Indiana Jones and Flash flopped hard. Could this be the beginning of the end for franchise films?
Indiana Jones and Flash flopped hard. Could this be the beginning of the end for franchise films?
For the last few years franchise movies like star wars, marvel, etc. made money regardless of quality. However now it seems like audiences are being choosier when it comes to these kinds of tentpole releases. I've seen some people online say that the movie/theater industry is losing people in general but I don't think that's the case.
Super Mario and spiderverse made a lot of money. And Oppenheimer, Barbie, and Dune seem to be tracking well. I think the problem is that people are getting sick of the same old stuff and need more than just a brand name to go to the theater. What do you you think?
It's not superhero fatigue or franchise fatigue. It's bad writing fatigue. Seriously, I don't know why Hollywood keeps choosing terrible writers for huge projects, but as long as they are doing that they are going to keep getting what they deserve.
And speaking of huge projects, from what I've heard Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny cost $295 million to make rather than 250. And that's not counting publicity and marketing, which brings it to 400 million if not more. That means they need to make at least $800 million to break even. No matter how you slice their opening weekend, they are in huge trouble. And given that Elementals and The Little Mermaid both bombed hard along with most other Disney movies of the last few years, I'd say that Disney is in serious trouble too!
On the other hand, Guardians of the Galaxy 3 was rather well written, and from what I've heard it did rather well at the box office. Which is just more evidence that if you have a decently-written film the public WILL go and see it. We're just avoiding crap, that's all.
I'll go out on a limb and say that hauling poor old Harrison Ford away from his bong and forcing him at the age of 80 to make shitty movies is tantamount to elder abuse. As for The Flash, coddling wannabe cult leader and mental defective Ezra Miller was just the icing on the cake. The movie was just badly written.
Frantic last minute reshoots and rewrites are a dead giveaway that something is seriously wrong with a production. But that that is happening so often in Hollywood in the last several years is clear evidence that Hollywood itself has completely lost their way. I don't know if they can right that ship, and to be honest I don't much care. If they won't provide people with the good entertainment that they want, eventually somewhere else will. Maybe Bollywood or China.
I don't think it has anything to do with being franchise films. Studios just need to make good films and people will see them.
Spider-Man made 600m WW so far which isn't too shabby. That has to contend with superhero fatigue as well as franchise fatigue.
Nah movies are too expensive now. I'm super excited for indy. He's my hero but the theater is a horrible money waste.
They need to learn to release straight to streaming instead of Theatre only. Because I spent a while lot of money on a 5.1, 65in 4k TV and awesome lighting to go blow $100 every time I want to see a new release? Hell no. The threater is just more irrelevant then ever when I can be super comfy and watch or be packed in with 100 strangers.
No, it’s just more expensive than ever to go watch a movie. I like going to this one theater because it has comfy seats, they serve beer, and have good sound. The tickets are like $12-18, but I also have to pay for parking (about $30 for a 2-3 hour movie), and they up charge the beers too. So, going to watch a movie ends up being around $60-70 for two, and the only reason to go is to be part of the social experience happening around the movie, because if you wait like 90 days, you can buy the movie on iTunes or YouTube for less than $60.
So I pretty much only go to Marvel movies since the cgi action scenes are better on the huge screen.
Every time a sequel or a comic book movie lands on its face, someone rewrites an article about franchise/superhero fatigue. And that's been going on for over a decade.
People will show up to watch a good movie. Guardians 3 did really well. Spider-Man is the "same old stuff." This is all cherry picking examples. Movies don't do well when they're bad or the star is unappealing somehow.
Hollywood will stop making these movies when people stop paying to see them.
i would love to see revivals of old franchises go the way of the dodo. i am as nostalgic as any millennial but if i want to see indiana jones or ghostbusters or whatever, i'll just watch the originals.
i don't think the superhero franchises are going anywhere, unfortunately. they are still reliable, even with some people losing interest over time. it seems like a good moneymaking bet for disney at least. and all the studios seem really risk-averse lately, more than they used to be.
Indy is failing not because it's a franchise, but because the audience for an 80 year old Harrison Ford is not going to the theater.
