I think 2022 offered more reasons for optimism about the future of theaters than you're giving it credit for. Sure, Avatar 2, Top Gun 2, and Black Panther 2 all cleaned up, but lots of other kinds of movies found varying levels of unexpected and encouraging success in theaters as well: Barbarian, Smile, Where the Crawdads Sing, Elvis, No…
I think 2022 offered more reasons for optimism about the future of theaters than you're giving it credit for. Sure, Avatar 2, Top Gun 2, and Black Panther 2 all cleaned up, but lots of other kinds of movies found varying levels of unexpected and encouraging success in theaters as well: Barbarian, Smile, Where the Crawdads Sing, Elvis, Nope, The Woman King, Don't Worry Darling, Bullet Train, Pearl, Terrifier 2, and (of course) Everything Everywhere All At Once. I'm sure there are some I'm forgetting as well. None of those movies were sure things and none of them cost more than $90 million dollars (most cost much less), but people still came out to see them. Hell, at least two of those (Smile and Barbarian) were made for streaming and got theatrical releases after testing well. To me, that demonstrates that studios still at least have some investment in theaters.
The other reason for optimism is Black Phone, Crawdads, Bullet Train, Ticket, Everywhere all slowly kept padding their box office totals. I never thought Bullet would clear $100M or Crawdads or Phone would clear $90M based on their opening weekends, but they kept going, I think in large part b/c studios were releasing so little in theaters. I think that means people WANT to go to the theaters, you have just have to give them a reason to and actually put movies in theaters they think might entertain them.
2019 saw a lot of original films clearing $100M (Knives Out, Ford v. Ferrari, Hustlers, Us, 1917, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood). I'm aware of the pandemic, but i don't think people just suddenly lost all appetite for original fare. I think we just saw a year where filmmakers released a 2 hr 40 minute movie with a title like Tar that features long discussions of classical music, a movie about a guy so depressed he starts chopping off his fingers, a film with an asshole child lead set in maybe the dreariest ever depiction of the early 1980s, a movie about sexual assaults in an isolated religious community, a 3 hour plus film about old Hollywood history that aggressively tries to alienate its audience in the first 10 minutes....And the trailers don't do the movies any favors, the worst being the only trailer of Till I saw in a theater featuring a lot of interviews with director and cast telling me how important the movie was.
And FWIW, I liked Tar a lot, thought Babylon was flawed but fascinating (sadly it's at its weakest when it tries to shock) would classify Banshees and Armageddon good, and have not seen Till (Women Talking hasn't opened in my city yet).
I think 2022 offered more reasons for optimism about the future of theaters than you're giving it credit for. Sure, Avatar 2, Top Gun 2, and Black Panther 2 all cleaned up, but lots of other kinds of movies found varying levels of unexpected and encouraging success in theaters as well: Barbarian, Smile, Where the Crawdads Sing, Elvis, Nope, The Woman King, Don't Worry Darling, Bullet Train, Pearl, Terrifier 2, and (of course) Everything Everywhere All At Once. I'm sure there are some I'm forgetting as well. None of those movies were sure things and none of them cost more than $90 million dollars (most cost much less), but people still came out to see them. Hell, at least two of those (Smile and Barbarian) were made for streaming and got theatrical releases after testing well. To me, that demonstrates that studios still at least have some investment in theaters.
I love it! Optimism! I guess my big caveat should have been horror. Original horror does seem to have an audience if the hook is big enough.
The other reason for optimism is Black Phone, Crawdads, Bullet Train, Ticket, Everywhere all slowly kept padding their box office totals. I never thought Bullet would clear $100M or Crawdads or Phone would clear $90M based on their opening weekends, but they kept going, I think in large part b/c studios were releasing so little in theaters. I think that means people WANT to go to the theaters, you have just have to give them a reason to and actually put movies in theaters they think might entertain them.
2019 saw a lot of original films clearing $100M (Knives Out, Ford v. Ferrari, Hustlers, Us, 1917, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood). I'm aware of the pandemic, but i don't think people just suddenly lost all appetite for original fare. I think we just saw a year where filmmakers released a 2 hr 40 minute movie with a title like Tar that features long discussions of classical music, a movie about a guy so depressed he starts chopping off his fingers, a film with an asshole child lead set in maybe the dreariest ever depiction of the early 1980s, a movie about sexual assaults in an isolated religious community, a 3 hour plus film about old Hollywood history that aggressively tries to alienate its audience in the first 10 minutes....And the trailers don't do the movies any favors, the worst being the only trailer of Till I saw in a theater featuring a lot of interviews with director and cast telling me how important the movie was.
And FWIW, I liked Tar a lot, thought Babylon was flawed but fascinating (sadly it's at its weakest when it tries to shock) would classify Banshees and Armageddon good, and have not seen Till (Women Talking hasn't opened in my city yet).