25 years ago yesterday a small romantic comedy opened in the US starring Richard Gere who had come off several poor performing films since his early 80s hits of The Officer and the Gentleman and American Gigolo and Julia Roberts who had starred in two a sweet independent film Mystic Pizza and Steel Magnolias (won her a Golden Globe and Oscar nomination) was directed by Garry Marshall. Had the film kept its original title 3000 or used the original script a dark drama about prostitution in Los Angeles it would have been quickly forgotten, on the DVD there are some outtakes to what way the original film was meant to be.
But Jeffrey Katzenberg who was then Walt Disney Studios president wanted it turned into a modern-day fairy tale and a retelling of Pygmalion. Like many films at that time retitled the film after a classic song Pretty Woman helped make it become the film audiences love today. I like most have seen it countless times buying it in many different formats from VHS to DVD to Blu-ray.
What is amazing is Disney always wanted to make a sequel which never happened but brought director Garry Marshall, and stars Julia Roberts and Richard Gere back together in Runaway Bride in 1999 to try to rekindle the magic. In these reboot, remake years am amazed Disney hasn’t yet plans to remake it.
Summer 1990 was filled with many high budget films today would be seen as mid-range budget Back to the Future 3, Gremlins 2, Robocop 2, Another 48 Hours, Days of Thunder, Dick Tracey and Die Hard 2. But was also the year in March Pretty Woman opened with $11m went on to take $178m; in July Ghost opened with $12m went on to take $220m; in November Home Alone opened with $17m went on to take $286m. All three films had budgets of under $25m a quarter of many of the other blockbuster films released that year and their opening weekends were 6% of the final box office compared with over 20% of many of the blockbuster releases. 25 years later the blockbuster budgeted films might be opening bigger but they are dropping bigger and the final box office is more than a third of its opening.
25 years ago there were the big budget films but there were also the smaller films that were allowed to find an audiences now-days a film rarely gets a chance to find an audience, the only time it does happen is during award season when films open on limited release and slowly expand as was seen last year successfully with American Sniper and The Imitation Game but unsuccessfully with many others 2014 box office profit Rosewater, Even Oscar winners Whiplash and Birdman didn’t manage to crossover to mainstream cinema audiences.
Would Disney, Paramount and 20th Century Fox make Pretty Woman, Ghost and Home Alone today I doubt it and if they did they wouldn’t be allowed to stay in cinemas as long to find audiences.
Many films today are given labels as potential surprises or sleeper hits but they are so rare. Cinema audiences are fragmenting and become much more pickier on the films they see with the mid-range budget films often suffering. With costs dramatically rising in recent years to go to the cinema audiences aren’t going as often . Box office might be increasing year on year but that’s more down to artificially increases in ticket prices and surcharges for 3D and IMAX.
Last year Guardians of the Galaxy was described by many as a surprise hit but a film created by Marvel with the huge financial marketing campaign surrounding it cannot be seen as a surprise. 2013’s Frozen becoming the billion dollar blockbuster many could say was as no one could have ever imaged it would have become the film that it was with children seeing the film countless times in cinemas like their mum’s did with Titanic 15 years before but both were created as potential blockbusters with the budgets and the marketing campaigns surrounded them.
Sleepers are more like Sleepless in Seattle that opened with $17m in 1993 and went on to take $127m and When Harry Met Sally opened with $9m in 1989 and took $93m. In 1996 Jerry Maguire and Scream opened with $17m and $7m which were 11% and 7% of their final box offices of $154m and $103m.
It’s very rare for a major release not to drop less than 30% in the weeks after their opening but 20+ years ago it regularly happened. Films open today with $60m+ but regularly drop over 50% in their following weekend due to the next mega-film opening. It used to be rival studios would space out their mega-movies but recently rival studios will open mega-movies against each other over the same weekend believing that it will expand the marketplace but that rarely happens the films will instead cannibalize themselves with the two not opening to their potential. Last year Maleficent opened against Edge of Tomorrow, Maleficent opened well but not as big as Alice in Wonderland reimagined while Tom Cruise suffered one of his worst opening for Edge of Tomorrow even though reviews were very good. It held well in the weeks after but the damage was done with its opening. Next year in the UK we have Batman Vs Superman face/off against the latest Disney animation Zootopia the following year Disney and Warner Bros battle it out again with The Lego Movie Sequel against Star Wars VIII these films have huge price tags on them you would have thought the studios would want to make sure they have no direct competition?
It’s interesting to looking down the all-time top 100 worldwide box office and there are just 9 films made before 2000. Almost 20 years after it came out Independence Day is still in the top 50 films showing how successful it was when it opened in 1996. 20th Century Fox release a sequel next year if it doesn’t match the $817m the original took with the vast increases in ticket prices and 3D surcharges since big questions will be asked at the studio.
In June 22 years after Jurassic Park opened in the US Universal Pictures release Jurassic World. The first film opened with $50m which was $14m of its final box office of $357m, the sequel will likely open to near double that but probably will find it hard to match the final box office of the original even with huge ticket price increases. Jurassic Park opened in the UK in July with £4.9m dropping only 5% in its second weekend playing in cinemas for almost a year with a final box office of £46m Jurassic World will likely open a third bigger but will drop 50%+ in its second weekend but it’s doubtful it will get anywhere near £46m.
In February 1991 Jeffrey Katzenberg wrote a memo (which was the inspiration of the film Jerry Maguire) which was a 28 page analysis of the movie industry which boiled down to two ideas don’t spend such much money and don’t make a film without a script. These comments seem like common sense but 24 years later Hollywood still hasn’t learnt and are now making $200+ budget films instead of the then $100m budgets. The memo commented on Hollywood’s decline claiming the seeds of the movie business ailments were built by the blockbuster mentality and that companies should look long and hard at the event movie business as cannot indulge in it any more.
Box office might be increasing but the film budgets and marketing costs are also expanding so the profits are far smaller. Deadline Hollywood last week charted the top 20 most profitable films of last year.
