Friday, February 23, 2018
Film Industry Blog 5, Question 1 (March 6th)
Compare the top box office hits from last weekend, last year (2017), and
the previous year (2016). Describe two trends that you see in the data. Which
studios/companies were most successful in capitalizing on these trends? And do
you see these trends continuing in the next 3 – 5 years? Limit: 12 responses
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It is no surprise that The Black Panther (Disney-Marvel Studios) came in first in the box office this past weekend with a total of $242,155,680. Then there’s Peter Rabbit coming in second with $23,382,931, Fifty Shades Freed coming in third with $19,439,120 and lastly Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle coming in fourth with $10,014,906.
ReplyDeleteStar Wars: The Last Jedi is just one of the top films with the highest domestic grosses from last year, 2017, earning a high of $618,375, 718 (Disney Studios). Beauty and the Beast not coming far behind with a total of $504,014,165 (Disney Studios), then there’s Wonder Women coming in third with $412,563,408 and Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 coming in fourth.
It is undeniable that Black Panther dominated the box office recently. This can be seen just by looking solely on the fact that it received $242,155,680 in just one weekend while compared to Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) with the overall amount of $618,375,718 for the whole year.
Back in 2016, the top film was another well-known addition to the Star Wars series, known as Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which came in first with $529,890,569 (Disney studios). Finding Dory (Disney studios) then came in second, Captain American (Disney-Marvel Studios) in third and The Secret Life of Pets coming in fourth.
From this data, it is also undeniable that Disney is among one of the top competitors of the film industry and “for the second year in a row, Disney has nabbed the domestic box office crown, with $2.27 billion already banked in 2017 thanks to its one-two punch of “Star Wars: The Last Jedi and “Beauty and the Beast”. The Beauty and the Beast remake also “remains the top domestic grosser of the year with $504 million”. Besides Disney studios (coming in first at $2.85 billion), Warner Brother studio is also doing well, coming in second place with $1.88 billion. (McNary 2017)
Warner bros actually had the most domestic sales since 2009, beating out Disney, coming in first with “Wonder Women”- the trend here that you see is yet again kind of what Black Panther did which was instead of introducing diversity, their main focus was gender/ a woman being a superhero instead of a man, that we are used to. Fox came in fourth this year behind Disney, Warner Bros and Universal but recently, Disney is looking to buy its assets with its new deal.
These film industries have many aspects in common that contribute to them being as successful as they are in recent years. There are two trends that are prevalent in this evidence, these being diversity (Black Panther) and gender (Wonder Women and the Black Panther). Aside from diversity and gender being the main aspects of these recent prosperities, what common subtopics can be found in these movies? Well, there’s action, the film appeals to almost all ages, as well as sequels from previous movies that did well in the past.
ReplyDeleteThe Black Panther, known for its diversity, specifically did so well not only because of the messages themselves but because of its marketing strategies, such as spreading the word and getting the audience excited by selling tickets in advance (Disney recently pairing with Fandango for The Black Panther and quietly supporting a movement that raised money for children.
You can find gender-breakout roles of women becoming a trend within the last year or two. In fact, both Wonder Women and Beauty and the Beast reboot each have a female as the lead character and “for the first time since 1958, the top three highest grossing domestic releases have featured female leads” (Fuster 2017)
As you can see, “these trends are re-shaping the film industry” (The Los Angeles Film School 2017) by getting rid of old trends and replacing them with new approaches such as effects, having smaller-budget films being released online (with streaming services such as Netflix), expanding the social-political field, integrating diversity and handling camera footage helps the viewers see movies in different and unusual ways.
I see these trends continuing within the next 3-5 years because I believe these studios are definitely aware of what they’re doing to be successful and will continue to do so. I also believe that there will be some competition within other studios trying to introduce the same aspects such as diversity and gender equality, yet I don’t think they will be as successful. As for the trends specifically, I think that Black Panther and Wonder Women are great examples of what the studios are broadcasting and will continue to broadcast, because of their huge successes.
