Arresting Slumping Box Office Sales

In Monday’s Wall Street Journal TECHNOLOGY Report, movie director Barry Sonnenfeld shared an interesting idea to address a movie’s week-after-week decline in box office sales. [SOURCE LINK (sub. req’d)]

These days a movie’s first week is its biggest sales week. Box office sales in the second week of a movie’s opening are about half of what the movie did in its first week. And sales in its third week are about half of a movie’s second week sales take. For example, CARS opened last week with box office sales of $60.1 million. In its second sales week, CARS took in $33.7 million which is about half of its opening week sales. So next week … CARS will probably take in about $17.0 million.

To arrest the week-after-week sales decline movies experience, Barry Sonnenfeld offers the idea of releasing a special edit of a film with extra scenes to goose sales during week four of a movie’s release. Digital editing and digital distribution of movie prints makes this idea financially feasible from a cost standpoint. Sonnenfeld is realistic though and rightly tempers his expectations, “No one's going to come back to see RV again, with 10 minutes of new stuff, but you would if it was STAR WARS or KING KONG.”

Ya know … this marketer thinks Barry Sonnenfeld might be onto something here. We’re already buying DVDs of our favorite movies with additional scenes and alternative endings. Why wouldn’t we also be apt to buying tickets to see a movie that has extra scenes and other cinematic doo-dads a few weeks after a film’s initial release. Interesting idea, eh?

Comments

[Christopher grove]

Yup, people would pay to see the extra scenes.
But... sooner or later people would work out what was going on, and a lot of people would probably wait to see the version with extra scenes (I know that I would). So you'd dope the week 4 ticket sales, but you'd cannibalize the first 3 weeks' sales (it's just a product line extension, after all, so surely the same rules apply). And that's a best case scenario. Worst case scenario is that people would get the feeling that they were being ripped off in the first 3 weeks. Now, maybe it would work for some films, but it would have to be the ones that people are really excited about (so yes the Star Wars, etc.).

However, what might be a winner, would be to do a limited theatre release after the film has finished it's run (say the week after the last week). Do that in the major cities, and it may just pull people back into the cinemas, without creating a feeling of resentment.

[Mark Ramsey]

Something like this has been done. I can't remember the exact movies. I think it was on "A Bug's Life" or "Shrek" that some new scenes were added later - not in the second weekend, of course, but in a later release. Wish I could recall the details.

[johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy)]

This has been done before as I can recall "Director's Cut" of films being shown months or even years after the film's initial release. But to release such a special version of a film only weeks after its initial premiere is a novel idea. But as Christopher points out ... such a move could damper sales in weeks 1 through 3 as we wait for the "new and improved" version.

[Buzzoodle Ron]

Hi John.

Congratulations on your nomination for MarketingSherpa Reader's Choice Blog & Podcasting Awards.

Ron

[johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy)]

Right back at ya Ron as Buzzoodle is on the nominee list as well.

[Mary Schmidt]

Gee, I dunno - have they considered, like, making better movies?

I already have criteria that goes like this - Is it worth:
A. Seeing at full price?
B. Seeing at a matinee?
C. Waiting to rent the DVD?
D. Waiting for the lower DVD rental price?
E. Waiting until the local library has it for free?

It's amazing how many movies are category E these days.

And - yep - seems to me the "new" idea would simply dampen sales in the first couple of weeks.

[Mack Collier]

Not only would it damper the first 3 weeks sales, by week 4, there would be no shortage of reviews for the film. If most are bad, a movie would lose my ticket altogether.

[Laura]

What if the admission price was a dollar or two lower in the first 2-3 weeks for the initial release and then boosted up a buck or two for the extra scenes? Do you think that might help eliminate the resentment of patrons from weeks 1-3 feeling "ripped off" for paying the same price for less footage? It would also possibly partially eliminate the problem of everyone waiting for week 4, if they thought they could see the movie for a discount in the first 1-3 weeks and would have to pay more later.

I can't decide if the above is a really good or really stupid idea! In any case, I'm with Mary Schmidt for the most part. A lot of bad movies being made nowadays combined with the culture of downloading DVD's and taping on PVR's means less and less incentive to go to the theatre. My options are more limited though. In my case, it's either worth going to the theatre and paying full price, or I wait 1+ years till it is shown on the movie channels and I tape it on the PVR and burn it to DVD. Only rarely do I even bother renting a movie.

But I have recently seen a pretty good ad for movie theatres addressing this dropping box office sales problem. The voiceover goes something like this:

"Your big screen is 50 inches. OUR big screen is 50 feet! Come and see movies the way they were meant to be seen."

