“She says you’re like trash. You know, like paper floating by. It doesn’t sound that bad in Spanish”
–Rocky from Bottle Rocket
This past weekend, the hipster punchline of the past 4 years (pirates) managed to turn itself into the ultimate in mainstream phenomena. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest brought in an astronomical $136 million, in domestic ticket sales over a three day period, shattering just about every box office record it came across. It even has a shot at tackling the domestic gross taken in by Titanic sitting at nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars. For all intents and purposes we just have to assume that Pirates of the Caribbean is going to be the premiere film franchise of the current generation. Even if it never leaves the cultural dent that Star Wars or even The Matrix did, Pirates will forever be a smash hit.
And yet for all the press and all the talk and all the energy spent on convincing people that story-based entertainment is most powerful when projected upon a screen, the sad reality is no one remembers a blockbuster. Keep reading by clicking below…
Well, maybe that’s overstating things a bit. People remember blockbusters. They remember the experience. They remember going with their friends at midnight, or waiting in line, or having to move closer to the middle so that more seats on the ends can open up. They remember the experience, and I would imagine most suits in the movie business would argue that’s one of the things they’re trying to sell. But who remembers the movie? When I saw Pirates 2 last Thursday at midnight I was completely lost in the plot for about the first hour. This was because I hadn’t seen the original film since it premiered three years ago. I didn’t remember how it ended, who exactly Bloom and Knightley were supposed to be and why Johnny Depp wasn’t dead. He died in the first one, right? Maybe I’m just too ADD to get anything out of a summer blockbuster, but I’m suspecting others felt the same way. This trend will continue. A huge movie is no longer about the movie but instead about the buildup and the first weekend– being able to say you were there.
So what the hell does any of this have to do television, my medium of choice?
I’m glad I asked. After all the ticket stubs were counted and Pirates 2 finally got its Spiderman-smearing total set in stone an interesting stat popped up: all of those dollars were generated by selling roughly 20-million tickets.
That’s a lot of movie tickets. It represents a number so large one has to assume that everyone in America went to go see that movie. Not quite (obviously). The thing is, 20 million people in the television universe is considered a hit show, but only if those people come back the next week. Grey’s Anatomy averaged a little over 20 million viewers every week, and it was on the air for 27 episodes this past year. In movie terms that would sell something like $2.6 B-B-B-BILLION dollars in ticket sales. Of course, the two are hardly interchangeable.
My point, however, is that its foolish to assess the cultural impact of the box office when so few people actually go to see movies in the movie theater (or even to watch them on DVD if you’re going to compare numbers to television). And yet the weight given to a cinematic smash is perceived to be the bench-mark for all entertainment when realistically the viewers just aren’t there. I point you to what I have just now dubbed “The Seinfeld/Simpsons Principle of Television Dominance.” If you want to really understand the difference in scope between the television audience and the film-going audience spend a day counting the number of times someone references The Simpsons or Seinfeld as compared to, well, anything that has ever graced the silver screen. It’s no surprise to anyone which side will generate more points.
I don’t mean for this to sound like some whiny television fan complaining about how the small screen doesn’t get enough love, but notice should be taken to the fact that trends (the currency of popular culture) are made on television, not at the multiplex.
The greatest irony in all of this is that the biggest box office success of the modern era, Titanic has left virtually no mark on the collective consciousness aside from hash marks in a record book. The studios didn’t try to repeat its good fortune with other mega-budgeted chick flicks, and even its premiere star more or less dropped off the planet until he found his way to Martin Scorsese (a director whose films hardly profit).
Filmmakers will always hope their work might influence the world, but it’s the television producers whose work actually is.
Tags: box-office, Movies, ratings
July 11th, 2006 at 11:27 pm
I beg to differ. How many times on TV or real life do you see someone run to the front of a boat, and say “I’m king of the world?” Just because its cliche doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.
July 12th, 2006 at 12:23 am
A huge movie is no longer about the movie but instead about the buildup and the first weekend– being able to say you were there.
