ok haven’t they been raising the price for it?

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

Its not like non-tent poles didn't exist before, they've always existed. It comes down to audience training, they have been trained to know that "hey if I wait 2-3 months (sometimes less) I can see it at home for cheaper and sometimes even included for free with my streaming service".

So yes the short theatrical window is actually helping in preventing audiences from showing up to non-tentpole films.

And yes, its a self fulfilling prophecy where streaming kills many theaters.


In the before times, yes I think it would have made more than $10M if kept in theaters for another month or two.

I agree the 2-3 month timeframe before streaming was a major mistake, whether that was planned or a reaction to Covid it really threw off the timeline, DVDs had a similar “I’ll just wait for the video” affect but since people knew it was likely to be 6 months or more I think it was a much smaller affect.

I think YouTube has probably had a bigger impact than anything decision Hollywood has made, we have endless options now and many of those options are far more interesting and humorous than anything Hollywoods putting out, and all filmed on an iPhone or GoPro for a couple bucks an episode.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

They're releasing Lilo and Stitch on 4K soon.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that the other day, but it's minuscule compared to the potential for Disney niche video releases now that they've ended their Movie Club and won't license out their library.

(will Criterion do stuff like Snow White and Fantasia once they hit the public domain?)

 

[Agent H]

I agree the 2-3 month timeframe before streaming was a major mistake, whether that was planned or a reaction to Covid it really threw off the timeline, DVDs had a similar “I’ll just wait for the video” affect but since people knew it was likely to be 6 months or more I think it was a much smaller affect.

I think YouTube has probably had a bigger impact than anything decision Hollywood has made, we have endless options now and many of those options are far more interesting and humorous than anything Hollywoods putting out, and all filmed on an iPhone or GoPro for a couple bucks an episode.

I disagree that YouTube has more interesting content than most of Hollywood. Most of it is mindless drivel or revolves around Hollywood content anyway. I use YouTube mostly for the latter.

 

[Disney Irish]

I agree the 2-3 month timeframe before streaming was a major mistake, whether that was planned or a reaction to Covid it really threw off the timeline, DVDs had a similar “I’ll just wait for the video” affect but since people knew it was likely to be 6 months or more I think it was a much smaller affect.

I think YouTube has probably had a bigger impact than anything decision Hollywood has made, we have endless options now and many of those options are far more interesting and humorous than anything Hollywoods putting out, and all filmed on an iPhone or GoPro for a couple bucks an episode.

I agreed. I think its all been an impact, no one thing did it, it was all combined, the pandemic was just the catalyst that made it accelerate but I think it was always going to happen..

We're at a crossroads in the industry and I think the next 5 years will be telling whether theatrical will survive in a meaningful way or if it'll become an even more niche form of entertainment.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

Eliminating the VHS/DVD/BluRay market had to seriously hurt Hollywoods bottom line, I complain about the rising cost of D+ but I still spend less a year for D+ then I used to spend buying videos.

I had a large VHS collection, that was then replaced with a larger DVD collection, which was again replaced with an even larger BluRay collection… that all ended probably 5 years ago, I wonder if the revenue from all the D+ subscriptions even matches the lost video sales revenue, spending billions on content for D+ vs spending a couple dollars for each DVD and packaging has to sting.

I'm like you, expect I'm also not visiting the parks as often/long or buying merch like I used to.

My total Disney spending is significantly down compared to 10 years ago. I can't be the only one.

I am however, enjoying lots of unofficial YouTube and print Disney content along with vintage finds at second hand stores.

 

[brideck]

Short theatrical windows aren’t preventing people from going to see non-tentpole product. They simply have moved on to series, games, social media, etc.

All things that are dirt cheap or free to consumers. The vast majority of Americans (since that's the market we're mostly talking about here) have been trained that most entertainment you can enjoy in your home is virtually worthless, which is crazy considering how much of it people spend their time watching/playing/etc. The commoditization of entertainment will start to have some real drawbacks here. If there's no real money to be made, then there's no real incentive to produce anything that has value in the first place.

 

[easyrowrdw]

Before the days of streaming it was normal for a theater to play a movie for 3 or 4 months, sometimes longer. Add to that that the 1st quarter tends to be the slowest part of the year in terms of movie releases and you can see why theaters would keep movies on screens longer, and begging studios to keep them out longer rather than ship to streaming after 45 days.

Otherwise you're having vacant theaters most of the year with only blockbusters being released during the prime summer and winter holiday seasons as @brideck mentioned. Leading to theaters basically going out of business in many markets.

Keeping Mufasa in theaters for a while seemed to be really beneficial and I think for Moana 2 also. Like you said, there are typical low times and maybe that's something studios can start to take better advantage of.

 

[brideck]

The Naomi Watts dog movie and the Penguin something (maybe a UK film?). Not really a comment on the quality of either, just saying they both appear to be the type of small scale filmmaking that people have decided isn’t worth a trip to the theater.

Interesting that your theater seems to be skewed toward an older audience? Sony Pictures Classics and Bleecker Street are two brands that don't do a good job of marketing their stuff to general audiences. It doesn't have anything like Death of a Unicorn or Hell of a Summer this weekend?

