Hollywood’s Bad Summer Movies Are Driving a Decline in Movie Ticket Sales

Megalith

Megalith

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Summer has been a total bust for Hollywood: movie attendance dropped by as much as 5% compared to the same period in 2016. While many allege that moviegoers are tired of sequels (which we saw plenty of this summer), I suspect that more and more people are opting to wait (just a couple of months) for the digital releases so they can enjoy films in the comfort of their own homes. And, of course, there is plenty of streaming entertainment to fill any potential void.

While films like Beauty and the Beast, Wonder Woman, and Get Out fared well at the box office, they were the anomalies in a year full of box office disappointments. Instead of giving moviegoers more badass female leads and genre-bending horror films, Hollywood keeps throwing gobs of money at an unwanted fifth installment of Pirates of the Caribbean, more Transformers movies, and putting $175 million into King Arthur: Legend of the Sword and then clutching their pearls in shock that no one wanted to see them.
 
Huh. So ppl won't pay for bad movies. Let's not forget the joy and wonder of the movie going experience... the chair kickers, the "5 min late 'excuse me while I just climb over you to my seat' fuckers", the sticky stuff on the seat, the wet arm of a fat fuck next to you, the giant in front of you, the "I can't live without Facebook for 90 fucking minutes" fucks, the "I found the noisiest bag of chips so I'll just pop it open here" cunts, the "I need to narrate the whole fucking movie for my retarded gf because I'm afraid she might miss the plot" cunts and soforth. What's not to like. Love it.
 
There wasn't exactly much worth watching this summer. King Arthur was NEVER going to make money, I have no idea why some moron thought it would make a good cinematic universe. The Mummy was absolute trash, just another Tom Cruise movie where Tom Cruise acts like Tom Cruise, does Tom Cruise stuff, the movie is entirely about Cruise, and no one does anything unless Cruise says so. Emoji was about as bad as anyone expected, even some kids hated it. Pirates and Transformers were both possibly the worst entries in their respective franchises yet, Pirates commit the sin of just being boring. Most of the summer movies this year were just crap and not worth watching in theaters. Sales are down because people don't feel like going and see a lot of the movies presented and, yes, a lot would probably rather wait and spend $15-$20 to buy the digital version or $5 to rent it vs spending $40-$50 on taking a family to whatever crap is playing.
 
I will go see good movies in the theaters. There's been more bad than good, but not terrible.

Summer 2014 was much worse: the only good movie was Guardians of the Galaxy. It's also the only reason a genre movie as long and boring as Interstellar did well later that year.

Seriously, I challenge you to watch this entire 3 hour "epic" without getting distracted playing games on your phone or checking facebook. You know, sit through the last twenty minutes of him floating in a black hole, doing the very thing you saw coming from the beginning.

Even users unanimously panned it as crap after they watched it.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/20...oted-2014s-most-overrated-movie-by-metacritic

You do stupid things when you have an entire summer full of shit. Like give a boring movie a universally positive rating, despite nobody ever wanting to watch it again.
 
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There was also a ton of good this summer after some early false starts. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 was a solid lead-in to start off the season, but Wonder Woman, Baby Driver, War for the Planet of the Apes, Dunkirk, Spider-man: Homecoming, even Girls Trip are noteworthy critical and box-office successes that came out in the last two months.
 
Evil Timmy said:
There was also a ton of good this summer after some early false starts. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 was a solid lead-in to start off the season, but Wonder Woman, Baby Driver, War for the Planet of the Apes, Dunkirk, Spider-man: Homecoming, even Girls Trip are noteworthy critical and box-office successes that came out in the last two months.
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Yeah, there's still a lot of good movies this summer. It wasn't 2014-level-bad.
 
dark_reign said:
Yup. Home theater setups and streaming have made the trip to the local movie theater obsolete. There is much better content via streaming than the shit they peddle in movie theaters.
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Agreed who wants to deal with High prices, crying babies, line ups, over priced pop corn, and just rude and stupid people there.

