Should Studios Pull the Plug on Prestige?
Plus: a manic study in decadence and decline, assigned!
I wrote a longish piece about the impact of Avatar on the culture this week that made the following fairly basic argument: Avatarās cultural impact canāt be measured in memes or cosplay or lines quoted but by how it altered the business landscape, and the way it altered the business landscape is by not only pushing studios even harder into the tentpole business (buoyed by 3D and large format surcharges) but also by convincing audiences that the only reason to go to the theater was for a big experience.
This does not strike me as particularly controversial, even if it is dissatisfying for the types who want to play Billy Eichner and scream āname a character in the highest grossing film of all time!ā at people on the street. As proof that audiences arenāt showing up for adult pictures, I pointed to the absolutely disastrous box office hauls so far for movies as diverse as The Fabelmans and TĆ”r and The Whale and Empire of Light and Babylon, pictures of varying sizes and star power and budgets, all of which have been mostly ignored by ticket-buying audiences.
Whether you want blame Avatar and its extravagant descendants for this decline or the change in release windows or the rise of streaming or Covid-19 or inflation or ā¦ whatever, facts are facts, and facts on the ground are bad. How bad? So bad that Kevin Goetzāthe founder of Screen Engine ASI, the author of Audienceology, and a one-time guest of The Bulwark Goes to Hollywoodāis telling studios to avoid releasing these movies in theaters.
At all.
āEssentially: yes,ā Goetz replied to a dumbstruck Matthew Belloni when the Puck columnist asked if he was hearing Goetz right when he said that studios should give up and direct everything to streaming for prestige stuff. āI am advocating event status on every studio-release movie. ā¦ Most platform releases: gone. Most.ā
And look, itās hard to argue with Goetz on purely financial grounds. Audiences arenāt aware of these movies and if they are aware of these movies arenāt sure when theyāre coming out since the national publications blow all their PR during the New York and Los Angeles runs and if they do know when the movies are coming out they also know that theyāll only have to wait three weeks and theyāll be on VOD for the cost of a single ticket. Why bother going to the theater to see them?
It is, perhaps, pointless to struggle against this new reality. But without theatrical revenue itās hard to see how prestige pictures really survive as a business model. And if studios arenāt making money with them, why bother making them at all? For trophies? Do shareholders care about trophies that audiences donāt care about? Perhaps the entire genre of prestige picture moves to Netflix and AppleTV and Hulu and Prime Video and the rest of the streamers.
But Iām not sure anyone in the industry wants Oscar to become synonymous with Best Made-for-TV Movie.
If you want to know what the Across the Movie Aisle gang thought was the best picture of the year, make sure to listen to this weekās episode. The divergences and convergences within our group are always interesting to track.
Links!
Babylon is a movie dedicated to excess, and while Iām not sure I loved it I did kind of love director Damien Chazelleās dedication to the bit. Itās a little like watching a manic episode unspool in front of you, with its swooping and swirling cameras, jazzy score, and big, twitchy performances. I tried to work through what works and what doesnāt in my review.
Office Space has definitely had cultural impact, inspiring lots of quotes and memes and, uh, robberies?
Ted Gioiaās look at the recovery of Barnes and Noble is really interesting. Turns out people like having bookstores curated by people who love books and love selling books to people. Who knew!
This is a pretty stunning infographic:
There are few things in life Iāve been more certain about than the idea that Vince McMahon would return to the WWE the second people stopped paying attention to the sexual harassment payouts the company uncovered during a misconduct investigation. Coming back for one last big payday makes sense; if the WWE hits the open market itās going to spark a bidding war between the streamers.
As you folks know, I quite loved TĆ”r. I also quite loved this interview of director Todd Fields and star Cate Blanchett, at least in part because it drives home something I argued about the film, which is that itās almost deliriously ambiguous.
Armond White did not love TĆ”r, as evidenced in his ābetter thanā list this year. I know some people out there arenāt a fan of White, but where else are you going to find a list that ranks Father Stu ahead of Everything Everywhere All at Once and My Son Hunter ahead of Armageddon Time?
Assigned Viewing: Boogie Nights (HBO Max)
Babylon feels like a silent-era remake of Boogie Nights, Paul Thomas Andersonās masterpiece about the porn industryās shift from film to digital, from theaters to home viewing, from pseudo-art to ā¦ something else. If youāve never seen it, you should. And if you have seen it, well, no time better than now to revisit it. Especially since I have a feeling itās going to come up on next weekās Across the Movie Aisle!
From a purely financial prospective it probably makes sense to just put up the prestige stuff on streaming but it makes me kind of sad. I'm in my early 40s and generally like a lot of movies that are considered arthouse or prestige. When I do see these movies in theatres, I am also often the youngest person in the theatre by about 25-30 years or so, maybe more. This was true before the pandemic (Kore'era Hirokazu's Shoplifters and My Little Sister) and after the pandemic (Drive My Car).
There was a cultural sea change and I think it happened before Avatar but the explosion of the MCU and movies like Avatar continued the trend. I think in the 1960s, there was a bit of cultural cache for at least attempting to be into what would become the Criterion Cannon. It was exciting and different than the stuff produced by Hollywood. Now this cultural cache appears to be gone except among a small section of society (aka SLAC graduates).
I went to see Avatar in 4D... That, in case you're wondering, is ONE MORE D than 3. The closest thing I can relate it to is Disney's "Soaring over America" at Disney's California Adventure. It was NOT the usual moviegoing experience by any means and at $27.50 a ticket wasn't priced as such. As a mid sixties aged man and regular movie attendee I gotta tell you I thoroughly enjoyed the "ride", even if I was a little sore leaving the theater.I am old enough to have lived through many theater gimmicks, ie "The Tingler", Smellovision, Hypnoscope, and others but this is the first time that I actually left the theater with a smile on my face. 4D worked.