The summer box office turned into a “thing” nearly five decades ago when Steven Spielberg’s Jaws broke all records to become the first film to cross $100 million domestically after Universal spent an unprecedented $700,000 on TV advertising. Some 47 years later, the summer of 2022 is more important than ever as Hollywood attempts to return to some semblance of normalcy and release one delayed blockbuster after another for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began.
For Hollywood marketers, there’s no avoiding the blood in the water as the frenzy gets underway in jump-starting their vast operations and trying to sell their 2022 summer tentpoles amid a packed calendar and a changed world. Bringing back consumers to the multiplex is not for the faint of heart. Advertising on TV is more complicated and expensive than ever as studios compete digitally on TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube and other platforms. “How do you stand out once again? It’s a minefield out there,” says one studio marketing head. “Just look at the summer, when there is a big movie every week in June.”
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Adds Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian, “Movie marketing has never been more important, particularly after two years where movies on the big screen were essentially out of sight and therefore out of mind for so many potential consumers.”
So far, so good. Disney, where marketing is led by Asad Ayaz, saw Marvel’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (May 7) open to at least $185 million domestically and $450 million globally over the May 6-8 weekend, one of the biggest openings of all time.
The marquee will get increasingly crowded in the coming weeks, beginning with Paramount/Skydance’s Top Gun: Maverick (May 27). That’s followed by Universal’s Jurassic World Dominion (June 10); Pixar/Disney’s first Toy Story spinoff, Lightyear (June 17); Universal’s Minions: The Rise of Gru (July 1); and Marvel/Disney’s Thor: Love and Thunder (July 8).
Don’t be surprised if studios set aside $150 million or more on global marketing spend for the biggest titles. While not technically tentpoles, such summer event films as Warner Bros.’ Elvis (June 24), Universal’s Nope (July 22) and Sony’s Bullet Train (July 29) likely will have sizeable global marketing budgets of $75 million or more.
Nope, from Jordan Peele, might be cheaper to market since it’s a horror title, while Elvis’ costs will include a world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival ($1 million-plus). Never undervalue the power of a strategic premiere — just look at the headlines coming out of the pull-out-all-the-stops Top Gun: Maverick world premiere in San Diego on May 4, where Tom Cruise landed on an aircraft carrier to walk the red carpet. The sequel will also play in Cannes before a posh Royal Film Performance screening in London.
A string of recent box office successes, led by the $1.89 billion global grosser Spider-Man: No Way Home, has been a mood booster for marketers since it means people are back to seeing trailers on the big screen. “The best place to experience a trailer for an upcoming movie is in a theater,” says Ray Subers, senior vp theatrical at the National Research Group. “You need to get eyeballs in front of the trailers. A friend is sitting with his friend, and they start talking about it and getting excited about it, and then they talk with their other friends, and those friends make plans, and that’s how we are going to get moviegoing to increase.”
Hollywood movie marketers are also heartened by a dramatic rise in people’s comfort with going to theaters, a measurement NRG has tracked on a weekly basis since the beginning of the pandemic. As of May 4, comfort level was at a 2022 high of 87 percent, up 22 points from a low of 65 percent in January. And among moviegoers 35 and older — the most reluctant demo to return — comfort is at 83 percent, up 28 points from January’s 55 percent.
But there’s work to be done. Attendance in first-quarter 2022 was down more than 40 percent from the same quarter in 2019. “One of the things we know fairly well is that behavior has changed to the point that casual moviegoing is kind of now what you do at home; an event is what you do in the theater. An event can take a lot of different forms, and it isn’t just always the superhero stuff,” says another box office insider.
Execs also agree that it is harder and harder to reach a broad audience via TV advertising. “It’s all about sports now,” says a marketing executive. “Back in the day, you had your big primetime shows and co-viewing. There are still things like The Masked Singer and The Bachelorette, but those audiences are nowhere near what they used to be. A lot of those shows are available on streaming as well.” Diminished viewership on linear TV doesn’t mean media prices have gone down, however. TV spots are up as much as 10 percent. “Even linear primetime media costs more. But you need both — the bigger-reach stuff [on TV] and then you have to reach a very specific audience that digital provides,” says the executive.
Digital media spots also cost more now than pre-pandemic. “It’s no longer one-size-fits-all for digital campaigns. There are different platforms for different demographics. Audiences are completely different from one another. You used to be able to take a TV spot and customize it for different things. Now you have to think from the ground up for every service and every platform,” says another top marketing exec.
Another pandemic-era change: Campaigns used to begin six months out. Now, the crush begins four to three months out. One exception is Avatar: The Way of Water. Disney and 20th Century decided to drop the teaser trailer for James Cameron’s long-awaited sequel before Doctor Strange 2, some seven months before Way of Water rolls out Dec. 16.
Throughout the pandemic, streaming became Tinseltown’s hero. But that narrative changed somewhat April 19, when Netflix announced that it lost 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter, sending its stock plunging. Media bosses like newly minted Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav or Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon CEO Brian Robbins have been extolling the value of theatrical. “I think the data shows that when … you open a movie in the theaters, it has a whole stream of monetization,” says Zaslav. “But more importantly, it’s marketed and it builds a brand. And so when it does go to the streaming service, there is a view that that has a higher quality that benefits the streaming service.”
Netflix, Apple TV+ and Amazon don’t generally have to make a major theatrical marketing spend for their films since they often only get a token release in theaters (a streaming-only title will have a much harder time driving watercooler conversation than a tentpole). According to iSpot.TV, which monitors media spending, Apple did spend $6.4 million on ads for CODA when it was rereleased in theaters after its best picture win at the Academy Awards, but it’s hard to know how it fared since no box office grosses were revealed.
Some are even questioning whether Netflix should consider creating a new revenue stream and give some of its titles a traditional theatrical release, even if that means spending more on marketing. “There is no doubt Netflix has quantity of content, which has helped with its subs over the years. Now consumers are looking for better content. If Netflix could improve its movie content, maybe that could help with the theatrical window as well as reducing churn,” says Wall Street analyst Eric Handler of MKM Partners.
“The undivided attention you get from an audience in a theater,” says a top studio executive, “is where franchises are born.”
A version of this story first appeared in the May 10 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
