The spark started in yesterday's box office conversation, based on the notion that the worst five performances against openings of more than $50m were "niche" films... this based on what seems to be the fact that Watchmen will be the worst multiple (under 2.13x) in history vs opening weekend ($55.2m open... under $117.6 total).
One of the five was Spider-Man 3, which as I quickly pointed out when called on it, was an anomaly. And it, obviously, is.
And so the discussion - occasionally interrupted by insanity - was about what "niche" means now... would it include Indiana Jones, etc.
So here is my take... and as always, you are welcome to offer yours (hopefully, without the insanity):
Niche is when you can see that one portion of the audience clearly overwhelms all of the others... even when you hope that it will expand past that group. The idea of the "quadrant" has been around forever, but has really lost its meaning, as it is not nearly specific enough in the recent market. The "niche" is a section of a quadrant. It doesn't have to be defined by age or sex, but when you look at each niche, they usually are one sex or the other, one age group that bulges outside of historic ideas, etc.
So... when Iron Man does expand past that niche, great for them. When The Incredible Hulk does not, it should not really be a surprise.
Historically, movies were made for a price that made films that cracked their niche to be hugely profitable. This is what has changed so dramatically. Because of the mega-success of some niche product, studios have chased those niches as though they were 3 or 4 quadrant draws.
The result of this is, in part, that a film that doesn’t break out much beyond its niche, like The Incredible Hulk, can gross over $100 million domestic and still be a niche play.
When a studio adds a major box office star to a niche or spends a fortune on effects for a niche idea, the goal is almost always to spend their was out of the niche. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.
Sometimes, a film that is conceived, funded, and released as a niche play grows out of that limitation. A movie like this year’s Taken is a perfect example of that. And the result is hugely profitable. Likewise, what seems to be the niche isn’t always the niche. Paul Blart: Mall Cop was made by Adam Sandler’s company, known for a raunchy edge to everything. But this turned out to be the first quarter’s family superstar movie… a Kevin James version of Daddy Day Care or The Game Plan.
So what’s the difference between Paul Blart (probably around $200m worldwide) and a Pixar movie (consistently over $500 million worldwide)? Paul Blart found a surprise niche and owned it and overperformed expectations. Pixar movies have great success in their niche… and then expand well beyond their niche, drawing older teens and adults in big numbers.
Then there is the case of the Narnia films, which hoped to break out of the niche of a school-aged audience and some book fans, and did with The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe… to the tune of $750 million worldwide. Then it fell back into the niche it had climbed out of, grossing “just” $420 million with its sequel, Prince Caspian. The two ironies of that were that Caspian has a young stud hero, which the makers of the film hoped would broaden the audience farther and that part of the $420 million was only generated because this was a sequel to a popular film. So the “pure” audience was probably about half for the sequel what it was for the original.
What happened? It seems that the sequel lost a massive niche that is rarely drawn to cinemas in big numbers… serious Christians… Christians who were drawn to the theaters by Aslan, Lewis’ stand-in for a Christ character in the first book… Christians who were hard sold by the niche marketers who also sold The Passion of The Christ (and who have also been used and failed to deliver for many other films since POTC).
When Spider-Man or Batman crushes niche rules and finds a true four-quadrant audience, that’s great. But these cases are rare. Iron Man, for instance, beat the niche in the United States, but not so much in the rest of the world, grossing just a fraction more than Wanted and less than The Mummy 4 overseas. But the sequel will, most likely, see a big increase overseas because the first film created a familiarity that the character didn’t have before, whereas in America, the numbers will likely be around the same for the sequel. Sequels are their own unique thing... though they can conform to niches as well.
These issues are as true for indie film as it is of geek culture genre. The decline of the studio (in)Dependent was hastened by overspending on production in chasing the audience for that niche... which led to overspending in the marketing that chased the audience for that niche.
Another thing one should take into account that the niche-busting comic book titles were, in fact, successfully marketed to the niche, as well as past the niche. Not every film is, obviously, assured of that success just because it sells to a niche.
