Ankler Preview: The Box Office Strikes Back!
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For a year and a half now, we've been waiting for the movies to come roaring back, with the general assumption that when the audiences returned once again, studios could just stand outside with their umbrella upside down and they'd fill right up with all the doubloons raining down.
The part that we forgot about from way back when was that, even in those halcyon pre-COVID days, not every movie became a hit. In fact, hardly any did, and as the decade just past dragged on, there were moments when it seemed like nothing was ever going to be a hit again. Remember that?
The muted performance of both In the Heights and Peter Rabbit 2 also underscores how product-driven the theatrical business remains.
Still with the product-driven! Shouldn't we be past that by 2021, with our data and algorithms and micro-targeting!
Even after all that, after all the know-how that the tech companies brought to our shores, we're still stuck with this problem of making something these ingrates want to go see! How unfair is that?
To make it even more unjust, even pre-COVID, they didn't want to see very much. At all.
Anyway, this weekend shows us a few of the perils and pitfalls inherent in this brave new age, after the window. We grapple for the new model, but does the new model want to come out and play?
Let's poke through the bitter lessons of this weekend:
Quiet Riot
• So Quiet Place 2 is not only holding up but raking it in, comparable to the numbers of the original.
• Which kind of ruins it for everyone else, because if it weren't for this movie, they could say, people just aren't quite there yet with going back to theaters.
• On the list of experiences people can't get in their living room, seeing a horror movie with other screaming people has to be near the top. It's also one that the young folk haven't completely given up on.
• Ankler Rule Numero Uno: A hit changes everything. A month ago, Paramount was the flotsam of the Streaming Wars; now they are the only ones who know how to get people into the theaters.
Heights the Hand That Feeds
• Installment #27,646 of why listening to the media bubble, unless you're in the business of making a niche awards-bait TV show for 400,000 people, will always always steer you wrong.
If you follow the media bubble, you would assume Lin-Manuel Miranda is the biggest star on Earth. Something along the lines of Clark Gable, Orson Wells, and Fred Astaire combined. So it's nice to get a reminder that, despite his enormous talents, outside Mediaville, USA, no one has any idea who Lin-Manuel Miranda is.
This has been a sneak peek preview of today’s box office edition of The Ankler, the industry’s secret newsletter. To read the rest of this issue, subscribe today for just $10 a month and don’t miss out on who’s in the hot seat next!
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