The Template for a Moderate Blockbuster is Pretty Common Sense

On Bluesky, former Forbes film industry expert Scott Mendelson announced he was doing a Substack thing and so I followed it.  One of the first articles is about the success of the Hunger Games prequel:  The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, which was pretty successful without the eye-popping numbers of Avengers Endgame or Avatar The Way of Water.  And the template seems kinda common sense.  It's really something studios--even Disney--should follow more closely.

1. Don’t spend like it’s a sequel to an already successful picture. 

The budget for this movie was only about $100M or half that of The Marvels.  Or maybe a third of Endgame or Avatar 2.

As an accountant I can verify this common sense wisdom:  fewer costs means greater profit.  The less you spend making the movie, the more you can make in profit.  Within reason.  I mean there are a lot of movies on the Rifftrax site that probably cost less than $5000--and look it.  You still want to have decent actors and effects, but don't spend so much that you're not likely to make it back.  Like they say about gambling:  bet only what you can afford to lose.  And making a movie is a bet.

2. Don’t promote your new movie by promising a new franchise. 

I mean, right?  How many times have studios been burned on this?  I get they want to make a splash at ComiCon or wherever by announcing some big "cinematic universe" or whatnot, but it's really putting the cart before the horse as the saying goes.  Then it's a little embarrassing for the studio when they promise a bunch of spinoffs, sequels, and TV series and the whole thing has to get scrapped because the first movie flops like The Mummy or maybe the second movie underperforms like Justice League or Divergent 2--whatever it was called.  Or in the case of Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible series they're back pedaling on calling the next movie "Dead Reckoning Part 2" because "Part 1" didn't do so well.

I suppose the theory was that announcing a bunch of stuff would generate buzz on social media and make people worry about FOMO if they miss the first one.  But The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes took a more measured approach and people watched it anyway.

At this point, with so many franchises and attempted "cinematic universes" and sequels, spinoffs, revivals, and reboots on film and television maybe it's at the point where announcing another one just makes people go "Ugh" instead of "Yippee!"  I mean people only have so much time available to invest and so if they think they might have to invest a bunch more time in something they might balk, whereas if you don't announce a bunch of stuff they might be more willing to watch it because they won't have to invest more time later.

And, more depressingly, with "inflation" and such a lot of people just might not have the money to see 10 different movies of a "cinematic universe" and sign up for a streaming service for 5 new TV series.  And they really don't have the money to support 20 different "cinematic universes."  Another reason that announcing a bunch of stuff might not get people as stoked as execs are hoping for anymore.

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With "the MCU" seeming vulnerable, Star Wars still trying to recover from setbacks, and its animated movies not really connecting with audiences, it seems like Disney should adopt these rules.  Don't spend $200-$300M on the picture and cool all the grandiose announcements of sequels and spinoffs until you actually have a success.

If you think about it, that's kinda how those properties started out.  I mean when Iron Man came out they weren't paying Robert Downey Jr $20M; he was a bargain signing because of his past issues.  Director John Favreau had done a few movies but pretty much a bargain signing too.  And while they had Incredible Hulk already coming out I don't think they had announced a 5-year slate of movies yet.  Like I said in the previous entry, they didn't have another MCU movie until 2010 and then two more in 2011 not like the 3-4 they've been doing except in 2020.  And obviously they didn't have any series going back then; Agents of SHIELD didn't come along until 2013 and that was only tangentially connected--the same for Daredevil in 2015 and Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and Punisher after that.

And the initial success of Star Wars was the same way.  Lucas made the first movie on a shoestring budget with mostly nobodies except a couple of old British guys.  No one at Fox was announcing a trilogy with spinoff TV shows.  They didn't even have action figures made until the year after the movie came out!

Besides Disney, other companies like DC and Paramount with Star Trek, Transformers, Ninja Turtles, etc should really follow those rules too.  Don't spend a ton of money on a bad project.  Don't announce a ton of stuff you'll have to back pedal from.  Do one good project that's cost-effective and if it's successful then worry about doing more.

It's easy for success to breed overconfidence though.  And when someone else is successful it's easy for you to think you can do the same thing.  But life--and movies--are mostly a crapshoot, especially in uncertain times.

On Friday I'm kinda sorta trying to bring Blogfests back!