If this were true, The Hulk woulda made a killing, no? I think Pirates was a success because somehow Johnny Depp made the character interesting. What could’ve been either forgettable (a movie about a ride!) or cold, safe and calculated (I’m looking at you, Superman) became really entertaining and yet unlike what had gone before. (You’d have to reach back to Errol Flynn to find a period-piece hero so full of panache.) I think the movie, in this case, has a great deal of importance.
If you want to really understand the difference in scope between the television audience and the film-going audience spend a day counting the number of times someone references The Simpsons or Seinfeld as compared to, well, anything that has ever graced the silver screen. It’s no surprise to anyone which side will generate more points.
Maybe. But haven’t Austin Powers and Napoleon Dynamite, in their times, generated just as many catchphrases? (Or even Office Space, which gathered steam in home rental.)
Furthermore, how many people are referencing Who’s the Boss? (Unironically, that is.) I remember when Seinfeld went off the air, a story pointed out that, even though it was the number one show at the time, it still had fewer viewers than Who’s the Boss did at its peak. The television audience has fractured, so a popular show today doesn’t reach as many people as a popular show from, say, 1975 (when there were only a handful of channels). So I think the audience’s intensity probably matters more than its size. (Think Arrested Development versus, say, Two and a Half Men in terms of cultural relevance — which one gets quoted more by people you know?)
And yet, you might be right, but not for the reasons you list. Until the DVD era, no one watched old TV shows, save for the ones that went into syndication (such as The Simpsons and Seinfeld, as you mention). Basically, only movies offered immortality, which is why more people can quote from The Godfather than from anything on TV in 1972. Now, however, people rent TV shows via Netflix (Who rented TV shows before Netflix? No one!) and can watch old ones on an ever-expanding group of cable channels. Instead of airing once or twice and disappearing into some studio’s vault, old TV shows can now be relived, shared, etc., in a way that only movies once could.
And yet (and yet!), I still think you’re wrong for three reasons: One, authorial voice. Even a show like The Sopranos or Six Feet Under goes through a series of writers and directors (and sometimes even cast members), so even Brian Chase or Alan Ball never have the same status/ relevance as a Martin Scorsese or Woody Allen, whose works can be seen as a whole. (This might be decreasingly true of younger directors.)
Two, the audience for a movie is less distracted. This might be changing as TV shows and movies are often viewed the same way — on DVD — but going to a dark theater for two hours with a giant screen will always be a more focused experience than watching a relatively small TV show with commercials tempting the viewer to flip elsewhere.
Three, more money is spent on a film. This seems silly, but when’s the last time you watched a made-for-TV movie? (Even the high-class HBO ones?) A production on the scale of Pirates or Titanic just doesn’t exist on TV. When you want to see great special effects, big stars (ones that sell magazines, put asses in seats, etc.) and top-tier direction, you go to a movie.
(Final note: Like I said, I think some of what you say is true. But it’s only true of a select few shows — the ones that a) rise to the top of their class; and b) are allowed to attain some level of artistry. But until these become the rules rather than the exceptions, I think a higher percentage of new television [as opposed to new movies] will be forgettable.)
That’s all.
July 12th, 2006 at 1:37 am
Paul, I feel like you read some assumptions into my post that really weren’t there (this may also be due to the fact that you live across the living room and we’ve talked movies over much of the past 8 years of friendship).
First of all, I’m not doubting the reasoning behind Pirates success, it obviously has a zillion things going for it. What I’m doubting is the fact that a movie perceived to be as BIG as it is will have considerably less cultural impact than a moderately successful television program. The Hulk perfectly illustrates my point because its opening weekend was HORRIBLE, and then everyone forgot about it (outside of being a punchline). Pirates for all of its strengths, will leave no bigger mark than simply being THE BIGGEST MOVIE of the year. Compare that to my earlier example of Grey’s Anatomy. Obviously this is impossible to prove, but how many more water cooler conversations do you think there were every Monday this past television season compared with those had, well, yesterday. A week from now, seeing Pirates is no longer big news. It’s been out, there’s something else to discuss.