There are different values to different niches. It may seem obvious, but just because a niche becomes a $130 million niche does not make it a non-niche. Likewise, just because a niche is realistically under $20 million does not make it a sub-niche.
So… to answer one question from the earlier discussion of niche… if Spider-Man 3 is niche, it must be the biggest niche in the world… the asker is both facetious and correct. Mega-sequels or three-quels are the smallest niche in the world… every studio desperately wants them… and they play to the biggest and lately, rarest niche there is… 4 quadrants.
May’s upcoming big movies are mostly niche… and all hope to break out beyond their niche. X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Star Trek, and Drag Me To Hell are all Geek Niche, with sub-niches of Comic Book, Trekkies, and Horror. I expect Wolverine and Trek to push for non-niche action audiences, both hoping that the sex appeal of their leads will help in a big way. Hell will squirm around, hoping to find some interested women with Ali Lohman as bait.
Terminator Salvation is a mega-quadrequel, which puts it in its own space. The movie will do a lot of business, but figuring out how much is very, very difficult. The last film opened to “only” $44 million domestic and did $443 million worldwide, falling behind T2. But $250 million international and $125m domestic seems like the bottom possibility for this film, given the franchise… just as when License to Kill did only $35 million in the U.S., but still did over $150m worldwide.
Angels & Demons saw the first in its series, The DaVinci Code, squeeze its Adult Reader niche as hard as any film has ever squeezed a niche. The challenge for the next film will be to hang onto that audience while trying to bring in a new audience as well as recovering some who hated the first film with a more action-focused film.
Night At The Museum II broke out of the expected niche the first time – as it also plundered the niche absolutely – and is by the far Ben Stiller’s biggest non-animated film overseas. The same was true of National Treasure: Book of Secrets for Nic Cage after National Treasure was behind only The Rock (with big bait Sean Connery) overseas. What these films (and Da Vinci) found out was that there was a worldwide audience, young and old, for history mystery. Added to the Kid niche, in one case, and the Adult Action niche and the Family niche in the other, and you have these massive worldwide hits.
Up – given its pedigree - is the only real 4-quadrant play in May… and Transformers 2, given the data from the first film, and Potter 6 – for much the same reason - seem to be the only real hope for a 4-quadrant plays for the rest of the summer.
The great niche story of the summer is, to my eye, Star Trek, which has to break the most severe (and often profitable) of niches – Trekkies/Trekkers - in a big way if its going to make a profit or even break even. Paramount is betting that by going young and not “the same cast as the TV shows,” it can keep the $150 million worldwide or so in hard core Trek ticket buyers and find another $250 million or more in people who don ‘t have any interest in going to see a Star Trek film… the part of the M:I/Bourne/Die Hard crowd that hasn’t paid to see more than one Star Trek film ever. And with a production budget over $200 million, they will have to make that tough leap. And if they do, they will have beaten the niche. But that won’t mean that it didn’t start in a niche or that even $250 million worldwide is still not mostly niche ticket buyers.
Of course, all of this can be debated in the details. And the highest skilled marketers are the ones who can ride both the niche and expand the niche. That’s where the money becomes a surprise and not about oversized expectations and the scent of failure on movies that were never made for more than the niche for which they were designed. Those expectations almost always come from the people who are most responsible for not staying focused on the niche… the studios that decide to spend more to produce and market niche films than seems reasonable.
That means closing with Titanic… which cost less in production than Star Trek (leaving out the building of the studio in Mexico, since sold off by NewsCorp). In those days, it was almost incomprehensible. Bill Mechanic still says that he would never have sold off part of the film to Paramount. But it was three niches in one that made it more than a niche film… it was big romance… big history… and big action… all in one long film. The only audience that wasn’t served was the pre-teens for whom it was too long and too chatty. Probably cost the movie a few hundred million at the box office.
We’ll just have to fix that in the sequel…
Read the complete post at http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/archives/2009/03/what_is_niche_2.html