10 Reasons Why 2016's Blockbusters Are Failing
3. They’re Making Films No One Wants To See
Where do you begin here? Some of the films that have been greenlit with significant budgets recently are utterly baffling, and this year is no exception.
The Divergent series of books was adapted for cinema in 2014 by Lionsgate, who’d previously scored such a hit with The Hunger Games, a rival young adult science fiction series. However, Divergent didn’t make half the money that the Jennifer Lawrence vehicle did, and sequel Insurgent only slightly improved on the money.
Nevertheless, copying the tactic they’d tried with The Hunger Games’ final cinematic instalment, Lionsgate greenlit the final book being split into two films for maximum profit… and then this year the third film, Allegiant, stiffed. At this stage, it seems as though the fourth film may not even be finished.
Snow White And The Huntsman didn’t make gargantuan box office, but a sequel starring Tho-I mean, the Huntsman, was greenlit anyway. It limped to $164million, half the take of the first film. Why make a sequel to a mediocre Snow White adaptation... with no Snow White? Who knows.
No one was desperate for a sequel to Independence Day without Will Smith… and probably not even with him, if we’re honest. No one except Disney has made money out of Tarzan in decades, so why $180million was allocated to a live action version in 2016 beggars belief.
The idea of a hard reboot was the least desirable possible outcome for a new Ghostbusters film... but they went ahead and did it anyway. Initial reactions to the all-female cast were incredibly negative, and the trailer was the most hated in recent memory, which could easily have occasioned a script edit and reshoots… but they went ahead with what they had instead. Critics have been kind, audiences far less so, and the whole idea of a reborn Ghostbusters franchise is looking like a dead issue.
No one wanted a new Ben-Hur film, and no one’s been to see it. A fifth Ice Age movie was almost certainly scraping the bottom of the barrel. The new Star Trek movies aren’t exactly setting the box office alight, but another one was made anyway: Star Trek Beyond will be lucky to make back its production budget, and the huge marketing costs for the film will be a write-off.
It’s looking more and more like the major Hollywood studios simply don’t know what films will make money or why, and are throwing money at anyone who doesn’t sweat when they pitch.