Not much of a shock in a year that saw studios release a string of uninspired turds while competing with Netflix instant and an ever-growing number of kick-ass TV shows like Game of Thrones (see also: the year’s biggest flops), but while revenue was only down 3.5 percent from last year, actual attendance hit a 16-year low. To be honest, I’m surprised it was only 16.
The year got off to a dismal start with what could be called an “Avatar” hangover, when revenues lagged far behind 2010 receipts that had been inflated by the huge success of James Cameron’s sci-fi sensation.
“There were a lot of high-profile movies that just ended up being a little less than were hoped for,” said Chris Aronson, head of distribution for 20th Century Fox, whose sequel “Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked” has been part of an under-achieving lineup of family films for the holidays. “The fall was pretty dismal. There just weren’t any real breakaway, wide-appeal films.” [TimesFreePress]
That’s part of the problem! Everyone was busy trying to make “wide-appeal films,” and what most of them ended up with was “zero-appeal films,” like Abduction. You made a dude action movie with a terrible actor only chicks like, brilliant. I’ve ranted on the subject too much already, but between the abundance of watered-down crap and the retarded release schedule where all the “good movies” are packed into the same two-week period (they do something similar with “blockbusters” during the summer but on a smaller scale), the movie studios have some problems that could be corrected fairly easily. Obviously, that’s easy for jackasses like me to type between Cheetos runs.
Also, there’s another problem with my argument: 16 years ago, the cinematic low point we’re comparing 2011 to, was 1995. Some movies that came out in 1995…
Toy Story
The Usual Suspects
Braveheart
Casino
Babe
Seven
Heat
12 Monkeys
Clueless
Ghost in the Shell
To Die For
Kids
Crimson Tide
…And a bunch of others, to say nothing of the Sandra Bullock classic, The Net. But basically, a whole bunch of exactly the kind of movies I’m always saying Hollywood should be making more of, movies that get people excited about movies. The kind of movies I always assumed got people into theaters. I mean The Usual Suspects? Who doesn’t get excited about The Usual Suspects? So it’s quite possible I have no idea what I’m talking about. What the hell were we doing in 1995, anyway? Spray painting our overalls?