{"id":153589,"date":"2022-12-10T07:07:20","date_gmt":"2022-12-10T07:07:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/highbrow-films-aimed-at-winning-oscars-are-losing-audiences\/"},"modified":"2022-12-10T07:07:20","modified_gmt":"2022-12-10T07:07:20","slug":"highbrow-films-aimed-at-winning-oscars-are-losing-audiences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/highbrow-films-aimed-at-winning-oscars-are-losing-audiences\/","title":{"rendered":"Highbrow Films Aimed at Winning Oscars Are Losing Audiences"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A year ago, Hollywood watched in despair as Oscar-oriented films like \u201cLicorice Pizza\u201d and \u201cNightmare Alley\u201d flatlined at the box office. The day seemed to have finally arrived when prestige films were no longer viable in theaters and streaming had forever altered cinema.<\/p>\n

But studios held out hope, deciding that November 2022 would give a more accurate reading of the marketplace. By then, the coronavirus would not be such a complicating factor. This fall would be a \u201clast stand,\u201d as some put it, a chance to show that more than superheroes and sequels could succeed.<\/p>\n

It has been carnage.<\/p>\n

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One after another, films for grown-ups have failed to find an audience big enough to justify their cost. \u201cArmageddon Time\u201d cost roughly $30 million to make and market and collected $1.9 million at the North American box office. \u201cT\u00e1r\u201d cost at least $35 million, including marketing; ticket sales total $5.3 million. Universal spent around $55 million to make and market \u201cShe Said,\u201d which also took in $5.3 million. \u201cDevotion\u201d cost well over $100 million and has generated $14 million in ticket sales.<\/p>\n

Even a charmer from box office king Steven Spielberg has gotten off to a humdrum start. \u201cThe Fabelmans,\u201d based on Spielberg’s adolescence, has collected $5.7 million in four weeks of limited play. Its budget was $40 million, not including marketing.<\/p>\n

What is going on?<\/p>\n

The problem is not quality; reviews have been exceptional. Rather, \u201cpeople have grown comfortable watching these movies at home,\u201d said David A. Gross, a film consultant who publishes a newsletter on box office numbers.<\/p>\n

Ever since Oscar-oriented films began showing up on streaming services in the late 2010s, Hollywood has worried that such movies would someday vanish from multiplexes. The diminishing importance of big screens was accentuated in March when, for the first time, a streaming film, \u201cCODA,\u201d from Apple TV+, won the Academy Award for best picture.<\/p>\n