Compare the top box office hits from last weekend, last year (2021), and the previous year (2020). Describe two trends that you see in the data. Which studios/companies were most successful in capitalizing on these trends? And do you see these trends continuing in the next 3 – 5 years? Limit: 10 responses
Madison
ReplyDeleteIt is fascinating to say the least when comparing the top box office hits from the past 3 years. Last weekend, March 11th-13th the top domestic movie at the box office was The Batman with an overall gross of $101, 934,662 (Box Office Mojo, 2022). Last year in 2021, Spider-Man: No Way Home was on top with a total gross of $793,877,611 (Box Office Mojo, 2021). In 2020, known as the pandemic year, Bad Boys for Life was ranked top on the box office list with a total gross of $206,305,244 (Box Office Mojo, 2020).
There are several trends when looking at the data in these domestic box office charts. One of them being that super-hero and comic book-based movies make the most revenue at the box office. Since 2020 was the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, few movies were released in theaters that year. However, in 2021 and so far in 2022, Marvel and DC related movies are on top. Specifically, in 2021, the top 4 ranked movies were all Marvel Studios with Spider-Man: No Way Home, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, and Black Widow (Box Office Mojo, 2021). Currently in 2022, last weekend we saw The Batman ranked number 1 which is a part of DC Comics (Box Office Mojo, 2022). There is a recurring theme here with action, adventure, fantasy, science fiction, and superhero-based movies succeeding the most at the box office in recent years.
Another trend would be the specific studios that produce these types of films. When analyzing the box office charts of the past 3 years, the two most common distributors would be Sony Pictures Entertainment and Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. These studios tend to have several films each in the top ranked releases at the box office. In 2021, Sony had 3 movies and Disney also had 3 movies in the top 10 (Box Office Mojo, 2021). Sony’s Spider-Man: No Way Home is now on the charts as the 3rd highest lifetime grossed movies in the world (Box Office Mojo, 2021).
This then leads to the question of what studios are the most successful in capitalizing on these trends. The answer is exactly what we would think, Sony and Disney. Both studios produced several top grossing Marvel based films in 2021. These Marvel movies are known to have given the domestic box office a lifeline after US theaters struggled through the pandemic (Clark, 2022). Disney’s most profitable Marvel film was Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings that had a domestic gross of $224.5 million (Clark, 2022). Sony’s top Marvel brand film was Spider-Man: No Way Home with a total domestic gross of $793.8 million (Clark, 2022). Clark states that the bottom-line is that the Marvel brand dominates the box office and studios such as Sony and Disney are positively benefiting from producing such content (2022).
Madison
DeleteAdditionally, I do see these trends continuing in the next 3-5 years. Marvel already released their schedule for upcoming films and even tv series’ that expand far into 2024. Disney alone has announced a schedule that includes four untitled Marvel movies for 2023 and 2024 (Bisset, 2022). Disney has had to delay many of these films because of the pandemic. However, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is currently in Phase Four of their movies and does not seem to be stopping there (Bisset, 2022). Some of the films we can look forward to bringing in big grossing numbers include Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Thor: Love and Thunder, and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
References:
Bisset, J. (2022, February 13). Marvel cinematic universe phase 4: The full list of release dates. CNET. Retrieved March 18, 2022, from https://www.cnet.com/culture/entertainment/marvel-cinematic-universe-phase-4-the-full-list-of-release-dates/
Clark, T. (2022, January 18). Disney and Sony topped the US box office in 2021, thanks to Marvel. here's how Hollywood's studios stacked up. Business Insider. Retrieved March 18, 2022, from https://www.businessinsider.com/hollywood-box-office-revenue-by-studio-in-the-us-ranked-2022-1#7-lionsgate-1
Domestic Box Office for 2020. Box Office Mojo. (n.d.). Retrieved March 18, 2022, from https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/2020/?grossesOption=calendarGrosses
Domestic Box Office for 2021. Box Office Mojo. (n.d.). Retrieved March 18, 2022, from https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/2021/?ref_=bo_yl_table_2
Domestic Box Office Weekends for 2022. Box Office Mojo. (n.d.). Retrieved March 18, 2022, from https://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/?ref_=bo_nb_hm_secondarytab
Lachie Harvey
ReplyDeletePt.1
The box office took an enormous step back in 2020. With the COVID-19 pandemic in its panic-inducing early stage, theaters were closed in most locations across the planet, so their numbers looked extremely bleak during the year. However, the year was not entirely devoid of successes. According to Box Office Mojo’s 2020 list of the highest grossing films, four films grossed over 400 million dollars, with another seven exceeding 200 million. What is exceptionally interesting about these 11 films, is that only six were made by large American studios, with five, including the two highest grossing films of the year, (China’s The Eight Hundred and Japan’s Demon Slayer the Movie) being developed by international studios. Obviously, the American theaters suffered the most closures and the largest stigma against attendance, however, never has the top end of the box office been so heavily dominated by foreign films. So is there something more to it, or was it simply the pandemic? A look into the 2021 numbers helps. On Box Office Mojo’s 2021 list, three of the top 11 are foreign films. This includes the second and third highest grossing films (China’s Battle at Lake Changjin and Hi, Mom). So there definitely is something more to it.
