Top Film Industry Stories of 2015:
#5 Can a Blockbuster Be Disappointing?
By David Mumpower
January 20, 2016
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Entering 2015, The Avengers: Age of Ultron stood out as the most anticipated film of the year or, at worst, 1A to Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 appeared poised to cement the film franchise as one of the most successful ever. Sure, each title had its detractors, but virtually everyone on the outside looking in at both titles believed that they would dominate the box office. And they kind of did. The problem is that they mostly didn’t. That’s what leads us to this unexpected discussion regarding how two of the top releases of 2015 somehow failed while succeeding.
The Avengers is quite possibly the perfect movie project of the 2000s. BOP named it the second biggest Film Industry Story of 2012. At the time, I noted with admiration how Marvel Studios had built from the ground up. At the start of 2008, nobody cared about Iron Man, a comic book character long perceived as a knock-off of Batman, which he totally was. Fast forward to today and an argument can be made that Iron Man is every bit as popular as his cape-clad DC Comics compatriot and an equal box office draw. He is the unquestioned lead of the superhero team I described in 2012 as the stars of “the seminal movie of our generation.”
In the years that followed the release of The Avengers, every comic book character involved received a post-blockbuster bump from the project. Thor: The Dark World and Captain America: The Winter Soldier both improved their opening weekends by more than 30% while boosting their combined global earnings by over half a billion.
Iron Man 3 especially benefited from the prevailing goodwill from The Avengers. It achieved several box office feats, starting with a stunning $174.1 million opening weekend. It then joined the exclusive $400 million domestic box office club followed by the (then) even more exclusive $1.2 billion box office club, something only half a dozen features had done to that point.
Clearly, the popularity of The Avengers operated as the rising tide that lifted all boats. Given the tremendous box office expansion across the various Marvel brands, it was reasonable to expect that the best was yet to come. After all, the follow-up film featuring the entire roster plus a couple of important new additions should tear up the box office.
The logic was similar for the final Hunger Games movie. We’d lauded the original franchise adaptation as one of the other biggest Film Industry Stories of 2012 (it was a big year). We similarly lauded The Hunger Games: Catching Fire the following year. This franchise started out bigger than Twilight and was already surpassing Harry Potter’s best domestic numbers after two films.
Lionsgate chose to do what Lionsgate does. They split a trilogy of books into four movies. Whether you love or hate this tactic, the results were emphatic with the vampire flicks. The final franchise flick, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part Two, became the highest grossing title of the series, earning approximately $830 million worldwide. The path was clear for The Hunger Games. In order to maximize box office, the distributor would split the final novel, Mockingjay, into two films. And that’s where Lionsgate ran into problems.
Consumers have grown smarter about cynical money grabs during the social media era. Films that once did extremely well domestically even when they were questionable in terms of quality have begun to struggle. Once word gets out that a feature is a disappointment, audiences sour on watching in the theater. After all, they can watch something better if they stay at home and watch Netflix. Studios are now competing with their own back catalog of digital content.
This emerging customer behavior has dangerous ramifications for movie distributors. Consider the case of The Avengers. The first series of Marvel titles introduced new characters into the universe, eventually building to that seminal moment when the entire group came together to save the universe from invading aliens. That’s as epic in scope as the realm of storytelling allows.
The second Avengers title has…a killer robot. Now, I’m not denigrating that as a concept. After all, it worked great for Terminator (or at least it did prior to 2015’s Terminator: Genisys). I’m simply pointing out that no matter how wonderful James Spader is in voicing the role of Ultron, the story isn’t new and original enough to stand out in the wake of the original film. That one had stature and scale. This one has twisted humor and – if we’re being honest with ourselves – more of the same in terms of drama and action.
From an early point, audiences sensed that Age of Ultron lacked the originality of its predecessor. While they warmly received the film with an opening weekend of $191.3 million, that tally fell short of the first title despite three years of box office inflation. Eventually, the sequel managed $459 million in North America, the seventh largest box office total ever at the time.
