That’s a stretch, I think. Barbie, Oppenheimer, and Guardians all had major advantages that made them the first visit back to the theatres for a lot of people. Barbie and Oppenheimer, specifically, also had the FOMO aspect of seeing them as a combo for the memes. Unfortunately, that experience wasn’t great for most theatre goers. On top of that, theatres kept trying to squeeze the stone and raised prices and even tried to push some bullshit VIP seats for extra money. And I’m not talking about nicer seats. Just seats closer to the middle that were more expensive. Sticky seats, people talking, and gourmet garbage don’t suddenly make that worthwhile. Barbie might not have succeeded if it wasn’t Barbie, Oppenheimer might not have succeeded if it wasn’t an IMAX movie by Nolan, and Guardians might not have succeeded if it wasn’t a finale to a very well-received trilogy. The Marvels is none of those things.
Is your thinking that all other movies from now will fail then? There were other successes this year as well, like Mario, so to me it seems a much larger stretch that theater mediocrity is just now causing huge plummets and somehow coinciding with a significant quality decline in Disney/Marvel content, yet other movies are still succeeding.
AMC’s middle seat pricing was pretty stupid but never actually launched. It was a pilot program thing that didn’t expand past a few test theaters. It generated bad press but probably didn’t have much impact overall. Theater pricing continues to be terrible, which is likely preventing a lot of people from going to the movies, but it’s not causing a uniform drop in the industry.
And really, beyond that, theaters have sucked for a long time. When there are so many other factors from franchise fatigue to audiences waiting for a streaming service debut, I’m not seeing a compelling reason that the theaters themselves are suddenly making such a large impact.
Then we have the movies that did succeed recently: Hunger Games is doing well right now in the same theater conditions. Avatar 2 is the third highest grossing movie (nominal) of all time and happened last year. Maverick was a resounding and frankly somewhat unbelievable success. Barbie and Oppenheimer. Mario made >1.35bil right before Barbie and had no significant meme value to my knowledge. John Wick 4 and Spider-Verse weren’t anything special, just more sequels to well liked movies, and those saw large improvements (34% and 80% respectively) over their predecessors both in 2023. Audiences showed up for regular sequels a few months ago but not now, except for Hunger Games?
Then look at the ones which failed immensely: The Flash, Indiana Jones 5, Blue Beetle, The Marvels, Wish, and probably others. There are a few obvious shared qualities between many of these, but it’s theater conditions that killed these specific films but not others…?
Anyway sorry this comment is so long! I typed it up in bursts while doing other things. Some of it is probably redundant because I kept losing my train of thought, there are other things I likely forgot to mention that may come to me if you respond. Also I don’t fully disagree with you because theaters really aren’t worth my time and money either, I just feel like it’s very obviously not the cause here and is more likely to be seen in the continuing small decrease in actual tickets sold year over year. And here’s my standard disclaimer that I’m not picking a fight, I’m not on Lemmy for the internet arguments of old and all of this is merely mild disagreement
Notice the pattern that you’re mentioning, though. All the films you’re claiming were successes are all sequels to incredibly successful films or are films based on properties that are globally successful already and were their first forays since theatres had to close for COVID. Then look at all the failures you listed - new films/characters without previous films or a singular sequel to a franchise that is widely considered past its prime whose last film was almost universally panned.
My thinking is not that all other movies will fail but that people won’t see them in the theatres and, if they do, they won’t be as successful as similar films in the past. When our group saw Avatar 2, every single person in the group said that wouldn’t be coming back to the theatre for a movie until something like Avatar 3 and that was only because it’s a 3D IMAX movie best viewed that way.
Right, but that’s the point and is why the originally mentioned jokers are looking at other factors. Sequels being successful with struggling original films has been status quo for years, and does not indicate that theater conditions plays a large part in the decline seen this year. Your group may feel that way but groups can be very like minded, especially for minor things wherein agreeing is trivial, and one group isn’t terribly representative of society. Doubly so when we consider other countries which do not have the same theater conditions but follow the trends for those films.
