The LA Times Worries For Week Two Box Office

Steven Zeitchik has an impressively overwrought piece on the very large falls in the second week box offices of Godzilla 33, Spider-Man 5, and X-Men 7. Mr. Zeitchik worries that the big falls in week 2 for these movies might represent a problematic trend in movie-going and may even represent a problem with American culture (really). He says:

But the fact that it’s happening so consistently suggests there’s a larger cultural force at work, a get-them-in-at-any-cost mentality that is coming home to roost not long after. It is a mind-set that acknowledges, and plays off, an attention-deficit-disorder culture.

The very simple response: it is three movies! That isn't "happening so consistently" - it is happening three times. Trying to divine some broader trend from three movies, and, worse, trying to spin it into some cultural critique is ridiculous.

Worse still, Mr. Zeitchik undermines his very own argument by pointing out that this hasn't happened to big tentpole films as far away as...last year. But he need not have gone back even that far.

Per Box Office Mojo, in April of this year Captain America fell in its second week less than the 60% threshold that seems to frighten Mr. Zeitchik. As did Divergent (March), Neighbors (May), the 300 sequel (March), Mr. Peabody & Sherman (March), Rio 2 (April), and Ride Along (January). Of the 12 films released in 2014 that have passed $100 million as of today, four of them had second week drop-offs in excess of 60% (Noah, along with the three mentioned in the article). Even the shitty Robocop and Jack Ryan reboots dropped less than 60% in their second weeks.

In short, there just isn't sufficient evidence to support Mr. Zeitchik's thesis. Three movies in the span of a month does not make a trend, at least not where all the other evidence during this year has been contrary to that thesis. And even if we were inclined to identify a trend, it would be better to look at similarities between the outliers, rather than trying to turn the outliers into the mainline trend.

All three of the examples cited in the article are venerable franchise films (one a clean reboot, the other two direct sequels). It stands to reason that fans of each popular franchise will rush to the theater in week 1 to catch up on their favorites, while the fact that they are sequels (or a reboot of a franchise with very mixed quality) means that there isn't a lot of room to build new audiences.

As I suggested in my short review of the X-Men film, it was basically made as a "for fans only" film - people with no understanding of the X-Men backstory would be completely lost, while those that haven't caught every film will just be somewhat lost. It just isn't a film designed to build a larger audience.

If there's a problem afoot with these summer franchise films, it isn't that there is an "attention-deficit-disorder culture," it is that Hollywood is spending bigger and bigger budgets to try and recapture the same audience again and again without investing in material likely to build new audiences. If we're going to find something for Hollywood to be concerned about based on these three movies, that seems like the thing at which we should point.