Wake Up, Hollywood!

Ever since we were given The Dark Knight Rises on July 20, which has to this point grossed roughly $440 million, the box office has steadily declined to give the people one of the most disappointing months of the year, being capped off by the past weekend of September 7-9 earning the "award" of lowest grossing weekend since 2008, with The Possession topping the weekend at only $9.3 million. The distribution companies have put a lot of stock in a lot of films that have disappointed at the box office, so the question has to be asked: why?

Why is the box office in its worst shape in four years?

If a movie doesn't appeal to an audience, the audience won't show, and therefore, the box office will bomb. Pretty simple, right? If the viewer isn't compelled by the marketers to pay $8 for a two-hour plus long movie, they won't. Movie prices are escalating, and if we won't to get folks back to the theater, the industry must give them a reason to, and the only way they can do that is offer high quality films instead of the mediocre ones that the past weeks have brought to the table.

On Rotten Tomatoes, five of the top ten movies at the box office this weekend are "certified rotten," which easily means that at the most, only half the people that rated that movie liked it. That means five movies are "certified fresh," but that could be misleading when you take a closer look at it. In order to be "certified fresh," 60% of the raters must have liked it. Three of those movies have a rating of 64%, 65%, and 66%, borderline rotten. That leaves only two movies that are legitimately fresh.

People go to the movies to be entertained. If word on the street is rotten, people today are not going to commit two hours of their time and spend $8 plus for something that is widely considered rotten. The reason that the box office is now at a four-year low is that no movies are worth seeing at the moment. The Watch had the starpower of Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, and Jonah Hill along with a late summer release and still only managed to gross $34 million. Total Recall had the original classic's grace and the appeal of Colin Farrell, but only grossed $58 million on a $125 million budget. The Bourne Legacy had the graces of Matt Damon's original trilogy and the surging stardom of Jeremy Renner, but only grossed $104 million, $17 million behing Damon's The Bourne Identity, the previous lowest of the series. The Campaign had Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis in a political satire in an election year and still just made $80 million. The Expendables 2 had every action star of the past half-century and only managed $76 million, roughly $28 million behind the first installment. Lawless had Tom Hardy coming off The Dark Knight Rises and a supporting cast of Shia LaBeouf, Gary Oldman, Guy Pearce, and Jessica Chastain and only grossed $24 million to this point.

Now, people have proven that if you give them a reason to show up, they will. In March, The Hunger Games recorded the fifth-highest opening weekend in history en route to a total gross of $408 million. The Avengers recorded the highest opening weekend ever at just over $207 million on track to $621 million, third most all-time. Brave steadily recorded $233 million thanks to its Pixar brand and positive word of mouth. And of course, The Dark Knight Rises grossed $161 million opening weekend and onward to $438 million and counting. But if you pay close attention, you'll notice something: all four films were certified fresh coming in at 84%, 92%, 77%, and 87% respectively. In fact, this year's top seven highest grossing movies are certified fresh. If people like what they see, they'll shell out the money.

But that's the problem: we have too many movies nowadays that leave people underwhelmed.

So I call on Hollywood to step up their game....now. Quit talking about how bad the box office is and instead, give us those movies we all want to see instead of the ones we feel obligated to see.

Wake up, Hollywood! You've created this mess with your lack of creativity and sloppy moviemaking! Now, you fix it! We're just the buyers of your great product, and we want to buy your product, but if your product isn't worth buying, we'll simply stay away. Give us reason to buy, and then we'll happily see you at the movies again.