“New films/characters without previous films or a singular sequel to a franchise that is widely considered past its prime whose last film was almost universally panned”— it is reasonably unclear which film in the list you’re referring to. The Flash was a sequel to a franchise widely considered past its prime whose last film (DC, Shazam 2) was almost universally panned. Indiana Jones 5 was a sequel to a franchise widely considered past its prime whose last film (IJ, Crystal Skull) was almost universally panned. The Marvels was a sequel to a franchise widely considered past its prime whose second to last film (Marvel, Quantumania) was almost universally panned. Blue Beetle too was a sequel to a franchise widely considered past its prime whose last film (DC, The Flash) was almost universally panned. Four out of five of the listed are direct entries into existing franchises and not original, and the final one Wish could be argued as another entry into the Princess franchise as it is being marketed as (see the theme parks).
Hence what is a difficult to deny trend: sequels with goodwill, quality, and a solid predecessor succeed. Sequels that have none of these fail. The trend of audience disinterest has been leading this way since Covid “ended”, and there’s a decrease in box office revenue that directly accompanies it. There is clear data which makes a much, much more compelling argument than anecdotes of your local theater.
Also difficult to deny: theaters aren’t noticeably worse than they’ve been the past few years. Actually, pricing aside, they’re probably better thanks to new screen/audio tech and renovations— mine is brand new and very nice, so while I don’t actually watch many movies in theater (last was Barbie, been there thrice this year), I find it fairly enjoyable when I do. You haven’t said why a perceived decline in theater quality would suddenly have such massive impact when they’ve either been decaying at the same rate or improving, nor why this is not US-specific when the US does not dictate worldwide theater industry.
I think you’re really stretching here. Flash is not a sequel to Shazam 2 and Blue Beetle is not a sequel to Flash. The Marvels is also not a sequel unless you consider it a direct sequel to both Wandavision and Ms. Marvel, neither of which were films, or to Captain Marvel which it is not being marketed as. Claiming that Wish is also a sequel or another entry in the Princess franchise is just disingenuous. These films have nothing to do the previous ones and would, at best, be considered successors rather than sequels.
The data shows that movies that don’t succeed in theatres are still seeing success on streaming services. That alone should show that the theatres are, at a minimum, a big enough part of the problem (whether it’s because they’re worse, more expensive, or just not worthwhile anymore) that they’re not sustainable in a post-Marvel world.
You said franchise. Far, far more disingenuous to say an entry into a franchise has nothing to do with the previous entry. The Marvels is suffering a massive drop from Captain Marvel in line with the current drop in MCU, as nearly every other film mentioned did. You acknowledge that there is less interest in Marvel, but not that it would produce disinterest in the next entry? The Marvels’ alone shows a huge drop out of line from CM, but fits right into the overall trend of MCU. We’ll have another similar film soon, Aquaman 2, which will probably see a large drop from Aquaman because audiences are real people who know that it’s another DC movie. These movies don’t exist in vacuums and audiences (real people) know this.
It’s certainly a bold claim that a movie won’t benefit or suffer from its franchise, did audiences love theaters so much in 2019 that they flocked to Captain Marvel for the theater experience? Marvel had new characters appear in their own movies frequently and all of them, from Captain America to Shang-Chi succeeded— you genuinely believe this was independent of its franchise, and because theaters were… better until 2022? All based on your personal, anecdotal experience with Avatar 2?
It also somewhat surprises me that you do seem to think theater conditions play such a massive part and the studios haven’t considered it. They don’t own the theaters and have no stake in them, they’d blame theaters to their shareholders if it were believable. Surely some of the people with real stakes in this would have thought about this? Are corporations like Disney usually quick to blame themselves for failing films? Like really, I think Iger wouldn’t have admitted these movies were blunders if the theater excuse was even marginally believable.
Excuse my incredulous tone, it seems like we’re going in circles. I feel like you’re inclined to ignore every other factor despite the evidence, from the sudden speed of the decline to other sequels succeeding to the fact that it’s not a US-only phenomenon, since you only respond to one or two points and don’t seem to notice all the other evidence. Which is fine, I don’t expect thorough conversations on the internet, but it’s not fun to put thought into replies only for entire points to be ignored wholesale. So probably best if we don’t continue. Please don’t take this as a rude thing, if you scroll through my profile I’m here for good vibes and thoughtful/enjoyable back and forth so I don’t reply to certain things if they’re less than productive, not because of personal dislike or anything like that. I still respect your opinion and there are no hard feelings, and none of this is meant to read harshly, I know it can be hard to get tone across in words. You can still respond if you’d like, of course; it might be fun to actually respond to all my various points now and get the last word or whatever, and in the unlikely event that anyone else sees this comment chain, maybe it’ll generate a response from someone else and that could be good. I won’t see any response here at all though so probably not the best use of your time
That said if you really do want to continue, cause I do enjoy a thoughtful back and forth, you can PM me about it. Just cause I won’t see any responses to this comment doesn’t mean I won’t see PMs either
I said “franchise” in reference to Indiana Jones. You’re the one that incorrectly extrapolated that into Marvel films. So, no, you’re the one that’s being disingenuous. You can’t make an assumption and then act indignant when your assumption was wrong.
