A week ago, The Twilight Saga: New Moon opened in theatres all over the world. Based on the best selling book of the same name, and sequel to a popular and lucrative first movie, it was always going to open big. What in fact happened, was that it registered the third highest US movie opening ever, with around 0M in it’s opening weekend domestically, behind Spiderman 3 and Dark Knight.
It currently holds a 29% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the number one review collection website. So how can a film that has been rated so badly amongst film critics have made so much money already? Does no-one even read reviews anymore?
This situation isn’t unusual in the Hollywood movie industry, and this year in particular has seen a lot of big turkeys make a lot of big money. It didn’t start off too badly. Watchmen cost a lot of money to make, and whilst i loved the movie, I’m well aware of it’s myriad of problems. Aptly, it was a box office flop (5M). Next big budget popcorn flick was Star Trek. This gained a significant number of good reviews, and the box office gross was a fair reflection of this (0M). That’s when it started to all go downhill.
In a matter of months, X-Men Origins: Wolverine (0M), Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (0M) and GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra (0M) were all released. All three movies were, in the main, lambasted by critics and yet, between them grossed nearly 0M. In between all this, a few lower budget movies, all deserving of Academy Award consideration, barely made their money back.
The trend continued, with by-the-numbers trash like The Final Destination hitting the box office heights, whilst better movies like The Informant were ignored. The only movies to really buck the trend were Inglourious Basterds, and surprise hit District 9, which grossed an impressive 5M, against a budget of M, becoming many people’s film of the year in the process. This month it’s the throwaway 2012 and aforementioned New Moon, and next month may be James Cameron’s Avatar.
So why are movies that are, frankly, bad, so wholly out-grossing such well made works? There’s a few reasons. One of the biggest, obviously, is marketing. The highest budget movies get the highest budget campaigns. The posters are everywhere, TV spots run for weeks in advance. Trailers are expertly cut together, and there’s no denying big action pictures make for far more compelling, excitement inducing promos. This means many viewers have already made their minds up to see a movie long before it’s release.
As far as reviews go, a lot of studios have discovered a trick, which is to not screen movies for the press in advance. This has happened for a few of the big films this year, and it means the first few days of release see people buying their tickets blind, until word of mouth begins to kick in. Something else that I’ve noticed over the last few years is that movie reviews in national tabloid newspapers often go against the common opinion. Big budget movies that are truly awful often get four or five stars out of five, and it got so bad i stopped reading reviews in newspapers. For a lot of people, however, these reviews would be the only ones they do read. And of course, the truth about reviews is that the majority of the movie-going public DONT read them, they go to a film based on the trailer, the actors, quite often just on the posters on display when they arrive at the cinema house.
Of course, there’s something that all the big movies I mentioned above have in common – they are all part of franchises. Whether it be sequel, reboot, adaptation or even based on a toy, trading on a previous movie or product that has quality and/or popularity is the fast track to good box office. We (the boys) loved Transformers twenty-something years ago, so of course we want to see them ‘for real’. The Terminator is a compelling story, and a movie about the much discussed human/machine war, done the right way, would be really cool. The kids of today love The Twilight Saga novels, they loved the first movie, and they love Edward and Jacob, so of course New Moon was going to make a fortune. They know New Moon has had terrible reviews, they don’t care. They are going to see it anyway (twice), and they are going to love it.
The main reason, you see, why big budget, dumb movies will always make the most money is simple. The majority of the movie going public don’t take the art of film as seriously as I do. They are spending money that they have worked hard to earn, and they want to be entertained. The masses aren’t overly concerned with coherent narrative storyline, great cinematography, or nuanced acting performances. The Twilight fans want to see the stories they love put up on screen, and they are grateful they have been given that opportunity. They are lucky that the books they love have been adapted into film, and even luckier that they are not dissapointed at the end result.
At the end of the day, like any business, it’s all about supply and demand. The major studios know for the most part what is demanded by the mainstream, and they supply it. Movies like Moon, The Hurt Locker and Sugar don’t make money because there is not enough interest in them, and i think myself lucky they get made at all. Leave the New Moon lovers alone, it’s their pocket money, they can spend it however they like. And remember, there’s another two movies to come…
Bazmann – You can now follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/baz_mann
