The film industry in the month of October has been hit with flop after flop at the box office, hitting a low that hasn’t been reached since 1997.
While there were a few standouts, like Taylor Swift’s “The Release Party of a Showgirl,” “Regretting You,” and “Black Phone 2,” these don’t outweigh the sheer number of flops.
“Tron: Ares” in particular is projected to lose more than $100 million due to its high budget and low returns despite landing the number one spot on its opening weekend.
While some critics are attributing this to the films of this month not resonating with audiences, I find that this is a longer-running issue.
Since the pandemic in 2020, there has been an overall shift in movie theater culture. When the pandemic hit, studios were forced to push back many of their releases and were unable to show films in theaters due to social distancing requirements. So, studios made the decision to simultaneously release their films to theaters and streaming services.
While streaming services were already on the rise, this choice increased the mentality of “why see it in theaters when we can watch it at home?”
Yet streaming services themselves are structured in a way that overwhelms you, making an action like going on Netflix to find a movie to watch a daunting process, with a catalog of hundreds of movies thrown at you all at once.
While being overwhelmed by choice may not seem like a major problem, it makes it extremely difficult for new films to gain traction when they are thrown amongst an already giant pile of movies. But it seems that all that gets released into theaters today is another sequel or live-action remake.
This lack of originality leads to a lack of audience interest. But studios continue to pump remake after remake out, while original films are lucky to find an audience on streaming.
Currently, critics are predicting that November and December will have many hits at the theaters, including “Wicked: For Good,” “Zootopia 2” and “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” all of which are sequels or are a part of major franchises.
While the phrase ‘they don’t make movies like that anymore’ has become an eye-rolling cliché, I can’t help but find that there is truth to it. Despite the fact that blockbusters have been consistent in theaters since “Jaws” in 1975, there used to be a much larger variety of successful films being released in theaters.
A comedy that would have been successful fifteen years ago is lucky to gain an audience on streaming when relying on the algorithm of the platform.
The film industry needs to take note of lackluster box office results and adapt. It is unrealistic to say that the audience relationship with movie theaters will go back to how it was pre-pandemic. But the first step towards adapting is to increase the variety of the films going to theaters.
