This is from a very small sample size, but I still find it interesting.
I heard multiple people tell me that they are not going to go see Mandalorian and Grogu, because they have Disney+ and they can see the series whenever they want. Why would they pay like 20 euros to go and see the same thing in a theater? Not only that, but one friend told me that it was just so much easier to watch the series with the kids and wait for the movie to come to the service, than try to get everyone’s schedules to work with the theater. He has three kids and a wife. That would be like 80 euros just for admission. Add to that concessions… It adds up.
At the same time, you can go and see backrooms stuff for free on YouTube. Yet, so many people (actually roughly as many as with Mandalorian and Grogu) were willing to pay to see it in a theater. Sure, it’s different. There’s a more cohesive story and you have two Oscar-nominated actors as the leads. Not that they mentioned that in any of the marketing I saw, but good actors do bring value just through their performances, even in a cheap(ish) horror movie.
The two movies had a very similar opening weekend with about $80 million each. Considering that the reported budget for Mandalorian and Grogu was about $160 million versus less than $10 million for Backrooms, guess which one is doing better financially? Of course, it’s not that straightforward. Star Wars and Disney in general are very good at making money off of toys and other tie-ins, while that is not going to be easy to do with Backrooms. Still, the return on investment is very different at this point.
This is fascinating. After all, Star Wars took a pause in the theaters for about seven years, but still couldn’t get very much in the way of interest. At the same time, Backrooms wasn’t something I knew about previously and from what I’ve heard, it’s not widely known. Although, it did turn out that I had seen the original short from way back when, when 366 Weird Movies promoted it as their Saturday Short.
Of course, studios are now scouring YouTube for creators. Weird that Bo Burnham and Talk to Me and probably others I can’t think of right now didn’t cause that already. And they kind of have a point, but at the same time, you can’t just look at the easiest to identify aspects and hope those are behind the success, when there are deeper reasons. Like, maybe people just want to see something original… Maybe…
Like Obsession. It was reportedly made for about $750k. That’s basically nothing in the world movies. Yet, it has made $134 million in the US alone. It has been an actual phenomenon in the box office. It will likely surpass Mandalorian and Grogu this weekend.
Why did that movie pop off in that way? It’s an indication of something, but I don’t think anyone quite knows what. Sinners from a little over a year ago was similar in this way. We are seeing something happening. After 20 years of studios doing superhero movies, it is definitely time.