For the last few years franchise movies like star wars, marvel, etc. made money regardless of quality. However now it seems like audiences are being choosier when it comes to these kinds of tentpole releases. I’ve seen some people online say that the movie/theater industry is losing people in general but I don’t think that’s the case.
Super Mario and spiderverse made a lot of money. And Oppenheimer, Barbie, and Dune seem to be tracking well. I think the problem is that people are getting sick of the same old stuff and need more than just a brand name to go to the theater. What do you you think?
Critic and audience reviews (such as IMDB scores) alone don’t make a movie a flop or not. Instead, it’s the movie’s box office performance.
$60M opening weekend against a $250M production budget would be considered a flop. (Source)
Typically, studios want to see at least $100M on their opening weekend to consider something a success.
$250m production budget for an Indiana Jones movie is absolutely bonkers. Raiders had a $20m budget.
Inflation?
Even with inflation the cost of making films (especially in the US) has gone up a lot. Just a rough Google says that 20 mil in 1980/81 is now roughly 75 mil. That makes the new Indie film more than 3x the production cost
I want to live in a world in which viewer opinions (reviews and ratings) are the most accepted indicator of movie quality, rather than how much money it made.
Audience and critical reviews will be the indicator of quality in the long term, once the movie’s on streaming and disc. And many movies do gain a new life then thanks to how people feel about them.
Spiderverse is a recent example: it’s doing gangbusters this time thanks to the goodwill of audiences who watched the first one on streaming (it didn’t do great in the box office.)
And some movies that flop and get poor reviews go on to become cult classics. Generally not the case for big franchises though