Slaves to the Audience

One of the more exciting things about the entertainment industry is that despite all the work, dedication, time, and effort that all facets of the industry puts into their craft and their product, we will still always be slave to the audience. We live and die by them. Labors of love and art house films crash and burn at the box office, while Alvin and the Chipmunks becomes a billion dollar guaranteed cash cow. The industry has always catered to the masses, giving them what they know and hope the people will show up for. The same goes for television and music, there is a constant evolution that’s entirely guided by what the viewer is asking for.

I thought this would make for an interesting discussion when I took a look at the weekend box office for this weekend (September 16-18). This weekend something unexpected happened. In a weekend where there were three new releases featuring bona fide movie stars appealing to multiple demographics, it was a rerelease of a film from 1994 that trumped them all and won out at the box office. The Lion King saw a rerelease by Walt Disney Studios, hoping to advertise for the upcoming Blu Ray release. This isn’t by any mean new as Disney did this in 2009 where they rereleased Toy Story 1 and 2 as a double feature. With projections in line with the Toy Story rerelase, they were hoping for a 10 million dollar weekend. What happened instead was a 30 million dollar number one opening.

What makes this interesting is that despite this being one of the lowest attended years in history, mostly blamed on inflated ticket prices, and bad 3D gimmicks, people came out in droves to see a film that not only was released almost 10 years ago, but that over 90% of the audience had no problem paying for the 3D premium priced tickets.

This is to me one of those examples of the audience guiding the next trends. It is not uncommon for older films to get a rerelease, but to have audiences respond to one with this amount of enthusiasm shows what may be lacking in the current offerings. It will be interesting to see what the next slate of upcoming films looks like, and how it will continue to perform over the next few weeks. It’s to note that the rerelease was scheduled for a limited 2 week engagement, but based of this weekend’s success, it will likely be extended.

3D

In the past 3 years there has been no bigger boom in mainstream film quite like 3D. Unlike the big digital vs. film debate, 3D is seen mostly as a financial bump for the studios. While there are some film makers who are attempting to implement this tool in as an earnest storytelling tool, the general public seems to have grown weary of poor post conversions and cheap attempts to increase box office numbers.

In the beginning of the summer, Marvel’s Thor had an opening weekend gross with 60% of which was for 3D screens. In the coming months, the summer blockbuster season was in full swing, with over a dozen 3D films released, sometimes more than one each weekend. By the end of summer, Marvel’s other release Captain America: The First Avenger was released in similar fashion to Thor as well as catering to the same audience, yet its 3D take that accounted for about 40% of its audience. This shows that there was a definite over-saturation of the market. I have included a chart from Box Office Mojo to show how many 3D movies have been released, and how many have been just this summer alone. Though there seems to be a dip in interest, some film makers and studio executives are hoping to reverse this trend before it no longer becomes a viable option.

One of 3D’s pioneers James Cameron, whose Avatar grossed over $700 million most of which was from 3D tickets, will on hand at the 4th annual 3D Entertainment Summit to talk about how the public’s perception of 3D can change so that it can stay around for years to come. Some plans are to lower the price of 3D tickets, and make cheaper more wieldy 3D rigs to shoot on, to counter the post conversion craze. Cameron has been quoted by saying “This is a good moment for Hollywood to acknowledge that they have to try harder to maintain the idea that 3D is a premium experience. We can’t take cheap routes to offer a 3D title in the marketplace.”

Also on hand for the Summit will be Fox chairman Tom Rothman, and many other studio big wigs with the best intentions, and here’s hoping that the weekend of the 20th they can make strides towards making 3D something that sticks around and doesn’t turn into a trend like horror remakes or Dane Cook movies.

http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/2011/09/02/3d_summit_-_speakers_james_cameron_vince_pace_tom_rothman_gene_simmons/

http://boxofficemojo.com/genres/chart/?id=3d.htm