Box office figures essay

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

Over the recent years box office figures in ticket sales have fallen dramatically due to lack of attendance to the cinema. The ticket sales have been falling and falling every year, and 2014 box office was seen to have hit its lowest point since 1995.

Box office figures have fallen dramatically due to the same generic films being made over and over again by studios. This means that the films become over saturated and boring, in addition to this most of the films played in cinema now are part of a franchise. Other reasons why the attendance of cinema has fell is due to the price of the tickets as they are very expensive and steep considering you are only able to view the film once and the average ticket price in 2015 in the UK is about £10 or more. Cinema is also now seen as the home of blockbusters and rarely show individual stand alone movies, another reason for the fall is new technology, it is much easier for a person to illegally stream a movie for free than visit the cinema ad pay full price. In addition to this even simply waiting for the movie to be released on DVD, Blu-Rey, or onto other forms of media such as Netflix or apple TV is much cheaper than paying the full price and the cinema and at least this way you are able to watch the film many more times than just once. There is also the decline in star driven movies that might be the cause of the box office fall, the only star driven film to reach number one in the box office in 2015 was the revenant staring Leonardo DiCaprio.

Technology has had a huge impact on the fall of ticket sales at the box office as people now have their own home cinemas, if a person wanted to watch Avatar in 3D they had to go to the cinema to view it as that was the only way to see the movie in that type of way whereas now you are able to replicate almost all cinematic experiences in your own home. This is due to on games consoles you can download a programme that makes your console 3D and when you watch the film it is the exact same. Also you are now able to purchase 3D TV’s which instead of paying £10 or more to view the film once you can buy the TV and view every film in that way and get a true replica of a cinematic experience.

Subscriptions to TV are also another reason why people do not visit the cinema so often as people are able to subscribe to Netflix, love film, amazon prime and many more for an extremely cheap price and are able to watch as many films and TV series as you want with no extra charges. This allows people the option to binge watch all the TV series they want and at any time allowing them a lot more control of what they are watching and when they want to watch it. The option of piracy also creates less income due t ticket sales as people can download a pirated movie and watch it and then when it is released on DVD or Blu-Rey they can decide whether or not they will purchase the film. Even though studios see piracy as bad it does not take money from a studio it just prevents potential profit and allows the audience a taster of the film before they fully decide whether they really want it or not.

On the other hand technology can be a positive for audience’s and producers as there are websites such as Kickstarter, Youtube and Vimeo which allow viewers to upload original content which can be accessed anywhere on Earth for free. They also offer aspiring filmmakers the chance to store and distribute their work to a global audience, which studios can use to identify new talent. Kickstarter is the main ne out of these websites for up and coming filmmakers as it lets people put their work up and people can search through the database and if they like the idea they can donate any amount they want to the budget of the film, if the budget is met then the film is made and if people donate thousands to the film then the filmmaker will come and see you in your hometown, whereas if the budget is not met then the money goes back to the donators and is not made. This type of website has many advantages for the audience and producers as well as it allows for more creativity and less risks to be taken as the filmmaker will know if it has the support and fan base behind it before it can even be made. It also allows the audience grater control of what is made and means there will be less flops as people know exactly what they want for the movie and their expectations are met if they donate to the film and get exactly what they have paid for. It also good for producers as it is a place to foster new talent and can be an advert for directional talent and gives greater security.

2014 was the turn for the box office as revenue hit its lowest point ever since 1995. It was estimated that 1.26 billion consumers purchased cinema tickets in 2014, which was representative of 6%, drop in ticket sales from 2013 (1.34 billion tickets sold). Part of this was down to new technology but also another reason seen was that even star driven films were on the decline, films such as Transcendance staring Jonny Depp and even the edge of tomorrow staring tom Cruise were flops and didn’t create the revenue they expected to, even considering their huge star power that was part of the films. However many industries predicted that 2015 would be a record year for the box office after the huge drop, they saw 2015 as the peek year for them. In addition to this in 1998 there was one francize in the top ten grossing films whereas in 2014 there was only one individual film in the top ten grossing films which was Interstellar and this was number ten, the top nine were all sequels of franchises. This implies that audience never get the chance to view sophisticated movies and only allow us to watch franchises in cinema. The fact Interstellar was number ten shows that audience want sophisticated movies but never get the chance to view them shows that studios treat us like idiots and that we only want the same thing over and over again which is untrue. In addition to this in 1981 there were seven original films in the top ten but in 2011 there were zero original films in the top ten.

In 2015 all of the biggest franchises where released, sequels such as Star wars, Jurassic park, Fast and furious and many more. In this year there were several re-boots of popular films including, Mad Max, Jurassic Park and Star Wars. It was also the year that international audiences were targeted and China was the main country targeted, this was influenced by Transformers as they had famous Chinese actors staring in the film. Jurassic world was the highest grossing film of 2015 with $1.67 billion, however Star wards the force awakens surpassed this revenue in December of 2015. Going into 2016 it had been predicted by box office that the revenue will continue to geo wans that this will be another astounding year  as films such as: Deadpool, Finding Dory, The incredibles 2 and Beauty and the beast real life are all set to be released.

Overall 2016 will probably be a record breaking year for the box office as well as 2015 because franchises no longer work on a two year cycle, so there would always be a rise and fall in the box office but now franchises come out all the time, sometimes even on a yearly run so it is likely that there are many more franchises to come out in 2016 and that the box office will be at an all time high once again.