Knives Out Ruined Cinema - Here's Why

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The fact that Barbie and Oppenheimer did well internationally shows that international audiences aren't only interested in empty spectacle. The problem is that studios aren't interested in putting in money in ambitious projects if they aren't led by a Nolan or a Villeneuve.

I’m so tired of “audiences” being blamed for the failings of the industry and their incompetence. I didn’t stop going to mid-budget movies because they stopped being produced. They stopped being produced because I stopped going because tickets went from €5 to €20, and what used to be a cheap outing for the family or cheap date is now rivalling a fancy restaurant. People started treating cinema as an expensive item, so now only big blockbusters are worth it anymore, because of the cinematic experience as you mentioned. Here in Copenhagen, a random movie for 2 on a weekday at 15:00, without snacks or drinks, in an otherwise empty theatre is $50. No need to discuss the price gouging happening at the confectionery stand. Stupid prices (justified in the early 00s by piracy, funny how they never went down when piracy disappeared) has pushed audiences out of theatres for anything except blockbusters, and then audiences get blamed for not enabling actors to develop by taking chances on mid-tier movies.

It’s a shame we don’t get mid budget films anymore, a lot of my favorites were mid budget, it has the most opportunity to impress the audience.

I would like to point out that about half of mid-budget movies you highlighted as important were considered box office flops. That didn't mean they were bad movies, most often they had The misfortune of being released at the same time as a box-office titan and just got squeezed out.

Netflix left a lot of money on the table by not releasing Glass Onion widely in theaters. It did really well in its limited release, making $15 million in less than 1,000 theaters in just a week

In 1995, the average cost of a movie theater ticket was under $4.50. It was no exaggeration to say that I could go on a movie date and pay around $15, definitely under $20, including drinks and popcorn. The cost for ONE ticket to Avatar today at my local theater is $17.96 ($15.55 for a child). That same movie date is going to be easily $50 or more today. A family of 4 is going to be spending almost $70 before they even get drinks or popcorn. That same family would have been spending $18 or less in 1995. Even a "smaller" film at my local theater costs about $12.50 for a ticket. People literally now have to make the decision: is this movie WORTH seeing in the theater? More often than not, unless that movie is a giant spectacle, the answer is going to be no. A month subscription to a streaming service is competitive with ONE movie theater ticket. Also, giant 4K television are more affordable than ever, putting high quality images in the living room -- and at the proper aspect ratio (unlike the pan and scan nightmare we used to endure with home video). Similarly, high quality surround sound systems are much more accessible. If we want a wider variety of films in theaters, including lower and mid-budget films, the current studio investment strategy is going to have to change, and the movie theater industry is going to require a massive overhaul either to make the experience actually justify the inflated cost, or to reduce that cost enough so that visiting the theater again seems "worth it" for those smaller films.

There has always been a difference between movies that are "big screen" vs "watch at home." In the 80s we would choose to go watch a movie or wait for VHS based on that. A good example is Deep Impact vs Armageddon. Armageddon is a movie that you needed to see in the theater popcorn movie. While Deep Impact was more of a curl up on the couch and really enjoy the story film. Unfortunately what we are getting today our movies that are almost exclusively eye candy for the theaters and character-driven movies and shows on the streaming platforms.

I feel like this only matters if you romanticize the physical act of going out to the movies versus staying home, because as you pointed out, these stories are still getting told, but on streaming platforms. And personally, I don't want to spend $20 going out to a theatre to see a NON-spectacle movie because the act of going to the theatre doesn't really add anything to the experience other than overpriced popcorn. Given the affordability of impressive home theatre systems, it just makes more sense to watch these mid-budget stories in the comfort of your own home; in my opinion, this transition didn't require any conditioning from movie studios, rather it's just a natural evolution stemming from the advance of high speed internet and cheap flat screen tv's.

Mid budget films are not completely gone. Everything Everywhere All at Once is a great example of a recent mid budget film that was incredibly successful both critically and financially.

That point about audiences getting sick of big budget filmmaking, that’s actually happened before. Kinda. Back in the mid-60s, many films started to get really expensive to produce as the major studios seemingly believed all the people wanted was just big, technicolour epics like The Ten Commandments or Cleopatra. When films like Cleopatra failed to make back their production budgets, that led to the reworking of the studio system, which coincided with the appearance of new and innovative filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick, Warren Beatty, Roman Polanski, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg.

I was a kid in the 90s and I grew up on Home Alone, Forrest Gump (best film oscar), Silence of the Lambs (best film oscar), Scindler's List (Best Film Oscar) and many more. It really was a golden age of media. I miss mid budget films. Most films I see now, I think, "It's way too overdone." Or I think "This is obscure af."

Side note: Atonement, Juno, No Country, There Will Be Blood was a stacked Oscars lineup 🤯

I think it has more to do with just how good the movie actually is and what will attract the younger audiences ... For example, everyone knows Chris Evans as Captain America and Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode from Halloween. Throw in James Bond, the girl from 13 reasons why, and the kid from It, that will surely attract the younger audiences. Now if the movie is actually good, the audience will go and recommend it to their friends and family.

GODDAMN, I WAS UNAWARE OF HOW MANY GOOD FILMS ARE MID-BUDGET. It really shows that putting some restrictions on a project foments creativity and talent.

I think we are all missing the forest for the trees. People will go to theater to see a spectacle like a super hero movie, Avatar, or Oppenhiemer due to the fact that much of the experience is lost when you put them on the small screen. However, the experience watching a character driven story is not a dulled when moved to the small screen. So, the movie industry is just responding the changing technology and consumer sentiment.

9:27 yeah dude "cancel culture" is dictating what this corporations do... instead of, you know, CAPITAL

I think you forgot Everything Everywhere All at Once, annother great movie, with positive reception, and mid-tier budget of around $25 million, and a box office of $100 million. This movie also shows in my opinion the potential for mid-tier budget movies. But considering that it was made by A24 is kinda the reason why it was able to be made though..

Everything everywhere all at once was probably a fantastic midbudget movie, it didn’t have a big huge budget and a fairly small team, but it managed to do something incredible all because it had talented people behind it

The pattern I see here is streaming studios bought out the mid-budget film categorically to claim the existing niche/market and ensure they have less competition from The Big Five studios. That also gives streaming the ability to take those creative ideas and expand them to series if accounting agrees their different goals (subscription retention vs box office) are better served by the change in format, further suggesting a shortage in mid-budget film when in truth the success of the mid-budget film in its time lay more on the creativity of the people involved being transferable but not having a better venue for expression when TV production was geared toward safe super-formulas.