Last weekend after much hype Brad Pitt’s Fury opened in the US experts ahead of release were expecting it to open with $30m+ but instead opened with $23m was still described as a successful opening.
10/ 20 years ago a film opening with $23m would be seen as a success but today with high budgets and marketing costs $23m doesn’t scream hit to me. The second weekend’s box office will show if the film has legs as reviews have been far more mixed than Sony were expecting with many describing it as Inglorious Basterds without the humour. If it drops by 25% in its second weekend that would be a second weekend of $17m similar to Gone Girl recently did in its second weekend and is still performing strongly thanks to good word of mouth. If it drops by around 40% which is the norm for films lately it would be lucky if it took $90m. With all the other potential award contenders already released and many still to be released its unlikely Mr Pitt will be joining Mrs Pitt as a nominee this year.
For a film like Fury the budget would be $70m with its marketing costs of at least $50m as Sony Pictures are also positioning it as an award contender. The film would need to take $200m in the US to be seen as success.
So how can a film that opens with $23m today be seen as a successful opening as these film need to be opening about $33m. Similarly in the UK a major film opening with less than £2.5m cannot be seen as a successful. As like the US most films will end up taking 3 times their opening like The Inbetweeners Movie 2, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, X-Men Days of Future Past, How to Train Your Dragon 2. There have been some exceptions this year including The Lego Movie, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Guardians of the Galaxy, 22 Jump Street, and The Wolf of Wall Street. Then there have been some films that opened big but then failed quickly part because of their 10 day openings Transformers Age of Extinction and Bad Neighbours.
Many people don’t realise that the studio will only get about 50% of the box office internationally that can be a lot less than 25% (in China).
Fury is just a mid- range budget film but when you look at the many films set for release in the coming years many of their budgets will be $150-200m with marketing budgets of almost equal since any opening less than $80m+ would be seen as a failure as these films will normally drop over 50% in their second weekends.
10/ 20 years ago a film would be a success if it grossed $100m in the US (£10m in the UK) but these mega movies take that in less than 3 days but have $300m+ price tags on them so need to take at least that to be seen as a success. This year there has only been one film that has taken over $300m in the US Guardians of the Galaxy last year there were 4 The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Iron Man 3, Frozen, Despicable Me 3 with Man of Steel just slightly under, with 13 films taking over $200m this year there are so far 9.
These days most films will end up taking 3 times their opening weekend box office with a films theatrical life now in weeks father than months.
In 1990 Pretty Woman opened in the US with $10m ran for other 6 months in cinemas taking $180m its opening only 6% of its final box office. In July 1990 Ghost repeating that opening with $12m ran for over 6 months taking $220m and Home Alone in November opened with $17m but ended up taking $286m. In the 1980’s films would run in cinemas successful for even longer E.T ran for over 13 months taking $360m Return of the Jedi ran for over 10 months grossing $252m (Star Wars Episode VII will probably do that in about 10 days next year).
You compare these figures with the current state of the industry in both the US and UK and things aren’t as rosy as the industry makes them out to be films might be making more money but they are also costing much more so profits are then smaller.
Audiences might have grown in the last 20 years but not as fast as ticket prices have done so the box office of films now might sound bigger but in reality it is far less then films released 20 years ago. Jurassic Park opened in July 1993 with £4.9m dropped only 5% in its second weekend and went on to take over £46m there have only been a couple of films since that have matched it The Full Monty, Avatar, Mamma Mia and Skyfall. Many other films might have taken more since Jurassic Park but they all opened a lot bigger and dropped off very quickly.
With cinema attendance for this year looking like it could be the worst since 2001 it could be the wakeup call that the industry needed to realise that things aren’t as awesome as they seem. But with mega movies, reboots, remakes and sequels a plenty to come all likely to open big and drop big it’s unlikely anything with be changing anytime soon.