THB #556: What Inside Out 2's Numbers Do Mean
(Part I - THB #545: What Inside Out 2's Numbers Don't Mean)
The first thing that I take away from this opening of Inside Out 2 - wherever it eventually lands - is that Disney created a theatrical opportunity from what was once meant to go to Disney+ and proved that the classic windowing model is clearly the best option in success.
The theatrical market will be as large or limited as the distributors make it.
It is not the weather. It is a choice that creates the circumstances by way of the action of the people who market and distribute films.
The idea, advanced by Universal’s Donna Langley in Cannes last month - “We don’t really think we’re going to recapture (pre-pandemic levels)…” - is a self-perpetuating bit of mythologizing. If Universal and others choose not to pursue pre-COVID levels of box office success, they will not. No one is going to come to them trying to knock down the door to get to movies they aren’t making. The industry is one of risk. There are moments in which that risk is balanced out with unique events, like the DVD explosion of the early 00s. But that lasted 4 years, basically, and studios managed to overspend against the trend to the degree that they gave back all their surprise revenue gains before the end of the decade.
There is no magic trick to the openings of the 5 billion dollar-plus worldwide grossing films since COVID nor of the 15 other English-lanaguage films that grossed between $500 million and $999 million in that same period.
It is true that in the biggest year ever, in terms of box office, there were 5 billion dollar-plus grossers and 11 between $500 million and $999 million in that same one year of 2018.
But if you can have 2 billion+ films and 7 $500m/$999m films in 2023, there is no reason, aside from the lack of attempts to get there, that you cannot match or top the previous high.
Did the pile-up of ambitious titles every weekend in March end up costing each of those films some money? Probably. But there is nothing at all that indicates that it was because the current market is not elastic enough to deliver 4 strong openings and runs in the same month.
If you look at the 4 ambitious March titles, 3 of them were sequels to 2021 releases. Dune did $109m/$408m (domestic/worldwide) while Dune II did $282m/$711m.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife did $129m/$204m in 2021 and this year’s sequel, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire did $113m/$201m.
Godzilla vs Kong did $101m/$470m in 2021, Kong: Skull Island did $168m/$569m in 2017, and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire did $196m/$568m.
And Kung Fu Panda 3 did $144m/$521m all the way back in 2016. Kung Fu Panda 4 did $194m/$544m this spring.
It’s pretty astounding how each of the films did pretty much what reasonable expectations were and should have been. Three of the four films were close to matching previous entries and the fourth did a lot better… but as you would expect.
I have written exhaustively (and exhaustingly) about the bust-y month of May and why the failure to launch wasn’t really that surprising. (The urge to pun took “busted” to “bust-y.” Apologies.)
So back to this moment…
Regardless of its Streaming roots, Inside Out 2 is a good movie. But as I find myself writing virtually every week now, “good” is not a primary characteristic of a big opening. As of opening day, almost no one has seen the movie yet. Reviews are disregarded, in terms of box office, in almost every single case, however harmful that is to our egos as film critics. And generally, people have decided whether they are going to the movies this weekend before the weekend arrives.
So why did Inside Out 2 open so well?
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