Second, when I say “cultural impact” I’m not just talking about reciting lines (though that’s obviously an easy way to measure something like that). Undoubtably, Who’s The Boss left an impact. It, and a good number of other sit-coms from that era (Cosby, Family Ties, Fresh Prince, Full House), created a period in television history in which that type of family based comedy thrived. It’s weird to think about now, but it wasn’t so long ago when every network had almost two hours worth of sit-coms on every night. There’s that line in Swingers in which Mikey says to Loraine, “I thought they were giving sit-coms out to comics at the airport…” which is a direct result to the success of those comedies in the late-80s and early-90s.
Third, as for your three-tiered rejection of my thesis, your points have nothing to do with whether television is more influential culturally as compared to film. Obviously going to a movie theater and watching a big-budget action movie is usually a far more rewarding experience than watching Walker Texas Ranger on a 13″ Trinitron, but it does little to address the fact that more people in this country will have seen Walker compared with that action movie. The art, and the quality, and the presentation mean nothing in terms of how trends are set. I’m not even trying to trumpet the cream of what’s available on the television spectrum– the real powerhouse, the thing that has the most impact on what will be seen in the future is rarely the critical darling (as we all know).
Over the past five years it didn’t matter what Hollywood released, who starred in it, or how much money was brought in. Nothing they could possibly attempt would even come close to doing what American Idol did for popular culture. You can look at everything from television ratings to record sales to the influx of copycat programming and even to the movies themselves and see the kind of impact this medium can make. Films have the edge artistically (for now), but Hollywood’s production calendar is far too slow and their costs too bloated to create any sort of change in what the audience wants or even needs.
I’m not saying I agree with these trends, but you can’t deny their existence.
WITH ONE EXCEPTION.
The horror industry. It almost works as an island unto itself, but it seems to be the one area in cinema in which you can track the genres evolution along with its audience with decent accuracy. This seems to be the case because a horror fan is a horror fan. They’ll see all the releases the same way a film fan is going to see all the Oscar nominations or a television fan is going to watch entire seasons of a program. Its also the one genre that really has no significant representation on television.
July 12th, 2006 at 1:54 am
Oh yeah, and I’m glad no one pointed out the ultimate irony that I used a movie quote as my post title. Yeah, real glad no one did that.
July 12th, 2006 at 2:07 am
I think, generally, it’s hard to compare the impact of a serial event (such as a television show) to that of a limited engagement (such as a movie).
Ultimately, we’re both missing the larger point. In America, the dollar rules. More money is spent on film production. Thus magazine coverage, Entertainment Tonight (and Entertainment Weekly and E! Entertainment) care more about movies and movie stars. Thus the cultural impact of a film can be larger, even if no one is paying attention to the movie.
However, I think people are paying attention to the movie. And in my office, at least, I would say there has been more Pirates discussion than Grey’s Anatomy discussion. (For another comparison, everyone has seen Forrest Gump. I don’t think any TV show from the 90’s compares — neither Seinfeld nor the Simpsons covers as many demographics.)
Also, I think your math logic is flawed. I don’t think people would line up and pay 11 dollars to watch two-and-a-half-hours of Grey’s Anatomy, and they certainly wouldn’t do so 12 times a year. Given that most of the audience is repeat viewers (as opposed to movies — even Titanic, which had tons of repeat viewers, probably had fewer percentagewise than a popular TV series), I would guess that more people probably see Pirates, once you account for home rental.
(And if the most popular shows are the most influential, why aren’t we all dressing like Charlie Sheen on Two and a Half Men?)
Honestly, I think TV shows are where trends end, at least in terms of fashion and lingo, etc. Though I’m not sure this is what you’re arguing.
This could go on and on, but I’m spent.
July 12th, 2006 at 11:34 am
Three quick points before I go to work.
1) Neither one of us work in an environment that is particularly unbiased for this argument.