"Weekend Box Office – February 16 – 19, 2018," Box Office Mojo. Accessed 24 Feb. 2018. Web.
Delete"2017 Domestic Grosses," Box Office Mojo. Accessed 24 Feb. 2018. Web.
“2016 Domestic Grosses." Box Office Mojo. Accessed 7 March 2017. Web.
McNary, Dave. "Disney Becomes Box Office Champ for Second Year in Row," Variety 27 Dec. 2017. Web.
Fuster, Jeremy. "2017’s 3 Top-Grossing Movies Had Female Lead for First Time in Nearly 60 Years," The Wrap 31 Dec. 2017. Web.
McClintock, Pamela. "Disney's 'Black Panther' Playbook: A Peek at the Marketing of a Phenomenon," The Hollywood Reporter 21 Feb. 2018. Web.
“5 Emerging Trends in the Film Industry”. The Los Angeles Film School 31 May, 2017. Web.
In 2016, Star Wars: Rogue I was the number one grossing movie of the year, followed by Finding Dory and Captain America: Civil War. According to data from Box Office Mojo titled 2016 Domestic Grosses, Star Wars: Rogue I, had a domestic gross of $530 million. According to data from Box Office Mojo titled 2017 Domestic Grosses, grosses ranged around $620 million for Star Wars: The Last Jedi. That is almost a $100 million increase in one year. This data is showing that the audience is changing the season in which it chooses to view a movie and which ones it prefers, such as the “big blockbuster”. From the past three years, opening weekend gross for movies around the holiday season has gone up from $155 million in 2016, to $220 million in 2017, to finally $240 million in 2018. Black Panther currently has the highest gross of the past three years on opening week for a domestic audience.
ReplyDeleteAn article talking about Disney’s success from the Hollywood Reporter titled Studio-by-Studio Profit Report: Disney Reigns, Viacom Stems Losses, “The studio wrapped up its fourth straight year at the top of THR’s profit ranking while falling shy of 2016’s record” (Bond). Disney’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi made $1.32 billion in profits, with Beauty and the Beast right behind it making $1.26 billion. That included domestic and international gross. According to Ryan Faughnder from the Los Angeles Times “The falloff in ticket sales can mostly be explained by a handful of movies that flopped, especially during the dreary summer season that posted the worst results in more than two decades” (Faughnder). Even when powerful superhero movies come in during the fall and have huge ticket sales, studios still cannot make back all the money they should have made from the summer. Another major trend being seen is that individuals just do not want to spend the money. The audience today is just waiting out a movie until it shows on SVOD services like Netflix and Amazon. Audiences would rather wait a couple months and watch it on Netflix or Amazon, instead of paying to see it in theaters which is causing the industry major distress. Unfortunately for those of us who do enjoy going to theaters, we are paying double the price so that it helps the industry offset less movie-goers. I see this trend continuing, unless different theater companies such as Cinemark see more success in their subscription-based target strategies.
Disney is capitalizing on these trends by changing the season in when they choose to release their films. Their brands are the setting the tone for all of the other big movie companies. Disney’s brands include: Marvel, Pixar, 20th Century Fox and LucasFilm. When the holiday season comes around, families are looking forward to the movies that get the “buzz” from its audience. Garry Maddox from the Herald stated that “…a new Star Wars movie into an event before Christmas means the studio avoids competing against the traditional Disney or Pixar animated family movie…” (Maddox). This way Star Wars is only competing with itself, rather than having five other good movie-goer options to choose from. Star Wars is one of those brands that gets a lot of “buzz” and families look forward to going to the movies around the holidays in that spirit. The major trend is that less individuals are going to see movies in the summer, which is the movie industry’s biggest payout timeframe. When movies tank in the summer and do not reach intended expectations, it changes how and when brands choose to release movies. The main focus for the holiday season is a big action thriller or a family feel good movie around this time. This trend will be especially beneficial for Disney if they continue to focus on having major blockbusters being played in the holiday season.
