Hey Studio Execs?
What is the obsession with cramming your hopeful blockbusters into the summer
months and the Thanksgiving/Christmas corridor?
Why forfeit almost eight months of earning in a calendar year? One theory I have is the Unhappy Triad.
Part 1: Pricing
& Scheduling
The days of the double and triple feature at the movie
theater are all but extinct these days.
One major reason is the pricing of the tickets and the concessions. Yes I know Monday thru Thursday the tickets
are cheaper but most normal people go to the movies during the Friday to Sunday
period. And no moviegoer is required to
buy concessions but that takes away an iconic joy from the movie experience. That would be like having no beer during St.
Patrick’s Day or no turkey during Thanksgiving. Yeah I’m sure the St. Patrick’s Day
festivities would be just as awesome without the beer.
Moviegoers have tried to adjust to these outlandish price
hikes by selecting more matinee times and sneaking in concessions from outside. However we may soon get to the point (if not
already) where it won’t be worth it to go to the theater even for the blockbuster
movies. Here’s some simple yet
depressing math using opening night of one of the most anticipated films of the
year, the Avengers.
Pricing: Single Couple/Kids
Friday Night 9:00 p.m. show $10 or $15 (IMAX-3D) $20 or $30
Large Popcorn/Large Drink Combo $14 $14
or $28
Total $24
or $29 $34
or $58
The standard movie outing involves buying a ticket with some
popcorn and a drink which would run you at least twenty four dollars. God forbid if you take a date to a movie or
take the kids to the next big animation movie because those almost have to be
seen in 3D these days. People are going to flock in even bigger mobs
towards Netflix or other providers and simply try to poorly recreate the
theater experience at home. For me part
of the joy of the overall movie experience was sharing the thrills with the
audience crowd. Some of that will be on
full display during the opening weekend and midnight shows of the Avengers this
summer.
While pricing threatens to totally derail the joy of the
movies, the scheduling is also a problem.
Blockbusters only come out during May, June, July, mid November and
December, the rest of the months are left out in the cold. Moviegoers are subjected to Indy darlings,
romantic comedies, and big budget productions undeserving of primetime
dates. When a big name movie is pushed
into the January-April period or the September-October period that’s usually a
giant warning sign. And history has
proven this fact out. Here’s a weird
idea though, why not just space out the blockbusters throughout the year so
that they can maximize their earning potential and moviegoers won’t be
subjected to months of terribly lackluster flicks? If Avengers came out in the middle of
February (and provided it didn’t suck) fans would be confused but they wouldn’t
care. The Avengers would crush the
competition for at least two months if not longer.
The super blockbusters try to space themselves out by
claiming one month in the summer while all the other movies hope to live off
the scraps in between them. It is a
crazy practice that moves further away from logic as time goes on. Yes, during the summer kids are out of school
and they should be able to go to the movies more frequently but that’s not the
case anymore. The shareholders of the
major studios don’t care when the money is earned as long as the final tally is
good at the end of the year earnings report.
During those empty months if moviegoers had a reason to go to a movie
they may find the patience to stomach those insane prices for an enjoyable
night at the theater.
- Nik
From what I hear theaters make most of their money not at the ticket booth but at the concession stand, so much of their livelihood depends on people buying popcorn and pop, etc. They want to perpetuate the notion that you brought up here, that concessions at the movies are integral to the experience.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that they're selling a product that is losing sales, in particular in the theater setting. You can prescribe this to the onset of Netflix, OnDemand and other internet sites. It also has something to do with the product itself. It's funny that the problem with the current Hollywood model (think: large budget and costly stars in licensed franchises & sequels) seems to form an indefinite loop. Studios pump out these sequels and adaptations because they figure that's what will make them money (rather than original indie projects), but audiences #1 complaint is that there are too many sequels and no originality. It's a weird catch-22 that doesn't offer an easy solution.
In any business, slumping sales should be a sign that the company must take a long, hard look at the product and figure out what's wrong, and how to improve things. This is no different with Hollywood.