The success and overall appeal of Avatar can no longer be denied. Making over a billion dollars in the worldwide box office, it is on pace to be right underneath Titanic as the 2nd biggest movie in history. However, the success of Avatar can be attributed something that has nothing to do with the actual quality of the movie. Now, I am not saying the movie doesn’t deserve its money (I have yet to see it), but the timing and release date of the movie is the absolute number one reason why it’s making so much cash. There is no competition whatsoever at the box office.
2009 has been a fascinating year for the box office because the analysts have been wrong in almost every single week of the year. They did not expect the numbers of Blind Side, Hangover, Avatar, Up, Coraline, Inglorious Basterds, The Proposal, Fast and Furious, Taken, Paul Blart, Where the Wild Things Are, Couples Retreat, District 9, Paranormal Activity, Zombieland, Julie and Julia, He’s Just Not That into You, and other movies to be so ridiculously high. They have been wrong on so many accounts, one would wonder if it’s even worth paying them to be so incorrect so darn often. It has been a long time since the success of so many movies has depended mainly (and solely) on totally proper timing.
The fact of the matter is 2009 has been the Year of No Competition. A slew of movies contained genres that had no competition at time of release, allowing it to reach financial success nearly instantly. Movie studios have been whether praising the marketing and release team, or threatening to fire them all because nearly all the movies this year whether hit the extremely high end of their predictions, or hit the really low end.
Walt Disney Studios is the best example of a horrible marketing/release year. Princess and the Frog, easily the best Disney animated feature (Non-Pixar) since 2000, has been hitting underwhelming numbers, while having its arse handed to it by the miserably mediocre Alvin and the Chipmunks sequel. Now, why would that be? Could it be because it did not come out in the summer, when G-Force did? Could it because it didn’t come out in Thanksgiving time, instead giving it to Christmas Carol? Could it because it wound up in the middle of many, many G/PG flicks released around the same timeframe? Princess and the Frog could not have a heavy debut; it just wasn’t going to happen (also blame of the marketing team). What they should have done was switch release dates with G-Force, and allowed for word-of-mouth to spread. Word-of-mouth has helped dozens of movies this year, and this could have been one of them. Instead, its fighting for the 100 million milestone, and can only reach it if it somehow nabs a Best Picture nomination—which is more likely to happen to another movie we are about to discuss.
The ONLY thing Disney did right in the film department this year was Up. Up’s success was not just because of the heavy press concerning the now-infamous opening 10 minutes, but because of lack of competition. With no Dreamworks craptacular sequel coming out in the summer, Up was virtually by itself in the animation/family department until Ice Age 3 took over. By then, Up had amassed nearly 300 million dollars in the United States alone. The other movie that came out next to Up with no competition that also nearly hit 300 million was The Hangover. Why was its success surprising? There was practically not a single hard-R comedy in the entire summer to compete against it until July. One would wonder that after the crazy summer of 2005 (Wedding Crashers, 40-Year-Old Virgin making millions on low budgets) why we don’t have many R-rated comedies in the summer field. Nowadays, it’s the Frat Packs taking over, and ONLY them.
Now let’s discuss another good movie that missed the correct release date, leading to minimal success. The Hurt Locker is a small indie film about warfare that’s gotten nothing but the utmost praise. So why only 12 million while Tarantino’s flick nailed over 100 million? Because The Hurt Locker was released right with Transformers 2. Someone should have been fired over that move. The Hurt Locker should have come out in July, around Independence Day or in August, when the deeper summer flicks are released. The August month has always been kind to war movies (Saving Private Ryan is the defining example of this--and Inglorious Basterds can follow this example). So why pitch a potential Best Picture nominee against the biggest movie of the summer? Why that date? Idiots.
The examples continue flying: Zombieland took over the indie-zombie crowd (which had not been touched in years), The Blind Side took over the sports drama people (which had not received any movies in a while), District 9 and Star Trek took over the sci-fi crowd (which has never gotten the respect it deserves since Matrix Revolutions), Taken took over the action/suspense crowd (which receives nothing in the early months), Julie and Julia took on the lighthearted cooking crowd (which never gets ANYTHING, even with the financial powerhouse success of No Reservations and Ratatouille back in summer of 2007), The Proposal took over the adult comedy crowd (which was a clear path once Funny People ruined its opportunity), and even Where the Wild Things Are took over the young-at-heart audience.
All the movies mentioned above come from genres that for some odd reason in 2009 was just lacking. And now we have Avatar, the only PG-13 powerhouse in the entire wintertime, making all the money that could have been shared with other movies if they had nailed a release date even close to Avatars. Moviegoers were willing to spend in 2009, but movie studios just did not realize just how little there was to compete against, leading to small flicks making big, and bigger flicks making bigger. Can you honestly believe that Avatar would have made that much money if it had come out in the summer with many other highly-acclaimed movies? Of course not. People are watching, and with Twitter and Facebook revolutionizing the word-of-mouth trend, more movies are slowly but surely cranking out phenomenal numbers and reaching record-breaking milestones. The Hangover, The Blind Side, The Proposal, Avatar, Fast and Furious, and Pall Blart all broke at least one box office record concerning its release date and genre.
Bottom Line: 2009 is the ultimate example on how to make millions extra releasing your movie at the right time. Right place at the right time is the recurring theme here, as even Fast and Furious was able to reach over 140 million at the box office in April for crying out loud. Coraline with little marketing made nearly 90 million. So this whole notion of the movie industry losing money can no longer be applied. People still go to the movies; it’s just that very few movie studios (and few analysts) can actually figure out what it is they want to see. Disney should take notes from Fox, because Fox has been able to defeat all three winter Disney flicks with minimal effort. Everyone else should pay attention to what’s going on, because at the rate Avatar is going, it’s going to become the next Titanic.
The next Titanic can occur, and much more often; you just have to be smart about it.
Pay attention. Avatar is making 1.2 billion while you read this.
[All box office information was recieved in boxofficemojo.com]
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