I was not planning on picking up this cudgel today, but after reading Pamela McClintock’s piece on “Project Popcorn” aka Kilar’s Folly, I must. But I will keep it quick and I will keep it as simple as I can.
I appreciate Ms. McClintock and The Hollywood Reporter trying to be more honest than some have been about the results of this financial fiasco, starting with the headline, ““Project Popcorn”: WarnerMedia’s Box Office-HBO Max Experiment Gets Mixed Results”. And I will stand down about the attempt to make the project look better by using worldwide results, even though the domestic results were dismal - and would have been dismal by normal standards even without Kilar’s Folly - delivering just 7.5 million new domestic subs in the last 9 months and a similar number internationally as the service expands across the globe. I should point out that 6 days ago, “The company said the worldwide number rose ‘thanks to strong international and ad-supported subscriber growth.’” Now they want to give all the credit to the movies they trashed by throwing them on HBO Max.
Sorry… getting long-winded (again)…
What set me off was this quote from Ann Sarnoff near the end of the story. “And, no great surprise, the ones we’re putting in theaters are the ones we think we’ll work. It’s not just about budget size, it’s also about genre and the behavioral patterns of people,” Sarnoff says. “I would love to put dramas and comedies on the biggest screen possible; it’s just right now they are opening. Honestly, they weren’t opening pre-COVID either.” (I assume she meant “aren’t opening” in that next to last sentence)
And I know everyone and their mothers believes this spin… it’s all set in their minds. Dramas and Comedies are over in theatrical. Run for the Netflix and chill!!!
But this is mythology. And nowhere else more so than Warner Bros.
Let’s go back to those halcyon days of 2019…
102 domestic releases grossed over $20m at the box office. 58 were action, animation or IP-driven. 44 of these films were dramas or comedies. Not shockingly, the former grossed $8.2b domestic and the latter grossed “only” $2.5b.
It also won’t shock anyone that $4.3 billion of the $8.2 billion was made by just 9 films: 3 Marvel, 1 DC, 1 Star Wars, and 4 originating in Disney’s animation divisions, though 2 of those 4 were live (or live-ish) remakes of animated films.
Remove that layer of outsized - in every way - movies and the balance is 49 action/animation/IP movies to 44 dramas/comedies and $3.9 billion to $2.5 billion. Not quite as dramatic.
But let’s look specifically at Warner Bros.
Every single one of their films in the IP/Action/Animation category was a sequel or a reboot/spin-off. Joker, It Chapter Two, Pokémon Detective Pikachu, Shazam!, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, The Lego Movie 2, Annabelle Comes Home, The Curse of La Llorona, Doctor Sleep, and Shaft. 10 films out of 58. About 1 out of every 6 in the market.
Now, what did Warners do with the drama/comedy category? Of the 44 films released in those categories which grossed over $20m domestically, they made… 3.
THREE.
Universal made 7. Fox made 6. Sony made 5. Even Paramount released 4.
But there’s one more category to consider… major studio releases that didn’t make it to $20 million domestic. There were 16 in 2019.
Wanna guess which studio led in this category?
Universal, Fox, and Disney had 1 each. (Disney’s was a nature film.) Studio Dependents Focus had 5 and Screen Gems had 1. And Warner Bros had 7.
SEVEN.
The Good Liar, The Kitchen, Blinded by the Light, Motherless Brooklyn, The Goldfinch, The Sun is also a Star, and Western Stars.
No other studio had less success in the middle or more failure at the bottom.
But Ms. Sarnoff’s answer is not to improve the choices of films by Toby Emmerich or to explain that Josh Goldstine hasn’t really had the opportunity to up the level of marketing under these circumstances after Blair Rich was exited last November, but he will next year, just you wait!
But rather, she decides to throw comedy and drama to the curb.
And may I point out, the Top 10 dramas/comedies did $2.25b worldwide, 3 of them north of $300 million… and one of those was Knives Out, which Netflix bet a ton on moving forward.
But not at Warner Bros.
So like throwing your entire slate of 2021 movies into an unknown financial dynamic that has delivered just one opening over $31 million and none over $41 million and cost losses of well over half a billion dollars… just throw away the parts you are failing at because you don’t really know this part of the industry. It’s their fault. Convince the media to cover your ass. Rinse. Repeat.
I told you I would be brief, so I will stop now.
I have nothing against Ann Sarnoff or Jason Kilar. I wish them well. I certainly wish Warner Bros. well. But getting spin printed in the “paper” does not make it truth. The truth may be hard. Mistakes have been made. But they rarely disappear for the long haul. At least not at this level. Because the next boss will be highlighting them as their slow start needs explaining.
And so it goes…
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