Dr. DVD

I seem to notice a trend of many movies with outlandish budgets getting greenlit (Van Helsing, Troy, The Last Samurai, Terminator 3) and barely making their budget back in America, if they even come close. However, once they go overseas they turn into a hit for the studio. T3, while only making about $150 million in the U.S., apparently made over $450 worldwide and was enough to get T4 in preparation. The same seems to have happened with Troy and Last Samurai, not sure about Van Helsing though.

I was wondering why the domestic gross of so many movies are going down to such a point that the overseas market is what the studios depend upon for profit. Could the surge in DVDs and home theaters that might offer a better experience at home be a major factor?

Rypro 525

T3 and last samurai while they were hits with fans and critics, were rated R, so that hurt them. van helsing got piss poor reviews.

Groucho

You're picking and choosing your movies there to make a point. There have been some smash hits this year, such as The Passion of the Christ and Shrek 2.

2004 is a banner year for domestic grosses. Already, the box office in 2004 has exceeded that of all of 1997 (the year Titanic came out), and it's only September.

Dr. DVD

In a way, you're picking and choosing yours as well. POTC and Shrek 2 were standouts that became runaway hits and sustained themselves, and those few make up a large portion of the huge domestic take. The same could be said for both Titanic and Jurassic Park in their respective years. I was wondering why other major releases fizzle quick in America but the foreign market keeps them afloat.

Groucho

A lot of the pictures you mentioned are specifically budgeted and marketed for an international audience. So they don't need to make money in the United States alone.

marty888

If Troy was a better movie ..... if Van Helsing was a better movie .... if Last Samurai was a better movie ....


Toss something really good up on the screen and people show up and pay their money.

Dr. DVD

While people will agree with you on Troy and Helsing, Samurai got pretty good reviews, and so did T3.

Groucho

I think T3 would have been a smash if James Cameron were involved and/or Linda Hamilton. But without either? Meh. I still haven't seen it, and I loved the first two movies.

fumanstan

I don't think there's any new trend in domestic box office grosses.

jaeufraser

I think that's the key point. Films aren't really making less money domestically. Go back ten, 20 years ago it's not like they had 20 films a year making 100 million.

What you have are films with much higher budgets, things that would never be greenlit if not for international and ancillary markets. Even if Troy had made 300 million in the US, it would still need overseas to be profitable..

But in truth, if the chances to make money are double and triple overseas, why wouldn't you make a product to take advantage of it? The only really big change in the market is that the worldwide film viewing market has expanded greatly over the last 20 odd years, allowing for many more big budget films. So, domestic grosses I would not say are going down, it's just that more big films are made because the market has grown in its capacity. You note T3 as an example of a movie that underperformed and made a lot of its money overseas. Though it's interesting to note that a lot of T3's budget came from...foreign investors, something that can be said about a few big budget pictues (including the upcoming Alexander, another film that has no chance of recouping its budget stateside alone).

PopcornTreeCt

I concur with jaeufraser. Movies are costing more to make nowadays. They are still making money. I think 2004 was a banner year for the box office. With Shrek 2 and Passion of the Christ in the top 10 all-time list. People are still going to the movies, the studios just need to start cutting down on the costs of films.

Dr. DVD

You pretty much summed up my thoughts. Figuratively speaking, more movies are making $100+ million now than ever, but they are also costing $100+million more than ever. I remember when a $100 million+ tag meant that the movie was a rare occurance. These days, especially in the summer, they are a weekly event.

Green Jello

There has also been a MAJOR change in the movie world over the past decade with home video sales. DVD sales have made it so even films that did poorly on the box office, can still become profitable after the video release.

Troy Stiffler

Having Arnold being the only real link, it did have an odd feeling. And I would say that it was even a bit thin in story. But I wouldn't say that it was a standard rehashed sequel. It had plenty of new stuff, and was lots of fun. Not sure if he was just being nice, but Cameron said that he was satisfied with the way T3 turned out.

Domestic grosses going down? I wouldn't say that it's anything to worry about. But you must admit, even for the average moviegoer, there is a LOT of shitty movies being released. I usually go to the movies 3-or-so times per week. But it's been a month since I saw my last movie (Hero ... it was okay ... didn't blow me away).

As for RIGHT NOW, this is the time of the year when lots of crap gets unloaded into the box office. Studios don't want to release they're sure-fire-crap at the same time as a good movie. So they agree to take one unifying dump. So if you want to go to the movies during September or Feburary, you are often required to watch poop.

