'Late Night' and the Decline of Comedy at the Box Office: Is Netflix Really to Blame?
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/ne...-blame-1219121
6:45 AM PDT 6/18/2019 by Stephen Galloway
As the Mindy Kaling movie becomes the latest to fizzle in theaters, a confluence of forces — including the streaming service’s push into the arena and the studios’ shift to genres that reap billions worldwide — puts the future of funny films in question.
Comedy lovers, not to mention fans of Emma Thompson and Mindy Kaling, took succor in early June from the promising limited opening of Late Night. The picture, which Amazon Studios acquired at Sundance for a reported $13 million, debuted the weekend of June 7 to a per-screen average of $62,414, second only this year to Marvel's Avengers: Endgame.
A week later, the picture fizzled when it went wide, earning $5.1 million, or $2,314 per screen (a third of Men in Black: International's per screen take, itself a disappointment), thereby proving itself the latest in a string of comedy casualties at the box office.
(And on and on and on and on...)
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