2) That being said I think you’re wrong about the money issue. Television is expensive. More expensive. Its expensive enough that many networks will simply eat the cost and not air a show or pilot because they might be able to do better with something else. Here’s a few quick examples: The pilot for Lost (i.e. the first 2 episodes) cost ABC somewhere in the excess of $100 million. In the final season of Friends each “friend” was making more than $1 million an episode (that’s like having seven Jim Carey’s in your movie, though not as funny). This year NBC paid somewhere around $5 BILLION(!) to broadcast the NFL over the next couple years. That’s BIG money. That’s money that would make Universal or Paramount shutter (if they weren’t already a part of NBC and CBS).
3) Advtertisements set trends. They’re frequently on the cutting edge of comedy (or absurdism), or visually stunning, or utterly shitty, but still there. Television IS advertising, and you only have to walk down one Manhattan street to understand it is the end-game. Plus, Entertainment Tonight, E!, late night talk shows… well, those are on television.
4) What the hell, here’s a bonus: M-T-V
July 12th, 2006 at 3:37 pm
Even in thinking about it, I’m totally losing sight of what’s being argued.
That all said, there’s a great quote in Devil Wears Prada about how what some designer creates eventually gets recycled until a version of it is available from the Gap or what-have-you in Dubuque.
Trends, I think, tend to start with artists and designers until they filter through pop culture, via music, movies, and TV. See, for instance, how Modest Mouse ends up on the O.C.
But I was wrong on the money issue — I had no idea how much was being spent there. (I think the sports thing, though, falls outside our current discussion, as it’s the proverbial orange to our apples.)
So we agree that TV is influential.
The question, then, is whether it is more or less influential than films. And how so?
Since influence is impossible to quantify — though we’ve both certainly tried — perhaps we’ll settle for seeing how each medium is influential. Which we’ve already done.
That said, what’s influencing the commercials?
An interesting artistic example — the stop-time bullet thing in The Matrix. If I’m not mistaken, this first appeared in a Michel Gondry-Bjork video. Then it was in the Matrix. Then it was in a Gap commercial. Then it was everywhere. One could say that TV started this trend, though seeing the original video on television was probably rare, since videos are seldom broadcast. But I would say this actually started with artistic-technological innovators. Teevision, by which I mean mainstream narrative shows [i.e., not commercials or sports], rarely is ground zero for influence. It is, however, saturation point. Does that make it more influential or less? Was Andy Warhol more influential making soup cans or guest appearances on Love Boat?
Who knows?
July 12th, 2006 at 5:07 pm
While sitting in front of a monitor for the past five hours with little to do (I’m training someone who is more or less trained) I’ve had a lot of time to think this over, and it has made my mind hurt a bit. The problem with a lot of this is that trends seem to be circular in nature (the most awesome/horrible example being how MTV shapes its programming according to what tweens want to watch, and yet what tweens want to watch is MTV).
Though I do return to my original thought which sparked all of this: for as much money as Pirates 2 brought in last weekend, only 20 million people saw it. That number, on television, is good, but by no means a SMASH HIT. I feel like that says a lot.
July 12th, 2006 at 5:52 pm
True. But by the end of its US run, I would guess 40 or 50 million (at least) will have seen it. And this is before rentals, home purchases, etc. (Although the international market is one that (I think) might give movies a larger audience, as Pirates will likely play in more cities around the world than have access to Desperate Housewives. Hard to tell.)
Another thing we haven’t brought up directly — demographics. It’s not just how many people watch something, but who is watching it. I don’t really have any thoughts on the matter, but it’s something to consider.
In sum, I think you’re burying the real story: TV’s influence is growing in interesting ways, as the way we watch TV and movies becomes more and more alike, in terms of DVDs and rental and online access. And let’s face it: While every TV star wants, Clooney-like, to become a movie star, Steven Spielberg — the most powerful man in cinema — is starring in a reality show. The line is blurring. Strange times indeed.
July 18th, 2006 at 9:17 pm
to just add to something from a post three comments ago… I remember seeing the bullet-time stuff in the pretty mediocre and unremembered “wing commander”, before the Matrix popularized it. i would assume that the bjork video was still first though