By Cole Gee | Staff Writer
Last week, I went to the movies with some close friends to see “Black Box,” a fun spy flick with Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett. It was not a future Oscar winner by any means, but it was still a great time and we all enjoyed ourselves.
Imagine my shock, however, when I went on X (my first mistake) and saw an endless row of tweets talking about how the movie “won’t break even” and how the studio is going to lose millions of dollars.
I’m sorry, it seems that I must have forgotten that Hollywood hired thousands of new movie producers overnight. Why else would the average fan today care more about box office numbers rather than if the movie was good?
This isn’t an isolated incident; anytime these days when seeing a post on social media discussing a movie, the very first thing that seems to be mentioned is how well or poorly it’s doing in the box office or what it needs to break even. Disney’s latest release, “Snow White,” has been (rightfully) getting fried at every turn this past week.
However, the main criticism that many seem to have is how much money Disney is losing. Rather than the poor acting, character design, boring romance or plain fact that a majority of Disney live-action remakes are just slop. I give my apologies to all three fans of Emma Watson’s “Beauty and the Beast” and the “Into the Woods” fandom, but enough is enough.
Producers follow the money, and no producer who values their job is greenlighting a movie unless it’s going to print more bills than the U.S. Treasury. If you get a poor focus group test, is there even a fraction of a chance that your movie could cost them money? Best case scenario it goes straight to streaming; worst case, it gets put on the shelf.
“Coyote vs. Acme” was an already-finished live-action film starring John Cena, Will Forte and the loveable Wile E. Coyote. However, due to fear of a box office flop, Warner Brothers decided to put the film in their vault and not release it, enraging the industry. Thankfully, a new studio, Ketchup Entertainment, was recently able to buy the movie and plans to do a full release.
Funny enough, this behavior by money-hungry studio executives has become so commonplace that Apple TV just released a TV show called “The Studio” mocking these same people. Why anyone would want to view films and art in terms of dollar signs only is beyond me.
“Blade Runner,” “Citizen Kane,” “The Iron Giant” and “Scott Pilgrim vs The World” are all incredible movies with deeply passionate (albeit annoying) fanbases. Each one, however, was considered a major box office flop, costing their studios millions. Yet the true quality of the work survived the test of time to become every film nerd’s favorite phrase, “underrated classics.”
Ask any person about their top 10 favorite films and there’s a high chance one of them was a box office bomb. But they still love the movie because of what it means to them personally.
My advice: let Bob Iger and Kevin Feige worry about how their next two-part multiversal summer blockbuster extravaganza is going to sell to focus groups. Instead, go find a movie buried in the box office chart; there’s a decent chance you might watch something you like. And if you happen to think it’s hot garbage, go give a bad review on Letterbox.