Works Cited
DeleteBond, Paul and Georg Szalai. "Studio-by-Studio Profit Report: Disney Reigns, Viacom Stems Losses," The Hollywood Reporter 23 Feb. 2018. Web.
Faughnder, Ryan. "Even with 'Star Wars' Surge, Movie going Could Hit 22-Year Low," Los Angeles Times 23 Dec. 2017. Web.
"Maddox, Garry. “How Star Wars is changing the game for holiday season movies.” Newcastle Herald, 23 Dec. 2017, www.theherald.com.au/story/5139415/how-star-wars-is-changing-the-game-for-holiday-season-movies/.
"2017 Domestic Grosses," Box Office Mojo. Accessed 24 Feb. 2018. Web.
"2016 Domestic Grosses." Box Office Mojo. Accessed 7 March 2017. Web.
"Weekend Box Office – February 16 – 19, 2018," Box Office Mojo. Accessed 24 Feb. 2018. Web.
In recent years there have been developing trends in the film industry at the box office. You can see those different studios are capitalizing on what is doing well in the theaters. Recently you see a trend of specific studies doing well when they have a fan base already established from comics. Superhero movies have been doing quite well as of late. It stems from original paper comics and now has translated to the TV screen.
ReplyDeleteWhen looking at the specific weekends per year each year, you can see a trend depending on when the films came out and how long they would last as top box office performers. As shown in the 2016 Box office mojo rankings you see Deadpool which did great when it originally came out and was a worldwide hit. Now weeks after being released the numbers the movie was doing declined significantly as any regular movie would. These statistics show that the weekends vary on when the film is released and how well it will perform each weekend. As seen in the 2017 box office mojo rankings you can see the same trend with the superhero movie in "Logan as well as the weekend factor on when the film was released. Logan was released this specific weekend, so their numbers were much high than Deadpool but when all was said and done Deadpool had a higher total gross after being in theaters. Again in the 2018 box office mojo rankings, you see another superhero movie, Black Panther. Its numbers are down due to the same trend of when the film is released the figures will vary in gross per weekend, less and less after move weeks being out.
Movie Studios always are trying to capitalize on new trends and substantial fan bases. The two movie studios that are in the best position to do so now and in the future are Disney or Buena Vista and Fox. Ironically Disney is in the process of buying fox. Both of these studios have superhero and action films like the star wars series that have very dedicated fan bases and continuously go out and see the movie. Fox is ready to come out with Deadpool 2 as continuing the series, and the same goes for Disney coming out with "Solo" and other Marvel movies that are almost guaranteed to do well domestically and overseas. As shown in the Hollywood Reporter Article you can see the values of the fox jumping tremendously and Disney staying at the stop of the movie studio world in revenue. These companies have the content to remain strong in the film industry for the next several years. They also keep acquiring new material so they possibilities are endless.
Szalai, Georg. “Walt Disney - Studio-by-Studio Profitability Ranking: Disney Surges, Sony Sputters.” The Hollywood Reporter, 20 Feb. 2017, www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/studio-by-studio-profitability-ranking-disney-surges-sony-sputters-977497/item/walt-disney-studio-profitability-977490.
“Weekend Box Office Results for February 26-28, 2016.” Box Office Mojo, www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/?view=main&yr=2016&wknd=09&p=.htm
“Weekend Box Office Results for March 3-5, 2017.” Box Office Mojo, www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/?view=main&yr=2017&wknd=09&p=.htm
ReplyDeleteWith Marvel Studio and Disney’s recent trend of box office success, it’s no surprise to see that their new release, Black Panther, dominated the box office it’s opening weekend with a gross of $242,155,680. In noting Black Panther’s dominance, Scott Mendelson notes, “That’s the biggest February opening weekend ever, the biggest solo superhero launch (we can expect Deadpool to comment later this week), the biggest holiday opening (bigger than the $200m Wed-Sun opening of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen in 2009), the biggest Fri-Mon launch (bigger than the $153m Fri-Mon opening of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End in 2007) and the biggest non-sequel launch of all time.It’s also the fifth-biggest Fri-Sun opening weekend of all time, behind only The Avengers ($207 million), Jurassic World ($208m), The Last Jedi ($220m) and The Force Awakens ($248m). Needless to say, Black Panther is a big deal.