If franchises were what you claim they are, then none of the Marvel films would ever be unsuccessful in the middle of their runs yet there were several films of the Marvel “franchise” that performed poorly, even before Infinity War, while the major movies - Captain America, Thor, etc. - did very well. You’re pretending like Shang-Chi was so successful and yet it performed worse than Iron Man 3. Captain Marvel, a debut for a new character, also performed worse than Iron Man 3. The 3 lowest grossing Marvel movies are the ones sandwiched in between COVID and Spider-Man: No Way Home.
And you’re also being disingenuous because the whole point isn’t that theatres suck so much that people would just avoid them full stop, it’s that they would avoid them when compared to streaming services where they can watch these movies in their own homes. That didn’t start until COVID, so you’re being dishonest again.
And the feigned “good will and good vibes” garbage is so dishonest when you’re not even approaching this in good faith and actually arguing the point at hand. You’ve moved the goalposts here several times, redefined the argument into a straw man about the successes of Marvel films rather than a comparison of movie-going experiences, and then condescended. If you need further proof that movie theatres are dying, look at every single movie company stock. AMC, Cinemark, and IMAX are all down more than half of where they were 5 years ago. Are you trying to say that all movies, in general, are so bad that people aren’t going to theatres so much that their stocks are tanking? Or is it just Marvel movies causing these companies to lose money hand over fist? Cuz, let me tell you, it’s pretty universally known that movie theatres are losing to streaming services because the experience is worse, the food and drinks are overpriced, and there’s nothing about it that you can’t get at home except the rude strangers talking while the movie is playing. More than likely, it’ll only be people you know talking over the movie.
That’s a stretch, I think. Barbie, Oppenheimer, and Guardians all had major advantages that made them the first visit back to the theatres for a lot of people. Barbie and Oppenheimer, specifically, also had the FOMO aspect of seeing them as a combo for the memes. Unfortunately, that experience wasn’t great for most theatre goers. On top of that, theatres kept trying to squeeze the stone and raised prices and even tried to push some bullshit VIP seats for extra money. And I’m not talking about nicer seats. Just seats closer to the middle that were more expensive. Sticky seats, people talking, and gourmet garbage don’t suddenly make that worthwhile. Barbie might not have succeeded if it wasn’t Barbie, Oppenheimer might not have succeeded if it wasn’t an IMAX movie by Nolan, and Guardians might not have succeeded if it wasn’t a finale to a very well-received trilogy. The Marvels is none of those things.
Is your thinking that all other movies from now will fail then? There were other successes this year as well, like Mario, so to me it seems a much larger stretch that theater mediocrity is just now causing huge plummets and somehow coinciding with a significant quality decline in Disney/Marvel content, yet other movies are still succeeding.
AMC’s middle seat pricing was pretty stupid but never actually launched. It was a pilot program thing that didn’t expand past a few test theaters. It generated bad press but probably didn’t have much impact overall. Theater pricing continues to be terrible, which is likely preventing a lot of people from going to the movies, but it’s not causing a uniform drop in the industry.
And really, beyond that, theaters have sucked for a long time. When there are so many other factors from franchise fatigue to audiences waiting for a streaming service debut, I’m not seeing a compelling reason that the theaters themselves are suddenly making such a large impact.
Then we have the movies that did succeed recently: Hunger Games is doing well right now in the same theater conditions. Avatar 2 is the third highest grossing movie (nominal) of all time and happened last year. Maverick was a resounding and frankly somewhat unbelievable success. Barbie and Oppenheimer. Mario made >1.35bil right before Barbie and had no significant meme value to my knowledge. John Wick 4 and Spider-Verse weren’t anything special, just more sequels to well liked movies, and those saw large improvements (34% and 80% respectively) over their predecessors both in 2023. Audiences showed up for regular sequels a few months ago but not now, except for Hunger Games?
