One year ago, Congress defunded public media. Now that we're 100% community funded, please become a sustaining member or increase your existing membership today.
The Post-Pandemic Box Office Claims Another Victim: Steven Spielberg
Paul Dano, Mateo Zoryon Francis-DeFord and Michelle Williams in "The Fabelmans"
(
Universal Pictures
)
The pandemic’s impact on Hollywood has yet to diminish, and the latest COVID casualty might be among the most startling: Steven Spielberg’s box office performance.
The director’s latest film, his autobiographical story The Fabelmans, opened in limited release this past weekend. How’d it do? As one Oscar-winning producer told me earlier this week, “It’s a disaster.”
While The Fabelmans’ performance is hardly as bad as legendary flops like Mars Needs Moms, Jungle Cruise or Cats, its debut dramatizes the growing gap between cinematic haves and have-nots. (Even Spielberg’s West Side Story was a 2021 dud.)
The same weekend that The Fabelmans premiered, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever also arrived. It grossed a robust $181 million in its first three days of release, making for the best November movie opening ever.
But like a multiplex black hole from which nothing else can escape, the Marvel sequel obliterated everything in its orbit: Wakanda Forever accounted for almost nine out of every 10 tickets sold (87% to be exact).
Sponsored message
Such income inequality has been true all year, marking a radical departure from pre-pandemic ticket sales, when the No. 1 movie might claim about a third of the box office.
Nowadays, crowds head to the multiplex only for blockbusters like Top Gun: Maverick, Jurassic World: Dominion or Wakanda Forever.
The rest? Not worth the trip anymore — maybe later, on streaming.
Angela Bassett in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”
(
Annette Brown/Marvel Studios
)
About our Retake podcast
Retake with John Horn asks: do the stories Hollywood tells about itself really reflect what's going on? Veteran entertainment reporter John Horn provides a critical, informed perspective at a time of tumultuous change in the entertainment business.
That new all-or-nothing model leads us to Spielberg’s latest release. On an absolute scale, it looked like The Fabelmans did well enough, grossing $40,394 per screen while playing in just four theaters last weekend. But on a relative basis, Wakanda Forever performed better ($41,251 per screen) while playing far more widely in nearly 4,400 theaters.
When you step back and look at limited theatrical releases before the pandemic, the comparisons are even worse. In 2019, all of these movies opened in five or fewer theaters, and all banked at least twice the per-screen revenues generated by The Fabelmans — The Master, Lady Bird, Parasite, Uncut Gems and The Farewell.
Sponsored message
Spielberg’s latest film could surprise people (like me) and perform strongly as it expands into wider release, but for now it looks like it will join an increasingly long list of well-reviewed adult dramas that nobody wanted to watch.
It makes sense that moviegoers want to see Wakanda Forever. That they have little interest in The Fabelmans or Tar or Armageddon Time? That’s not right.
One year ago, Congress voted to defund public media, eliminating a critical $1.7 million from our budget every year going forward. But they couldn’t silence us, and we’re not going anywhere. LAist is now 100% community funded and that means we’re taking our future into our own hands and turning to you to keep local reporting strong.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
Senior Vice President News, Editor in Chief