[Duncan]

Perhaps there would be a movie with 4 different endings, and you don't know which one is showing where. Maybe as you leave the cinema you get a clue where the alternate ending showings are going to be.

[Cal Evans]

I've gotta agree with John Moore. The reason tickets sales slump is because word gets out about the movie. If they can make a better movie by re-cutting it, why not release the better version first.

I'd like to add A1. to John list.

A1. Is it worth seeing at full price after being forced to watch 4 commercials an asinine anti-piracy tirade and 6-8 other trailers?

I think the last movie I saw where I did not feel I had wasted time and money was the third Lord of the Rings movie.

IMHO, etc.

=C=

[Christopher grove]

You only have 4 commercials? You are SOOOO lucky. In France we get about 30 mins of commercials (with a few trailers included in that sometimes, but not always). The films that usually have the most trailers, are the blockbusters. So you go to see, what is meant to be a great movie, and then you get annoyed before it starts because you have to sit through more commercials than you expected. What does that say about how effective cinema commercials are?

[brad]

Perhaps Hollywood needs to get back to fundamentals: why are box office sales so high in the first week? How did they get that way?

You might be surprised to find that it hasn't always been this way. Before the blockbusters of the 80s, movies increased audiences week on week as word spread that they were good. Movies stayed in the theatre longer. Reviewers were given advance screenings so they would be able to write good things about the movies before they opened.

Nowadays, it's very different. Hollywood has developed a system where the power of word of mouth is cut out of the equation. Reviewers are given much less power and access to films before they open - they might write something bad. Many reviewers are shills for Hollywood, bought off by cruises and industry shindigs. (Hey, it's better to be a compromised player than to be out of the game.) And marketing budgets have shot up so that it is now common to spend more on marketing than making the movie. It's important to blanket the media with ads and PR to get people out in the first weekend so that the studios get their box office receipts before anyone can say just how bad the movie is. And note: it's the weekend that counts. It's not even the first week - it's the first 2 days that are critical!

As a result, nowadays it's easier to make money from a bad movie, and more difficult to make money from a good movie, particularly if the film makers don't have a giant marketing budget. This gives an edge to the big studios, and makes it harder for independents and low budget movie makers as they have to play by the studio rules: short theatre runs, no time for word of mouth, competing with massive studio marketing departments.

Therefore, I think the real question is: how can film makers extricate themselves from a system which favours bad movies from big studios and start producing movies which are good enough that people will recommend them? The reason box office sales are slumping is obvious: poor product and savvy consumers who have stopped believing the marketing hype, and have no simple way of determining which movies are good and which are dogs.

Tip: The jokes in a trailer for a comedy are the funniest jokes in the movie. If the trailer has one funny joke, the movie has one funny joke.

Hollywood is yet another dinosaur industry. I would predict that as audiences decline further, this will become a more pressing issue - and it will be explained by technological change, kooky ideas about interactivity, competition from the internet, and piracy. (Piracy will probably be favoured as the best explanation as it suggests the movies are so good people will "steal" them; aside from that, it can lead to legislation which will indirectly subsidize giant backward corporations and allow them to prevent the development of technologies that threaten their current business model.) No one will ever come to the simple conclusion that people are not coming to theatres because there's so many bad movies and no way to tell the good from the bad.

[Jason]

This was done with Napoleon Dynamite. Many theaters across the country added the wedding scene at the end of the credits months after its original release. The popularity of the movie caused the viewers wanting more of Napoleon and his crew. I remember specifically searching for a theater that was showing the extra clip.

What was funny about this incident was that the two minute clip cost just about the same amount as the whole original movie. However, if the studios plan this ahead of time they can shoot the extended scenes during the original shoot.

I personally think this is a great idea if you do it with the type of movie that would bring audiences back. Many people went back to see Star wars multiple times when they added the movie to digital screens. Think about if they would have added extended scenes. I do not think you would have a drop-off in ticket sales the first week with this plan. Like I said before...if you select the right movies, people will want to see it the first week because of their excitement, and then go back because of their love for the movies.

[Dave Giunta]

Kudos to Christopher grove. I TOTALLY agree. The answer isn't in trying to bring box office numbers up in week 4, it's in trying to flip the logic completely. Progressively growing audience, rather than quickly diminishing. This kind of model is actually perfect for independant film makers, particularly digital ones. As more and more theaters convert their screens to digital projection, I propose they also use the flexibiility of that screen to convert their typically slow nights/days into independant film screenings. And allow a film with less of a marketing budget to have their film be in theaters for a longer period of time. Then, independant films should use word of mouth marketing tactics to increase their audience over that period of time.

Thoughts?