Then look at the ones which failed immensely: The Flash, Indiana Jones 5, Blue Beetle, The Marvels, Wish, and probably others. There are a few obvious shared qualities between many of these, but it’s theater conditions that killed these specific films but not others…?
Anyway sorry this comment is so long! I typed it up in bursts while doing other things. Some of it is probably redundant because I kept losing my train of thought, there are other things I likely forgot to mention that may come to me if you respond. Also I don’t fully disagree with you because theaters really aren’t worth my time and money either, I just feel like it’s very obviously not the cause here and is more likely to be seen in the continuing small decrease in actual tickets sold year over year. And here’s my standard disclaimer that I’m not picking a fight, I’m not on Lemmy for the internet arguments of old and all of this is merely mild disagreement
Notice the pattern that you’re mentioning, though. All the films you’re claiming were successes are all sequels to incredibly successful films or are films based on properties that are globally successful already and were their first forays since theatres had to close for COVID. Then look at all the failures you listed - new films/characters without previous films or a singular sequel to a franchise that is widely considered past its prime whose last film was almost universally panned.
My thinking is not that all other movies will fail but that people won’t see them in the theatres and, if they do, they won’t be as successful as similar films in the past. When our group saw Avatar 2, every single person in the group said that wouldn’t be coming back to the theatre for a movie until something like Avatar 3 and that was only because it’s a 3D IMAX movie best viewed that way.
Right, but that’s the point and is why the originally mentioned jokers are looking at other factors. Sequels being successful with struggling original films has been status quo for years, and does not indicate that theater conditions plays a large part in the decline seen this year. Your group may feel that way but groups can be very like minded, especially for minor things wherein agreeing is trivial, and one group isn’t terribly representative of society. Doubly so when we consider other countries which do not have the same theater conditions but follow the trends for those films.
“New films/characters without previous films or a singular sequel to a franchise that is widely considered past its prime whose last film was almost universally panned”— it is reasonably unclear which film in the list you’re referring to. The Flash was a sequel to a franchise widely considered past its prime whose last film (DC, Shazam 2) was almost universally panned. Indiana Jones 5 was a sequel to a franchise widely considered past its prime whose last film (IJ, Crystal Skull) was almost universally panned. The Marvels was a sequel to a franchise widely considered past its prime whose second to last film (Marvel, Quantumania) was almost universally panned. Blue Beetle too was a sequel to a franchise widely considered past its prime whose last film (DC, The Flash) was almost universally panned. Four out of five of the listed are direct entries into existing franchises and not original, and the final one Wish could be argued as another entry into the Princess franchise as it is being marketed as (see the theme parks).
Hence what is a difficult to deny trend: sequels with goodwill, quality, and a solid predecessor succeed. Sequels that have none of these fail. The trend of audience disinterest has been leading this way since Covid “ended”, and there’s a decrease in box office revenue that directly accompanies it. There is clear data which makes a much, much more compelling argument than anecdotes of your local theater.
Also difficult to deny: theaters aren’t noticeably worse than they’ve been the past few years. Actually, pricing aside, they’re probably better thanks to new screen/audio tech and renovations— mine is brand new and very nice, so while I don’t actually watch many movies in theater (last was Barbie, been there thrice this year), I find it fairly enjoyable when I do. You haven’t said why a perceived decline in theater quality would suddenly have such massive impact when they’ve either been decaying at the same rate or improving, nor why this is not US-specific when the US does not dictate worldwide theater industry.
I think you’re really stretching here. Flash is not a sequel to Shazam 2 and Blue Beetle is not a sequel to Flash. The Marvels is also not a sequel unless you consider it a direct sequel to both Wandavision and Ms. Marvel, neither of which were films, or to Captain Marvel which it is not being marketed as. Claiming that Wish is also a sequel or another entry in the Princess franchise is just disingenuous. These films have nothing to do the previous ones and would, at best, be considered successors rather than sequels.
The data shows that movies that don’t succeed in theatres are still seeing success on streaming services. That alone should show that the theatres are, at a minimum, a big enough part of the problem (whether it’s because they’re worse, more expensive, or just not worthwhile anymore) that they’re not sustainable in a post-Marvel world.