When looking back at the domestic box office from the previous two years, we see a similar trend. In 2017, the top three grossing movies from the year were Star Wars: The Last Jedi ($618,375,718), Beauty and the Beast ($504,014,165) and Wonder Woman ($412,563,408). In 2016, we had Rogue One: A Star Wars Story ($529,890,569), Finding Dory ($486,295,561) and Captain America: Civil War ($408,084,349). The first and most obvious trend that hit me when looking at these numbers and these releases, was all but one fell under Disney’s umbrella of properties. As Disney has accumulated more and more properties over the years, their overall box office dominance has only increased. As Ryan Faughner notes, “For studios, the box office has become a land of princes and paupers, with a handful of movies and a couple studios increasingly dominating the business. As of Dec. 17, Walt Disney Co. and Warner Bros. accounted for 40% of domestic market share. In 2012, the top two studios (Sony and Warner Bros.) only took up 30% of the industry total.” While Warner Bros. has begun to try to catch up with Disney and compete with their overall dominance, (especially in the case of superhero properties), they haven’t quite been able to be as successful. With a Marvel Cinematic Universe and a Star Wars universe that continue to expand and produce hits, the continuation of animated hits (especially those with Pixar), their recent investments into live-action versions of their animated hits, and of course their upcoming deal to purchase 21st Century Fox, I don’t see the trend of Disney box office dominance slowing. But it’s important to note the trend that is pushing these hits out, and that is that they’re all established properties. We see Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Star Wars, sequels, prequels and reboots all taking over these top spots. This isn’t a new trend either has we’re in an often criticized trend in Hollywood of reboots, sequels, adaptations, etc. While critics will say Hollywood is out of original ideas, clearly the box office numbers show that audiences aren’t minding at all. And as long as the box office dollars keep coming in for these studios, then this is definitely a trend I see continuing for the next 3 to 5 years and even after. As mentioned before, Disney and even Warner Bros. have superhero movies lined up past 2020, as well as more reboots, sequels, prequels than I can count on two hands.
Mendelson, Scott. “‘Black Panther’ Shatters Stereotypes, Breaks Box Office Records with $400+ Debut” Forbes. 18 Feb, 2018. Web.
Faughnder, Ryan. "Even with 'Star Wars' Surge, Movie going Could Hit 22-Year Low," Los Angeles Times 23 Dec. 2017. Web.
"2017 Domestic Grosses," Box Office Mojo. 24 Feb. 2018. Web.
"2016 Domestic Grosses." Box Office Mojo. 7 March 2017. Web.
"Weekend Box Office – February 16 – 19, 2018," Box Office Mojo.24 Feb. 2018. Web.
This past weekend, Black Panther came in at number 1 in the box office. This really isn’t a surprise. In fact, it wasn’t even close. Black Panther had a weekend gross of $242,155,680. The second highest gross belonged to Peter Rabbit with $23,382, 931. Fifty Shades Freed finished third with $19,439,120. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle with $10,014,906 and The 15:17 to Paris with $8,923,106 round out the top five (Box Office Mojo.) In 2017, Star Wars: The Last Jedi was the top grossing film with a total of $618,375,718. Beauty and the Beast finished second with $504,014,165, followed by Wonder Woman with $412,563,408, Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 with $389,813,101 and Jumanji with $381,634,215. (Box Office Mojo.) In 2016, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story finished at the top with $529,890,560. Finding Dory was next with $486,295,561. Captain America: Civil War finished in third with $408,084,349 (Box Office Mojo.)
