What's wrong with the Box Office? Pricing.

Yesterday I watched Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious, a film way ahead of it's time and a huge box office success grossing $290 million on a production budget of $24 million in today's dollars, according to The Numbers. Now, I just happened to decide to revisit one of my favorite filmmaker's best Hollywood productions before I came across this article at Time.com, "Box Office Blues: The Blockbusters That Weren't," which mentions the year Notorious was released, 1946.

The article points out the downtrend in admissions, the current estimate for this year at 1.27 billion, far below the 4 billion tickets sold in 1946, a time before free television started to erode the movie-going audience. With attendance in May 2010 down 19% from May 2009, Time puts the blame on the releases this year compared to last year, a consistent message coming out of the media today, and one I'm completely inclined to agree with. But I think there's also a lot more to the story.

What the article failed to talk about was that big fat price hike that showed up before this summer. With tickets 4% to 10% higher and most Americans in not any better financial position then they were a year ago, is it really accurate to blame the release slate for the decrease in attendance? Because Hollywood struggles so dearly with their P&A on so many movies they seem to completely ignore the #1 rule in marketing anything: Pricing.

While the article does point out that attendance in 2009 was about equal to 1997, meaning the 62% increase in box office revenue ($6.51 billion to $10.65 billion) is completely a result of price hikes, no question on pricing is raised. Why does the media and the industry mostly ignore the question of pricing?

The industry likes to point out that a family of four can go to the movies for a lot cheaper than other entertainment options like amusement parks, sports events, and music concerts but to me that's not an apples to apples comparison. So what about that glorious year of 1946 when three times the amount of tickets sold with half the population of today?

I did some research, ok googling, and the numbers I found don't surprise me. Let's start with going to see Notorious in 1946. The average ticket price was $.10, so adjusted for inflation to 2010 that works out to $1.19. While in 1994 I saw Forrest Gump at a discount theater for $2, here in LA the lowest ticket price I can find is $5. I imagine that's similar to most cities around the country.

I know what you're thinking, yes we pay a lot for a movie ticket today but don't we pay a lot for everything else as well? Let's see. How about a car? I found the average price of a car in 1946 to be $1,400 which works out to $16,611. Gee, I can get a new car for cheaper than that. How about some gas to put in that car? In 1946 that'd run you $.21 a gallon, adjusted for inflation that's $2.49. Not so far off huh?

I know, movies and cars aren't the best comparison, so let's use what the studios use. How about a baseball game? According to this article I found, Yankees tickets just to get in the game cost $1.25 with the good seats running $2.50. So that shows a ticket price range of $15 to $30 in 2010 dollars. How does that compare to today? Well, getting the good seats is going to run over $100 with some as high as $300, but you can still just get in the game for $14 and the grandstand tickets that ran for $15 are now $20-25. So while the studios can continue to boast how going to a movie is cheaper than a baseball game, this doesn't account for the fact that the average movie ticket price, $7.50, has risen 530% versus 66% for baseball if we take the higher priced grandstand seats at Yankee Stadium.

With 3D being all the rage and studios basically saying everything will be released in 3D not long off, it seems to me Hollywood's pricing model is simply going to be raise, raise, raise the prices. Are you getting a 530% greater value at the movie theaters today? If every single movie was as good as Toy Story 3, sure, but when's that going to happen?

What to see? Weekend of June 25th.

I get the feeling sometimes that people don't want to see Tom Cruise succeed. I guess he's had a good run but I'd love to see him in some more serious roles like Born on the Fourth of July.

So see:

Hollywood Studios:

Knight and Day - Fox - Rated PG-13

Silly, ridiculous, and yet at times deliciously entertaining, James Mangold's first summer tentpole, "Knight & Day" mostly works and is a better-then-average slice of summer fluff...read more.

Independent:

I Am Love - Magnolia - Rated R

Set in Italy at the beginning of the 21st century, the film serves up a feast of emotions, issues and choices...read more.

Foregin:

Micmacs - SPC - Rated R

Micmacs is achingly beautiful, employing the muted, old-style palette that is so common to Jeunet’s films...read more.

Documentary:

Restrepo - National Geographic - Rated R

Restrepo, which opens in Los Angeles this Friday, offers a somewhat more raw filmgoing experience but makes some equally powerful choices as it shows moments of both adrenaline and tedium experienced by a group of soldiers fighting in the Korengal Valley, one of Afghanistan's most dangerous battlegrounds...read more.

Enjoy the movies.

Did you put a date on it?

Often when you read a Q&A with a professional screenwriter, the questions are asked: "What is your process; how many hours a day do you write; how many pages a day do you write?" While I may listen to the different answers, and they're always difficult, I quickly forget what other writers say about their work ethic. I only care about my own process and the finished script. After all, there is only one thing everyone else cares about, the finished script.

How you get there is all up to you, but you must get there. If you want to be a professional, your career depends on it. This recent article on deadline.com says it all:

WHERE'S MY SCRIPT?! Warner Bros Cracks Down On Screenwriter's Late Delivery Dates

The deadline. In my opinion, the one writing process every screenwriter must have. Since I come from a masters program in screenwriting, I'm a big fan of the weekly deadline. Pick a day and time. Pick a page count. If you finish the script in the set number of weeks, you passed the class.

From the sounds of things rumbling out of Hollywood, working pros know this lesson all too well already.

Why must Inception win the summer?

A week ago, two articles, from big name reporters in the industry, talked about studios unsure what to make next. What did they ask agents for? Original scripts. If you missed the articles, take a look:

Vulture

Deadline

As someone who needs to break in with an original spec script, I couldn't ask for better news. The thing is though, as someone close enough to the industry, I know that doesn't mean the studios are ready to open their wallets. Money is still very very tight.