Flash failed for reasons other than it being part of a franchise. It failed because that franchise is not well liked, and in fact is in the process of being replaced.
Also, Ezra Miller is apparently a giant dick bag, turning off audiences.
I expect Blue Beetle will do worse due to featuring a character 90% of the movie going audience is unaware of, based on characters 99.9% are unaware of. At best people will go "So it's an Iron Man / Spider-Man ripoff?"
Aquaman is the last of this generation of DC movies, hard to tell how it will turn out. The first one was the ONLY ONE of the DC films to hit the big $Billion mark.
Man of Steel - $668M
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0770828/?ref_=bo_se_r_1Batman V Superman - $873M
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt2975590/?ref_=bo_se_r_1Suicide Squad - $746M
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt1386697/?ref_=bo_se_r_1Wonder Woman - $822M
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0451279/?ref_=bo_se_r_1Justice League - $657M
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0974015/?ref_=bo_se_r_1Aquaman - $1.148B
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt1477834/?ref_=bo_se_r_1Shazam - $367M
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0448115/?ref_=bo_se_r_1Birds of Prey - $205M
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt7713068/?ref_=bo_se_r_1Wonder Woman 1984 - $169M
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt7126948/?ref_=bo_se_r_2The Suicide Squad - $168M
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt6334354/?ref_=bo_se_r_1Black Adam - $393M
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt6443346/?ref_=bo_se_r_1Shazam: Fury of the Gods - $133M
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt10151854/?ref_=bo_se_r_2The Flash - $245M and counting:
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0439572/?ref_=bo_se_r_1Edit I should say, both Birds of Prey and the Suicide Squad deserved better. Victims of covid and day/date streaming.
WW84 can die in a fire though.
I think Flash and Indiana Jones flopped because they’re garbage. Spider-Verse was a masterpiece and clearly a part of the shared universe franchise. Guardians 3 is nearing a billion dollars at the box office.
People aren’t tired of franchises, franchises are just generally getting worse. MCU is a mixed bag with some outliers still doing really well. We’ll see if the new phase can keep up with the introduction of new characters that most people don’t know. But I’m honestly not terribly hopeful.
I think the audience is simply being smarter with their money. A bunch of recent franchise movies have missed the mark and the audience is saying as much.
Super Mario
Dune
Across the SpiderverseAll franchises. But they have so far given their target audience what they've wanted.
Why go see Flash when it'll show up on Max (or whatever) same with Indiana Jones which will be in Disney+ soon enough.
End of franchise films ? Not even close. What I think you’re seeing now is the floor is much lower for franchise films than before (especially with comic book movies). You need more than “it’s a Marvel movie” to have people go out and come see. The top movies of the year are still either sequels to franchises or based on existing IP.
There are only two good indy movies and that's raiders and the last crusade.
Anything else was crap and crap Indiana Jones movies are nothing new.
Dune and so on are objectively good movies even though they play the hobbit tactic with dune releasing only half the book.
Why people like avengers and marvel and these movies I have no idea. Only a select few of these movies are watchable.
I don't understand the apathy for Indiana Jones. It was a great film. Very entertaining and fun and was dedicated to the previous films. Some very touching moments. Maybe people want to wait until it comes out on a streaming service rather than watch it on the big screen. The big screen experience was worth it with lots of action scenes and Harrison being de-aged and fighting Nazi's, what's not to love.
I heard bad things about the last Indiana Jones, so I won't see the latest one as I would feel like I was missing out on something. Same goes with the Flash... the films don't come across as independent from each other so I won't bother if it seems like I need to have followed the franchise until that point.
You're making the assumption that, since the pandemic ended, people actually want to go to the theater to see movies. They demonstrably do not. People will not go to see a movie they're interested in in the theater; they will only go to the theater to see a movie they are absolutely driven to see immediately. It has to have huge visual spectacle and be truly worthy of their time to waste the time and money to sit in a theater, which no one seems to want to do anymore. It has to be something that needs to be seen on a large screen.
