SSC Film Studies

Box Office figures are falling. Why do you think this is and do you think this trend will continue? 

I believe that box office figures are falling due to the fact that there is a star decline nowadays. People used to go and see a movie if it had a big star in it however now they only go to see the movie to see the character mainly. For example, the only movie stars who people would like to go and see now are; Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Scarlett Johansson and Angelina Jolie.  

Another reason is that nowadays at homes we have Modern Technologies. During the 1950's there was a similar decline in box office figures because the Television had just came out. Now we have Blu-Rays, 7.1 digital surround sound systems and TV's that can support 3D with huge screens.  This allows us to have a near cinema experience in the comfort of our own home without any potential distractions such as people on their phones or people eating food really loud. Some people actually argue as well that the audience of a film could also drive people away from the pictures also due to the fact that they distract the rest of the audience from the film meaning that they aren't getting a true cinematic experience. As well as all of this we can illegally or legally acquire the film without having to go to the pictures. Some examples include; Illegally downloading the movie, streaming it, downloading it using a legal service or watching it on a pay to stream service such as Netflix. Just think, these ways of watching movies are a lot cheaper than actually going the cinema.This is simply because nowadays it costs nearly £11 to watch a movie whereas you can pay £7 a month for Netflix and then you have access to any TV show or Movie you want for a month, it’s quite a bargain compared to going to the pictures. 

Another bargain that you can consider are video games. Video games offer the user a solid couple of hours of story in which the user can actually control and have an impact on, Video games are typically £40 or £50  however you are getting a lot more worth out of them compared to going to the pictures. Video games also reinforce the star decline debate also. In the video game you are controlling the character and you don’t really need a star to voice the character. Also in most games it is in first person therefore making you the character. This shows us that actors aren't really needed as much as the characters and in the future there are gaming films that are coming out so actors yet again may not be needed in these or if they are used then they won't be used as the main selling point of the film. 

To go with these modern technologies, we have TV shows. Yes TV shows may not be as aesthetically pleasing as some movies however there are the likes of Game Of Thrones that can easily compete with a few movies. The main reason why TV shows are competing with movies nowadays is because they offer us a prolonged story. For example if you were to watch Lord Of The Rings then you are only getting 11 hours and 23 minutes worth of running time whereas if you were to watch Game Of Thrones then you are easily getting over 50 hours worth of content with 3 more seasons along the way potentially, this adds on an extra 30 hours worth of content meaning that the story is a lot longer than the Lord Of The Rings story. Us as the audience want a longer story so that now we can identify more with the characters (well maybe not with Game Of Thrones characters).  

The most important reason is probably because Hollywood aren't creating as many movies. They are spending loads more money making bigger films. These are called "Tentpoles" and they are more than likely apart of a franchise. Hollywood use Franchises so that they can rely on the familiar so they know people will like them. This will create more money for singular films however if you made  a variety of films then you could argue that that would make more money. 

I believe that 2015 was a freak year for the box office due to the fact that the big 5 were all released in the same year, Star Wars, Jurassic World, Fast 7, Avengers : Age Of Ultron and Minions. These franchises of films are always going to make over $1 billion at the box office easily and these films did end up making over $7 billion dollars between them. So overall in 2015, $38.5 billion was made at box office therefore making it the most successful year for the film industry. In 2014 however this really wasn't the case. 2014 was considered a huge flop for the film industry due to the fact that only one film had made over $1 billion dollars and that was Transformers : Age of Extinction.  Overall in 2014, only $10.35 billion had been made, this is almost 4x less than 2015. 

This shows us a little pattern for films, this shows us that the big franchise films get released every two years however this may all come to an end when it comes to 2016. In 2016 4 Marvel movies, 2 DC movies and a new Star Wars movie are being released, so as you can tell this year is going to be a pretty successful year for movies as they should all more than likely make over $500 million at box office or they could even cross over the $1 billion mark. After 2016 there are going to be multiple films released every year from each main franchise. This obviously is going to increase the box office sales. Marvel and DC have both publicly released that they are going to release 2 films each per year until 2021. Also on top of this Bob Iger has said "Star Wars and Marvel Movies are going to be around forever".