Hollywood's Disappearing Audience

In my previous post, I said why I am (mostly) done giving money to Hollywood. It seems I'm not alone. IndieWire brings us "bad news" from Hollywood. Theater Audiences Shrank by Half in the Last 4 Years. Can Movies Get Them Back?

The short answer is, "Yes." The medium answer is, "Yes, if Hollywood changes." The long answer is more complicated. I don't expect Hollywood to change for the better in the next few years, so I don't expect them to win back the audience. If you read my previsous post I am one of the people they lost.

The 2022 box office reflects more than a revenue problem; it has a butts-in-seats problem.

The two things that Hollywood doesn't like to address are inflation, and the audience size. If you ignore inflation, Gone With The Wind is an interesting period piece fromt the late 1930s. If you account for inflation it is the highest grossing movie of all time, beating number two by a factor of 2 or 3 (or 5 - I really can't remember).

So if you ignore inflation, the latest "biggest movie" is the big news. In this case, for 2022, the "biggest movie" will either be Top Gun: Maverick or Avatar: The Way of Water.

But “The Way of Water” doesn’t change the current reality any more than “Maverick” did, which is this: In the last four years, theatrical attendance has declined by about 50 percent.

Theater tickets near me are $13.20. Weekday matinee prices are $10.50, which is insane to me. When I moved to Florida, shortly after I was laid off as an indirect result of the downturn in business after 9/11, I went to the movies all the time. (It was a good way to beat the summer heat, and a matinee ticket was something like $2.50 or $3.00, which left me some money either for lunch before the movie, or popcorn and a drink.) Movies were not three and half hours long (with no break) either, but that is another rant.

And I didn't only go to matinees. That was how I managed to see films I wouldn't have gone to see otherwise. The big "summer blockbuster" films I usually saw with friends - at full price - because going to the movies used to be a regular form of entertainment for people. You know, "escapism." After 9/11 we needed that.

As for calculating that attendance drop: The last full pre-Covid year of 2019 generated a domestic box-office total of $11.3 billion, down from $11.9 billion in 2018. Those numbers came at lower ticket prices, by approximately 20 percent or more. (Exhibitor trade association NATO still declines to announce a current average ticket price, which it has not updated since 2019.)

Based on today’s admission costs, the 2018 domestic box-office total would be over $14 billion. Back out of the totals to calculate admissions, and we reach a dire conclusion: Theatrical attendance in 2022 is about 52 percent of 2018.

The movies that came out in 2018 were in production before the results of the 2016 election were in. When those results came in, Hollywood decided to declare war on the half of the country that they don't agree politically with. The Woke agenda, which had been there for a long time, was weaponized, and institutionalized. They were going to convince the country to think the way they wanted them to think. I don't think they counted on what would actually happen.

Since going Woke hasn't worked, since telling half of your audience that they are horrible people hasn't made anyone any money, I expect Hollywood to do more of the same 'only harder.' Just like people say "true socialism has never been tried," I believe Hollywood will say that they haven't given their true take on Woke yet. Someone big, like Disney or Warner Bros. Discovery will actually have to go through bankruptcy before they change, and one of them failing will probably not impact the others.

And so I will continue to watch the great movies of the past, and ignore the drek being offerred up by the Woke scolds on the Left coast. (Hat tip to Ryan Kinel.)