Shannon Nutt

I'd like to think the answer is that American movie audiences are getting more discerning about what they want to see...but then a new Adam Sandler film comes out, and that theory is blown to hell.

jaeufraser

Again, I don't think movies are necessarily costing too much. yes budgets have gone up big time, and the US market cannot really support them all. But you know what? That's because the ancillarry markets, international and DVDs, more than make up for that (and in many cases are the lions share of those profits) therefore these sort of massive expenditures are not bad ideas, and in many cases are extremely profitable.

Just look at Troy. Here you have a 200 million dollar movie that grossed just 132 million in the US. Now, some will call it a bomb. But when you throw in 400 million from overseas, it becomes quite apparent that the WB made a good investment there.

Now, looking at grosses from 10 years ago, it's hard to claim domestic grosses are going down. In 1994, when Lion King and Forrest Gump grossed 300 million, that was ENORMOUS. At that point, only 3 films had ever done as much before. Now cut to 2004. We have Shrek 2 grossing 430 million, Passion grossing 383 million. The "disapointing" Harry Potter grosses 250 million (not to mention another 500 million overseas). These numbers are huge, but when taking inflation into account, seem right on par with an average year. The big difference is, the international and DVD market is just much bigger than it used to be. Henceforth, more big movies, more big budgets.

Neeperando

This reminds me of the "Shoe Event Horizon" from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but with movies. As movies begin grossing more, the studios put more money into them to expand economic growth. The result of this is larger and larger budgets for movies. To support all these movies, the studios need to expand their nets and sell more and more movies to a broader and broader audience. However, to make so many movies that appeal to so many, about 90% of them have to have crappy scripts and acting, so they put more and more money into special effects, the only thing they can do right consistently. But, to keep up with other special effects blockbusters, more of the $100+ that movies are starting to cost is going towards those effects, forcing the scripts and acting to get still crappier and crappier. As a result, we suddenly have a market saturated with hundreds of movies with exorbitant budgets and gorgeous special effects that - let's face it - suck ass. The grosses go down, so studios start putting money into independent films, which start getting more and more expensive in order to support their growing popularity with both audiences and actors. The idea of a self-made $25,000 film like Clerks is replaced by a $10 million piece of crap starring Kevin Spacey and produced by Fox but still called independent because it only plays in 200 theaters nationwide. Meanwhile studio execs scratch their heads as to why Van Helsing only grossed $150 million (or whatever).

The reason: We've approaching the Bad Movie Event Horizon, where to support the kind of visual quality we've come to expect, it's too big of a risk to include any artistic quality.

What we can look forward to (If Douglas Adams was right): Every store on the planet is either of movie theater or a DVD store. It becomes economically impossible to sell anything but movies. Society collapses and within mere years movies are outlawed and people will once again get their kicks by watching the flickering of campfires.

"If the movie stinks, just don't go." - Jay Sherman

jaeufraser

While I agree that when you have a lot of money on movies, it does dilute the films so it's not always about the art (ok, it really isn't about the art, maybe a mixture, but never solely).

But I disagree this is a sign of the times. Sure, we have many more films being produced today, so that effect seems stronger. But it really has not changed that much. Are we really going to pretend that 10, 20, 40 years ago that 90% of the movies weren't junk also? What do you think was a major reason that brought about the renaissance in the 70s? Largely, it was because of exactly what you said...big budget films that didn't click, made largely for commercial reasons. That same thought can be applied quite frankly to any period of movies. You'll always have mass appeal junk, and you'll also have those occasional great films among those batchs.

Sure, they'll call a 10 million dollar movie an independant but I don't see what's so wrong with that. You also have 400,000 dollar movies making nearly 40 million dollars. Seriously speaking, that would have never happened 30 or 40 years ago (yes, I know Easy Rider cost about the same and made about the same but the relative costs are way different obviously).

In the end, I think less has changed than we would like to believe. The market has expanded greatly, henceforth the much larger amount of films being produced, whic is a good thing in my eyes, as the technology has given many more people an opportunity to make films. In the end though, quality and profits are still running I would imagine...like they used to. If anything, they've grown.

Jackskeleton

Since when have good reviews ever been a direct link to successful box office take? By all account look at the oscar winners. Hardly ever do you see them as the blockbuster take in movies but they are the criticlly accliamed.

Not to mention cruise has never really been a major box office $$ draw for his films besides Mission Impossible.

