Movies are judged on a lot of different fronts. The acting, the look of a film, the emotional response to it. But recently, it seems as if the films we’re seeing in theaters are only being judged by their box office performance. Why?
Back when the original six Avengers were dominating the box office, we praised the Marvel Cinematic Universe for its box office records. That has, since, bled into how we talk about movies as a whole. To be fair, we’ve always talked about how well a film does at the box office but that was far from the ONLY thing we addressed when discussing the film’s success. Now, that isn’t really the case.
While using Thunderbolts* as an example, the film reportedly cost $180 million to make with a budget of $100 million for marketing, putting the film’s overall cost at $280 million. The movie, worldwide, made roughly $380 million. Meaning that it was a profitable adventure for Disney. You’d never guess that based on how trade publications talk about it.
The same thing happened with Sinners. Sites like Variety and Deadline wrote about the film as if it was a huge hit for the studio when it ended up making money. To compare, with theatre, the difference between a flop and a successful show is whether or not it breaks even. These movies both broke even and then some. Which leads me to my overall point: Why are we judging movies solely on the money that they are making and not on the films themselves?
Even when the box office is good, people complain
A perfect example of putting too much weight behind the box office reporting came from how people talked about Sinners. The film only cost $90 million to make and clearly roughly $370 million worldwide. That’s a great return on the film which is an original horror movie from Ryan Coogler! But the way trade publications wrote about it would make it seem as if the film was a flop. It wasn’t.
And therein lies the problem: You want snappy headlines and you are willing to throw a film’s worth on how much it makes. Okay, Netflix barely does theatrical releases and yet you find ways of talking about those films without connecting it to the box office reports. Why is that impossible for movies with a theatrical run? Why was Sinners framed as failing when it was successful on multiple fronts?
Not only was this not an IP project but it allowed its star, Miles Caton, a moment shine when he was an unknown actor. So the success of Sinners should not be understated and yet many focused entirely on the box office (which was great) and not the film itself.
And the framing of the box office changes depending on who stars in it…
Recently, we’ve seen another side of the box office reporting: Justifying a film’s success based on the stars. The new Lionsgate film Americana was released and brought in $500K opening at 1,100 theaters. Deadline called it a “niche play” rather than a bomb. The movie cost in the lower end of the millions to make but still, you see how the conversation around movies changes depending on how people feel about the movie.
I love Americana. Just as I loved Thunderbolts* and Sinners. My point here isn’t that the box office conversation changes per movie (but it does). Rather, my point is that it is clear that it doesn’t really matter. And it shouldn’t. We should not be looking at the merit of a film based on how much it made. That’s how we end up with movies like Joker: Folie à Deux because studios see the “box office success” of the first Joker movie and ignore the negative press/criticisms the film got.
I hope that we can move away from judging the worth of a movie based on how much money it made. It takes away from critical thinking and conversation. And at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter because movies that “bombed” can, at times, become cult classics! So maybe let’s stop caring so much about the box office and more about the film itself? Please?
(featured image: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
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