of worldwide box office revenue, is in a growth mode, the North American market has remained relatively flat over the past decade. The question: With big-budget event movies cannibalizing each other, will the overseas market grow fast enough to make up for the collateral damage?
“ At some point, things have to change,” said entertainment attorney Fred Bernstein, who was president of Columbia Pictures from 1994 through 1997.“ I don’ t think the audience is necessarily as expansive as it needs to be to absorb all of the studios only making $ 200 million dollar special effects-laden extravaganzas.”
Even with growth regions like Asia and Latin America, and the seemingly voracious appetite for American movies in many parts of the world, the studios must figure out how to make movies more economically, and get a handle on escalating production and marketing costs, which continue to squeeze already thin profit margins.
Jean-Luc De Fanti, managing partner at Hemisphere Media Capital, which co-financed such big budget films as“ World War Z,”“ The Smurfs,”“ Men in Black 3” and“ The
Adventures of Tintin,” said fiscal control is imperative.
“ There is a global market for big movie content, but it has to be made at more reasonable costs,” maintained De Fanti.“ I don’ t think the international marketplace is immune to the issue of overcrowding, particularly when the releases are so close together.”
Glut on the Horizon
What’ s more, overcrowding isn’ t poised to get any better in the foreseeable future.
In 2015, between May and August, the studios will release just as many— if not more— high-profile sequels, reboots and tentpoles. It is expected to be one of the most pricey, loaded summers in decades, with the likes of Disney-Marvel’ s“ The Avengers” sequel,“ Age of Ultron,” Fox’ s“ Independence Day 2,” Disney’ s“ Pirates of the Caribbean 5,” Sony’ s“ The Smurfs 3” and Paramount’ s“ Terminator.”
“ This summer certainly showed that the summer alone cannot sustain this number of tentpoles,” explained Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore.“ The one thing that everybody has to re-evaluate is looking at the calendar and discussing when you have the best shot at being successful during non-peak times.”
Historically, studios have turned to dates earlier in the spring to avoid overcrowding( a la the first“ Hunger Games” and“ Alice in Wonderland”), and some observers predict the same will happen in the next two years. But there’ s little wiggle room, as some months always seem to be bad for tentpoles( think January / February, September / October).
One of the startling revelations about this summer’ s duds is how accurately they were predicted. Cowen and Co.’ s May 3 report forecast that at least four big-budget action adventure movies would fail, and analyst Doug Creutz modelled five:“ Lone Ranger,”“ White House Down,”“ World War Z,”“ After Earth” and“ R. I. P. D.”“ World War Z” was the lone outlier— just by the skin of its teeth.
The summer’ s congestion not only resulted in some epic failures, it also stunted several of the season’ s more successful entries. Consider“ The Hangover Part III,” whose $ 350 million worldwide gross was far less than its two predecessors’ respective takes of
26 | WGSA MAG July 2013