We can all go back and forth picking and selecting our examples a certain way to show some sort of silly link. But considering how much money in general the films of this year alone have made, its besides the point. There is no sign that they are going down, but plenty signs that on average, this year has went up.

Neeperando

To be perfectly honest, I agree more with you than I do with myself. I was more trying to make a HHG2TG joke more than anything. If I were to make an honest point that reflected my opinion more than my nerdiness, I'd say that while I believe that more money equals crappier movies, movies on the whole aren't crappier today because more money is put into them.

In fact, I would argue that movies today are on the whole BETTER than old movies. I think most people my age (I'm 22) would be shocked at the amazing amount of crap that was produced in the 20s, 30s and 40s. The fact that crap is forgotten while Casablanca and Citizen Kane are remembered tends to trick us into thinking every old movie is good.

The one place where I agree with myself and disagree with you is on the redefinition of independent films. Of course there are still movies that are produced in the backyard and sold for millions at Sundance. Of course, most of these still suck. What I hate is the idea of "independent" as a genre.

Movies like American Beauty, Secretary, The Good Girl, In The Bedroom and so on have very little in common if you look at story or characters. But most films in the "independent" genre have the exact same style. The camera work is the same, the music is the same, the pacing is the same.

I guess my point is this: if a director finds a good script, he/she will make it a carbon copy of American Beauty stylistically nomatter how different it is thematically. I know I will get yelled at for saying this, but it's definately how I feel almost every time I go to the art house cinemas.

jaeufraser

Well, I definately see your point there, and in many cases no doubt it's true. Of course "independant" is a very tricky word as you stated. I think one big issue is the biggest distributors of independant films are...yeah, you guessed it studios. Every major studio seems to have an indy division and of course the most distribution probably arises from the studios who buy up the indys. And, apparently, their selection leaves a lot to be desired.

Nonetheless, I do think the potential is there. Whether we're seeing them is hard to know, as a lot of independant films are no mroe than filmmakers trying to break into the biz. But the avenues and potential to create unique cinema is definately there, where films like Pi and Blair Witch and F 9/11 and Passion and Napolean Dynamite and Clerks are able to find audiences and succeed. If anything, I think the renaissance.

Also, you're point on ignoring the bad and only seeing the good is a rosy tint a lot of people have not only on classics but foreign films also. Funny thing is, a lot of people like to point fingers at the US for being the reason movies are dumb, when in reality most of the effects oriented "dumb" movies are raking in most of their overseas. I'm sure the lack of reliance on English is a factor as these action effects films rely more on visuals, but I find it humorous nonetheless.

Dr. DVD

FWIW, I was more or less making the same point you just made. Samurai got some positive notice, but its domestic gross wasn't that hot. I was responding to someone who said Samurai didn't make the money because he seemed to lump it into a group of movies that got poor notices.

DealMan

Don't forget Spider-Man 2, which made over $370 million.

Looking at the chart it doesn't really seem the domestic grosses are going down. There's nothing wrong with international figures surpassing domestic ones. All 3 Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter movies had much higher international grosses than domestic.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/...yr=2004&p=.htm

Jackskeleton

ah, ok. Cruise was never really a box office draw. He's a good asset and a great actor. But if you are expecting Will smith numbers, he's the wrong guy to turn to.

But I don't think that Dometic Grosses are going down. Might just be what youa re looking at and for what studios. Disney for example has a really bad down turn. But that could be caused by other factors and terribly movies being released.

jaeufraser

Well, saying Cruise isn't a box office draw isn't quite right. Sure, he's not someone who's films gross 200 or 300 million, but Cruise is as reliable a movie star as you can get. He's an amazing box office draw. We pick out movies that seem low grossing, but given what they are, they're still huge hits. Vanilla Sky makes 100 million? Collarteral to 100 million? No doubt Cruise is a major factor in that. If he did more films like Will Smith (ie big budget family appealing flicks) I have no doubt he'd be making those numbers. Perhaps his most generic films are mission Impossible, and those pulled in quite big numbers. I suspect War of the Worlds will be enormous, and probably his highest grosser ever, considering the wide appeal that movie will have (moreso than Minority Report did).

But he's a star that appeals largely to a more adult audience, and does a lot of R rated movies. But looking at his numbers, his draw as a star is beyond reproach. His international appeal is even stronger.

But yeah, domestic grosses dont' seem to really be dropping.