Ripples of fear spread across Hollywood recently after Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, which cost Walt Disney Studios an estimated $400 million to make and market, did poor 3D business in North America. While event movies have typically done 60 per cent of their business in 3D, Stranger Tides sold just 47 per cent in 3D. “The American consumer is rejecting 3D,” Richard Greenfield, an analyst at the financial services company BTIG, wrote of the Stranger Tides results.
One movie does not make a trend, but the last weekend did not give studio chiefs much comfort in the 3D department. Kung Fu Panda 2, a Paramount Pictures release of a DreamWorks Animation film, sold $53.8 million in tickets from Thursday to Sunday last week, a soft total, and 3D was 45 per cent of the business, according to Paramount.
Consumer rebellion over high 3D ticket prices plays a role, and the novelty of putting on the funny glasses is wearing off, analysts say. But there is also a deeper problem: 3D has provided an enormous boost to the strongest films, including Avatar and Alice in Wonderland, but has actually undercut middling movies that are trying to milk the format for extra dollars.
“Audiences are very smart,” said Greg Foster, the president of Imax Filmed Entertainment. “When they smell something aspiring to be more than it is, they catch on very quickly.”
Muddying the picture is a contrast between the performance of 3D movies in North America and overseas. If results are troubling domestically, they are the exact opposite internationally, where the genre is a far newer phenomenon. Indeed, 3D screenings powered Stranger Tides to about $256 million on its first weekend abroad; Disney trumpeted the figure as the biggest international debut of all time.
With results like that at a time when movies make 70 per cent of their total box office income outside North America, do tastes at home even matter?
After a disappointing first half of the year, Hollywood is counting on a parade of 3D films to dig itself out of a hole. From May to September, the typical summer season, studios have and will unleash 16 movies in the format, more than double the number last year. Among the most anticipated releases are Transformers: Dark of the Moon, and Part 2 of Part 7 of the Harry Potter series from Warner Brothers.
The need is urgent. The box office performance in the US in the first six months of 2011 was soft — revenue fell about 9 per cent compared with last year, while attendance was down 10 per cent — and that comes amid decay in home-entertainment sales. In all formats, including paid streaming and DVDs, home entertainment revenue fell almost 10 per cent, according to the Digital Entertainment Group.
At the box office, animated films, which have recently been Hollywood’s most reliable genre, have fallen into a deep trough, as the category’s top three performers combined — Rio, from Fox; Rango, from Paramount; and Hop, from Universal — have had fewer ticket buyers than did Shrek the Third, from DreamWorks Animation, after its release four years ago.
Kung Fu Panda 2 appears poised to become the biggest animated hit of the year so far; but it would have to stretch well past its own predecessor to beat Shrek Forever After, which took in $238.7 million last year.
Last weekend, The Hangover: Part II sold $118 million, easily enough for No. 1. Kung Fu Panda 2 was second. Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides was third with $39.3 million for a new total of $152.9 million. Bridesmaids (Universal Pictures) was fourth with $16.4 million for a new total of about $85 million. Thor (Marvel Studios) rounded out the top five with $9.4 million for a new total of $160 million.
Studio chiefs acknowledge that the industry needs to sort out its 3D strategy. Despite the soft results for Kung Fu Panda 2, animated releases have continued to perform well in the format, overcoming early problems with glasses that didn’t fit little faces. But general-audience movies like Stranger Tides may be better off the old-fashioned way.
With a blockbuster-filled holiday weekend skewing heavily toward 2D, and 3D ticket sales dramatically underperforming relative to screen allocation, major studios will hopefully begin to rethink their 3D rollout plans for the rest of the year and 2012.