Spielberg was wrong: Hollywood comes back from the dead
Speaking to students at the University of Southern California, the director of Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Schindler’s List spoke somewhat apocalyptically about an impending “implosion” with “mega-budget movies crashing into the ground”.
But it seems the man who in many ways shaped the modern blockbuster may have been too hasty. Six months later, Hollywood expects a record year at the box office.
“The summer had a lot of high-profile big-budget flops that didn’t live up to expectations, but when you look at the bottom line it’s still a record breaker,” said Paul Dergarabedian, a Hollywood box office analyst.
“The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug was an important one. There was really bad weather on the east coast, but it still did over $70 million in its opening weekend.”
When Spielberg spoke, Hollywood was in the midst of an unprecedented crisis as six films each with a production budget of over $100 million fell flat in as many weeks.
The highest profile casualty was The Lone Ranger which cost $250 million to make, plus a huge marketing budget. It lost the Disney studio up to $190 million and critics savaged the performance of Johnny Depp, the previously bankable actor. Another A-list star, Will Smith, also failed with the science fiction epic After Earth, prompting the Wall Street Journal to ask if the actor had “undergone a radical charisma-ectomy”.
The disastrous reception appeared to undermine Hollywood studios’ “tent pole” strategy of pouring most of their resources into a small number of would-be summer blockbusters.
“There was a lot of attention this summer given to blockbusters failing and pulling Hollywood down,” said Patrick Corcoran, the director of media and research at the National Association of Theater Owners.
“There were movies not playing well. But while that was happening we had five straight weeks taking over $300 million, which has never happened before.”
That was down to unheralded films such as The Conjuring, a horror story, which cost $20 million and had no big name stars, but gained popularity through word of mouth and social networking.
Corcoran said: “It showed people are willing to go to the movies if you give them something good to see.”
He added that November had been “huge” with two films — The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and the animated Frozen, becoming the two biggest Thanksgiving releases ever.
The annual box office record in North America, set last year, was $10.772 billion. It may fall to the Christmas release, Saving Mr. Banks, starring Emma Thompson as P L Travers, author of Mary Poppins, to push Hollywood to new heights.
Dergarabedian said: “We’re in a horse race but I think we’re going to wind up exceeding $10.8 billion. There’s so many cool movies out there - 12 Years a Slave, Dallas Buyers Club, American Hustle, Saving Mr. Banks — that’s why you get great box office.”