Battle at Lake Changjin provides a great insight into China’s mindset when it comes to the production of these box office successes. IMBd states that Battle at Lake Changjin had the highest budget of any Chinese film ever produced at 200 million dollars. Not many other countries would greenlight a record breaking film budget in today’s box office environment. France for example took a huge step back in its production rate. A Variety article writes that France’s highest grossing film was “Kaamelot: First Installment”. This film made 21.9 million dollars by Box Office Mojo’s measurements. While this is by no means a box office failure, it’s a very far cry from the 902 million dollars Battle at Lake Changjin made. So the first major trend that I take from this is, China’s box office presence is growing and here to stay. They seem to have found their superhero genre equivalent in historical war films, with both Battle at Lake Changjin and The Eight Hundred both being historical war films. The second, somewhat unfortunate trend that one can take away from the box office numbers is that the pandemic only halted the superhero movie hold on theaters for a single year. Four of the top ten of Box Office Mojo’s 2021 list are superhero films, led by Spider-Man: No Way Home, racing away with the highest grossing spot by almost a billion dollars with a total of 1.88 billion in revenue. So for those who would have preferred that the 2022 film landscape look a little more diverse following the down year in 2020, it seems we are back to superhero films or bust.
DeleteKeslassy, E. (2022, January 7). French Box Office Pulled $731 Million in 2021, Led by Hollywood and French Movie Franchises. Variety. Retrieved March 22, 2022, from https://variety.com/2022/global/global/french-box-office-2021-spider-man-franchises-1235146098/
Box Office Mojo. 2020 Worldwide Box Office. Retrieved March 22, 2022 from https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/world/2020/
Box Office Mojo. 2021 Worldwide Box Office. Retrieved March 22, 2022 from https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/world/2021/
IMDb. The Battle at Lake Changjin Trivia. Retrieved March 22, 2022 from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13462900/trivia/?ref_=tt_trv_trv
Julianna Kessel
ReplyDeleteLet’s look at top box office hits from the past three years. Last weekend, the top movie was The Batman, where it made $77,002,323 domestically (Box Office Mojo, 2022). In 2021, Spider-Man: No Way Home was on top of domestic and worldwide charts with a total gross of $797,484,988 (Box Office Mojo, 2021). The Spider Man movie being the top grossed movie of 2021 is very interesting to me because it came out at the end of the year, in the middle of December, and yet triumphed over every single movie that year in no time at all. In 2020, known as the pandemic year, Bad Boys for Life was ranked top on the box office list domestically with a total (domestic) gross of $206,305,244 (Box Office Mojo, 2020). In 2020, the worldwide top grossed movie was The Eight Hundred, grossing $461,421,559 worldwide (Box Office Mojo, 2020). This is also interesting to me because I remember movie theaters being practically vacant that entire year- I went to the movie theaters once that year. You can see the difference from the pandemic year to the two previous years in the numbers.
The studios/companies that have been most successful in capitalizing off movie trends are Disney and Sony, according to Insider. As we know, Spider-Man: No Way Home took over charts, and it was produced by Disney, however Sony owns the distribution rights for the movie as well as the Spider Man Franchise, including the 600 Marvel characters (Clark, 2022). “Disney topped the domestic box office in terms of market share with 25.5% of business, according to data firm Comscore, despite releasing some movies simultaneously to theaters and Disney+ for an additional fee” (Clark, 2022). Sony comes in close second. The Marvel movies have dominated the box office for years, and I think they will continue to dominate in years to come.
Paramount actually scored in the Box Office with their movie Scream (reboot), according to The Hollywood Reporter. Scream was fueled by younger moviegoers, with two-thirds of the ticket buyers were people from ages 18-34 (Mcclintock, 2022). According to Mcclintock, the marketing for Scream was what got them their numbers. But “box office analyst Jeff Bock: ‘Three things are working right now on the big screen — superheroes, sequels and slashers. Paramount has two of the three boosters with their latest Scream flick, which paid off handsomely this weekend thanks to a clever reworking and streamlined budget’” (Mcclintock, 2022). Superheroes, sequels, and slashers are clear box office trends that I think will continue over the next 3-5 years. Superheroes, sequels, and slashers have been at the top grossing movies for the past 3 years, and way past that. I think that when people go to the box office, they are going for an experience that can’t be matched through a laptop or phone, which is why despite Disney+’s efforts to release movies onto their website, they still were the top 1 grossed movie of 2021.
DeleteReferences
Clark, T. (2022, January 18). Disney and Sony topped the US box office in 2021, thanks to Marvel. here's how Hollywood's studios stacked up. Business Insider. Retrieved March 22, 2022, from https://www.businessinsider.com/hollywood-box-office-revenue-by-studio-in-the-us-ranked-2022-1
Domestic Box Office for 2020. Box Office Mojo. (n.d.). Retrieved March 18, 2022, from https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/2020/?grossesOption=calendarGrosses
Domestic Box Office for 2021. Box Office Mojo. (n.d.). Retrieved March 18, 2022, from https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/2021/?ref_=bo_yl_table_2
Domestic Box Office Weekends for 2022. Box Office Mojo. (n.d.). Retrieved March 18, 2022, from https://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/?ref_=bo_nb_hm_secondarytab
McClintock, P. (2022, January 19). Loud 'scream' kicks off Paramount's big 2022 theatrical slate. The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved March 22, 2022, from https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/box-office-loud-scream-kicks-off-paramounts-big-2022-theatrical-slate-1235077363/