This town has a short memory. What won the box office this past weekend with over $100 million? A sequel. Toy Story 3. While many will spin the story of it not doing as well as its predecessors, when all is said and done, Toy Story 3 will be a very profitable movie for Disney. That's what the guys and gals who control the wallet want to see.

Take a look at the big winners so far this year and you can see that this cycle of sequels, remakes/reboots, and heavy adaptation (comics, novels) is far from over. Looking at other years, I'd say it all began in 1999 (the same year Toy Story 2 came out) but really got going in 2002.

By 2002, we had the following active "franchises" going:

Star Wars, Harry Potter, The Matrix, Lord of the Rings, Spider-Man, X-Men, Toy Story, Shrek, The Mummy, Mission: Impossible, Rush Hour, Ocean's Eleven, Jurassic Park, Austin Powers, Men in Black, Ice Age, Bourne, Bond, Spy Kids, The Fast and the Furious, American Pie

That's right. In four years, between 1999-2002, the age of the franchise was born with a film from each of those listed above. I'm willing to bet more of those listed above have another movie coming along soon than those that don't. But is the end of the cycle in sight? Maybe a crack.

The question, now in 2010, is when are we going to get back to 1998, the last time before Avatar that original material (Saving Private Ryan) was the top film of the year at the box office and original content was in the top spots? Well, Inception winning the summer could add more fire to the original material flames. But can it beat the likes of Twilight, Iron Man, and Toy Story?

I'm hoping so. I want Inception to win the summer because until original material starts to outperform the decade old franchises, those with the money will continue to push the sequel button no matter how many great original scripts come across their desks, like mine. A cycle only ends when a mass shift in frame of mind occurs. Thanks to James Cameron and hopefully Christopher Nolan next, that shift is about to begin.

"The Education of Charlie Banks" - One Sentence Reviews

This slow-burn character-driven period drama, with some good writing and performances, prods instead of punches to it's inevitable conclusion, hampered by a rites of passage plot with more holes than great scenes and a boring visual style that would go better with the 1950s than the decade the film is set it in.

RECOMMENDATION: PASS

What to see? Weekend of June 18th.

As always, The Playlist has terrific coverage of the films hitting theaters this weekend. Below are my picks for what to see.

Go see:

Hollywood Studios:  

Toy Story 3 - Disney/Pixar - Rated G

Thankfully, "Toy Story 3," directed by longtime Pixar vet Lee Unkrich and written by "Little Miss Sunshine" Oscar winner Michael Arndt is a beautiful, nuanced, funny-as-hell...read more.

Independent:  

Cyrus - Fox Searchlight - Rated R

We caught it at SXSW and thought it was "immediately charming and engaging to an almost uncanny level" and that "it's seriously a hit waiting to happen."...read more.

Foreign: 

Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky - SPC - Rated R

The material could so easily be played for high melodrama in lesser hands, but Kounen's film, buoyed by solid lead performances, is sumptuous, yet subtle, passionate and measured....read more.

Don't See:

Jonah Hex

As a prosthetic, it doesn't look detailed or graphic enough, meaning half of the movie is spent forgetting you're watching this film and wondering why the kid from "The Goonies" stapled a pancake to his cheek....read more.

Enjoy the movies.

 

Why did The Karate Kid beat down The A-Team?

I recently made it to a screening of The A-Team, which was one of my favorite TV shows growing up, and was completely satisfied by the movie. It was everything I expected it to be and remained true to the TV show story and characters. It's a fun summer popcorn movie and I think a lot more people would be going out to enjoy it if they weren't already burned by the not fun Robin Hood and Prince of Persia. Neither of those had any sense of humor.

What's also funny? That it's been such a surprise The Karate Kid won the weekend hands down. While beloved by it's fans, like me, The A-Team ran in the mid-80s with so-so ratings. That means the largest portion of moviegoers weren't even born yet to watch the show. The Karate Kid's win comes down to demographics, and not anything to do with audiences more interested in a reboot over a TV series remake.

I'll leave you with a quote I recently read on David Bordwell's terrific blog:

The movies live on children from the ages of ten to nineteen, who go steadily and frequently and almost automatically to the pictures; from the age of twenty to twenty-five people still go, but less often; after thirty, the audience begins to vanish from the movie houses. Checks made by different researchers at different times and places turn up minor variations in percentages; but it works out that between the ages of thirty and fifty, more than half of the men and women in the Unites States, steady patrons of the movies in their earlier years, do not bother to see more than one picture a month; after fifty, more than half see virtually no pictures at all.

This is the ultimate, essential, overriding fact about the movies. . . . 

- Gilbert Seldes in his book The Great Audience (1950)

Something to keep that in mind next time you're sitting down to brainstorm ideas.

11 Writers for the A-Team!?!

Happy Flag Day.

I want to start off by saying I would have loved to have been the twelfth writer on the A-Team. I grew up on the show and loved every minute of it. As a writer trying to break into the industry, that's an assignment job I dream about.

I can't help but cringe reading the article from Nikki Finke about the development of the movie. I know that if I was a writer during the development of the script, I'd probably be pretty upset by it when all is said and done.

I know I shouldn't knock the current industry process of bringing writer after writer on to a project. It means more writers working in Hollywood and, therefore, giving me a better shot at getting there. Still, when I think of the best screenplays ever written, usually no more than three people worked on the script.

"Ink" - One Sentence Reviews

Ink travels along the narrative path of the fairy tale, with beautiful dreams and dark disturbing nightmares (reality might be in there too), but this fantasy mind-bender’s action editing, which propels the plot forward rather than just existing to have set-pieces, that ultimately steals the show, making Ink an ambitious feature film from a writer-director talent to watch, Jamin Winans. 

RECOMMENDATION: CONSIDER