Longtime lurker and occasional poster at BOM. But recently I've started lurking here because this place is so much more active. My first post here is going to be quite a long one.

In the analysis below, I use BOM's all time inflation-adjusted numbers. One could do the same with the non inflation-adjusted numbers, but you'd have to go much deeper down the list to find examples from decades past.

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In spite of the declining ticket sales of the last few years, there is one
movie genre that's been enormously successful: sequels. Just look at the
list of top-grossing sequels of all time:

1) The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
2) Return of the Jedi (1983)
3) The Phantom Menace (1999)
4) Thunderball (1965)
5) Shrek 2 (2004)
6) Goldfinger (1964)
7) Return of the King (2003)
8) Spider-man 2 (2004)
9) The Two Towers (2002)
10) Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)

I can't imagine there's much doubt left that RotS will eventually manage
the $343 million necessary to join this list and bump Temple of Doom out
of the top ten. At that point, six of the top ten grossing sequels of all
time will have been released in the last ~6 years, five of them within the
last 3 years. Compare this to the inflation-adjusted top 25 list for
*all* movies, which doesn't include a single movie released in the last 5
years!

Here's another way of illustrating basically the same thing. Look at the
top 10 highest grossers from the 2000's:

1) Shrek 2
2) Spider-man
3) Return of the King
4) Spider-man 2
5) The Passion of the Christ
6) The Two Towers
7) Finding Nemo
8) Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone
9) The Fellowship of the Ring
10) Attack of the Clones

Five of the movies in the top 10 are sequels....but those sequels are
crowded at the top of the list. Three of the top four movies are sequels
that have been released within the last 18 months. Let me say that again.
Three of the highest grossing movies of this decade (so far) were released
within the last 18 months, and all three of those are sequels from
different franchises! (And, if RotS surpasses The Passion, as I think
it will, add one more.) When has anything like that ever happened before?

The sea change in the type of movie that dominates the top of the charts
can be seen to be even broader if we consider a category of movie that
extends beyond just sequels. I think it was at BOG that I first heard the
term "built-in audience". Movies like Spider-man, Harry Potter, and even
The Passion can be said to have a built in audience, as there's a
pre-existing fanbase that likes the franchise as presented in a different
medium, even before the first movie in the series is released. Among the
top 10 movies of the 00's, 9 have some kind of built in audience. The
lone exception is Finding Nemo. And if you consider the number of Pixar
fans out there, you might be able to stretch the definition of built-in
audience to include that one as well.

Compare this to the top 10 of the 90's:

1) Titanic
2) Jurassic Park
3) The Phantom Menace
4) Forrest Gump
5) The Lion King
6) Independence Day
7) Home Alone
8) The Sixth Sense
9) Twister
10) Men in Black

The only one of these that had any kind of pre-existing fanbase to speak
of was The Phantom Menace, and it came at the end of the decade.

The trend towards only movies with a pre-existing fanbase being able to
put up huge numbers is even more extreme if you look at just the last 2
years or so. Since Pirates of the Carribean was released in July of 2003,
there have been 8 $200+ grossers. In release date order, they are:

Return of the King
The Passion
Shrek 2
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Spider-man 2
The Incredibles
Meet the Fockers
Revenge of the Sith

Every single one of those was either a sequel or had some kind of
pre-existing fanbase (assuming you include Pixar movies in that category)!
Even setting the bar as "low" as $200 million, movies without a
pre-existing fanbase can't seem to cut it anymore.

So those are the facts. Let me just add that I have no idea if this trend
is going to continue. It might well be broken this summer. What the
trend means is open to interpretation. One could say that all the biggest
movies nowadays are sequels because that's all Hollywood makes anymore.
But I think that's something of an exaggeration. Look farther down on the
list of top 2004 grossers, and yes, there are a lot of sequels further
down the list, but not nearly as many as there are at the top of the list.

I think we have to at least consider the possibility that the market has
changed in a way that favors movies with a built-in audience, and
Hollywood is producing so many of these movies *because* of that. Maybe
it's all a consequence of extreme frontloading--maybe with opening weekend
taking up a larger %age of each movie's total gross, movies with a built
in audience, that people rush to see in the first weekend, now have a big
advantage. Maybe, as much as there's been a lot of attention paid to the
DVD market cutting into the theatrical market, the effect of DVDs is just
as strong on what *kinds* of movies people are willing to pay to see in
the theater. The rise of DVDs may have encouraged people to only make
that trip to the theater when it's a movie that they're very confident
they will like. And they're most confident that they'll like it when it's
based on a property (like Harry Potter or Spider-man) that they're already
a fan of via a different medium, or a sequel to a movie they like (which
they quite possibly discovered on DVD).

I've heard it said that the rising number of sequels and remakes is a sign
that "Hollywood is running out of ideas." This makes it sound as though
TPTB in Hollywood are either being lazy or unlucky, and would like to be
producing more movies with fresh ideas if they had an easy way to do so.
But maybe Hollywood is avoiding big budget movies with "new ideas" *on
purpose*, because "new ideas" don't make them as much money as recycling
the old ones.

Welcome to the board, and great first post! I need to digest it a bit and want to search for more factors, but the conclusion and reasoning are quite interesting.

wow, very impressive, Thank you very much for the analysis

and Welcome to KJ!!

Very nice post, thanks for that!

Welcome! Nice analysis, too.

Nicely done. Very well thought out. Thanks for that! Welcome Chris!

