Wall Street analyst Doug Cruetz of the Cowen Group says Hollywood studios are in the business of building franchises or relying on well known IP, but cautions they may want to re-evaluate their programming choices when rummaging through the vault.
“I’ve talked to people at these companies, and they all seem to think the problem is they are putting out bad movies, as opposed to the consumers are demanding change," he says. "I think they are in denial about what’s going. I don’t know what they can do other than shut down a studio or two."
Cruetz continues: “Just days after Lights Out or a Secret Life of Pets opens, a sequel is announced. They greenlight these movies without a script and say we need this movie in two or three years. It’s bad for the creative process. I don’t know that they have any other good options. In the old days, studios would have bad times and go bankrupt. Now they are owned by big conglomerates. They can lose money as far as they eye can see, but they are not going to go away."
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"It’s tough out there," says Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan Horn. "I don’t think the competition for people’s time and attention has ever been more intense, and, simultaneously, as an industry we have a lot of films looking for a slice of the pie over the course of the summer. So whether it’s a franchise film or a brand-new concept, it is absolutely essential that we create compelling content that gets people to stop everything else they’re doing and go to the theater."
He continues: "It’s no secret that we at Disney have embraced a tentpole strategy. In light of the competition I refer to above, it does feel as if tentpoles represent a relatively more compelling value. We have a unique structure at this company which enables us to generate more of these kinds of movies than other studios."
Disney's winning streak isn't just about the summer. To date, the studio claims the top-four grossing films of the year. In addition to Civil War and Finding Dory, there's Zootopia and The Jungle Book.
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"This summer there have simply been too many sequels, reboots, remakes and even re-quels that have failed to measure up to audience expectations," says box-office analyst Paul Dergarabedian. "This has created a negative perception of what Hollywood has to offer, and despite solid overall revenues and what will likely be the second-biggest summer on record, a long-term trend like this could erode goodwill and consumer enthusiasm over time."
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Warner Bros.' summer, which saw definite improvement over summer 2015, has been the master of horror and comedy.
Attention was focused on its tentpoles. Suicide Squad has grossed $636 million to date worldwide, making it the No. 5 title of the summer, and The Legend of Tarzan did better than expected ($352.7 million).
I'm too scared to read Dory's Int'l BO thread at BOT, and Civil War will finally cross