ReplyDeleteThe first trend that I noticed when looking at the data is that majority of the movies that take up these top spots are either sequels, remakes, or part of a franchise. For example, two movies on these lists are from the Star Wars franchise, Finding Dory is the sequel to Finding Nemo, and Jumanji as well as Beauty and the Beast are remakes. Buena Vista, or Disney were most successful in capitalizing on this trend as four of the five movies that I just listed were made by Disney, which leads me to my next trend. The second trend that I noticed is the dominance of Disney. Disney is responsible for Black Panther, the top grossing movie of last week. Disney was also responsible for three of the top five movies from 2017. These films include Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Beauty and the Beast, and Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2. Disney dominated the 2016 box office as well. Part of the reason why is because they own Marvel and Pixar, as noted by Molly Driscoll. “Because Disney now owns Marvel and Pixar as well as continuing to produce its own animated features, Disney is behind three of the five domestically highest-grossing films of 2016 so far, with Pixar’s “Finding Dory,” Marvel’s “Captain America: Civil War,” and the live-action adaptation of the animated movie ‘The Jungle Book” all hailing from the Walt Disney Company. Close behind is Disney's "Zootopia" at No. 6” (Driscoll.)
I definitely see these trends continuing over the next 3-5 years because it is clear that people still pay money to see these films. If these films are still bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars, and if Disney still has millions of fans that will pay to see their movies, there is no reason to believe that these trends should not continue.
“Weekend Box Office Results for February 16-19, 2018.” Box Office Mojo
“2017 Domestic Grosses.” Box Office Mojo
“2016 Domestic Grosses.” Box Office Mojo
Driscoll , Molly. “How Disney Dominates the Hollywood Landscape.” The Christian Science Monitor
Examining box office trends for the weekend of the Oscars provides an interesting look at the effects of award nominations on box office earnings. While at least a small boost in revenue can be expected, sometimes the bump is actually very drastic. For example, this weekend, The Shape of Water saw a $1.46 million weekend gross which accounts for a +23.8% improvement from last weekend (Weekend, Box Office Mojo). In fact, looking at the time since it’s nomination for an Oscar, the number of locations showing The Shape of Water doubled according to a Viacom staff report published on March 1 (Viacom). Add that to another 111 location increase last weekend (Weekend, Box Office Mojo) and the impact is astounding.
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting trend found by Viacom, which cites a Movio study, determined that for The Shape of Water, Call Me by Your Name, and I, Tonya, audiences skewed much older prior to Oscar nominations. In fact, as box office receipts for The Shape of Water increased to 171% in the week following its nomination, nearly 25% of that audience was over 50 (Viacom). That bump actually increased the film’s total revenue by 5-10% (Viacom).
While one could make the assumption that as the majority of the Oscar bump comes from a generation of people who grew up in theaters, it is possible that the economics power of an Oscars nomination is sustainable, I would argue the opposite. As media conglomerates produce more and more content both in long-form film and otherwise, I would argue that people will start to rely more heavily on awards like the Oscars for recommendations of what is highly esteemed in a competitive market. While this may mean less revenue, the reliance on awards and nominations for some movies will likely continue.
Turning our attention to the long-term trends, when investigating yearly box office trends for 2016 and 2017, a few things are abundantly clear -- Hollywood’s reliance on existing franchise and remakes, and Disney’s dominance in this department. In 2016, four of the top 5 grossing movies (1. Rogue One, 2. Finding Dory, 3. Captain America: Civil War, 5. The Jungle Book) were all made by Disney from properties they had already owned (2016, Box Office Mojo). In 2017, three of the top five grossing movies (1. Star Wars: The Last Jedi, 2. Beauty and The Beast, 5. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2) fit the exact same parameters. In 2017, if you include non-Disney productions such as 3. Wonder Woman, and 4. Jumanji, Welcome to the Jungle, the entire top 5 grossing movies came from already-existing properties of the companies that made them. In fact, reading down the list for top grossing movies of 2017, it is not under number 13, Coco that one will find a movie that does not spring from a franchise that already exists (Box Office Mojo, 2017).
