Probably nobody in Hollywood knows blockbusters better than Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. The filmmakers have shaped blockbuster cinema with their work. Jaws (1975, Spielberg) or Star Wars (1977, Lucas): the audience literally stood by both films at the time queuing for whole blocks.
Ten years ago, Spielberg and Lucas took a glimpse into the future and made a dire prediction: the Implosion of blockbuster cinema. Numerous films would be shot for budgets in the hundreds of millions. In the end, however, only a few would make it through to the box office. The rest would flop, they feared.
With the current cinema summer, her prophecy seems to come true. Unless a studio has an event film a la Top Gun: Maverick or Avatar: The Way of Water in the pipeline, a blockbuster’s success is far from certain – even if it’s based on a popular brand like Marvel or DC.
But what exactly did Spielberg and Lucas say?
If Steven Spielberg and George Lucas are right, eventually there will only be Avatar
As the Hollywood Reporter notes, Spielberg analyzed the current crisis in blockbuster cinema precisely back in 2013.
Eventually there will be an implosion […]at which three or four or maybe even half a dozen of these mega budget movies make a crash landingand that will change the whole paradigm.
As a result, according to Spielberg, the price of a cinema ticket would also change: $25 for the event film, 7 dollars for the rest. The scissors haven’t widened that drastically yet, but the trend is definitely there. Movie theaters entice with premium seats and other luxuries that home cinema doesn’t provide. If you bought a ticket for Avatar: The Way of Water in IMAX 3D in December, you should have gotten pretty close to Spielberg’s $25. Maybe even about that.
Disney
Avatar: The Way of Water
What comes next? Lucas used the Broadway model as a comparison. Say: only a handful of great films are published. These stay in the cinema all the longer and demand astronomical sums from the audience. If Lucas is right, you might be paying $250 when Avatar 5 hits theaters in December 2031 as one of only four or five blockbuster/event films.
The current theatrical year has produced 5 blockbuster hits and 9 box office disappointments
We are still a long way from this forecast. However, a look at the previous blockbusters of the year shows that we are moving directly towards it.
Only five Hollywood films were really successful:
The financial disappointments are in the majority:
But wait a minute, how is it that Fast & Furious 10 isn’t a real hit at $723 (!) million? The crucial point is the massive budget of 340 million dollars. As early as 2013, Lucas noted that the Film production costs are becoming more expensive become so expensive that it becomes harder to break even. This leads us to the following question: When exactly is a film really successful?
The rough rule is that a film should Two to three times its budget has to play in to be considered a success. The budget usually comes with a similarly high amount of marketing costs. In addition, Hollywood studios only earn a percentage of international distribution, not to mention the money they have to share with theaters and the bonuses that go to stars. There is not much left in Fast & Furious 10.
The blockbuster as Tentpole is apparently in danger.
Hollywood loses the blockbuster as a stable tent pole and event films will not save the cinema
A tentpole is a film in which a studio invests heavily – with the expectation that it the cinema year decides for the studio. This film is sort of the pole that holds up the tent for all other productions, making smaller films possible. However, the tent pole is no longer even sufficient for the main film. And the once-reliable mid-budget cinema is all but non-existent.
Universal
Fast and Furious 10
A feature film, i.e. a classic blockbuster, must now become an event, to get the studio through next year, which explains, for example, why Deadpool 3 not only just continues the Deadpool story, but also brings back Hugh Jackman as Wolverine and Jennifer Garner as Elektra. An event that – at least in theory – promises something that we have never seen before.
How long can Hollywood cling to nostalgia events? At some point we have discovered all corners of the multiverse and exhausted all pots of memory.
Indiana Jones proves: The blockbuster cinema created by Spielberg and Lucas is dying
Indiana Jones and the Wheel of Destiny could have been one of the biggest films of the year. It is ironic that the film series created by Spielberg and Lucas, of all things, has long been the perfect epitome of a blockbuster was doing exactly one of the crash landings that Spielberg predicted ten years ago.
Box office analyst Scott Mendelson draws a clear conclusion from the current blockbuster situation.
As we’ve seen with Transformers, The Flash, and now Indiana Jones, all of which are unlikely to gross $400 million, the franchise sequels fail less by audience desire than it does motivated by studio/shareholder desire are, especially with sky-high budgets.
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Where James Gunn made it clear what was at stake for his Marvel team at the Guardians finale, drawing crowds to the movies, Indiana Jones and the Wheel of Destiny only exists, because Indiana Jones exists as a franchise. For many moviegoers, the Ford farewell seems like a déjà vu – hadn’t Indy already said goodbye in 2008 in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull?
We see a blockbuster cinema caught in the replay loop. It’s getting dimmer and weaker with each cycle, so Spielberg and Lucas’ prophecy must eventually come true. If the cycle is not broken.
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