Tuesday, February 25, 2020
Film Industry Blog 5, Question 1 (March 3rd)
Compare the top box office hits from last weekend, last year (2019), and
the previous year (2018). Describe two trends that you see in the data. Which
studios/companies were most successful in capitalizing on these trends? And do
you see these trends continuing in the next 3 – 5 years? Limit: 7 responses
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Adelle Tedesco
ReplyDeleteIn theaters this last weekend the biggest box office hits were, in the following order, Sonic the Hedgehog, The Call of the Wild, Birds of Prey, Bad Boys for Life, and Brahms: The Boy 11. (Box Office Mojo, Domestic 2020 Weekend 8) Of these top five movies in the box office, Sonic the Hedgehog and The Call of the Wild did the best in theaters, with Sonic grossing around $26million, and The Call of the Wild around $24million; but after these top two movies the next in the box office, Birds of Prey has so far only grossed around $7million. (Box Office Mojo, Domestic 2020 Weekend 8) In this last weekend the trend of these movies is that Sonic and Call of the Wild are aimed more towards children, while the other movies are aimed more towards older audiences; this trend could be why these top two movies have such a higher gross than the other movies in the top five of the box office. In 2018 the top five highest grossing movies in the box office were, in the following order, Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, Incredibles 2, Jurrasic World: Fallen Kingdom, and Deadpool 2. (Box Office Mojo, Domestic 2018) With these top five box office movies of 2018, one main common trend is that the top 3 movies in the box office were made by Disney. (Box Office Mojo, Domestic 2018) Another strong trend with these top five movies is that all, with the exception of Jurrasic World, are some kind of super hero movie. It has been proven in recent years that super hero movies tend to do very well in theaters since they have such a high following and can be targeted to both children and adults. In 2019 the top five highest grossing movies in the box office were, in the following order, Avengers: Endgame, The Lion King, Toy Story 4, Frozen II, and Captain Marvel. (Box Office Mojo, Domestic 2019) One trend in these top five movies is that they were all made by Disney. (Box Office Mojo, Domestic 2019) The top five list of 2019 continues to follow these other trends that the highest grossing films in the box office are either children’s movies, or super hero movies.
Children’s Movies and Super Hero movies are the highest paid trends in box offices, since these movies are aimed towards such a wide audience. Children’s movies do so well in box office because anyone can go to see these movies; while these movies may be targeted towards families, parents and children in particular, it is so common for young adults, teenagers, elderly people and others to see these movies. Super Hero movies do so well in box office because they have such high followings. Super hero movies can be targeted towards both children and adults, but those who are apart of these Super Hero fan bases are most of the time, likely to see these movies more than once in the theater adding to why these movies are amongst the highest grossing in box office.
Adelle Tedesco (Cont)
DeleteIn these top two trends of movies in box office, the one studio that profits so much and does so well with these movies is, Walt Disney Studios. (McClintock) Walt Disney Studios has been on top in the trends of children’s movies, but after acquiring the rights to so many super hero franchises, they have been able to come out on top in both of the top two movie trends in box office. (McClintock) In the last two years of the top 5 highest grossing movies each year; in 2018 Disney produced the top 3 highest grossing movies, and in 2019 Disney produced the top 6 highest grossing movies. (Box Office Mojo)
These trends have been so lucrative, and Disney has managed to profit off of them in record numbers, and many people question whether these trends can continue; but it has been proven that people pay for these trends and that they will continue to be what goes big in box offices and what people will run to the theaters to see. (McClintock) Disney has a lot of control over the box office and the trending movies of the last two years, and in future years to come they will continue to have so much power over what is popular and over what will make money in the box office. (McClintock) Children’s movies will always continue to do so well in box office, since anyone can go to see these movies, the trend of super hero movies may die out eventually, this trend does not seem to be going anywhere within the next couple years.
“Domestic 2020 Weekend 8.” Box Office Mojo, www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/2020W08/?ref_=bo_wey_table_1.
“Domestic Box Office For 2018.” Box Office Mojo, www.boxofficemojo.com/year/2018/?grossesOption=calendarGrosses.
