I know I shouldn't be here, but before you all going to say it's the end of Disney (or I might of said that) I have good news! I've found this: https://x.com/DSNYNewscast/status/1735107394504384886?s=20 According to this Tweet from Marcroaxis.com, Disney has a less than 1% probability of bankruptcy. In other words, despite of recent box office failures, Disney going bankrupt is...........unlikely!
I mean, if the numbers are correct (and I'll preface that with it being pointed out before that site is not the most accurate), our current spot at the box office should be the norm by 2050 based on the trend since 2004. I honestly don't know what to make of what's going on, but I don't think it's shrinking nearly the levels shown so far.
Do you not see the downward trend since 2002 on that chart? Do you not see that despite several “up from previous year” years, the overall number has steadily been decreasing for the last twenty years?
I do. And if you take data since 2004, and create the trend line out of it, and use the trend line equation, it says that in 2049 we hit 858 million tickets sold. So based on what we have seen over the last 20 years, the current levels are where would normally be in another 25 years. So no, I'm not going to ignore the slope of the trend line. The decline is not nearly as steep as it currently looks based on just this year.
So (and I’m not arguing, just discussing here), does that mean you’re essentially ignoring the pandemic dip? You don’t see it as having any lasting impact on the trend?
Netflix has never pushed for wide release theatrical. They have the one place in Hollywood that they use for PR and image management but they only gave very limited releases to Roma, Irishman, and…Mank, maybe? Some of their streaming titles will play for a week at CMX theaters, but they tend to do that for titles that don’t have a lot of buzz. Glass Onion was their biggest push into theatrical and that was for one week and only because it was contractual.
There was an intermission when I saw Empire Strikes Back in the 80s. They were infrequent, but happened back then.A little more perspective on the failures at the Box Office and Flower Moon specifically:
Cinemas that survived the pandemic are still trying to find their footing during the streaming boom; as much as 15 percent of the moviegoing population hasn’t yet returned to theaters, according to data collected by Hollywood studios. This applies especially to older adults, the target audience for Killers of the Flower Moon and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, which runs three hours. These longer films mean fewer showtimes, too, which compounds concerns for cinemas when it comes to ticket sales. According to the film website What to Watch, the average length of the top 10 movies in 2022 was two hours and 21 minutes, compared to one hour and 50 minutes in 1981. While it’s true that three of the four top-grossing movies of all time at the global box office — Avengers: Endgame, Avatar: The Way of Water and Titanic — run longer than three hours, Vue Cinemas head Tim Richards says that doesn’t mean customers shouldn’t have options. So Richards engineered a test in which Vue offered its U.K. customers the choice to see Killers of the Flower Moon in one interrupted viewing or with a 15-minute intermission (in Europe they’re known as “intervals” or “comfort breaks”).
Give Me a Break: Why Cinemas Want to Bring Back Intermissions
Increasingly bloated runtimes mean fewer showings — and ticket sales — for cinemas that are competing with viewers’ cozy couches thanks to streaming. Could adding breaks spur audiences to return?www.hollywoodreporter.com
Oh it absolutely could. My original reason for actually taking those numbers to produce the trend line was because it was said the trend was going down even before the pandemic. I was showing while it was somewhat, it was not making a massive dip before the pandemic happened. And I'm not even convinced it was something that couldn't be reversed if they wanted to. None of us have much of a clue as to what that rebound will be, but my whole point was that attendance was not on some huge downward trend before the pandemic.
This is a great point - Disney’s competitors in this team all have different objectives and priorities. Netflix only cares about streaming - it doesn’t have a huge consumer products, theatrical, or vacation side of things to worry about. Apple/Amazon has these services to support their customers staying within their broader ecosystem (Apple devices or Prime memberships). Theatrical releases are great to generate buzz or demonstrate they too can produce critically acclaimed works.
The reason I’m taking the downward trend a bit more seriously (as an indicator of major shifts in the industry) is that all the studios are putting more effort into streaming than they are box office. Seems strange that they would risk everything on DTC if the downward trend is just no big deal (or easily turned around).
Disney has been telling us for some time now that they are choosing DTC as their primary business (making box office secondary). They are doing both, but in a transition from prioritizing one to prioritizing the other.
You can plot the same trend by using the tickets sold section of the numbers site -
www.the-numbers.com
That's exactly what I did, but the-numbers has been pointed out as not being super accurate. At any rate, we have no idea if the trend was accelerated. All we know is the trend was not nearly the gloom your original post made it sound like. Yes, the trend appeared downwards, but not at a fast pace, and it's possible it was by design (every theater around me now are the small number of seats with recliners for like $15. I don't remember any of these in 2004).You can plot the same trend by using the tickets sold section of the numbers site -
The Numbers - Movie Market Summary 1995 to 2024
Overall movie market summary for each year 1995 to 2024
And yes under normalized times without disruption it would have taken another ~25 years to get to our point now if the trend held. However there was a major disruption that accelerated that trend. The insistence by some here that the new trend post-pandemic will continue to go up until it normalizes back to more traditional pre-pandemic levels is just not realistic. As just because there is a current trend upward post-pandemic, what I don't see happening is a huge major audience shift back to theaters that some think it indicates.
As I mentioned in an earlier post we'll need to wait and see what the new equilibrium of the post-pandemic/post-streaming era box office will be. But what is certain is that in this new post-pandemic/post-streaming era box office studios will eventually find a happy medium between theatrical and streaming, we're starting to see it now. And we know that for certain because it has happened with every other technological shift to the industry over the last 100 years.
I don't understand. If the outlook isn't significant (not "gloom," "not at a fast pace," and "by design"), why is Disney (and every other studio) risking their entire businesses on pivoting to Direct-to-Consumer? And why are they making and releasing fewer films for theatrical release?
If you don't want to look at it as the trend being accelerated by the pandemic, that is your right. But its clear to me it was an acceleration of an already downward trend. I never claimed that the trend prior to the pandemic was fast paced or severe, only that its been on a downward trend for two decades and didn't look to be reversing course as some tried to indicate.
www.cnbc.com