You said franchise. Far, far more disingenuous to say an entry into a franchise has nothing to do with the previous entry. The Marvels is suffering a massive drop from Captain Marvel in line with the current drop in MCU, as nearly every other film mentioned did. You acknowledge that there is less interest in Marvel, but not that it would produce disinterest in the next entry? The Marvels’ alone shows a huge drop out of line from CM, but fits right into the overall trend of MCU. We’ll have another similar film soon, Aquaman 2, which will probably see a large drop from Aquaman because audiences are real people who know that it’s another DC movie. These movies don’t exist in vacuums and audiences (real people) know this.
It’s certainly a bold claim that a movie won’t benefit or suffer from its franchise, did audiences love theaters so much in 2019 that they flocked to Captain Marvel for the theater experience? Marvel had new characters appear in their own movies frequently and all of them, from Captain America to Shang-Chi succeeded— you genuinely believe this was independent of its franchise, and because theaters were… better until 2022? All based on your personal, anecdotal experience with Avatar 2?
It also somewhat surprises me that you do seem to think theater conditions play such a massive part and the studios haven’t considered it. They don’t own the theaters and have no stake in them, they’d blame theaters to their shareholders if it were believable. Surely some of the people with real stakes in this would have thought about this? Are corporations like Disney usually quick to blame themselves for failing films? Like really, I think Iger wouldn’t have admitted these movies were blunders if the theater excuse was even marginally believable.
Excuse my incredulous tone, it seems like we’re going in circles. I feel like you’re inclined to ignore every other factor despite the evidence, from the sudden speed of the decline to other sequels succeeding to the fact that it’s not a US-only phenomenon, since you only respond to one or two points and don’t seem to notice all the other evidence. Which is fine, I don’t expect thorough conversations on the internet, but it’s not fun to put thought into replies only for entire points to be ignored wholesale. So probably best if we don’t continue. Please don’t take this as a rude thing, if you scroll through my profile I’m here for good vibes and thoughtful/enjoyable back and forth so I don’t reply to certain things if they’re less than productive, not because of personal dislike or anything like that. I still respect your opinion and there are no hard feelings, and none of this is meant to read harshly, I know it can be hard to get tone across in words. You can still respond if you’d like, of course; it might be fun to actually respond to all my various points now and get the last word or whatever, and in the unlikely event that anyone else sees this comment chain, maybe it’ll generate a response from someone else and that could be good. I won’t see any response here at all though so probably not the best use of your time
That said if you really do want to continue, cause I do enjoy a thoughtful back and forth, you can PM me about it. Just cause I won’t see any responses to this comment doesn’t mean I won’t see PMs either
I said “franchise” in reference to Indiana Jones. You’re the one that incorrectly extrapolated that into Marvel films. So, no, you’re the one that’s being disingenuous. You can’t make an assumption and then act indignant when your assumption was wrong.
If franchises were what you claim they are, then none of the Marvel films would ever be unsuccessful in the middle of their runs yet there were several films of the Marvel “franchise” that performed poorly, even before Infinity War, while the major movies - Captain America, Thor, etc. - did very well. You’re pretending like Shang-Chi was so successful and yet it performed worse than Iron Man 3. Captain Marvel, a debut for a new character, also performed worse than Iron Man 3. The 3 lowest grossing Marvel movies are the ones sandwiched in between COVID and Spider-Man: No Way Home.
And you’re also being disingenuous because the whole point isn’t that theatres suck so much that people would just avoid them full stop, it’s that they would avoid them when compared to streaming services where they can watch these movies in their own homes. That didn’t start until COVID, so you’re being dishonest again.
And the feigned “good will and good vibes” garbage is so dishonest when you’re not even approaching this in good faith and actually arguing the point at hand. You’ve moved the goalposts here several times, redefined the argument into a straw man about the successes of Marvel films rather than a comparison of movie-going experiences, and then condescended. If you need further proof that movie theatres are dying, look at every single movie company stock. AMC, Cinemark, and IMAX are all down more than half of where they were 5 years ago. Are you trying to say that all movies, in general, are so bad that people aren’t going to theatres so much that their stocks are tanking? Or is it just Marvel movies causing these companies to lose money hand over fist? Cuz, let me tell you, it’s pretty universally known that movie theatres are losing to streaming services because the experience is worse, the food and drinks are overpriced, and there’s nothing about it that you can’t get at home except the rude strangers talking while the movie is playing. More than likely, it’ll only be people you know talking over the movie.