“Box-Office Woes: Age and Gender Gap Helping Fuel Summer Decline”
Summer 2014 is very likely to go down as a memorable one, but for the wrong reasons. From Flavorwire this:
Variety: “SUMMER BOX OFFICE DOWN NEARLY 20% AFTER JULY 4TH FILMS FIZZLE.” Box Office Mojo: “’TRANSFORMERS’ REPEATS ON WEAK INDEPENDENCE DAY WEEKEND.” The Hollywood Reporter: “WHAT’S BEHIND SUMMER’S FREE FALL AT THE BOX OFFICE?” And Gawker, as usual, is not afraid to put too fine a point on it: “NO ONE WENT TO THE MOVIES THIS FOURTH OF JULY WEEKEND.”
— —
Going into the summer season, domestic box office was up nine percent over last year. Now, it’s down an astonishing 19 percent. A full four percent of that was just from the Fourth of July weekend, when the junkie didn’t get its hit. The junkie needs its hit. “Thank goodness we have Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and Guardians of the Galaxy coming, because we need it,” Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Rentrak, told Variety, uncomfortably aping the language of the industry’s beloved street-corner crackhead archetype. “Boy, do we need it.”
Down 19%. So the inevitable question: Why? The Hollywood Reporter weighs in with this analysis:
For years, Hollywood studios have catered to young males in building their summer slates. But as the demo takes fewer trips to the multiplex, distributors are scrambling amid a 20 percent decline in summer revenue in North America. It’s one of the worst year-over-year drops to date, putting increased pressure on global returns.
According to the MPAA, frequent moviegoers between the ages of 18 and 25 plunged 17 percent in 2013, the largest drop of any age bracket, while those between 12 and 17 fell by 15 percent. Some blame video games, YouTube or a disconnect between studio tastes and what today’s kids like. Regardless, in 2007, nearly 65 percent of opening-weekend ticket buyers for Spider-Man 3 were under 25. This summer, only 51 percent of The Amazing Spider-Man 2’s initial audience was 25 and under.
Young males down 20% from 2014 to 2013. So if young guys aren’t going to movies as much, where can Hollywood turn? How about women:
Adding to the problem, many male-skewing summer tentpoles are luring fewer females. That’s an issue because the women demo is wielding more influence. Moms and girls helped turn Frozen into one of the biggest successes of all time ($1.27 billion), and they have powered Disney’s Maleficent to nearly $670 million, including $222 million in North America — more than any other summer film aside from X-Men: Days of Future Past. Fox’s The Fault in Our Stars also mobilized younger girls (82 percent of the opening audience was female; 79 percent was under 25).
And at TheWrap suggests — Hispanics:
Hispanics have accounted for at least 20 percent of opening weekend ticket sales for every hit this summer, Nielsen research shows
Hollywood experts love to fret about the future of the movie business, but the industry has begun to embrace one group that is indisputably on the rise: the Hispanic audience.
Hispanics are the fastest-growing ethnic group in the United States, and their passion for movies is unsurpassed. The group bought 25 percent of the tickets sold in 2013 though they comprise just 17 percent of the population, according to the Motion Picture Association of America’s year-end study.
According to figures from the U.S. Census and a Nielsen report on movie audiences, Hispanics make up 15 percent of the population over the age of 12, and 19 percent of tickets sold for teens and older.
The expanding potential of women and Hispanics versus the same old same old obsession with young adult males who for whatever reasons are not as reliable as before.
What will the studios do? What should screenwriters do?
For rest of the TheWrap article, go here.
For the rest of the Hollywood Reporter article, go here.
For the rest of the Flavorwire article, go here.