I'm sure Dune will do well later this year and there's been plenty of movies recently that did fine in theaters. But there's going to be plenty more along the way that fall by the wayside despite the fact that they would have been tent pole pictures with guaranteed box office in past years. But people aren't going to show up for things like Indiana Jones or Flash after major failures previously in both of those series.
No, Indiana Jones is a terrible example to base those on. It's a franchise who's last good film was in the 80s and most people hated the last attempted comeback.
Maybe, I honestly love going to the movies but it seems the age of the generic blockbuster is done really. It's nearly all sequels or franchises. I want to wathc something not particulary groundbreaking but still interesting and not need to watch it's five previous movies.
The last movie I felt scratched that itch for me was the DnD movie which was relatively detached. I like movies like that and I wish there were more. Don't get me wrong I like a good franchise but when everything is a franchise it's maddening.
It’s annoying that some people are so small-minded that they only think one style of filmmaking counts as “real cinema”. Just like there are different genres of film (like comedy, horror, drama, etc.), there’s room for different styles of film as well.
Too many people seem to think that just because two things can be projected on a screen, it’s reasonable to compare them. Some also believe that one kind of film is objectively better than another.
No. Neither of those things are true.
Films provide room for a wide range of creativity, whether they’re loud, big-budget extravaganzas with broad appeal, or quiet, intimate, narrowly focused films intended for a smaller audience - or something in between.
I don’t understand why there’s even an argument about which type of film is best. If you’re like me, you enjoy several different things, depending on your mood.
Could this be the beginning of the end for franchise films?
We can only hope.
'The Flash' and Other Mediocre Movies Won't Stop Superhero Fatigue - Variety. Fifteen years (since Iron Man), for the love of Stan! As Scorsese said, "…that’s not cinema…the closest I can think of them…is theme parks."
Fun fact: did you know that the (then) new distribution strategy invented for the iconic film The Godfather gave rise of the Blockbuster (and thus "franchise movies") and the near-death of auteur cinema?
Permanently Deleted
Its 5head marketing for Oppenheimer
The only movie I was willing to see was the Mario movie and I still ended up torrenting it. Why should I go to a public theater, get ripped off at the ticket box and the food counter for some mild entertainment? Especially when I can cook up an entire meal at home and eat it in front of the TV.
Better food, more comfortable, private setting and most importantly, Cost effective. If you want to get people like me to go to a theater, the incentive better be worth it. I won’t open my wallet otherwise.
super mario is like 40 years old and spiderman is even older, so I'm not sure they really count as "something new" as far as franchises go.
Flash I had no interest in seeing, never got into the series or story... Indiana Jones to bring back now, from my point of view (especially after Ford's Star wars horrible return) felt like dragging him out as a big name to drum up ticket sales. New movies and storylines are a risk, it's safer to stick with what has sold for years I guess. I haven't looked but how did ghostbusters do recently?
No, but it means that mediocre cash grabs won't make as much money anymore.
People did show up for Flash. The movie wasn't great so the week to week drop off was massive. I think it's more about being served poorly written movies. If the films are of quality it is clear people will go see them. I agree that many types of movies aren't popular in theaters anymore. The streaming battles of 2020-2021 hurt the market and trained people to expect high quality offers on streaming platforms. I think that was a bad move by studios rather than waiting out the storm and it will be a hard road getting back to a more balanced release schedule for theaters.
I don't think people are sick of the same old stuff. Indy flopped at the box office on the combination of a disappointing 4th movie and Disney's trend of virtue signalling over good characterization and storytelling.
The Flash has the baggage of an unlikeable lead actor, plus the DCU is still all over the place and constantly rebooted. I honestly have no idea what to expect from the Flash, given previous DCU movies.
Sadly, no. However, it dose (hopefully) show that people are starting to show it has to be at least mediocre.
The state of creativity is so shit now. It feels like all they do is;
grab a random book or video game and hope it works out.
Make the 10000th in a series beating whatever dead horse they can.
"Live action"
Remake something less than 10 years old
I hope the writers strike does something to stop the death spiral.
For a sec I thought Indiana Jones and Flash was one title