I'm lucky if I see 3 movies in theater for the year the rest is all done at home.
 
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Instead of giving moviegoers more badass female leads
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What? That's seemingly all we got. There was two versions of a female Hangover (a mixed cast one and a black cast one). A female John Wick spy film (Atomic Blonde), and a female super hero (Wonder Woman).

Not every film has to be female centric now. That's not the problem. I don't mind female lead roles if the film is good.
 
Sorry Hollywood, I wasn't interested in any of the movies you were showing this summer. None. As a result, I didn't see any. I'll probably watch Wonder Woman and Spiderman at home later in the year.
I do plan on seeing Star Wars when it comes out. Other than that, meh for selection.
 
RogueTadhg said:
But I thought 3D was the problem?
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I hope they don't think movies are in decline because of the decline in 3D features. You know some exec will think that.

Briteball said:
Way to many movies being released that is the problem... worth it or not regular people don't have the time or cash flow to make that kind of investment week in week out!
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Yea, I wanted to see Atomic Blond but it came out the week after Valerian so I didn't go see it.

bildad said:
I thought Valerian was great movie if you're a sci fi fan. I enjoyed it more than Dunkirk and Planet of the Apes.
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That's not popular opinion, but I too thought Valerian was decent. Problem is though, nobody saw it and it will put another nail in the coffin of new IP for movies. Transformers 54 incoming... Another issue is everyone is so quick to jump on a popular opinion bandwagon. Wait for it: Ghost in the Shell was actually good.
 
Makaveli@BETA said:
Agreed who wants to deal with High prices, crying babies, lines up, over priced pop corn, and just rude and stupid people there.

I'm lucky if I see 3 movies in theater for the year the rest is all done at home.
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I don't mind the prices. I just hate all the stupid people :)
 
I just want a bit more variety. At this point, I'm sick of comic book movies. And that's mainly what the summer blockbusters seem to be composed of, along with remakes of older movies. Yes, there are more movies than that, but none of them are really aimed at being blockbusters. I can't even remember the last good action movie that wasn't a comic book movie.
 
Horrible fucking author of that piece
Hollywood keeps throwing gobs of money at an unwanted fifth installment of Pirates of the Caribbean, more Transformers movies, and putting $175 million into King Arthur: Legend of the Sword and then clutching their pearls in shock that no one wanted to see them.
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Say what you will, only one of those movies flopped, hint: it wasn't one that was "another installment no one wanted", a quick google shows Pirates & Transformers pushed to about $800M and 600M respectively, granted most of this is overseas selling, but still Hollywood only cares about the bottom line, and this is exactly why we got Transformers 5 or is it 6?
 
king arthur bombed, but wasnt a bad flick, but planing a 6 movie franchise? they shoulda just done a tv series maybe tone down the odd sfx.
 
Lets break this down shall we?

While films like Beauty and the Beast
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A remake of a film that was based on the public domain.

Wonder Woman
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Which is a DC character as those usually don't fare too well.

Get Out fared well at the box office, they were the anomalies in a year full of box office disappointments.
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Never heard of Get Out, but that says a lot in how well they did.
 
I go to about 1 movie a year, sometimes 2. I know people that go EVERY WEEKEND. They have a schedule, date night : dinner and a movie. They usually don't even know what they're going to see until they get to the theater. Another interesting fact... these people are broke, I wonder why. They're blowing $100+ a weekend on dinner out and a movie they didn't really want to see, they just wanted to get out of the house. Or even more $$, if they have time to kill and end up wandering the mall spending money until the movie starts. I told the guy that if he skipped that BS for 2 months he could buy a 1080p projector and watch big screen movies in his own home. TLDR, I think he found it easier to just get a divorce and find cheaper hobbies.
 
