The days of the super inflated and sub-par VFX pop corn films may be over. After DC's latest record breaking disaster many questioned whether Superhero Fatigue was the real deal. I'd like to take it a step further and say it a much bigger issue than that. (clean this sentence) looking at the box office totals for Ant-Man: Quantumania (125 million loss), Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (7 million profit), Indiana Jones: Dial of Destiny (currently at 249 million and needs an insane 600 million to break even), Shazam: Fury of the Gods (lost 120 million), and Dungeons & Dragons (lost 60 million), the Hollywood blockbuster is bleeding money. A majority of the films that were able to break even or turn a profit have been small genre films, low budget movies, and films with strong word of mouth. One of the major reasons is the success of Disney's comic book mega giant has moved the goal post for Blockbusters. The average break even point (based on films with a budget of around 200-250 million and after marketing) is usually around 400-450 million. This is now called the "400 million club," the new bench mark for a successful film. For blockbusters of these sizes to green-light a sequel or franchise, studios want a massive 700 million or more to consider the investment. Marvel pulled off historic feats at the box office and even those films have stumbled at the box office (save for Guardians of the Galaxy 3). Aside from under paying writers and over working VFX artists, studios need to understand that the content for profit market isn't sustainable. Not every blockbuster is going to make a billion dollars. It seems like Jones is the last mega-budget box office flop scheduled for the year as Marvel's The Marvels (130 million) and Dune Part 2 (122 million) are comparatively much lower. Oppenheimer (100 million) and Barbie (100 million) stand a good chance of making a serious summer profit. Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1 on it's massive 290 million dollar budget has a steep hill to climb but if Tom Cruise can pull off what he did last year with Top Gun: Maverick he's sure to come out on top.
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