With ticket sales down and newly released movies hitting streaming and video-on-demand (VOD) services in record time, it’s not surprising that films are struggling to make it big in theaters. For comparison, 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road grossed a whopping $45 million over a non-holiday opening weekend, which ultimately led to an impressive $380 million global box office draw. Meanwhile, Furiosa, which is equally well-received, earned just $32 million over the four days that make up Memorial Day weekend. Sadly, Hollywood’s slump is becoming much more of a pattern, and there are clear-cut reasons why.
They are:
- The Movie Theater Experience Isn’t Always Great
- Movie Theaters Are Expensive
- Bigger Budgets Puts Greater Box Office Expectations On Some Movies
- The COVID-19 Pandemic Changed Moviegoing Habit
- Audiences Have Been Conditioned That New Theatrical Releases Will Quickly Go To VOD
- Streaming Means There’s More Choice At Home Than In Theaters
#1 IMO is that they don’t make anything original anymore. I don’t want to go see a live action remake of a classic cartoon movie. They can’t possibly recapture what made the original great, and to be honest, what made the original great was probably the ignorance of youth and the nostalgia filter through which you personally view it.
If movie theaters are doing poorly, the movie industry should try to make smaller budget and slightly riskier original movies and movie theaters should charge less for a seat if they’re having trouble filling cinemas. They make most of their money from concessions anyway and those are optional, so just get butts in seats and you’ll make more money.
I agree to a point, but Mad Max is an example of something original that seems to have come from a place of creativity instead of a committee and yet is still doing poorly.
So I don’t think it’s just that Hollywood has a tendency to do remakes instead of original stuff.
The movie from 1979, from 1981, from 1985? Maybe the movie from 2015, or the spin-off from this year?
Just because it’s a sequel doesn’t mean it’s derivative. All 5 movies are directed by the same guy. I can’t speak for the first 3, but if you saw the 2015 movie and couldn’t tell that it was a passion project, then I don’t know what to tell you. We don’t call Sherlock Holmes soulless even though Doyle wrote over 50 short stories starring Holmes.
It’s entirely possible for someone to be creatively invested in a world they’ve built and want to keep exploring it in future works.
I absolutely love the Mad Max series, but I’ll be the first to say that yes, it’s derivative, except for the very first one.
All the others follow the same formula: Max Rockatansky wanders into a shitty situation while dealing with Bad Guys™️. Shitty situation escalates and ropes him in. He reluctantly helps and, with a ragtag team of anti-heroes, they save the day at a great cost. Max is left to wander the Outback once more.
It’s a great formula, I love it, but I won’t blame anyone for not wanting to watch more of the same.
In '85, they brought on Tina Turner just to cash in on previous releases. Kinda like casting JLo or Beyonce in another Mad Max and expecting it to do better.
She did a bang up job, though.
I’m glad you enjoyed it. I love Tina’s music.
If you’re being that reductive then you’re describing like 10% of all movies.
Mad Max Furiosa is doing badly because Fury Road completely killed the franchise. If they want people to go see it they should have communicate in some way that Furiosa is not a badly written fashion show, and the best way to do that is by not calling it “Mad Max”.
(Honestly, I have no idea what Furiosa is about, and no interest in finding out.)