THB #431: Box Office Excuses

At Sony Pictures Marketing, they used to have (maybe they still have) The Wheel of Blame.

On the wheel, there were the various reasons why a film might not open well. Bad Movie, Bad Date, Bad One Sheet, Unlikable Stars, Bad Idea, etc.

I never thought of this as the marketers looking for an excuse for failure. It was a bit of gallows humor mixed with some hard reality. It was not for public consumption.

There are 100s, sometimes 1000s of elements in releasing every movie and the marketing department, which most often takes the blame, is not in control of all of those elements, even when they seem to be marketing choices.

Nowadays, if you want to get a list of rationals for why movies fail to open well, the master of the form has become Anthony D'Alessandro of Deadline, a guy who gets the joke, has a sense of perspective, and still publishes a load of excuses of every shape and size every time a movie opens poorly.

Anthony is hardly alone. But his lists of excuses are longer and more cleverly explained than anyone else out there in PenskeVille.

Having covered the box office more deeply and for a lot longer than anyone currently working that beat (since 1997, professionally), I have earned the right to consider my opinions well informed. I know the excuses and I know the history, even beyond 2002.

What is tricky about box office analysis is that there are no absolutes. There is never just one answer. On any given film, not only are there multiple influences, but they sometimes conflict.

For instance… Superhero Fatigue. It’s both a reasonable thing to consider… and it is absolute bullshit.

The problem with arguing Superhero Fatigue is that it is way too broad a notion and it suffers one of the most fundamental flaws of A Blame… it is completely inconsistent.

3 of the Top 8 Domestic Grossers (3 of the Top 10 Worldwide) this year are Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, the lowest grossing one (Ant-Man 3) doing $475 million worldwide.

2022 also had 3 MCU films in the Top 8 Domestic Grossers and last year, it was 3 of the Top 8 Worldwide.

So where is the fatigue?

2022’s MCU trio was Dr Strange, Thor, and Black Panther.

2023’s is Ant-Man, Guardians, and animated Spider-Man.

So last year, 3 of the core MCU characters who let up to Infinity Wars and Endgame. This year, there were sequels to popular films, but only Spider-Man was of the top tier MCU status (with due respect). And this was the (brilliant) animated version. Last year’s core trio grossed $2.6 billion worldwide, while this year’s mix of titles grossed “just” $2 billion.

But look at this…

Guardians 3 was just $18 million off Guardians 2.
Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse did $307 million more than Into The Spider-Verse.
Ant-Man 3 was $147 million off of Ant-Man 2.

The direct comparison of these films to their direct predecessors has Marvel UP $142 million from the earlier group. Obviously, Spidey is carrying the big load, but the Guardians number was pretty much flat and Ant-3 was the only one really off (24%).

My broad point is, if you want to lump titles into groups for lazy analysis, you are required to be consistent if you want to be taken seriously.