“Domestic Box Office For 2019.” Box Office Mojo, www.boxofficemojo.com/year/2019/?ref_=bo_yl_table_2.
McClintock, Pamela. “Peak Disney at the Box Office, But Watch Out in 2020 (and Beyond).” The Hollywood Reporter, 4 Jan. 2020, www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/peak-disney-at-box-office-but-watch-2020-beyond-1266103?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=THR%27s%2BToday%2Bin%2BEntertainment_2020-01-04%2B07%3A01%3A00_aweprin&utm_term=hollywoodreporter_tie.
Sophia Toppo
ReplyDeleteBog 5
After examining the top box office hits from last week, 2019 and 2018, I was able to identity some trends between them based on genre and production studios. From last week, the top five films were Sonic the Hedgehog, The Call of the Wind, Birds of Prey, Bad Boys for Life, and Brahms: The boy II. In 2018 the top five films were Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, Incredibles 2, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and Deadpool 2. And lastly, the top movies in 2019 were Avengers End Game, The lion King, Toy Story 4, Frozen II, and Captain Marvel. Just by looking at the top movies from 2018 and 2019, it is clear that the highest grossing films are superhero/action movies, and children animations. Sequels and remakes of popular animations have become very popular to a larger audience. The Lion King is a classic Disney movie from the 90’s, and since it was remade into a “live action,” not only does it attract children, but older audiences who have loved the movie in the past. Superhero movies are also trending, especially in the Marvel universe. According to an article in Vox, “What emerges is a portrait of movie studios that are fundamentally risk-averse and may have, in 2018, figured out how to get people in the door: Promise them more of what you know they already love”(Wilkinson 2019). This is why sequels and comic movies do so well, because they are familiar to the audience and create a large fanbase. The movies that tend to fall lower on the charters are original content. For example, A Quiet Place was ranked number 15 in 2018 and Us was number 12 in 2019. These movies were very successful, but still not as high on the list compared to sequels, comics, or animations. An article in The Hollywood Reporter quoted Eric Handler, a Wall Street analysis and he stated, “’I can’t remember when original films were so prominent in the top five…Timing helps. Right now is a good point on the calendar to put out an original film as franchises are not widespread at the moment’”(McClintock, 2019).
The top production studio for 2019 was clearly Walt Disney Studios. In 2018 the top studio was mainly Walt Disney but also Twentieth Century Fox and Universal. Since Walt Disney owns a majority of the film industry, I wasn’t surprised that Disney owned most of the top films in the past two years. The most popular trends that I stated earlier are produced by Disney, so that explains why they do so well in the box office. Looking into the future, I wonder if Disney will be able to keep up this high ranking. According to an article in The Hollywood Reporter, “Box office analysts predict that 2020 could result in a much closer race between Disney, Warners and Universal, at least in terms of market share, while Paramount hopes for a major comeback on the wings of Top Gun: Maverick and A Quiet Place: Part II”(McClintock, 2020). With Disney, there are always new opportunities for more animations and sequels to those animations, it’s just a matter of whether that original content is compelling to the audience.
