Monday, July 30, 2007

Hollywood Box Office Trends

I can't really understand why Hollywood isn't more concerned at the alarming rate at which movie life-spans are shrinking. Seems if you don't catch a movie the first week or two it comes out, you can't see it on the big screen at all. I've been meaning to see Spider-Man 3 but it hasn't been playing at a decent outlet in weeks even though it only came out in May. Even a movie like Transformers or Die Hard 4 is hard to find now.

I understand the argument that Hollywood now makes more money on DVD sales than theatrical release, but all things being equal, wouldn't the studios want to extend the time and amount of money they make from each channel of distribution? Whatever happened to a movie with "legs"?

The hard part is that I think the opening weekend numbers have become a signaling device that audiences assume correlates to how good a movie is. Anyone who has tried to sit through Miami Vice will attest that this method doesn't always work.

Comments:
Who controls how long a movie gets played at the theater? Is it the movie studio or the theater operators? If it's the theater operators it makes sense that they're always going to want the hot movie to keep their seats filled and they'll push the "old" movies out.
 
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