What explains the streak of Hollywood box-office bombs?
Moviegoing is finally back in style, but audiences are rejecting big-budget bad films
The new superhero movie Madame Web has a box office is so poor it trails the opening weekends of Morbius, previous record-setter for most money spent versus fewest tickets sold.
Madame Web is a fiasco to rival Ishtar and Heaven’s Gate, renowned debacles of Hollywood lore.
Soon at Oscars parties, movie buffs will laugh when you say Madame Web in the way they laugh when you say Ishtar. For its part Heaven’s Gate started United Artists down the road to dropping out of the movie business. Will Madame Web have the same impact on Sony’s movie division?
Strictly in money terms Madame Web shows $100 million doesn’t buy what it used to, just as last summer’s cringeworthy The Flash showed $220 million doesn’t buy what it used to.
These and other recent silver-screen duds make one think: actors had to rehearse that. Directors had to edit that. Didn’t anyone notice?
And they raise a larger question – has Hollywood forgotten how to make movies?
In the final reel, All Predictions Wrong will offer the Big Reveal, a shocking twist ending on why Hollywood has forgotten how to make movies. Don’t leave before the post-credits scene!
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