Summary
Will Smithaddresses why so many Hollywood blockbusters are struggling at the box office these days. Smith is one of the best-known actors working in Hollywood today, and has starred in hits like theMen in Blackfranchise,I Am Legend,Bad Boys,I, Robot, andHitch, among many others. While Smith has starred in his fair share of hits over the course of his career, the box office has been struggling for a number of years now. Recent movies likeThe Marvels,Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning,The Fall Guy, andFuriosa, for example, all underperformed.
During a recent interview on the “Hot Ones” video series fromFirst We Feastto promote the upcoming release ofBad Boys: Ride or Die, Smith is asked about the current state of Hollywood and why hits are harder to come by.
According to the actor, one big issue facing Hollywood is thatit’s harder to convince audiences to go to the movieswhen a TV show at home can now deliver content with a similar level of spectacle. Check out Smith’s comment below:
“The definition of a hit is still pretty much the same. Essentially, it’s just harder to get one. You used to be able to put some explosions in the trailer and a couple of good jokes and people were there. And television is so good, there are things that people just aren’t going to leave their house for. There’s definitely a higher demand for a certain type of film for people to leave their homes.”
Is Will Smith Right About The Struggles Facing Hollywood?
There’s More To The Story
In recent decades, TV shows have certainly become grander in scale and scope, and some have sported truly gargantuan budgets. Shows likeGame of Thrones,Stranger Things, and3 Body Problem, for example, are all wildly expensive. The availability of such high quality TV shows is certainly part of the issue, then, but so too is the quality of actual televisions and sound systems that are available to consumers. People can make their own comfortable home theater setups.
6 Reasons So Many Movies Are Struggling At The Box Office In 2024
For every Barbie, Oppenheimer, and Dune: Part Two, there are many more theatrically released movies that struggle to become box-office successes.
COVID also had a big impact. During the pandemic, some movies were released day-and-date on streaming and in theaters simultaneously. Other movies did get exclusive theatrical windows, but these windows were far shorter than the 90 days that used to be the industry standard. Now, movies are lucky to get 45-day windows. All of this means thataudiences were trained to wait to watch things at home. This is compounded by the fact that going to the movies now is more expensive and movies themselves are more expensive, meaning it’s harder for them to become profitable.
Smith’s last box office success is thewell-reviewedBad Boys For Lifein 2020, one of the few success stories from that year.
Smith, then, is right that it’s now harder than ever before to convince audiences to leave their homes to go to a movie theater. It’s not all doom and gloom, however, as movies, under the right circumstances, can still connect in a major way.BarbieandOppenheimer’s simultaneous release last year, for example, is a major success story.Smithis evidently hoping that theBad Boys: Ride or Diereleaseis met with success in theaters, but it will certainly be harder than it used to be.
