A summer for everyone
Across TV and movies, in theaters and streaming, Hollywood catered to a wide variety of demos and fandoms this summer.
The Gist
This summer at the movies and on streaming catered to a wide array of demos, including those typically underrepresented.
Sequels dominated in theaters, as opposed to last summer, but their respective franchises haven’t overstayed their welcome.
But of course, not everything worked.
A little over a year after a female-driven audience (65%) drove “Barbie” to a $162 million opening weekend, women are propping up another summer release in theaters in a major way.
Sony’s “It Ends With Us,” a new romantic drama starring Blake Lively, is on track to earn $50 million this weekend, according to Comscore. Through Friday, 84% of the audience was female.
That debut far surpasses the average opening for a romantic drama, which is $8 million across 69 films, according to industry analyst David A. Gross. It’s largely thanks to the popularity of the book of the same name, similar to “Fifty Shades of Grey,” which made $85 million in its first weekend back in 2015.
The movie is the latest title in a summer that catered to a wide array of demographics and fandoms, across TV and movies in theaters and on streaming. Theaters particularly benefited from this balance; prior to “Inside Out 2’s” release in mid-June, summer business was looking rather bleak, exemplifying the industry’s mantra for the year to “survive til ‘25.” But since the Pixar hit, the US summer box office has been cruising; while total ticket sales for the year were still down 17% coming into this weekend compared to this time last year, that’s an improvement from a 26% deficit prior to “Inside Out 2,” according to Mike Polydoros, CEO of theater marketing company Paper Airplane, who sends out a weekly email summarizing the box office.
Further, “It Ends With Us” is the latest movie to attract an audience that is typically underserved; despite “Barbie’s” dominance, just 30% of the top 100 films at the box office last year featured a female lead or co-lead, down from 44% in 2022.
The summer isn’t just winding down with a female-oriented release, but kicked off with one, too, albeit on the small screen. Netflix’s “Bridgerton” has consistently been driven by a vast-majority female audience, and this year’s third season was no exception. When the second half of the season was released in mid-June (the first half dropped in May), 77% of the first-weekend audience were women, according to Nielsen.
An aside: Amazon’s “The Boys” season four — which Amazon has said is seeing a 20% boost in viewership globally compared to season three — dropped soon after, with a 67% male audience. Nielsen called it “a distinct example of counterprogramming in streaming.” (“Deadpool and Wolverine,” which just crossed $1 billion globally, had an opening audience of 63% men, so the superhero fatigue hasn’t quite set in. But these two titles are very similar as “irreverent,” R-rated takes on the genre, as well.)
Latinos have been driving big business this summer at the movies, despite also being underrepresented in film. According to a recent McKinsey and Company report, Latinos in the US see movies 3.3 times per year on average, compared to 2.3 times for white Americans. That’s been especially apparent this summer: 26% of the opening weekend audience for “Bad Boys For Life” was Latino and Hispanic (44% was Black); 41% for “Despicable Me 4”; and 32% for “Deadpool and Wolverine.” Yet, Latinos account for 4% of lead or co-lead roles in Hollywood-produced movies, according to the report.
This summer is bringing families back to the movies, too. Last summer was lacking in family-friendly animated films; Pixar’s “Elemental” was a minor success, but it took a while. DreamWorks’ “Ruby Gillman” was a flop. Now we have “Inside Out 2” and “Despicable Me 4.” The biggest age demo for the former’s opening weekend was under 12 at 23%. For the latter, 53% of the audience were moms.
Older audiences were served well this summer, too, although with varying results. Kevin Costner’s Western film “Horizon” bombed at the box office so hard that Warner Bros. took its sequel, which was supposed to come out this month, off the calendar. It cost over $100 million to produce but earned just $29 million in the US, with over 60% of its opening-weekend audience over the age of 45, including 47% over 55. Catering almost exclusively to older demographics doesn’t make for a hit in today’s theatrical marketplace.
The other side of that coin, though, is “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F,” another movie starring a 60-plus year old actor in Eddie Murphy, but released on Netflix. Half of the movie’s viewers in its first weekend in the US were over 50 years old, according to Nielsen. But it’s also been a hit, generating 41 million views globally over its first weekend on the streamer, according to Netflix, and another 22 million views in its first full week.
And then there’s “Twisters,” which has made over $200 million in the US and has over-indexed in southern and mid-western markets that typically don’t drive robust ticket sales. Its top-grossing theater during its opening weekend was in Moore, Oklahoma.
