Iron Man Suits Up

We don’t know precisely when our universe was born, but we do know that the Big Bang that created the Marvel Cinematic Universe took place May 2, 2008 when Iron Man exploded in theatres.

At the time, Marvel was a year away from being purchased by Disney, IM’s star Robert Downey Jr. was known for years of making Hollywood Bad Boy headlines, IM was considered a second tier Marvel property and the idea of a shared universe with storylines for individual Marvel comic book superheroes was in its infancy. In fact, the next step in that direction was a misstep with The Incredible Hulk, which had a not very muscular opening June 13, 2008. IM had opened to $98.6 million and did $585.8 million worldwide, but Hulk kicked-off to just $55.4 million and only grossed $264.8 million globally.

Nonetheless, Marvel stayed the course and moviegoers began gravitating to new MCU titles, Downey’s life took a happy turn for the better and Iron Man spawned hit sequels (IM2 with $623.9 million worldwide in 2010 and IM3 with $1.2 billion globally in 2013). Disney purchased Marvel August 31, 2009 in a deal worth $4 billion. Since then, MCU films have grossed about $22 billion – some $18 billion more than Disney paid.

We’ve already seen three phases of the MCU and are now entering the fourth. Phase One began with IM and ended with the first crossover film The Avengers (2012). Phase Two started with IM3 (2013) and wrapped up with Ant-Man (2015). Phase Three got going with Captain America: Civil War (2016) and culminated in Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019 via Sony). Phase Four kicks off 7/9 with Black Widow, followed by Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (Sept. 3), Eternals (Nov. 5) and Spider-Man: No Way Home (Dec. 17).

Of course, in 2009 when Disney CEO Robert Iger decided to acquire Marvel, there were considerable risks. Earlier this week, Iger, who’s now Disney’s executive chairman, reflected at the Clio Awards (for creative advertising) on green-lighting costly Disney acquisitions over the years like Marvel, Lucasfilm, Pixar and 21st Century Fox’s entertainment assets. While acknowledging that there were risks, he added it wasn’t “as risky in my mind because of my confidence in our ability to execute.” Clearly, Iger was right and great execution over the past dozen years by Disney and Marvel (under studio chief/president Kevin Feige) has made the MCU an astronomical success.

The most widely circulated headline about the 93rd Academy Awards was the extremely low ratings for the broadcast. This year’s unusual presentation capped off an unusual year, and drew only 9.8M viewers, down 60% from last year’s program 14 months ago. The show was also impacted by numerous COVID related challenges, with arrival, entrance and seating organized to ensure proper social distancing for the stars. A notable scheduling miscue was the Academy’s decision to move the “Best Actor” award to the end of the program, with the expectation the late Chadwick Boseman would win for his performance in Ma Raney’s Black Bottom which would end the program on a sentimental note. However, Anthony Hopkins wound up winning in the category for his role in The Father. Alas, Hopkins was not present in person to accept the award, and presenter Joaquin Phoenix simply stated this fact and announced the end of the show.

While this was a noteworthy anticlimax to a challenging year, the downward trend for the Oscars and most other major awards programs have been well documented and cannot be written off as a COVID problem. One important factor in this spiral down is the fact that audiences are less and less familiar with the films receiving nominations. Variety’s Owen Gleiberman suggests, “Here’s the real way to solve the Oscar problem…Hollywood has to rediscover a way to do two things at once: 1) make crowd-pleasing films that are artful acts of storytelling not aimed at 14-year-olds; and 2) nominate those movies for Oscars.”

See also: The Best and Worst Moments of the 2021 Oscars (NY Times)

IMAX announced its earnings for Q1 2021 and for the first time since the onset of the pandemic it reported an increase in box office receipts when compared with receipts from the same quarter in the prior year.  In Q1 2021, IMAX’s box office receipts came in $110M globally, up from $95.2M in Q1 2020.  As with any exhibitor, IMAX retains only a portion of these box office receipts after sharing the proceeds with its studio partners.  IMAX reported a net loss of 25 cents per share for the quarter, compared with a net loss in 82 cents per share in Q1 2020.

During last week’s earnings call, IMAX’s CEO Rich Gelfond emphasized the company’s relative strengths in the market, most notably strong results from China, Japan and other Asian markets where IMAX maintains an extensive network of theatres, and the interest that audiences have demonstrated in going to big-screen environments to watch the blockbuster titles that IMAX specializes in presenting.  Gelfond also claimed that the industry movement towards shorter theatrical windows should have minimal impact on revenues, since IMAX typically plays films for limited runs of one to two weeks before moving on new titles.  Upcoming releases like A Quiet Place Part 2, F9 and Black Widow all stand to perform well at IMAX locations, supporting a rosy outlook for the summer.

Last week during a nationwide address, French president Emmanuel Macron announced a timeline for re-opening cinemas in Europe’s largest theatrical market.  Beginning on May 19^th, cinemas will be allowed to resume public screenings with a maximum seating capacity of 35%.  Capacity limits will be eased in stages over six weeks until June 30^th when theatres will be able to sell tickets up to their full capacity, just in time for the July 6^th opening of the 2021 Cannes Film Festival and the July 9^th global release of Disney’s Black Widow.

European nations have struggled to balance the competing imperatives of assuring public health during the pandemic while maintaining some level of economic activity in the society.  Cinemas in France have been shuttered since last October 30^th, when a second wave of coronavirus infections was washing over Europe.  However, over the past month the number of new infections have come down, the pace of vaccinations has increased, and warmer weather brought with it a return to outdoor lifestyles with better ventilation and lower risk person-to-person transmission of the virus.  Exhibitors are optimistic that moviegoing will resume, due in part to the strong pipeline of new releases that studios have withheld during the pandemic.