The end of 2019 brings some grim news for Hollywood bean counters.
The year’s box office tally came in roughly 4 percent lower than 2018. That’s the “sharpest decline in 5 years,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
With Dec. 31 fast approaching, industry leader Comscore projected Sunday that box office revenue in North America will hit $11.45 billion for the full year, a decline of 3.6 percent from 2018’s record bounty of $11.88 billion.
Will 2020 offer a Hollywood-style comeback? We won’t know for another 12 months, but the early signs are ominous.
Consider 2019 featured not one but two films capping epic franchises. Avengers: Endgame certainly delivered on its promise, both creatively and commercially. The film, tying up loose ends from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), became the highest grossing movie of all time.
It also pleased most fans and critics, a massive win given our fractured age.
Compare that to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. The just-released film put an exclamation point on a nine-film series that captivated the culture for 42 years.
That kind of film event doesn’t happen every day. It’s a safe bet Rise of Skywalker, which generated mediocre reviews, will top $1 billion at the global box office. The movie’s opening weekend earned roughly $44 million less than the debut frame for 2017’s The Last Jedi.
For a Star Wars project it’s still a disappointment.
That’s the kind of “disappointment” any studio wants, of course. Still, 2020 lacks a film with anything approaching that level of pop culture gravitas. In fact, the 2020 lineup generates huge question marks and precious few sure things.
The numbers could get ugly before next Christmas rolls around.
The presidential race will heat up early in 2020 and only get hotter from there. We’ll see the vast majority of stars do everything possible to remove President Donald Trump from the White House.
Expect every third celebrity interview to morph into a Democrat campaign ad, for starters. Add new celebrity PSAs, star-studded campaign stops and social media sloganeering designed to mock Trump voters.
Little of it will be calm, cool or collected.
If stars dubbed President Trump “Hitler” during his first term, imagine what adjectives they’ll hurl in the heat of campaign season?
Think that will help or hurt the box office? That’s rhetorical.
President Trump will seize on these attacks, playing up his blue-collar appeal against the Hollywood “elite.” A 2018 poll about political stars backs up his approach.
Red state dwellers are increasingly tuning out stars who get political. Mainstream fare, think Black Widow or Fast & Furious 9, won’t be affected by an increasingly political industry.
Films on the pop culture bubble, the kind that need an extra nudge for box office success, won’t be as lucky.
[Adapted and cross-posted from Hollywood in Toto.]