"movie attendance dropped by as much as 5%"
"as much as 5%"
"5%"

"a total bust for Hollywood"
"no one wanted to see them"

Drama about nothing.
 
viscountalpha said:
I was joking that they are anal beads given how shitty Hollywood has been.
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I know i was just trying to use that reference. I saw it in the making of the movie when they were talking about it being in the script and it was a mis type that they kept in the movie. Jam Bags FMMV
 
The lack of interest in current releases isn't keeping me away from the movie theater. The movie theater experience in itself is keeping me away. If the movie theaters die a death similar to arcade game venues...meh!
 
Produce shit, receive shit.

I don't even bother watching movies anymore. Most are just trash. Although, I do want to see Hacksaw Ridge and Dunkirk.
 
Not much to report here. Hollywood had tons of weak summers only to follow up with awesome ones.
 
Megalith said:
Instead of giving moviegoers more badass female leads and genre-bending horror films
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But I don't want more movies with badass female leads or genre-bending horror films.

I also don't want to sit in a sticky theater seat where I can't pause it to take a piss or go get another beer.
 
For me the movie theater experience is just too expensive and tedious - by the time you buy tickets and snacks you're in it almost $20 per person. That adds up when you have a substantial family. Better to spend the money on a giant LCD and sound system and watch it whenever you want once it comes out. Then you can have BBQ, wings, beer, the works and really enjoy the show.
 
OldGator said:
For me the movie theater experience is just too expensive and tedious - by the time you buy tickets and snacks you're in it almost $20 per person. That adds up when you have a substantial family. Better to spend the money on a giant LCD and sound system and watch it whenever you want once it comes out. Then you can have BBQ, wings, beer, the works and really enjoy the show.
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the industry should focus on releasing more movies which do not cater to family-groups. This would also greatly benefit us avid moviegoers with an increase in the freedom of content that's allowed to be made by Hollywood suits.
 
Baby Driver was quite good, I thought. The only good thing about that terrible mummy movie they released this summer is the ride at Universal Studios. That ride is intense.
 
theBrownLlama said:
the industry should focus on releasing more movies which do not cater to family-groups. This would also greatly benefit us avid moviegoers with an increase in the freedom of content that's allowed to be made by Hollywood suits.
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Even for movies that are more suited for 1 or 2 people the theater experience is still just awful. There was a time when it was better - when nobody had decent sound systems, large flat screens, and rooms dedicated for movie watching. It made sense when I was a teen to go see a movie since the largest possible TVs were 25", they were in mono, and stereo VCRs were quite rare. But once stereo VCRs came out I mostly stopped going to the theater - especially when it became more expensive to buy a ticket than just to go to Blockbuster and pay 99 cents to rent the same movie.

When a movie was $2 to see it then it was OK. Some movies like Terminator 2 just made more sense to see on a big screen. But now? Meh. I'll wait. Haven't been to a movie since the LOTR series came out. Didn't even bother with The Hobbit since it was cheaper just to buy them and watch at home at my convenience.

I think now I would rank a movie theater among the top 3 places I try to avoid - the DMV and airports being the other two.
 
bildad said:
I thought Valerian was great movie if you're a sci fi fan. I enjoyed it more than Dunkirk and Planet of the Apes.
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yeah i wasn't planning on seeing valerian until i read the interview with the director giving the back story to the comic and movie and why he made fifth element before making the valerian movie.
 
Well before, old fart here, the rather puny low resolution POS TV compared to the Godsend big screen high resolution, high sound quality experience made a big impact. Now the sound quality at home, picture quality, comfort quality - you name it can be better at home and not have to pay some outrageous price for a flat Coke at the theater and pre-popped popcorn. Plus drinking beer (sound good) at home will cause in most cases, depending upon quantity - no issue.

Combine that with movies being available anyways 2-3 months later for home consumption vice literally years to decades for prior older movies of the past makes going to the theater a choir almost.

I agree above, Starwars I will most likely go see at the Theater, that is about it.
 
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