PEACE, Mike

The more I think about this, the more it really does make sense. Going by year, these are the highest grossing films to have no pre-existing fanbase (I'm counting Pixar as a fanbase):

2004 - The Day After Tomorrow -- $186,740,799
2003 - Pirates of the Caribbean -- $305,413,918
2002 - My Big Fat Greek Wedding -- $241,438,208
2001 - Shrek -- $267,665,011
2000 - Castaway -- $233,632,142
1999 - The Sixth Sense -- $293,506,292
1998 - Saving Private Ryan -- $216,540,909
1997 - Titanic -- $600,788,188
1996 - Independence Day -- $306,169,268
1995 - Toy Story -- $191,796,233 (1st Pixar)
1994 - Forrest Gump -- $329,694,499
1993 - Mrs. Doubtfire -- $219,195,243 (JP was a huge book)
1992 - Aladdin -- $217,350,219 (Debatable)
1991 - Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves -- $165,493,908
1990 - Home Alone -- $285,761,243

So you have to go back 13 years, and a good deal further admissions-wise, to find such a low non-fanbase top film as we had last year with TDAT, and as you can see the #1 film for the year was almost always original prior to the 00's. It'll be interesting to see how War of the Worlds does, I say.

Welcome, Chris Spongebob.

This summer actually looks pretty original, unlike last summer. This summer's top 10 is going to have 70% or more be non-sequels.

Interesting, I like your ideas and a lot of them make sense. Why would a studio risk money on a new idea when they know that if they use a pre-existing idea, the opening weekend will be bigger. And I believe that studio get a larger %age of the money during the first couple of weeks.

I have to say I agree with most of hat you said, it is a much better conclusion than "dvd is killing the theater!".

I can't really blame hollywood for focusing more on sequals, especially if it is a sequal where you can attract OUTSIDE the built in fan base, I mean why in hell wouldn't you want to start with a pre-formed group of people dying to rush out and see your movie.

The less risk the better.

Welcome to the boards. :wink: Great post, and I completely agree. It has been a noticable trend, and I think it has been caused by frontloading and perhaps by the DVD market. It's also why I think Batman will easily beat out WOTW.

And just like that, DP07 jumped onto the crazy train.

It can happen so quick people, please be careful, or you could be next.

hehe. Are you one of the people predicting 300m+ for WOTW? :wink:

Actually Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves probably had a pre existing fanbase as well. If thats the case then you have to go back to Look Who's Talking in 1989.

Nope, right now I put it 200+, and I have to wait till closer to release, theater and screen counts, final length, and reviews before making a final prediction.

But to say batman will beat it is meh.

So, you don't think Batman will get 200m+? This is exactly the type of film that would benefit from the trend Chris describes. :wink: It's dominated opening weekend records more then any other franchise ever.

I haven't decided. I am starting to lean towards "yes" it will, but I see its final gross landing in the 220-240 range, and I see WOTW getting over that hump as I feel it has a better release date.

The short version of Chris's arguments is that Frontloading is King. And you can't frontload on an unknown quantity. "Possibility?" This has been obvious for years.

We should be distinguishing between a bona fide sequel and just a hook to hang the frontload marketing on.

Look at Jiffy's list of movies:

2004 - The Day After Tomorrow -- $186,740,799
2003 - Pirates of the Caribbean -- $305,413,918
2002 - My Big Fat Greek Wedding -- $241,438,208
2001 - Shrek -- $267,665,011
2000 - Castaway -- $233,632,142
1999 - The Sixth Sense -- $293,506,292
1998 - Saving Private Ryan -- $216,540,909
1997 - Titanic -- $600,788,188
1996 - Independence Day -- $306,169,268
1995 - Toy Story -- $191,796,233 (1st Pixar)
1994 - Forrest Gump -- $329,694,499
1993 - Mrs. Doubtfire -- $219,195,243 (JP was a huge book)
1992 - Aladdin -- $217,350,219 (Debatable)
1991 - Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves -- $165,493,908
1990 - Home Alone -- $285,761,243

By the Pixar-has-a-fanbase argument, then Aladdin tapped into the Disney fanbase, Forest Gump and Castaway especially tapped into the Tom Hanks fanbase, DAT tapped into the CGI fanbase, and Passion blew the cover off the Jesus Fanbase. The rest of the movies in the list, the ones without an immediately identifiable fanbase/hook, didn't make their money off a frontload hook. They had the best WOM and the strongest legs. SURPRISE, SURPRISE.

Well, not exactly. There are lots of movies that are frontloaded. Not all of them had a pre-existing fanbase. I'm really just talking about the kinds of movies that have been dominating the top of the charts for their *total* b.o. take in the last few years. The fact that the trend towards frontloading may have something to do with this is just a guess that I'm throwing out there. I'd need to do some sort of correlation analysis between opening weekend and total gross to establish this.



I readily admit that the "Pixar-has-a-fanbase" argument may be taking things a bit too far. So let's concede that that doesn't fit under the "fanbase" banner. What about examples like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Spider-man? You can't tell me that there isn't some sort of difference between those movies and something like The Lion King, or Forrest Gump, or Independence Day in terms of having a pre-existing fanbase.

Or we can narrow things down further and just talk about bona fide sequels. Like I said earlier, after RotS surpasses Temple of Doom for inflation-adjusted total gross, five of the ten highest grossing sequels of all time, even when accounting for inflation, will have been released in the last three years. Something is going on there. Is it all because of the rising number of sequels being produced? Is it because of frontloading? Is it because of the changing tastes of audiences (perhaps in part due to DVDs)? I don't know. That's why I threw this topic out there for discussion.

next year is ripe with big sequels (particullarly summer)

Sin City 2
Mission Impossible 3
X3
Pirates Of The Carribean 2
Ice Age 2
Indiana Jones 4
Scary Movie 4