 

[Wendy Pleakley]

I loved Kilmer's early movies but not sure anyone, including Kilmer himself, has ever said that he was one of the greatest comedic actors of our time. He did Top Secret which was very funny but was just another one of the Zucker Brothers joke-a-minute movies and Real Genius which was just ok to me. He then started doing movies that may have had comedic moments but certainly aren't considered comedies.

RIP Iceman!!

Top Secret! wouldn't be a good example of comedic acting because the goal in those movies is to play it completely straight. His job is to act as if he's in a serious drama, which makes those movies funnier. The Naked Gun movies became less effective when Leslie Neilson veered more towards trying to be funny and in on the joke.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is a black comedy that shows off Kilmer's comedic chops. A movie many people might have missed and worth checking out.

 

[Prince-1]

Top Secret! wouldn't be a good example of comedic acting because the goal in those movies is to play it completely straight. His job is to act as if he's in a serious drama, which makes those movies funnier. The Naked Gun movies became less effective when Leslie Neilson veered more towards trying to be funny and in on the joke.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is a black comedy that shows off Kilmer's comedic chops. A movie many people might have missed and worth checking out.

Kiss Kiss was a really good movie. And I do think Kilmer was a good comedic actor but the large majority of his movies weren’t comedies but the ones he did were entertaining.

 

[Casper Gutman]

Talk about stale product. Local multiplex this weekend is still showing Mufasa, Dog Man, and Captain America. Then add to that Snow White and Minecraft and a couple dramedies that scream “wait for streaming or, more likely, skip entirely” and you start to see why the industry is dying. There’s not a single movie playing that I’d feel compelled to recommend to another adult.

This has been a rich period for original or smaller IP films. Novocaine, Black Bag, Companion, The Assessment, Paddington in Peru, and The Day the Earth Blew Up have all come out in the last two months to rapturous reviews. Death of a Unicorn, Opus, Mickey 17, and Locked all received more mixed reviews but were original films with bold premises.

All bombed.

The audience is clearly and uniformly rejecting original content, even if it has famous stars and directors attached. At some point, most of the blame stops going to the studios.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

The audience is clearly and uniformly rejecting original content, even if it has famous stars and directors attached. At some point, most of the blame stops going to the studios.

Are studios not somewhat responsible for conditioning their audience to stay home unless it's a blockbuster?

Movie theaters are not the ones pushing steaming services and offering VOD within weeks of theatrical releases.

The whole focus of Cinemacon has been blockbusters because that's what the studios are telling exhibitors to hype.

 

[Wendy Pleakley]

This has been a rich period for original or smaller IP films. Novocaine, Black Bag, Companion, The Assessment, Paddington in Peru, and The Day the Earth Blew Up have all come out in the last two months to rapturous reviews. Death of a Unicorn, Opus, Mickey 17, and Locked all received more mixed reviews but were original films with bold premises.

All bombed.

The audience is clearly and uniformly rejecting original content, even if it has famous stars and directors attached. At some point, most of the blame stops going to the studios.

Yep. When audiences come out in droves for Moana 2, a TV show that was thrown into theaters, and felt like it, what do we expect?

Originality is not rewarded.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

I disagree that YouTube has more interesting content than most of Hollywood. Most of it is mindless drivel or revolves around Hollywood content anyway. I use YouTube mostly for the latter.

Depends on what your interests are, I find more interesting Disney parks and Disney history content on YouTube than on D+, as a car guy nothing on TV comes close to the restoration channels on YouTube, same with history, travel, geography, wildlife, science, construction, etc … YouTube can’t compete with feature length movies but that’s about it.

I’ve learned far more about the world from YouTube than from TV, as a kid I loved the hour or 2 of Mutual of Omaha we’d get a week, I can find thousands of hours of similar content at any given time on YouTube right now.

 

[Casper Gutman]

Are studios not somewhat responsible for conditioning their audience to stay home unless it's a blockbuster?

To some extent, certainly. At the same time, the studios’ behavior which alters the audience’s behavior is the result of the audience’s behavior which alters the studios’ behavior. The two are in constant conversation.

All of that is largely academic, however. The current reality is that nothing can sell original or small IP properties. The last two months have served as a very illustrative test case, with a bunch of mid-budget films, some original and some small IP, some with the biggest young stars and some from extremely famous directors, some horror and some action and some comedy… all bombing. That’s just where we are right now.

Movie theaters are not the ones pushing steaming services and offering VOD within weeks of theatrical releases.

I don’t know if this has been posted, but I found it interesting:

As CinemaCon Fires Up, Here Are The Biggest Mistakes Studios & Exhibitors Are Making Right Now

As movie exhibitors gather for CinemaCon, here are some cardinal sins the Hollywood studios and cinema companies are committing in a lackluster 2025.

deadline.com

The whole focus of Cinemacon has been blockbusters because that's what the studios are telling exhibitors to hype.

Because that’s all that sells!

 

[Animaniac93-98]

Because that’s all that sells!

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy IMO

Don't spend on advertising, don't build awareness, incentivize the convenience of watching from home, raise ticket prices and limit discounts, limit the number of screens and showtimes, none of that helps.

The article you linked to talked about how some movies with good notices from audiences who saw them had low awareness for these reasons and that most of those polled agreed they wanted more original movies.

But that doesn't mean they want to go to a movie theater to see them or are aware of what's available.