2023 has not been a particularly great summer at the movies from both a quality and financial standpoint. Sure, there have been a handful of bangers such as Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and of course, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse along with a handful of movies that were better than expect (The Little Mermaid) but as a whole, it’s been about as underwhelming and forgettable as they come. It’s been filled with franchise installments that at once were reliably successful at the box office but have now really struggled to make a profit.
All you have to do is look at how each big movie that came out in June fared from both a critical and financial standpoint. Last month saw new releases for well-known franchises such as Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, The Flash, and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. However, off all those movies, the only one of those that has been successful all around in terms of reception and box office is Across the Spider-Verse. The animated sequel where the original Into the Spider-Verse made barely enough to warrant a follow-up has manage to outperform nearly every other franchise this summer that have been more proven and successful in the past than Spider-Verse.
Let’s also not forget Fast X which is currently underperforming despite making over 700 million worldwide, The Little Mermaid not doing so hot despite making over 500 million worldwide, and Elemental due to be a bomb even with it’s strong legs and clocking in at 200 million worldwide. How in the world has it come to this? How is it that movies that are making this much at the box office and are still struggling to make a profit out of it? While the reasons to folks are fairly obvious, let’s break down the most simple reasons why summer movies are declining heavily at the box office.
Ridiculous Budgets
This is the one that everyone and their mother has pointed out but it’s certainly worth pointing out again. The amount of money that is being spend on these big movies is beyond ridiculous. Going past the traditional of $150 to $200 million budgets to big blockbusters in favor of now $250 to $300 million budgets. You have Elemental costing $200 million to make, The Flash costing up to $220 million to make, The Little Mermaid costing $250 million to make, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny costing $300 million to make, and even Fast X costing $340 million to make. And that’s not even including the amount of money that was spent on trailers and marketing which you could add at least a few more million with. The overconfidence in box office has certainly been Hollywood’s weakness this summer.
I’m sure many people will point out how the larger budgets may have to do with Covid-19 halting many of these projects while they were in development but that doesn’t excuse how others movies released this year which made either just as much, more, or even less than any of the big movies were able to be a financial hit. You have John Wick: Chapter 4 which made a franchise record, 432 million worldwide, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse making over 600 million worldwide, which is a record for Sony Animation, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 making over 800 million worldwide, and The Super Mario Bros Movie making over 1.3 billion worldwide.
When looking at those four movies, only Guardians of the Galaxy had a reported budget of over 100 million. The rest of those movies mentioned were reported to cause exactly that much or just slightly more due to marketing. It makes you wonder how in the world movies such as The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Across the Spider-Verse were able to have a cheaper budget than Elemental despite having more impressive animation and more well known celebrities in the cast. Even so, it goes to show you how easy it is to make back your money on movies if you keep your expectations and budget in check without going too overboard.
If a movie making half or 3/4 of a billion dollars is considered underperforming, the studios need to take a good, hard look at themselves and figure out what has allowed that to happen. If you need to make at or near a billion for your big movie to make a profit, then that just speaks volume how little connection you have with yourself or the general public. Even if Covid was a factor in some extra money being spent, that can’t be the only factor to do it.
Too Many Big Movies Released At The Same Time
This was something I had been think about before the summer even began. Whenever you release a bunch of big movies at the same time, there’s a good chance that at least a good handful of them will underperform vastly if they are not received well enough or has good enough legs in the limited amount of time they have before the next big movie comes along. That has been the story of the summer with only a handful of big movies being a success while others have been a failure.
As much as people have been in denial of it as of late, the Covid-19 pandemic has changed everything about theaters. Yes, there has been a handful of juggernaut hits since then such as Spider-Man: No Way Home, Top Gun: Maverick, Avatar: The Way of Water, and The Super Mario Bros Movie, but they have been few and far in between. Theater trips can be quite expensive, especially when it comes to seeing movies with your friends and family. Because of that, it’s becoming more common for folks to just pick and choose which movies they want to watch on the big screen and which ones they would rather wait to come out digitally or on a streaming service. This is something that Hollywood has been clearly taking notice off.
As a result, we are seeing more and more movies getting release on digital as soon as possible in the hopes of gaining as much of a profit as it possibly can. Not even after the first weekend of it’s release that we already got word of Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken will be coming out on digital just EIGHTEEN DAYS after being released in theaters. Or how Shazam!: Fury of the Gods became available on digital and exiled from theaters just THREE WEEKS after coming out. And I wouldn’t be surprised to see an announcement of Dial of Destiny coming out on digital by the end of the month and Disney Plus in August. With digital streaming become more and more common nowadays, folks have become more patience with just waiting an extra month or two for a movie to come out so they could watch it in the comfort of their own homes instead of paying extra money to watch it in theaters.
