Although there have been several notable exceptions – with Barbie, Oppenheimer, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 leading the pack in that regard – the summer of 2023 has more often than not been defined by the big budget blockbusters that failed to live up to expectations.
Sure, Disney crossed $4 billion in worldwide ticket sales for the year not too long ago, but when you consider that the likes of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Elemental, The Little Mermaid, and Haunted Mansion cost a combined total of nearly a billion dollars to produce and range from somewhere between a mild success to a colossal bomb, then the margins aren’t exactly healthy.
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One crossed $500 million recently, while Fast X managed to hit $700 million before exiting theaters, and they’ve barely made any money due to the monstrous budgets that set them back $290 million and $340 million respectively. It’s completely insane and even more unsustainable, with box office analyst Shawn Robbins breaking it down to Variety.
“These movies would have been a lot more economical if it weren’t for COVID. But even if that meant their budgets were inflated, at the end of the day, these movies cost what they cost and performed how they performed.”
Meanwhile, Jeff Bock offered an even more damning assessment, indicating that while they might make money eventually, that doesn’t look good for the studio bottom line in real-time.
“There’s an opportunity to make money back with streaming and other sales, but that’s long into the future. It’s playing the long game instead of the short game. They don’t want to be profitable in 25 years.”
Movies have been getting way too expensive for far too long now, but the summer of 2023 being almost defined by its misses as opposed to its hits will hopefully set a light bulb off in boardrooms everywhere that the model is broken and in need of a fix.