Front(over)loading

For about 20 years now, major Hollywood blockbusters have been following an increasing trend of having big first weekend grosses and then trailing off sharply from the second weekend onwards. The trend was started properly by Tim Burton's Batman, which opened to a then-record-breaking $40m. It went on to gross over $250m, but it only continued making significant grosses for about six weeks. Compare that to the old pattern of a movie like ET (admittedly an abnormally high-grossing example) which hung around the number 1 spot for months.

The frontloading of the audience seems to be reaching an extreme. At this rate, it can only be so long until movies make virtually all their money in the first week. I don't think it's a good trend to be setting; although first-weekend grosses are getting bigger all the time, overall grosses aren't.

Take the three "threequels" that have so far been released this year in the US: Spider-Man 3, Shrek the Third and Pirates: AWE. They've all opened big (a record-breaking $151m for Spidey, an animated film record $121m for Shrek, and a Memorial Day weekend record $114m for Pirates, with $140m over the 4-day span). However, none of them are going to get close to matching the previous highs of their respective franchises.

It's also noteworthy that in the case of Spidey and Pirates, their first day gross has been roughly equivalent to the whole second weekend gross. That's one big fall, and I wouldn't be surprised to see that trend continue with more of the summer's big hitters to come. Ultimately these will result in the opening weekend representing probably 40% or more of the total gross.

There's not much that can be done about it, admittedly. With the current consumer climate and the now-set-in-stone tradition of opening absolutely everywhere at the same time, everyone goes to see the big films in their first weekend, and DVDs come out barely 3 months later now. I'm not trying to suggest that people should deliberately not see a film on its first weekend, though; obviously I pretty much always do that.

There is one way the trend can be somewhat rectified: make the movies good! Almost every franchise film with a big advertising spend can make masses of money in the first weekend whatever standard they are. But only good films (generally) have the legs to carry them to a great total gross in the long run. I don't think it's a coincidence that 2007's threequels have so far had big falls each weekend, because none of them have been very good (I've not seen Shrek the Third yet, but that's the general consensus).

There's a simple flow chart to this.

A film that is actually good
¦
\/
good word of mouth + repeat viewings
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\/
BIG MONEY.