Soderbergh’s Starry ‘Black Bag’ Dismal $7.5 Million Opening Is Hollywood’s IP Dilemma | Analysis

A critically praised Steven Soderbergh spy thriller might have been an easy sell to moviegoers even a decade ago. But the dismal $7.5 million opening of Focus Features’ “Black Bag” shows the chicken-and-egg problem that Hollywood faces when it comes to building audiences for movies that don’t have a well-known IP attached.

“Most of the films that are in theaters right now are getting great reviews, but it is still a challenge to get moviegoers to give them a chance with their hard-earned dollars,” said Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian. “It’s something that has been going on for a while, as the audiences have shown that they want certainty with the dominance of tried-and-true franchises even as some have decried the lack of originality.”

Produced on a reported $50 million budget, bought by Focus as a negative pickup and running at a tight 93 minutes, “Black Bag” stars Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett as married intelligence agents George and Kathryn Woodhouse. Their relationship is put to the test when George discovers that Kathryn is suspected of espionage, forcing him to choose between his marriage and his country. Critics have given the film rave reviews with a 97% Rotten Tomatoes score while audiences were less enthused but still positive with a 71% RT score and a B on CinemaScore.

The marketing spend was not immediately available.

To some degree, this sort of opening is par for the course for Soderbergh in the post-“Ocean’s” trilogy stage of his career. Not adjusted for inflation, this $7.5 million start from 2,705 theaters is consistent with the $7.6 million opening earned from 3,031 theaters by the director’s 2017 redneck heist film “Logan Lucky,” which starred Channing Tatum, Adam Driver and an against-type Daniel Craig. More recently, his 2023 film “Magic Mike’s Last Dance” opened to $8.3 million from 1,496 theaters.

But for theaters, seeing such a low start for a film with an original screenplay can’t be encouraging, and it isn’t the only one. Paramount’s “Novocaine,” this weekend’s No. 1 film, opened to just $8.7 million from 3,365 theaters.

It’s a start that Paramount will be satisfied with as it meets their pre-release projections and should allow the R-rated action comedy to get out of the red against its $18 million production spend. It could also leg out from its post-release buzz with Rotten Tomatoes scores of 82% critics and 88% audience. But independent trackers were predicting — and theaters were hoping for — an opening of at least $10 million.

Neither “Black Bag” nor “Novocaine” are intended to be “Dune: Part Two”-level hits. But in a healthier pre-pandemic box office, they would be counterprogramming against a four-quadrant blockbuster.

But with Disney’s “Snow White” and Warner Bros.’ “A Minecraft Movie” still on the way, these films, along with Warner Bros.’ “Mickey 17,” which has grossed $33.3 million domestic and $90.4 million worldwide after two weekends, are getting released into a market where a lack of momentum and a higher level of selectivity by audiences makes it harder to turn positive reviews and public reception into box office traction. And the upheaval in the traditional avenues of advertising makes it harder to get the word out.

It’s harder to sell on TV

For “Black Bag,” there’s an additional challenge that makes building pre-release buzz more difficult: how does one advertise to an older core audience when the tried-and-true method of doing so, linear TV, is in decline?

Trailers remain the most effective way to raise a film’s awareness for all ages, but that’s predicated on momentum in the theatrical market. When moviegoing is as slow as it has been for the past several weeks, that takes away the effectiveness of trailers, forcing studios to turn to other forms of marketing.

For a film like “Novocaine,” which will primarily appeal to men under 35, a digital-first marketing campaign on platforms like YouTube and Twitch is the obvious and cheaper way to go. Paramount also spent big on a pregame Super Bowl ad for the film and sent stars Jack Quaid and Amber Midthunder to an LA Clippers game for a humorous advertising stunt.

But according to PostTrak data, the opening weekend audience for “Black Bag” was 59% over the age of 35, compared to 42% for “Novocaine.” TV spots have historically been the best way to catch a wide swath of that demographic.

With the decline of linear TV along with streaming subscribers split between ad-free and ad-supported subscription programs, it’s harder to get spots in front of a televised crowd outside of sports broadcasts. Cable news has also been another option, and one that Focus was able to play to its advantage with spots for its recent hit “Conclave” airing in the final weeks of the 2024 election and ahead of the film’s late October release.

But the longterm viability of CNN and MSNBC for movie marketing remains in question as those networks are still trying to bring back liberal-minded viewers that turned off TV news after Donald Trump’s victory, and are still seeing historic lows in their audiences.

