Decision ‘08

The Box-Office Slump Is Due To Hollywood’s Leftward Trend - Or Is It?

Michael Medved makes the case for the connection between disconnected Hollywood limousine liberals and the slumping box office:

Revealingly, none of the studio honchos talked about reconnecting with the public by adjusting the values conveyed by feature films, and replacing the industry’s shrill liberal posturing with a more balanced ideological perspective.

Something clearly changed between 2004 and 2005 to cause an abrupt drop-off at the box office, and the most obvious alteration involved Hollywood’s role in the bitterly fought presidential election. The entertainment establishment embraced John Kerry with near unanimity - and bashed George W. Bush with unprecedented ferocity.

Sounds good - only problem is, there is no box office slump, as revealed in another of Edward Jay Epstein’s great insider pieces. Or rather, there is no slump among the big studios (it’s the smaller pictures that are getting clobbered):

Instead of a box-office decline, the studios actually took in more from the U.S. box office in the first quarter of 2005 ($870.2 million) than they did in the similar period of 2004 ($797.1 million). So even though the total audience at movie theaters declined during this period, this came mainly at the expense of independent, foreign, and documentary movies. For the Hollywood studios (and their subsidaries [sic]), in fact, there was no slump at all.

Nevertheless, Hollywood is in a death spiral, according to Epstein, who goes on:

The real issue that emerges in these secret industry numbers is not the rise of a new format. Just as the DVD replaced VHS, a more efficient digital format will eventually replace the DVD. (A high-definition digital recorder with massive storage is already available in the United States and Japan.) What has inexorably changed is the location of the studios’ crucial audience. In 1948, with studios earning all their revenues from the box office, that audience was moviegoers. Even as late as 1980, when the audience had television sets and video players, studios still earned 55 percent of their money from people who actually went to movie theaters. In 2005, however, those moviegoers provided the studios with less than 15 percent of their worldwide revenues, while couch potatoes provided it with 85.8 percent. (Click here to see the numbers behind the rise of the home entertainment economy.)

That’s startling: 85.8% from the home, 14.2% from the theater. My conclusion: I’m more persuaded by Epstein. The problem isn’t Hollywood’s values so much as it is our love of staying home. It wouldn’t hurt for Hollywood to be more in touch with the mainstream, but it won’t stop the decline…

18 Responses to “The Box-Office Slump Is Due To Hollywood’s Leftward Trend - Or Is It?”

1 Dennis Says:
July 26th, 2005 at 11:01 pm
I’m with you, Mark. Hollywood has been left-leaning since, well, forever. It’s not like Joe Moviegoer has been suddenly shocked to discover this and moved to boycott Hollywood.

I like DVDs, but I’m still a fan of seeing movies on the big screen. But I’ve got kids now, so me and the Mrs. have to ration our moviegoing to a handful of films. I never give a crap about the politics of the stars; I just want to see a good movie. And when you start rationing your movie choices, you rapidly start realizing how few good movies there are out there.
2 MBains Says:
July 27th, 2005 at 1:31 am
… when you start rationing your movie choices, you rapidly start realizing how few good movies there are out there.

Amen! LOL!

Try “Fight Club” after the kids ‘ave hit the sack. Brad Pitt for the wife (and any fan of great acting) and one seriously unnexpected ending. And “Somewhere in Time” for a performance no one could’ve imagined Bill Murray giving.

Hekk, if I let an actor’s politics stop me from seeing their movies, I’d've blown-off Jerry McGuire, Saving Private Ryan, Forest Gump and every macho-BS-but-I’ll-watch-’em-again John Wayne flick ever made!

But hearing about how people are staying home so much more invokes creepy (paranoidal no doubt) shades of F-451. vive la liberte! ;-}
3 Mark Coffey Says:
July 27th, 2005 at 1:35 am
Yep, you can’t let politics keep you away from movies (or music, in my view) or you’ll end up with a very wee little tiny selection to choose from…
4 bebere Says:
July 27th, 2005 at 1:46 am
Hey - politics aside, I love the movies. I’m on a tight budget, though, so only go pay full price (around $10) for a film if it seems really compelling. That hasn’t been the case in about five years.

