We’ve been here before
and we will be here again. Charles
Dickens pretty much nailed it in his opening paragraph of his 1859 masterpiece,
A Tale of Two Cities — “It was the
best of times, it was the worst of times … ”
As 2013 draws to a close
it is “the worst of times” for new hit theatrical releases. We are done with the count for the year …
and it is not pretty.
First, let us define the
market of new theatrical releases that we are talking about. The ones that count are those films that
gross in excess of $25 million at box office.
To get to that number you
need three things. These are: a large
screen-count when the film opens wide, a major dollar commitment for
advertising and publicity and enough people (after the opening weekend) to
sustain momentum. Lacking any of these
three elements and a theatrical release will fall outside of the $25 million
box office level.
With that said, each year
we see roughly 100 films achieve this goal.
It is, at the end of the day, a mechanical thing. There are 52 opening weekends and a finite
number of theatrical seats … each week new films open and room must be made to
accommodate these new arrivals. We are
not suddenly going to see 150 films gross in excess of $25 million … there are
not enough seats and time to accomplish that.
Over the last seven years
(and you can go back further if you wish), the “Hollywood” studios and theatre
owners (distributors and exhibitors) have averaged 100.9 “hit” films per
year. These are then moved from their
theatrical venues to the home entertainment market place … how fast they move
and when they are placed on the release schedule can very, but at the end of
the day it is a GIGO equation. Garbage
In, Garbage Out.
No rational business
enterprise that has a $25 million grossing film in their inventory — and all of
the production and promotional investment associated with it — would not
release it into as many revenue producing markets as possible. It therefore follows that if the output of
hit films averages about 101 per year, the number of home entertainment titles
matching this criteria should also be in this neighborhood.
This year, 2013, we are
looking at a final count of 94 films that meet this standard as Blu-ray and DVD
releases. Last year the final was 103
and in 2012 it was 104.
Business decisions can
come into play — when is it best to release a hit film? That is a proper question, but a short fall
of this magnitude is outside of the realm of street date tinkering.
For example,
traditionally films released theatrically prior to the Labor Day weekend are
released to the home entertainment market prior to the end of the year. This year we have two films that appear to
be headed for a 2014 street date — Blue Jasmine ($32.4 million) and The
Butler ($115.1 million) that opened during the summer, but will not
reach the home entertainment market place during the “normal” release window.
Even if these two were
added to the mix, we’d still come up short.
We’ve been there before and we will be there again … but for now, 2013
is not the best of times.
When you are talking
about a short fall of six to seven key theatrical releases it can only be
described as significant. When there are
52 street-date Tuesdays in any given year, a loss at this level will be noticed.
52-week Moving Average of New Hit Theatrical Releases* on DVD & Blu-ray
Period Covered: 2008 - 2013 (2013 includes schedule releases)
* Hit Theatrical defined as achieving a domestic box office gross of $25 million.
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