“There may need to be a total reevaluation of how you grab an audience in a nonlinear world,” Dergarabedian said.

Audiences set a higher bar

The goal now for “Black Bag” and “Novocaine” is to turn their largely positive audience word-of-mouth into sustained theatrical turnout, similar to what “Conclave” did when it opened to $6.6 million and legged out to a domestic total of $32.5 million.

A similar final total could be reached by both films, which would take “Novocaine” out of the red and give “Black Bag” a chance to reach break-even territory with help from overseas markets — it made $4.3 million from 37 markets this weekend — and premium on-demand rentals.

But again, these films would have to do so at a time when well-known IP is even more dominant at the box office than before, and when moviegoers are more selective than ever. The rise in per patron spending reported by top theater chains shows that the moviegoers that are showing up are willing to open their wallets for more than just a ticket, but the initial hurdle of convincing enough of the public to spend $15-$20 to see a film with a narrative and characters they aren’t already directly acquainted with is getting harder.

It’s also possible that streaming options may make certain types of non-IP theatrical films less attractive to moviegoers. Even if the similarities between the streaming title and the theatrical title are only in the broadest sense, that may be enough for some to stick with the at-home version of what is being offered, even when the theatrical offering has earned good marks from audiences and gushing praise from critics like “Black Bag.”

In the case of a British spy thriller like “Black Bag,” Netflix recently released its own British spy miniseries called “Black Doves,” which stars Keira Knightley as a spy-for-hire who leaks information gained through her marriage to Britain’s defense secretary and who finds herself in danger after another spy who was a former lover was killed. The series has been renewed for a second season and hit streaming two years after another Netflix espionage miniseries, “Treason,” starring Charlie Cox.

Then there’s Apple TV+’s “Slow Horses” starring Gary Oldman, which released its fourth season last fall with two more ordered. “Slow Horses” has enjoyed years of critical acclaim, and while it has significant tonal and plot differences from “Black Bag” — namely from Oldman as the rude, slovenly leader of a group of failed MI5 agents as opposed to the stylish, sleek performances of Fassbender and Blanchett — it’s still a way for those interested in English espionage to get their fix without leaving their homes.

“It may be reductive, but you can’t stop people from thinking about their entertainment options that way,” said Dergarabedian. “Even before the streaming boom we are in now, there were films like ‘The Man From U.N.C.L.E’ in 2015. That got pretty good reviews but bombed possibly because it seemed too similar to James Bond to audiences who hadn’t seen the TV show it was based on. Sometimes people pass on something despite the reviews because they think it is something they’ve seen before.”

Don’t give up

If Netflix and its streaming peers are pulling more genres out of “cinema-worthy” status in the eyes of audiences, it’s going to be even more of an uphill battle for exhibitors and studios to get the box office anywhere near what it once was.

We know from the last three years that tentpole films like “Wicked,” “Barbie” and “Top Gun: Maverick” can still reach incredible heights, but the secondary level of support that is historically provided by well-received, non-four-quadrant films like “Mickey 17,” “Novocaine” and “Black Bag” is still flagging.

That lower performance makes the slumps that have come in recent years when there are gaps in the tentpole release calendar even deeper, leading to a weekend like this past one where overall weekend totals reach $55 million, the lowest seen in a non-pandemic March in nearly 30 years.

Perhaps the only way out of the storm is through it. Three studio and exhibitor sources who spoke to TheWrap said that if there’s ever going to be a way out of the new-IP struggle, Hollywood has to be willing to keep putting out films like “Black Bag” and “Mickey 17” — to keep sending signals to a public that may not be aware that such offerings are on the big screen.

Yes, some of these films will not work even with positive reviews, but perhaps with enough of those films, a critical mass of moviegoers will find a film that wasn’t on their radar and which they enjoyed more than they expected, making them more willing to expand what kind of films they step out for.

“It’s tough because everyone’s trying to maximize the profit of each auditorium,” one theater owner told TheWrap. “But if we just shrug and say ‘Well, guess that kind of film doesn’t work,’ we get a self-fulfilling prophecy of just horror films and sequels taking up most of the calendar.”

The post Soderbergh’s Starry ‘Black Bag’ Dismal $7.5 Million Opening Is Hollywood’s IP Dilemma | Analysis appeared first on TheWrap.