So yes, there seemed to be a little something for everyone this summer on both the small and big screens, not just demographically but across fandoms and genres, as well. Horror, which has struggled this year, saw a surprise hit with “Longlegs,” which has made over $70 million in the US off of a $10 million budget. HBO’s fantasy hit “House of the Dragon” topped Nielsen’s weekly streaming chart for the first time this week (read more of my take on HBO’s dive into IP TV).
Of course, not everything worked this summer. May at the movies was a slog, with the “The Fall Guy” and “Furiosa” flopping. Even “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” which started off well, failed to crack $400 million globally, the lowest total of the modern Apes prequels (though it still probably performed better than most expected it to).
Then there’s this weekend’s theatrical misfire, “Borderlands,” based on the video-game franchise, which is making $8 million over the three days. Game-inspired TV has been on a hot streak lately with HBO’s “The Last of Us” and Amazon’s “Fallout.” But “Borderlands” speaks to a history of game-to-film adaptations crashing and burning, last year’s “Super Mario Bros.” notwithstanding.
There was a lot that went wrong with this movie; reports indicate that reshoots took so long to complete around the cast’s schedule that director Eli Roth bailed to make his horror film “Thanksgiving,” with “Deadpool” director Tim Miller coming in to finish them. Personally, I barely saw any marketing for the movie and it didn’t seem like something the studio Lionsgate had a lot of faith in. But there’s also a larger point that can be argued: game adaptations, for the most part, work better on the small screen, and that’s where a lot of the audience already is.
As for streaming: This summer’s Star Wars Disney+ series “The Acolyte” failed to generate much enthusiasm, at least for a Star Wars property. I’ve already written at length about the issues facing this franchise, so I won’t belabor the point. But something’s gotta give.
And Zack Snyder’s director’s cuts of his “Rebel Moon” movies landed on Netflix last week, with barely a peep. As I wrote in my previous piece, they never cracked the streamer’s daily top 10 movie lists in the US, and then failed to land on the weekly global list. This was after the original versions had already disappointed in viewership. Snyder is officially a niche director, with only a loyal fanbase to rely on. That doesn’t make for a hit maker for Netflix.
“Rebel Moon,” a “mature” Star Wars rip off, and “The Acolyte” reflect two different approaches to franchise storytelling. The former was meant to launch a new franchise for Netflix, which is constantly looking for a new universe it can expand given its lack of an IP library of its own. The company bet big on Snyder, both with “Rebel Moon” and his “Army of the Dead” zombie movie. Yet, Netflix has quietly canceled planned “Army of the Dead” spinoffs and follow ups, according to The Wrap, which doesn’t bode well for the future of the “Rebel Moon” franchise.
“The Acolyte,” on the other hand, represents the latest in many recent extensions of the Star Wars brand, to largely diminishing returns. As I wrote in June, Disney has turned one of the biggest movie franchises of all time into a TV franchise; Netflix may have failed at making their own version of Star Wars movies, but at least they were movies.
As with any summer, this one provides a lot of lessons for Hollywood.
It’s clear that fostering brands, or even stars, that excite young people is key to a healthy box office. Minions still have the juice with Gen Z. The Ryan Reynolds-Blake Lively talent universe goes a long way when attached to the right IP. But smart marketing still plays a big role: “Longlegs” drove majority day-of, or walk-up, business and an audience that was 77% 18-34; a lot of that probably has to do with the marketing campaign that piqued curiosity and word-of-mouth, and deftly teased Nic Cage’s serial killer character.
Last summer delivered a bunch of disappointing sequels in long-running franchises that audiences had tired of, from Fast and Furious to Transformers. This summer has also been sequel heavy, but the sequels — like “Inside Out 2” and “Deadpool and Wolverine” — were the second or third in a series as opposed to the tenth, seventh, or fifth, and still had a lot of audience goodwill.
We’ll see what side “Alien: Romulus,” the last “big” release of the summer, ends up on next weekend. See you then.
Beyond the Traverse
🎟️ Warner Bros. launched a virtual box office in Roblox to sell movie tickets to “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice”
I previously wrote about how Hollywood and the game industry will increasingly converge
💰 Disney is betting that to make money in streaming all you have to do is keep raising prices
🎮 Warner Bros. Discovery might try selling a stake in its video-game business, which accounted for the biggest game of 2023 (“Hogwarts Legacy”) and this year’s biggest flop (“Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League”)
🎬 This Atlantic profile of M. Night Shyamalan, timed to his latest movie “Trap,” is a must-read
Small correction:
It's Nick Cage, not Nic Cage.