DeleteMcClintock, Pamela. (2019). How Original films saved the Thanksgiving box office. The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved by: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/how-knives-original-films-saved-thanksgiving-box-office-1258569?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=THR%27s%20Today%20in%20Entertainment_2019-12-02%2007:03:00_aweprin&utm_term=hollywoodreporter_tie
McClintock, Pamela. (2020). Peak Disney at the box office, but watch out in 2020 (and beyond). The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved by: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/peak-disney-at-box-office-but-watch-2020-beyond-1266103?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=THR%27s%20Today%20in%20Entertainment_2020-01-04%2007:01:00_aweprin&utm_term=hollywoodreporter_tie
Wilkinson, Alissa. (2019). Hollywood’s record-busting 2018, explained. Vox. Retrieved by: https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/1/3/18165250/2018-box-office-top-movies-hollywood-netflix-black-panther
The world of film is one that is always changing, and this causes film makers to adapt with it. However, over the past few years it seems that there are only 3 things guaranteed in this life: death, taxes, and superhero movies charting as the top grossing film of the year. I am not a fan of Marvel or DC, but I have to give them credit where credit is due, they make big money. According to box office mojos 2018 domestic box office list, Marvel’s Black Panther took the #1 spot with $700,059,566 made (Box Office Mojo) Right underneath is was yet another Marvel film with Avengers: Infinity War which made $678,815,482 (Box Office Mojo) These numbers are crazy to think about as these are only the domestic box office results. Superhero films seem to have a large international reach as well. Of the top 10 grossing films in 2018, half of them were superhero films. This trend seemed to slow down slightly in 2019 but not by much as 3 of the top 10 were superhero films, with the #1 movie being Avengers: Endgame which made $858,373,000 (Box Office Mojo). Another thing I noticed is that movies in general did much better numbers in 2019 than they did in 2018. It is hard to say why this had happened as I do not see many movies on this list that would insinuate that the quality of film has risen, but more movies made more money in 2019 than in 2018.
ReplyDelete2019 was quite the year for Walt Disney Studios as they had 7 out of 10 spots on the top 10 grossing films of 2019. I cannot say that I am too surprised as Disney practically owns everything these days, especially anything with profitable IP, but I am a bit amazed at how dominant they have become. It seems that that Disney almost has a miniature monopoly, yet everyone seems to be fine with it. I doubt that they are violating any laws but seeing how successful Disney is has made me wonder how they are doing it. I decided to do some research on this and found many people feel that Disney does have practically a monopoly within the film industry. While there technically is competition, it is not really effecting Disney as all as “almost 38 percent of all U.S. box office sales in 2019 have gone to a Disney-owned movie, down from a peak of over 40 percent earlier this year.” (Heinz) Disney’s influence in the American media world is something we have never seen before at this amount, and it is a bit concerning to see think about how their power could end up changing the world of media as they continue to grow.
“Domestic Box Office For 2018.” Box Office Mojo, www.boxofficemojo.com/year/2018/?grossesOption=calendarGrosses.
“Domestic Box Office For 2019.” Box Office Mojo, www.boxofficemojo.com/year/2019/?ref_=bo_yl_table_2.
Heinz, Brett. “Its Time to Break Up Disney.” The American Prospect, 1 Oct. 2019, prospect.org/power/time-to-break-up-disney-monopoly/.
When it comes to the movie and film industry, the box office can tell the general public about the success or failure of a movie shown in theatres. Some movies can hit up to $1 billion, and some barely scrape the $1 million mark. This particular new era of creativity has allowed fans and critics the opportunity to learn the new trends and topics of success that have attracted the biggest audiences, especially in recent years. Let’s begin by analyzing the past week’s top box office attractions in the movie industry. The top 5 currently consists of Brahms: The Boy II, Bad Boys for Life, Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn, and The Call of the Wild, with Sonic the Hedgehog topping off the list with a total box office value of about $106.5 million (Box Office Mojo).
ReplyDeleteNow in 2019, the tide was a little different here, especially with the amount of money involved. The top 5 last year consisted of Captain Marvel, Frozen II, Toy Story 4, The Lion King, and Avengers: Endgame at number one with a total value of $858.3 million (Box Office Mojo). One common theme here is the fact that the Walt Disney Company was the sole studio that produced these movies. It is clear that superheroes and younger stories have been a success for Disney, as those themes have become their identity as of late with their new acquisitions of LucasFilm and Marvel.
In 2018, the top 5 at the box office were Deadpool 2, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Incredibles 2, Avengers: Infinity War and Black Panther at #1 with $700 million in their name. A similar trend here is that the top 3 movies (Incredibles 2, Avengers, and Black Panther) are products of Disney, which really shows their presence in this competitive environment where money is everything post-production (Box Office Mojo)
Looking at all of these amazing and widely popular films, the demographic seems to be young to middle aged citizens up to about 50 with fictional characters and heroes being brought to life, and this has helped Disney control this market of interest. According to Pamela McClintock, “The company’s jaw-dropping hand in 2019 resulted in record-shattering winnings: an estimated $11.1 billion worldwide — including six films that soared past $1 billion, and a soon-to-be seventh, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (the count grows to eight when factoring in Spider-Man: Far From Home, which Marvel Studios produced for Sony) (The Hollywood Reporter).
