You may not know this but the box office whispers to us. Sometimes it whispers softly. Sometimes it whispers loudly. But it’s always trying to tell us something. As I scrolled down through this year’s releases, I could feel the list massaging new thoughts and opinions directly into my abgudala-medula. The first two months of the box office has given us four main successes and four main failures. They are…
Successes
1. Anyone But You ($88 million)
2. Mean Girls ($71 million)
3. The Beekeeper ($63 million)
4. One Love ($71 million)
Failures
1. Madame Web ($37 million)
2. Argylle ($35 million)
3. Lisa Frankenstein ($9 million)
4. Drive Away Dolls ($3 million)
What is the box office telling us with these movies? Well, first of all, let’s make something clear. Just because a movie bombs doesn’t mean that all movies that are like that movie will also bomb. That’s because there’s still something called “execution” in play. Your execution can be bad or it can be good, and that will obviously play into how much audiences want to see your movie. Air and Jerry Maguire are very comparable movies. But while Jerry Maguire hit a grand slam, Air hit a double. It didn’t have that sizzle-factor you want when you see a trailer.
I bring this up because Madame Web will end up being one of the biggest box office failures for a superhero film ever. And while I pointed out the other week that it was plagued by an all-female cast at a time when audiences are starting to rebel against that casting approach, the more likely reason for its failure is that it simply doesn’t look good. Going by the trailer, it literally brought nothing new to the table. And if there’s any theme to this list, it’s the act of RISK. You have to put something on the line if you want audiences to show up. Madame Web put nothing on the line.
Ironically, Sydney Sweeney, who has a part in Madame Web, also stars in the biggest hit on this list, Anything But You. Anything But You is about as old school a concept as it gets. It’s an assembly line romantic comedy. Ah, but here’s the irony: studio released romantic comedies are so rare these days that Anything But You IS a risk. The last 20 studio rom-coms failed. The prevailing thinking was you could only release these on streamers these days and you had to skew super young with the casting. Apparently not.
By the way, side note. Sydney Sweeney promotes the hell out of everything she’s in. All she did for Madame Web was show up at the premiere. That shows you her people were trying to distance her as far away from the movie as possible. But hey, some moviegoers are saying this film is in the ‘so bad it’s good’ category, a la Showgirls. I *will* check it out when it hits streaming. Which, at this rate, will probably be by the time I finish writing this post.
Mean Girls is the biggest anomaly on this list, a wild card if I’ve ever seen one. The film is a sequel, a remake, and an adaptation, all wrapped into one, whose genre (musical) was purposefully hidden in the marketing. Huh?? Chalk this one up to passionate fans who just wanted some nostalgia. Steven Spielberg once said, “The only sure thing in Hollywood is a sequel. Everything else is a gamble.” He may want to add “nostalgia” to the sure-thing list.
Okay, prepare for some box office logic hoop-jumping cause we’re about to discuss Argylle. Argylle is a super-bomb. Depending on who you talk to, it cost around 150 million to make, and it’s only brought in 35 million. Now, if we’re going off our previous talking point – RISK – Argylle is pretty darn risky. It’s a weird action-comedy combo that seems to be based around a cat. So, Carson, you said risk was good, right? Why was it not good for Argylle?
Well, unfortunatley, risk doesn’t only have positive outcomes. It has negative outcomes as well. That’s the risk. And from everything I’ve heard, this is a baaaaad movie. It’s a movie built around fun that isn’t fun. But I think the biggest reason for its poor (first weekend) box office was the fact that, when you watched that trailer, you didn’t get the plot. All you got was that there was a crazy cat in a backpack. True, you’re focusing on the element of your movie that’s the most unique. But if we don’t understand the plot, it doesn’t matter. Check out Sandra Bullock’s The Lost City, which had a similar premise. Their marketing did a way better job conveying the premise (which is a fun premise!).
The reason I harp on this stuff is because clarity is one of the most overlooked elements in screenwriting. Writing that isn’t clear, characters who aren’t clear, plots that aren’t clear, scenes that aren’t clear. Loglines that aren’t clear. We can’t enjoy stories if we don’t know what’s going on. That extends to marketing as well.
The Beekeeper’s success is more complex than a block long honeycomb. Here’s what shocked me about The Beekeeper. Late last year, Expendables 4 came out. Jason Statham was in that movie as well. That movie has a long list of famous older action stars (wait a minute, did this just turn into the botox office report?) as well as being part of a franchise. You know how much money that movie made? 17 million. Not even a third of this film. Why is that? I know some of you hate to hear this but I’m going to argue it comes down to simplicity. The Beekeeper has a simple easy to understand concept with a simple easy to understand plot. Expendables is big and unwieldy and there’s a thousand different things going on. The Beekeper is clean. Throw in just enough of a twist on the secret agent trope – the bee stuff – and you have that requisite “risk” you need.
That’s another trend I noticed with these eight films. Three of the four successes (Anything But You, The Beekeeper, One Love) are easy-to-identify genres that audiences clearly understand. The stories are simple. Even Mean Girls was marketed as a simple genre (teen comedy), despite the fact that it was secretly a musical. With the busts, Argylle exists as some weird action-comedy hybrid that’s hard to categorize. It’s also big and unwieldy with a lot going on. Lisa Frankenstein exists in a genre that’s an incredibly tough sell (horror-dark comedy). Has there been a successful horror-comedy since Zombieland? Drive Away Dolls is a black comedy lesbian road trip? It’s completely out of the purview of mainstream audiences (good script though!). And Madame Web… it has too many issues to count.
So the lesson I’m getting here is: Pick a genre that audiences are familiar with. Try to find just enough of a spin to make it different. And then write a simple story. If you want to add complexity, add it to your characters, not the plot. Hmm, interesting. This is the same advice I’ve been giving you for TEN YEARS!
What else has been going on out there? The Iron Claw ($32 million) has slowly creeped up to a respectable cume. These dark dramas are touuuuuughhh sells and one of them getting to 30 million is the equivalent of a romantic comedy in 2024 getting to 100 million. It’s a huge accomplishment. A couple of people have told me it’s great but I’m just not in the headspace for depressing movies these days.
Next week we’ve got Dune 2. Guys, I really want to be a Dune-Head. I promise you I do. But that 35 minute scene with Timothee Chalemet and his mom in the tent in Dune 1 broke me. I’ve had better experiences at the DMV. Maybe if every single person who sees the movie says it’s the greatest movie they’ve ever seen, I’ll go see it. But I’m guessing nobody here wants to spend next Monday hearing me complain about how boring Dune is. That’s the thing about Dune. It’s not bad in a “make fun of it” way. It’s just boring.
March 21 is Roadhouse and Freezy McTicklebottoms (Ghostbusters). Apparently Doug Liman is furrrrrrrrrrious that Roadhouse isn’t coming out in theaters. I’m right with him. That movie would pull in 50 million easy. It’s got nostalgia oozing out of its booze-soaked pores. The movie I’m most curious about, however, is Civil War. I love Alex Garland but I admit his movies are inaccessible to those outside the industry. Will this be the movie that breaks him out as a director? It’s a realistic look at how a civil war in the United States might go down. It may hit that sweet spot of being both politically charged AND entertaining. The latter is most important though. That goes for everyone. I don’t care how important your message is. Your script must be entertaining first!
What are you guys looking forward to?
