Where Have All The Movies Gone?
When I wrote my review this week for The Special Relationship, I realised just how quiet this year has been at the movies. In the first 6 months of the year, just 96 films were released in Brisbane cinemas. Over the same period of time, I’d seen 109 films in 2009 and 117 in 2008. I had to go as far back as 2003 to find a quieter year – just 93 films in all.
I try to see every movie that’s showing. Maybe I’m an obsessive compulsive but I like to give every film a chance and sometimes I’m pleasantly surprised. An example from this week would be Step 3D – definitely better than I thought it’d be. What I’m trying to say is that maybe I should be taking 2010 as a blessing. With 21 less films than in 2008, that’s about 42 hours that I’ve been able to spend on other things. Don’t ask me what those things are. The time has slipped away too quickly.
But I’m left asking myself… why the shortfall in movies?
My initial reaction is that we’ve been inundated with blockbusters and cinema owners are a little risk averse when it comes to trying smaller films. When you see the numbers thrown up by films like Inception, Twilight and Toy Story 3, it makes sense. These films have been huge. People flock to them on opening weekend and there are many sold out sessions. They are taking up a bigger slice of the screens at big multiplexes such as Event Cinemas.
With all the marketing and hype for the blockbusters, it’s almost impossible to market other films. Films that struggled to find an audience in the US and the UK aren’t finding their way to Australia (many are going straight to video instead).
What’s also interesting is that cinemas like the Palace and the Dendy (often synonymous with independent cinema) are showing more and more commercial product. At the Dendy this week, you can see Killers, Inception, Knight & Day and Step Up 3D. At the Palace Barracks, you can see the same four films. Yes, they do show a few smaller films (which is great) but are they showing as many as they once did? I can’t confirm that for sure but I’ve got a hunch (based on the numbers mentioned above). I can’t really blame them either – it’s great to create a niche market but it’s hard to turn away the large percentage of the public who are prepared to pay to see films like Killers and Step Up 3D.
I’m not really making a point. It’s more of an observation. I’m not sure if I want to see more movies in cinemas. It would be great to have more variety but perhaps that’s not possible – both in terms of quality and commerciality. I’m going to be following the trend over the next few months to see if it starts to turn back around. I might also pose the question to a few cinema owners if I get the chance.
Other News
To quickly race through other news, the Palace Centro and Palace Barracks in Brisbane now have their own Twitter feed. You can find out about special events by following them right here - https://twitter.com/palacebrisbane.
Inception is still powering on at the box-office. It’s been number 1 in the United States for three consecutive weeks and has now taken $193.3m. Here in Australia, it also held up well in its second week with just a 19% drop-off. It’s posted $16.3m over its first 11 days. Great to see. I'm also enjoying the hits on my Inception review through the Rotten Tomatoes website - over 3,700 and still counting! Some good publicity for The Film Pie.