Twentieth Century Fox has also been in the mix with a couple of features in the top 5 box office list, but the weight that Disney brings is unmatched. These trends could continue to flourish because the motive today is to get the next generation intrigued and hooked on a storyline with action and especially with emotion. I do not see a point at where Disney won’t be on top of the food chain, but studios like Universal and Twentieth Century Fox need to take this as a wake-up call because if you are being reasonable, Disney is the undisputed champion in this division.
“Domestic 2020 Weekend 8.” Box Office Mojo, www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/2020W08/?ref_=bo_wey_table_1.
“Domestic Box Office For 2019.” Box Office Mojo, www.boxofficemojo.com/year/2019/?ref_=bo_yl_table_2.
“Domestic Box Office For 2018.” Box Office Mojo, www.boxofficemojo.com/year/2018/?grossesOption=calendarGrosses.
McClintock, Pamela. (2020). Peak Disney at the box office, but watch out in 2020 (and beyond). The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved by: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/peak-disney-at-box-office-but-watch-2020-beyond-1266103?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=THR%27s%20Today%20in%20Entertainment_2020-01-04%2007:01:00_aweprin&utm_term=hollywoodreporter_tie
Brett DiSalvo
ReplyDeleteIn today’s world, the film/movie industry seems to be more lucrative than ever. The box office reporting show just how big of an industry it is. Some movies can gross up to a billion dollars. By comparing the top box office hits from this past weekend, last year (2019), as well as the previous year, we are able to see and identify trends from the data recorded. When analyzing the data (Box Office Mojo). the first observation I made was that over the last two years, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures have dominated the top ten box office hits. In just a two-year span, they had twelve different films gross enough money to be ranked in the top ten. Both number one spots are held by Walt Disney Studios as well. In the 2018 box office rankings, Black Panther is number one and the Avengers: Endgame, is the number one grossing film for 2019. It is clear that Walt Disney Studios is dominating the movie industry right now. There are however a handful of other companies that are competing in a sense. Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Bros, Universal Pictures, Sony Pictures, as well as Paramount Pictures have also made common appearances over past two year’s box office records. Even in this past weekend’s box office records, these seem to be the most relevant companies to date.
After looking beyond what company produced the top grossing movies and the money that they brought in, I decided to look into the kind of content that seems to attract the biggest audience. By looking deeper into the top ten box office hits over a two-year span and this past weekend’s it seems to me that superhero movies and children’s movies are the most lucrative films. I believe this can be due to the fact that they are targeted at such a broad demographic. Both of these movie genres can be enjoyed by just about any age demographic, which I think is why we see such massive box office recordings from them. According to The Hollywood Reporter, 2018 was a “record-busting” year but the statistics reveals the movie industry’s future, showing no certainty at all. Alissa Wilkinson goes on to explain why the future is uncertain. It seems that over the past two years, records just keep getting shattered. Top films today are bringing it such large gross numbers that we have never seen before. This is a good thing but the uncertainty is whether or not it is sustainable, or whether or not it will continue to grow. My personal predictions are that it will only keep growing. I also think that Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures will continue to dominate and is here to stay in the top ten for years to come.
“Domestic Box Office For 2018.” Box Office Mojo, 2018, www.boxofficemojo.com/year/2018/?grossesOption=calendarGrosses.
“Domestic Box Office For 2019.” Box Office Mojo, 2019, www.boxofficemojo.com/year/2019/?ref_=bo_yl_table_2.
Wilkinson, Alissa. “Hollywood's Record-Busting 2018, Explained.” Vox, Vox, 3 Jan. 2019, www.vox.com/culture/2019/1/3/18165250/2018-box-office-top-movies-hollywood-netflix-black-panther.