Look Inside: New Hollywood 2.0
Why 'Babylon' hasn't made a lot of money.
There has been a number of articles that have come out over this past week which have deemed Margot Robbie, a very talented and versatile actress & producer, ‘box office poison’. To be frank: this does not sit well with me. It’s hurtful and clickbaity, but also: looking at the industry, it’s simply not true. These articles are pouring in off Babylon’s recent box office flop and are making an argument that Margot Robbie’s last five films have also failed at the box office.
Before focusing on Babylon, I want to try and clear some false reporting. Margot’s last five films were Bombshell, Birds of Prey, The Suicide Squad, Amsterdam, and Babylon. It is true they all didn’t do very well at the box office, but all for very specific reasons, none of which are due to Margot Robbie’s involvement. Bombshell had little to no marketing, Birds of Prey is a tonally niche film with no really well-known IP, The Suicide Squad released on HBO MAX simultaneously, and Amsterdam was just not very good.
Babylon is a different story. An $80 million dollar Oscar-driven film that made $5.3 million in its opening weekend! That’s very strange. But when you brake it down, it makes sense, and there are four reasons.
One, mainly, it opened early into Avatar: The Way of Water’s run. Two, it’s 3 hours long: not only is this a little too long for an average moviegoer, but also most average moviegoers just saw a 3 hour-long film, Avatar, last week. Three, it hasn’t been very well received critically (I haven’t watched it myself yet, but I will as soon as possible, because it’s a Chazelle film, and also because critics don’t make or break a movie). And four, most importantly for the purposes of our Margot Robbie rebate here, Babylon’s production & distribution business model is fading away.
Usually, the idea is: execs invest a lot of money into paying an A-lister’s salary because A-listers are very well known, usually very talented and respected, and people like them and will see a film because of them. But: this model isn’t really working anymore.
The concept of a movie star is fading away. In last week’s newsletter, I spoke a little about streaming and how it’s changing the industry: this is also because of that. Until streaming, there were less products, people would see less things, so people weren’t as picky, so getting a bankable star was almost a guarantee to sell more tickets. That’s just how it used to be: people would go see the new Johnny Depp film, or the new Scarlett Johansson film, or the new Brad Pitt film, because there wasn’t much else as widely available.
Now, more things are getting made. There are more actors working. And everyone is watching everyone, so A-listers just aren’t as special as they used to be. If the film isn’t great, stars alone won’t make people see it anymore.
We’re also transitioning from a face of business to a mind behind business. Ideas seem to be running Hollywood more than ever lately. People don’t want to see Dwayne Johnson (Black Adam flopped) or Tom Holland (Uncharted flopped) as much as they want to see something great. Look at Everything Everywhere All at Once or even Avatar: The Way of Water: films that have no insanely ‘bankable’ stars, but that have undoubtedly done incredibly well in the box office. Audiences are smarter and want quality-driven movies instead of cast-driven movies.
So it is not Margot Robbie’s fault. It is not Brad Pitt’s fault. It is not any actor’s fault. Babylon’s flop is because of a little mistake the studio made by releasing a 3 hour-long (presumably) average-quality film during the biggest blockbuster’s holiday run and by thinking that the concept of a star is as important as it was ten years ago. It isn’t, and that’s good thing. Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt are incredible performers: not studio execs, so none of this is on them. Honestly, it’s not even on the studio execs: it’s just the change of the times.
So what’s next? New Hollywood 2.0. Instead of giving one director $80 million, a huge sum of which is actors’ salaries, give four directors $20 million each and watch them make something cool. Some might fail, but the ones that succeed will succeed greatly, and will push the industry forward.