The problem is that two later 2015 releases, Jurassic World and Star Wars: The Force Awakens, bested that total and quite handily at that. Age of Ultron didn’t just falter in matching those other sequels. It fell almost $200 million short of the mark. That’s a staggering difference considering how hot the franchise was just a couple of years ago.
In fact, the second Avengers movie only beat Iron Man 3 by $50 million. And in terms of global box office, the situation is similar. Dinosaurs and The Force also proved more popular worldwide. Age of Ultron fell $115 million short of its predecessor and only $190 million ahead of Iron Man 3, meaning that the franchise stopped expanding.
No sane person will ever argue that $1.5 billion in box office is a disappointment on a general financial scale. In terms of opportunity cost, an argument could be made that a better movie more effectively capitalizes on the luster of the Marvel brand. No matter where you stand on that subject, it’s undeniable that Age of Ultron had its thunder stolen by the Jurassic Park and Star Wars franchises. Now, they’ll have to re-build as they plot the path to Infinity War. Fortunately, those titles will stand out as grander in scale than a battle with a sentient robot.
The news is either worse or better for The Hunger Games, depending on your perspective. Since this is ostensibly the end of the series, a disappointing film doesn’t hurt the bottom line. Rather than cop out and tie everything up in a nice little bow a la Twilight (Team Edward? Team Jacob? Why choose? Bella Swan can always breed more!), Lionsgate honored the grim vision of the Suzanne Collins by sending the viewing audience home in tears.
Those of us who’d read the books knew that the sadness was coming, at least if they were faithful in the adaptation. People who’d only watched the movies had no idea what was coming next. The moment the story reached its heart-wrenching climax in a crowd of children, its fate seemed sealed. Word-of-mouth on Mockingjay - Part 2 was never going to be good, but the horrors of the third act are impossible to market. Perhaps Lionsgate accepted this in advance, which explains why the marketing campaign was relatively understated for a tentpole blockbuster.
Stating the obvious, The Hunger Games went out with a proverbial whimper rather than a bang. Mockingjay Part 2 became the first film in the franchise to earn less than $300 million domestically, which says more about the shocking appeal of the first couple of films in the series than it does about the shortcomings of the Mockingjay twin productions.
The final Hunger Games film also became the lowest global earner with approximately $650 million. That aspect does speak to the struggles of the final project since the international marketplaces have expanded dramatically over the past three years. No 2015 film should do worse abroad than its 2012 predecessor, especially not if it’s the conclusion of a four-film saga. People should experience an emotional investment in the resolution of the story. The fact that they didn’t for Mockingjay Part 2 suggests that Lionsgate lost a sizable portion of their original audience at some point along the way.
From a financial perspective, the two Mockingjay films grossed $1.35 billion worldwide. A single film wouldn’t have managed such a dazzling take. That’s why the news is better if you have a vested interest in the financials of Lionsgate. Their shameless money grab worked, at least in terms of short term income.
A larger question exists, though. Rumors abound that prequels to The Hunger Games will begin at some point during the next few years. The scope of the plan would be akin to Star Wars with prequels to establish the dystopian world of Panem followed by later films that would blend well with the natural aging process of stars Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson. If this is the long term goal – and the impending construction of Hunger Games theme parks suggests that the franchise is here to stay – the dissatisfying conclusion of Mockingjay - Part 2 damages the brand. By remaining faithful to the depressing book, Lionsgate has negated much of the goodwill they built with The Hunger Games and Catching Fire. So, they won financially in the short term but it could prove to be a pyrrhic victory over the life of the franchise.
Nobody would argue that The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 or The Avengers: Age of Ultron failed at the box office. Both of them earned their spots among the mightiest blockbusters in the most lucrative year ever for domestic revenue. What they did do, however, was fail to match the popularity and momentum of their predecessors, thereby derailing the franchises in the short term. We’ve reached an odd box office era where films with combined global earnings of $2 billion can still qualify as financial letdowns with far-reaching ramifications.