I blogged briefly on this at my site - about a news story on the diffusion of films now via satellite globally in addition to box office release. My (ahem) guy, not a man of many words, said that it was funny how no one addressed the issue of nothing but crap being made of late. (a summer of reruns? come on!)
5 Fargus Says:
July 27th, 2005 at 2:33 am
I agree with you. I really think that politics have nothing to do with it, so much as unprecedented shifts in technology.
6 Adrian Says:
July 27th, 2005 at 2:34 am
There is something fishy with the numbers (either Medved’s or Eppstein’s). The total box office revenues are down 8% (according to Medved), while Hollywood revenues are up from $797 million to $870 million (according to Eppstein). If both numbers are right, the revenues of smaller studios must be down by about $150 million which would be a truly catastrophic drop, given that the audience for independent/foreign films is considerably smaller than for Hollywood.
7 Mark Coffey Says:
July 27th, 2005 at 2:55 am
While, I think it’s the way Epstein defines the top studios…specifically, he only includes six…so my best guess is there are some kind of mid-majors there that produce the $30-$60 million grossers (like, say, a Mirimax or…?)…
8 Mark Coffey Says:
July 27th, 2005 at 2:57 am
bebere, I’m a movie fan, too…and also somewhat less than thrilled with this summer’s output thus far (although I’ve yet to see War of the Worlds, and I’ve heard it’s a pretty good thriller, of the popcorn movie sort)…
9 Mark Coffey Says:
July 27th, 2005 at 3:05 am
Fox, Time Warner, Sony, NBC-Universal, Paramount, and Disney, specifically, are the six studios Epstein calls ‘majors’…
10 Clint Says:
July 27th, 2005 at 3:47 am
Re: selecting movies (or music) on the basis of the artist’s politics….

The greatest artists are always a little bit crazy.

Re: the possible trend…

I’m with Fargus — this is technology-driven. On-Demand movies, for one, have made it an order of magnitude easier to watch the almost-latest movies on a whim.
11 Clint Says:
July 27th, 2005 at 3:50 am
Mark-

WotW was quite well-made, on the action-movie thriller front. Not quite as good on the SciFi front (many, many unanswered questions and things that don’t really make sense…) Definitely enjoyable.
12 bebere Says:
July 27th, 2005 at 2:57 pm
I heard that the special effects for WOtW were good, but I’m not that much of a fan of Tom Cruise and the rest of the story I heard wasn’t so compelling. One that I did see recently (at the cheapies, actually)and that I found absolutely wonderful was “The Hitchhiker’s Guide.” Some purists have panned it because it wasn’t a faithful reproduction of the book, but I found it a very clever, loving remake of a favorite series from when I was growing up. The special effects were incredible, too. Oh, and I’ve had a thing for Mos Def since hearing this for the first time.

Sad to say, but about the only thing that looks even remotely interesting right now (aside from “Cinderlla Man, which I think I missed) is “Wedding Crashers.” Aside from Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn - what can Hollywood offer me today that I can’t get from Criterion or the Harvard Film Archive?
13 Mark Coffey Says:
July 27th, 2005 at 3:39 pm
I am looking forward, on the horizon, to the film version of The Producers, scheduled for next year…but yeah, nothing’s grabbing me too much right now…
14 Sean P Says:
July 27th, 2005 at 3:57 pm
There is a reason that revenue is slumping among independent studios this year: because in 2004 the independant studios had a record shattering year. Or rather, one independant studio — Newmarket Pictures — did. Or, more specifically, one picture Newmarket distributed — “The Passion of the Christ” — had a phenomenal run, grossing $370 million from theaters. The Passion of the Christ, as you know, was self financed by Mel Gibson after all the major studios turned down the project (never mind that vanity projects from other actor/directors are routinely greenlighted and Mel’s budget was pretty Spartan). Since it wasn’t released by a major studio, it didn’t count towards the major studios revenues in 2004.

Now think about this for a second. The only reason the major studios aren’t in a slump in 2004 is because all of them, to a man, were too stupid to recognize the commercial potential of Mel’s film to take advantage of the huge windfal this created in 2004. And this is offered as evidence of the fact that Hollywood does not have a problem?
15 bebere Says:
July 27th, 2005 at 4:27 pm
Mark: did you ever see the original?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063462/

Not Brooks’s best, but darn funny. Who can top Wilder and Mostel? I heard that the stage version, even with Broderick and Lane, paled in comparison.

On another note, I heard a rumor that Spielberg’s doing a remake of Kurosawa’s “Ikiru” (starring Tom Hanks, no less). Heaven help us.
16 Mark Coffey Says:
July 27th, 2005 at 6:02 pm
bebere, I did see the original…I liked it quite a bit…speaking of Gene Wilder, I watched Young Frankenstein again recently…what a great movie!…
17 Dmac Says:
July 27th, 2005 at 6:03 pm
Yep, the “The Producers” is flat - out hilarious. Wilder and Mostel really give it their all - don’t see how anyone can top it (but of course that won’t stop them from trying).

I still have a hard time believing that they chose to remake “The Manchurian Candidate” last year. I heard it was actually decent, but why try to improve on perfection?

I did see “Crash” not too long ago, and thought it was well worth the trip.
18 Mark Coffey Says:
July 27th, 2005 at 6:16 pm
Sean P, excellent, excellent point…that would definitely explain a big part of the discrepancy…