It’s a Sunday night ritual: plan your meals for the week, watch some football (that’s what sports people do, right?) then, of course, check what movies ruled the box office this weekend. For many, the box office showdown is just as big a competition as what’s happening on the gridiron (that’s a thing, right?). Years of hard work—development, casting, production, post—all boiled down to one little question: did the movie beat The Smurfs in 3D?
This might sound like a weird thing to say, as we’re big movie fanatics here at FilmBuff, but we’re annoyed by the film world’s obsession with box office numbers. We know, we know, the movie industry is first and foremost a business (and an expensive business at that). The studios need to make money to spend money. Those dolla dolla bills you spend at your local cineplex directly dictate what kind of movies, stars, franchises the big studios will keep producing and putting into theaters. We get it: money makes the world go around etc., etc. But we like to shake things up so we’re prepared to say, “Hey! Big guys in the suits with the fancy cars! Box office numbers shouldn’t matter that much!” The reasons are twofold: 1) they never really mattered, and 2) they especially don’t matter now. Let’s get into the facts.
Allow us for a moment to delve into our primary point: The box office has never really mattered. Now this might sound a little controversial and also dumb. We can see your brow scrunching up, and that little voice in your head being all like “Quoi?? Of course box office has mattered, what about huge smash hit blockbusters like the Harry Potter series or major flops like Waterworld?” Let us rephrase a bit: Box office has never really mattered … in terms of quantifying the quality of a film. There are countless examples of critical darlings whose success never translated to the box office: Citizen Kane and Donnie Darko are two that immediately jump into our heads. Many of these films went on to have a great life in the ancillaries, as they say in the biz (that basically means TV and DVD sales). On the flip side of the coin, there are a crazy amount of films that were universally panned that won the box office that weekend and went on to make a LOT of bank. Which films are going to stand the test of time and which films are going to fade away? 1999 is a great example: The number 1 movie in the box office was Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace and Fight Club only made $37 million (on a $63 million budget… YIKES).
And can we please get over this absurdly derived competition between the films coming out that weekend and recognize that each film’s success is relative? We know that most people aren’t going to go to the movies twice in one weekend so we guess automatically that makes it a riveting battle of Action flick vs 3D Kids schlock: who will prevail? So many huge film successes have been a slow burn; they start out with a mediocre opening weekend and then start ratcheting up the $$$ based on excellent word of mouth. Only for event movies (read: movies where people will dress up, or teen girls will be crying, or both) like Twilight does the opening weekend matter because it makes a statement, but no studio exec in their right mind is expecting to beat Edward and Bella’s sparkly vampire love anyway. Just look at some of the films in 2011 alone that “won” their weekend: Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2, Hop, The Rite, and does anyone even remember what Unknown was? That ‘won’ two weekends in a row in February.
If anything, we should approach the box office like they do in the indie/specialty film world: per screen. The big studio offerings are literally everywhere. You can’t throw a rock in a suburban strip mall without hitting the latest animated sequel, rom-com or superhero flick. Of course people are seeking out these movies in droves because they are the ONLY options. Looking at per screen box office numbers adjusts for how ubiquitous these movies are, and we can get closer to understanding relative success. Take Werner Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams for example. In terms of documentary success, that film is killing it and making a gross of $ 5.2 mil. For something like Rise of the Planet of the Apes that would be a huge let-down just for opening weekend, but it’s great for Herzog and IFC (the film’s distributor). Cave of Forgotten Dreams opened on only five screens, and at it’s high point was only in 123 theaters. That ape flick opened in 3,648 theaters. There’s some complicated math there… but in terms of the opening weekend per screen average for both films: the cave beats the apes.
And now for point numero dos: box office numbers especially don’t matter now. What is it about the present that makes big B.O. numbers matter even less than normal? Digital, silly! The studios know this fact all too well; less and less people are going to the movies and more are turning to digital options at home like VOD and streaming. With so many options for media and entertainment at home, not to mention the P-word that people don’t like to mention (piracy… get your mind out of the gutter!), the theatrical box office just barely demonstrates what people are watching, and what people are liking. It’s happening in the indie world first: many specialty distributors are experimenting with same-day release in theaters and on VOD. Perhaps the big studios should look to their example to start evaluating success free from the box office model.
Are we completely off our rocker here? Should the box office reign supreme? What are some other ideas for evaluating the success of a film? Hit us up in the comments.
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