REGINA - Today, I wrap up over a decade of writing Cairns on Cinema, and for this final instalment I’ve decided to do what could be described as an assessment of the State of the Movie Industry in 2024.
The motivation for this week’s column has a lot to do with what went down at the box office last weekend. Yes, it was the Memorial Day long weekend in the USA, a weekend that traditionally is one of the highest-grossing blockbuster weekends of the year.
But it wasn’t this year. The main contenders that rolled out this past weekend were Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and The Garfield Movie, both of which battled for Number One. In a photo finish, Furiosa ended up winning the weekend, with a domestic $32.3 million to Garfield’s $31.2 million.
On the surface, this seems good. Except — this was over a four day holiday period and not the typical three, and it was one of the worst Memorial Day weekend box offices of all time — excepting COVID-19 times. Furiosa had the worst Memorial Day weekend opening since 1995, when Casper opened to $22.5 million.
That has touched off some massive freaking-out on social media by all the movie freaks. Those folks are tearing their hair out over how bad the box office has been in May. Of course, May got off to a slow start anyway when The Fall Guy opened to a miserable $27.7 million. The first weekend of May is typically a blockbuster weekend, and it sure wasn’t this weekend.
So now the theories are out about why the numbers are so bad and whether we ought to be worried for what 2024 holds for Hollywood. They’re saying people don’t want to go to the theatres anymore. They’re saying people would rather stay home and watch Netflix, or these other streamers. They’re also blaming the cost of living and high ticket prices. True, but none of that seemed to matter when Barbieheimer happened.
What boggles the mind for many of these folks is a lot of them thought Furiosa and The Fall Guy were good! So these fans of these movies are taking their box office defeats really, really hard.
And here I say, for the last time — it doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter. You should never seek validation for a movie’s quality through box office results. If you and you alone think the movie is good, that’s all that matters.
I don’t know how many times I’ve pointed this out over the years but I have to say it yet again: there is no direct correlation between the quality of a movie and the box office result. I’ve seen lots of quality movies end up being flops. I’ve also seen some utter junk end up making $400 million dollars.
It’s not about quality, but about what the general public is interested in going to see, and for too many ordinary folks at home, they just weren’t excited for Furiosa or for Garfield the cat. But it doesn’t mean people won’t like these movies or feel they didn’t get their money’s worth. That’s for each individual to decide.
It’s more likely that maybe, just maybe, these flicks weren’t meant to be major blockbusters to begin with. The previous Mad Max movie, Mad Max: Fury Road only opened in the $45 million range. And the previous Garfield movie was a flop! So it was a real stretch for anyone to think this was going to be a major blockbuster weekend when this was the backdrop.
What is really going on, what is actually happening, is that Hollywood is feeling the impacts and aftereffects of the labour disputes from last year.
The writers strike. The actors strike. That pushed back a lot of production and blockbusters that were supposed to show up this summer. And there are more struggles being reported. Apparently the next Mission: Impossible 8 is going to be delayed again, this time due to a malfunction involving a submarine. This movie was supposed to roll out on June 28, 2024, but now it is being delayed deep into next year.
The bottom line is that we have a shortage of product that Hollywood can truly count on as being potentially a blockbuster. And the studios are feeling the pinch. I’ve heard stories about big problems at both Paramount and Warner Bros., with rumours that those studios could be takeover targets. The money crunch at Warner Brothers discovery could also be impacting your favourite television shows including the NBA. Their cable network TNT could be on the brink of losing the NBA package to NBC, a move which could end up ending their iconic post game show Inside the NBA. So all of you folks wanting your fix of Charles Barkley spouting off on TV may be out of luck soon.
Basically, what is happening right now is exactly what people predicted would happened — except everyone’s forgotten their own predictions already. This summer, and in particular this month of May, was always going to be an uphill fight for the movie box office, but it should improve as the year goes on. We still have Despicable Me 4, and Inside Out 2, and Deadpool & Wolverine coming, as well as some other interesting releases like Twisters. I have to think things will turn around eventually, once we see a full recovery from the labour disruptions and once we see more potential blockbusters being released again.
So that is my assessment on the state of the movies in 2024, and that is it — with my pending move to another media organization the final Cairns on Cinema column is in the books.
I started this column as an online-exclusive for the News-Optimist back in 2010, after spending three years doing columns about the movie box office for Film School Rejects online. It has been a sideline to all the other work I have been doing covering the news, but I’ve totally enjoyed sharing those insights about the movies.
As I said before, my movie writing predated the Cairns on Cinema columns and I don’t plan on it ending here, either. I hope to keep writing about movies in some form in the future. How that will happen, I don’t know at the moment, but in the meantime you can follow me at my X account @johnwcairns where you can keep posted on what I will be up to.
Thanks for reading, and see you at the movies.