Looking at this data, it is hard to believe anything will change in the next 3-5 years as studios will likely keep going with the safe bets in already successful franchises as they (especially Disney) are clearly reaping the rewards for it. In fact, from 2016 to 2017, it has shown that audiences are even more willing to back a franchise that they already know. In today’s short-attention span world with heavy saturation of media, one could hypothesize that consumers are becoming less adventurous in how they spend their time and money consuming long-form film content.
Works Cited:
"2016 Domestic Grosses." Box Office Mojo. Accessed 5 March 2017. Web.
"2017 Domestic Grosses," Box Office Mojo. Accessed 5 March 2018. Web.
"Weekend Box Office – March 2 – 4, 2018," Box Office Mojo. Accessed 5 March 2018.
Web.
“Understanding the Box Office Bump of an Oscar Nod.” Viacom, Accessed 5 March
2018v.viacom.com/oscar-nomination-box-office-movio/.
There are major trends within the film industry that tend to parallel box office success: Movies that are sequels/ based in the same cinematic universe and films based on a well-known intellectual property. In the last few weeks the 4 top grossing films all fall within these categories. The number one film in America right now is Marvel’s Black Panther. The film is part of Marvel’s dominant super-hero cinematic universe and has grossed $220,000,000 more than the closest competitor. The film’s tremendous success goes to show that Marvel’s film formula gets viewers invested, and will continue to develop box office hits. The next three films on the February 16- 19 box office rankings are all based off of well-known IP. Peter Rabbit is based off the 1902 children’s book of the same title. Fifty Shades Freed is the final installment within a trilogy of films based off of a popular romance novel series. The star-studded Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is the second big-screen imagining of the popular children’s book Jumanji.
ReplyDeleteIn past years the trends behind the highest grossing movies were no different than this last weekend. Sequels within the Star Wars universes, remakes of classic Disney films, Superhero blockbusters, and films based off of popular books are by far the most financially successful films produced by Hollywood. Right now, the studio that is dominating this is Disney’s Buena Vista, though competitors such as Warner Brothers, Sony, and Universal all are profiting off of these trends.
It is well-known amongst the general public that the film industry is looking to make the highest return on investment as possible on the films they put out. Because of this the movies that green lighted with the highest budgets to film and market with are the ones that people are mostly to go out and watch. Because people have so many options for other means of entertainment they look to the movies as a guaranteed good time if their going to have to spend money for a ticket and to leave there house where their computer and endless amounts of internet entertainment are. I see no reason for the trends I have to discussed to loose any momentum, in fact, I would expect to see these trends accelerate even if the popular universes and IPs that are being reproduced are different than today. The companies making these films sure do seem to agree with my analysis as well considering Disney’s recent announcement. According to Haleigh Foutch from Collider, “Get to speculating folks, because Disney just lined up their non-Star Wars movie release date calendar through 2023, and it’s jam-packed with all the untitled Marvel, live-action, and animation movie you could ask for (some would argue more, at that — how many live-action adaptations can you make?!)”. Disney is clearly confident in their formula if they are willing to announce the dates of movies to come out all the up to five years from now. This is one of many telling signs that the trends I have discussed will continue with great momentum.
Foutch, Haleigh. "Disney Announces A Slew Of New Marvel, Live-Action And Animation Release Dates Through 2023." Collider. N.p., 2018. Web. 6 Mar. 2018.
"Weekend Box Office Results For February 16-19, 2018 - Box Office Mojo." Boxofficemojo.com. N.p., 2018. Web. 6 Mar. 2018.
"2016 Yearly Box Office Results - Box Office Mojo." Boxofficemojo.com. N.p., 2018. Web. 6 Mar. 2018.
"2017 Yearly Box Office Results - Box Office Mojo." Boxofficemojo.com. N.p., 2018. Web. 6 Mar. 2018.