THB #627: Learning The Wrong Lessons

A hugely successful weekend, like the one we are in the midst of, is a great thing for everyone in the industry. There is no natural downside.

EXCEPT when the undeniable success of the moment is used as an umbrella to cover for the systematic failures of half of the rest of the year.

I didn’t have any intention of writing a box office-focused column this weekend. I have a couple others that I was planning on writing today (Saturday). But my friend at Deadline, Anthony D'Alessandro - who in spite of my criticism of some of his box office coverage, I really do like a lot and respect - wrote a paragraph that really bothered me. So let’s start there…

What’s quite clear is that counterprogramming of tentpoles works in a given weekend, and should not be avoided. When tentpoles are of a great quality, all boats rise, and here we have three movies with very good Rotten Tomatoes audience scores: Wicked (96%), Moana 2 (87%) and Gladiator II (83%) over-indexing. It’s funny, even after experiencing a high point like this at the box office, especially pre-pandemic, you’d think the major studios would continue to program big movies over a heavy moviegoing period like this year after year, but they sometimes come up short on product or get scared of another big fish on the marquee. Studios should take this year’s success as a come-to-Jesus: leave no stone unturned when it comes to booking big films; the marquee can be shared with a Disney animated movie.

There is absolutely no problem having multiple “tentpoles” (a term we should have stopped using 20 years ago, as it is no longer descriptive of what massive films do for studios anymore) on the same date or same 2 week period, particularly if they are actually seeking mostly different audiences. But this is very old news. This was proven out most dramtically in 2007 with the trio or threequels and nothing has changed that record.

The quality argument is bullshit, as always. To wit, fans of Wicked are a lot more in love with that film than the audiences flooding into Moana 2 will ever be. And as always, no one buying a ticket for opening weekend knows whether they will think the movie is good or great or terrible. Quality doesn’t open movies. Trailers and ads are the call to action. Critics have a minor influence. Only extreme negativity can occasionally break what might have been a successful opening weekend. Passionate love by critics for a title has a 1-in-400 shot of making any difference on opening weekend.

Regardless of how audiences feel about the movies, Moana 2 will almost certainly outgross Wicked in the end by no less than 30%. Rotten Tomatoes, which has its worthwhile place in the industry, measures only - in a case like this - how many (often-self-proclaimed) film critics dislike these films enough to say, “rotten.” It does not define “quality.” It does not define audience passion. (Neither does box office, in most cases.) A “fresh” rating is a fairly wide berth and as such is not a good statistical basis for much of anything except on the absolute fringes of good (over 95%) and bad (under 15%). Personally, I was underwhelmed by Moana 2… but I gave it a Fresh tomato because I would not dissuade family audiences from seeing it. It is not Rotten. It is just mediocre… which is reflected in my review.

My huge problem is that Anthony, flooded with the studio rationalizations that come from talking to highly charming, brilliant distribution execs weekly in covering box office, is encouraging pile-ups on the strongest historic box office windows, which, consciously or not, discourages spreading success out over the 4-6 months of the year that the movie distributors have now consistently all but abandoned.

This is the disaster the industry is currently running towards at full speed, in terms of theatrical. We know that the main theatrical audience - very roughly about 40 million Americans - is ready to go to the movies and turning up when given any real inspiration.