By Gavin Boyle
Even though families are the most lucrative audience for Hollywood, animated movies continue to flop as the price of the theater experience becomes too costly and studios continue to lose parents’ trust.
“The truth is, Pixar has had a difficult time launching original films lately, as sequels have been all the rage,” Jeff Bock, the senior box-office analyst at Exhibitor Relations, told Business Insider. “Expect many more roman numerals in the near future from Pixar, as nostalgia has never been more lucrative for studios.”
The studio’s most recent movie, ELIO, has been a complete failure, opening to $20.8 million domestically despite the movie having an entertaining story and family-friendly message. The failure of the movie, however, highlights a problem with the entertainment industry, rather than reflecting the quality of the movie itself.
To start, movie theaters are simply too expensive for families to visit on a regular basis. Even children’s tickets can cost $15 or more, which adds up quickly for a family with multiple kids. Rather than pay this cost, families would rather wait out the ever-shortening release to streaming window, where they can watch these movies at no extra cost.
“We would like to convince all the major studios that they should keep movies in theaters longer,” AMC CEO Adam Aron said, noting that the new industry trends are killing theaters. “What it coalesced around is that the old 74-day window became a 45-day window. And some movies have gone quicker, to 30 days or 17 days.”
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“In our view, 17 days or 30 days are too short, [and] this is a conversation that is front and center, live,” he added. He also noted that some studio executives want to reestablish the 45-day window.
Furthermore, waiting for movies to hit streaming also lets parents and kids to watch movies in a controlled environment, allowing for fidgeting, talking, bathroom breaks and more which can be mitigated with the pausing of the movie.
However, perhaps even more important is the fact that studios have lost the trust of parents by releasing a string of agenda-driven animated movies for years. Pixar, for example, released SOUL, TURNING RED, LIGHTYEAR and ELEMENTAL within the span of two and a half years, all of which include some problematic aspect in the forefront of the movie.
When a troubling themes appears while streaming, parents can simply turn off the movie, but that’s a lot harder to justify when in theaters because of the money and effort already spent.
For this reason, sequels, like last year’s INSIDE OUT 2, tend to be the most successful movies at the moment because parents already know they can trust these stories and they will be worth the cost of attending a theater. Unfortunately for strong original releases, the current environment does not allow them to thrive, killing a movie like ELIO before it even has a chance.
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