Hollywood hits slump
2005-07-10 10:59
Los Angeles - Even the combined forces of the alien invaders from War of the Worlds and Batman could not save Hollywood from its most terrifying drama - its worst box office slump in 20 years.
Studio executives are crossing their fingers that the Fantastic Four comic book superheroes will come to their rescue this weekend and provide a happy ending for the biggest drama in Tinseltown, but hope is fading.
North American moviegoers have been staying away from the cinema in droves, put off by a slew of disappointing remakes and sequels, rising ticket prices and the fact that the films they want to see are coming out on digital video disks (VDs) more quickly than ever, experts said.
"There is no denying that this slump is tough for the industry," said Gitesh Pandya, editor of industry tracker Boxofficeguru.com. "The problem is I don't see it changing anytime soon.
"It's troubling that box office figures have been down for so many weeks, and even more worrying is the fact that, year-to-date, we're down on last year," Pandya told AFP of the worst extended slump since 1985, when video machines first hit the market.
Ticket receipts from US and Canadian cinemas -- which constitute the lion's share of returns on the massive investment in major films -- have been down, compared with the same period in 2004, for 19 straight weeks, with a 20th expected this weekend despite the release of the Fantastic Four.
Worse still, ticket receipts are down 7.63% compared with 2004, with a total of almost $4.2bn in sales so far this year, compared with nearly $4.6bn by the same period last year.
While Steven Spielberg's new epic War of the Worlds, starring heartthrob Tom Cruise, performed well when it opened last week, capturing $113m in six days, it failed to push the overall box office figures above last year's level.
And even Hollywood's biggest releases scheduled for July - including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, starring Johnny Depp, The Bad News Bears and the Dukes of Hazzard - are unlikely to break the duck.
Part of the problem is simply that 2005 looks anaemic because 2004 was a bumper year at the North American box office, with major openings like Spider-Man 2, which hauled in $180m in six days one year ago. Then there was the surprise windfall reaped by Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, which delivered more than $370m.
"It's going to be very tough for us to measure up to last year," admitted Paul Dergarabedian, president of Los Angeles-based box office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations.
But experts said Hollywood's increasingly predictable fare of remakes, sequels and adaptations of television shows have disappointed many viewers.
"The biggest problem is the films the studios are releasing are not generating the sort of excitement they have generated in the past from big films," said Pandya.
"Hollywood is just running out of fresh ideas, so the studios are looking to sequels and remakes," he said.
Batman Begins, released in June, starring Katie Holmes, returns to a well-used Warner Bros. franchise, while Bewitched, starring Nicole Kidman, is a movie version of a tried and tested - and therefore less risky - 1960s television series.
Football film The Longest Yard, starring Adam Sandler, was a remake of a 1970s Burt Reynolds film, while June's Herbie: Fully Loaded revived the 1970s franchise about an overly communicative VW Beetle.
"We have too many remakes; it's the cookie-cutter, always the same. You need some originality," Dergarabedian said.
Adding to the problem is the fact that studios now release movies on DVD much sooner after their theatrical release in a bid to fight piracy, but that can prompt lukewarm moviegoers to wait to see the film at home for far less than it costs in cinemas.
"Studios need to prove to moviegoers that these films are really worth paying full price to see, or else people will stay at home and wait for the DVD," Pandya said.
But while the outlook for this year's box office appears grim, industry experts stressed that the crisis was not terminal and could be resolved with a few good and original films.
"If a movie is really good, people will go and see it in the theatres," said Exhibitor Relations' Randy Sanchez.
"You can't see a movie like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings on DVD and get the full film experience. People will always want to go to the movies to escape," he said.