That is why releasing so many big summer blockbusters at the same time was a suicidal move for a lot of studios. Whenever that happens, it’s only a handful of flicks that will be able to make it to the other side satisfied while every other one will suffer as a result. While Across the Spider-Verse was able to reign supreme, Transformers, Flash, and Indy all suffered as a result.
No Longer Accepting Mid-iocrity
While the other two reasons mentioned is a great argument of the amount of money studios spend on their movies and the amount of moment audience will spend to watch them, maybe the big reason as to do with the actual quality of the motion picture. Maybe it has to do with audience no longer wearing their rose-colored glasses and seeing how it’s become quantity over quality for a lot of franchises right there. Movies that just exist for the sake of existing and not because it’s something the audience actually want to see.
That would explain greatly how Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse have been the two most notable successes of the summer thus far. Not just because they were names from a familiar brand but because of the strong impact they had on mainstream audiences which led to repeat theater viewings and strong worth of mouth. While those two might not have been the biggest box office success ever, it was able to exceed expectations, and possibly even surpass them due to how good those movies actually were. The same thing can’t be said about the others movies that have come out since May.
Fast X was more of the same, over-the-top nonsense that has become accustomed to this franchise at this point. The Little Mermaid was one of the better Disney live-action remakes but still not good enough to match up with the quality of the original animation to justify it’s existence. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts was a passable if not disposable entry for a franchise that is still dealing with the aftermath of the overblown Bayformers flicks. The Flash was a ugly CGI mess made solely for course correcting and the hope that having Michael Keaton back as Batman along with Sasha Calle’s first and possibly only appearance as Supergirl would be enough to overcome Ezra Miller’s annoying and unengaging version of Barry Allen. Elemental was strictly middle-of-the-road Pixar that folks would be better off waiting for it to come out on Disney Plus. And Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was an unnecessary and forgettable finale to a series that already had two definite finales beforehand. While one or two of these might be enough to guarantee a solid three out of four stars ratings, they all did not receive the best reviews or the strongest word of mouth to make any of these worth buying a ticket for.
Which makes you wonder if this is the audience standing up to Hollywood and no longer allowing mid, bad, or even just “good enough” movies for franchises that they love. It’s a statement to the paying consumer to do better if they want their money in the future. Whereas movies such as John Wick: Chapter 4, Creed III, Scream VI, The Super Mario Bros Movie, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse has shown that audience will show up for big movies that try hard enough and succeed, just about every other big movie released this year has shown that audience will simply not show up from them if they don’t think it’s worth the time or money.
It’s been said plenty of times that the only fair to properly communicate with Hollywood is through box office numbers and I don’t think that has been made more clear than in 2023. The ones that have been successful have been the ones that the audience has been the most satisfied with. The ones that have been failures are ones that the audience were either not satisfied with or not interested to see if they would be. The mainstream audiences have real standards for their favorite blockbuster franchises. They have the power to reward those that succeed and punish those that fail.
A Necessary Evil
While the way movies have been underperforming at the hottest time of the year is a cause for great concern now, it could possibly be seen as a blessing in disguise later on down the road. Maybe this will inspire studios to everything in their power to fix the issues that I and many others have stated. Maybe this will lead to more budget restraints and money spent wisely on future movies. Maybe this will lead to big movies being more evenly spread out to give all of their their moment to shine without stealing the spotlight from any other. Most importantly, maybe this will inspire more quality pictures instead of quantity pictures. Is there a reason to believe that will happen right now? Not in the slightest but hey, there’s always hope isn’t it.
There are still some upcoming movies for the remainder of the summer that could help turn the tide of the season. Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1 will likely be a massive hit due to how well received the more recent installments in this franchise has been along with Tom Cruise still riding high off the success of Top Gun: Maverick. Barbie could be the next big successful IP based off of children toys that might be successful enough to star a new film series. Oppenheimer has the name of Christopher Nolan alone that will likely have folks interested to check out the next film made by the most notable and well-known director working to date. And perhaps Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem can ride the animation wave that Across the Spider-Verse and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish started. If all of those movies are seen as good enough to warrant a ticket price, then July and August could be the saving graces of the summer and help rewrite the narrative. If not, then that will just add more fuel to the fire and the narrative will be doubled down upon.
Things are not looking good now in Hollywood. From movies not meeting expectations to the writer’s strike that’s doesn’t seem like is making any progress, it’s a dark time to those that love film and writing about films. Time will tell if things will get any better anytime soon but as of right now, we can only look at the reasons why Hollywood has dug themselves in the whole they are in right now and see they are able to learn from it in the future. Only then might we look at the summer of 2023 as being a turning point for the better.
Adam's Blog 