We have, for a decade or so, been moaning about the financial underperformance of films aimed at grown-ups. This year the conversation has become more heated. “Why Aren’t Awards Season Movies Resonating With Audiences?” Variety asked last week. Its key example was the soft US opening of Maria Schrader’s fine journalism drama, She Said. The trade paper fretted over similarly indifferent figures for James Gray’s thoughtful memory piece, Armageddon Time, and Ruben Östlund’s nautical satire, Triangle of Sadness. The cinema community wails in the town square while beating its collective forehead raw and bloody. What is going on?
Let us begin by confirming what’s not happening. Such reports invariably lead to complaints that awards-season movies have become too miserable or too self-important or too up-themselves. “The 2021 Oscars, brought to you by razor blades, Kleenex, and rope,” the comic Bill Maher said before last year’s Academy Awards. “Please welcome our host, the sad emoji.” Earlier this month, Deadline published an article tolling a mournful bell over the potential nominees for next March’s awards. “Has there ever been such a joyless film awards season?” Michael Cieply asked. “I mean, other than 2020, when Covid closed the theatres, or 2001, after the terror attacks.”
Well, let’s see. The five nominees for best picture in 1980 were Ordinary People, in which a family mourns the death of a drowned teenager; Coal Miner’s Daughter, in which Loretta Lynn grows up in grinding poverty; The Elephant Man, unbearably sad tale of a Victorian gent with debilitating physical deformities; Raging Bull, harrowing study of an abusive, toxically paranoid boxer; and Tess, a film trampled by the galloping misery that only Thomas Hardy can sustain.
Yes, the Oscars did also accommodate lighter fare. They still do. Elvis, Top Gun: Maverick and the indie martial-arts romp Everything, Everywhere, All At Once all look likely to be among the incoming 10 nominees
That list is typical of an award that rarely goes the way of a comedy. Winners in the first decade of this century included such merry romps as Million Dollar Baby, Crash, No Country for Old Men and The Hurt Locker. The early 1970s saw nominations for Ingmar Bergman’s Cries and Whispers and Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange. But what about Annie Hall and The Sting and so forth? Well, yes, the Oscars did also accommodate lighter fare. They still do. Elvis, Top Gun: Maverick and the indie martial-arts romp Everything, Everywhere, All At Once all look likely to be among the incoming 10 nominees.
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The notion that awards films have got significantly more miserable is plainly unsustainable. Audiences that would once have turned out for a more challenging title are now staying at home. Schindler’s List, winner of best picture in 1993, was a significant financial hit. Steven Spielberg’s Holocaust drama took $322 million, enough to secure it a place in the year’s top 10. Kramer vs Kramer, winner in 1979, was comfortably the highest-grossing film of that year in the US. Such success for a low-key divorce drama would now be inconceivable.
Superbeings in tights
So what has changed?
There was already a shift in audience demographics before the pandemic struck. Over the past few decades, franchise movies have come to dominate the box office more than ever. A small handful of films concerning superbeings in tights or bald men in cars have, each year, bullied everything else aside. You can still maybe scrape a profit with an independent flick made for bottle-tops and jam-jars, but the middle of the market – sensibly budgeted films such as Armageddon Time or Triangle of Sadness – are not going to make Kramer V Kramer money any time soon (even before you adjust the 1979′s picture’s takings for inflation).
The rise of streaming services and the constriction of windows between theatrical and small-screen release – sometimes to vanishing point – discourages grizzled cinemagoers from venturing out in the winter rain
It does not help that older audiences remain cautious about returning to cinemas following the Covid convulsions. The rise of streaming services and the constriction of windows between theatrical and small-screen release – sometimes to vanishing point – discourages grizzled cinemagoers from venturing out in the winter rain. Frank Berry’s recent direct provision drama Aisha opened theatrically on the same day it became available on Sky Cinema. Such films have always relied on an older audience to succeed.
Then there is the sheer volume of higher-minded films landing in the same busy rush. As the decades have progressed, the studios have increasingly packed their potential awards winners into the months before and (for Europeans, anyway) after the Christmas period. Few of these films have the space to breathe.
Yet it is not all gloom. The strong performances of two Irish films have shown that audiences will still respond to good word of mouth in the old-fashioned way. Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin has, at time of writing, taken €3,536,000 on its way to the edge of this year’s top 10. Colm Bairéad’s An Cailín Ciúin has taken over €1,000,000 at the UK and Irish box office, a staggering sum for an Irish-language production.
So, there is still hope for the grown-up market. And trust me. It’s not about the films.
