2016: The Final Year Audiences Saw The Mid-Budget Movie In Theatres

2016 was the last year to be ruled by the mid-budget, studio programmer, filled with high-quality, star-led adult entertainment that audiences (mostly) saw in theatres

Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling in 'The Nice Guys' (CREDIT: Warner Bros.)

                       by Jack Linsdell

Long before Disney and Marvel teamed up to make blockbusters that ignited "superhero mania" in the film industry, and decades before "Netflix and chill" even became a thing, Sony and Paramount ruled Hollywood. That's because they specialised in Hollywood's bread and butter. Yes, I'm on about the "star and concept" mid-budget, adult counter-programmer. From the 1980s to the late-2000s, audiences flocked mostly to original genre flicks that were vehicles for popular and well-liked stars. This was an age when "a new Julia Roberts rom-com", "the latest Jim Carrey comedy" or "a Denzel Washington action flick" were bigger draws than IP or marquee characters to audiences. That's why Tom Cruise scored hit (Top Gun) after hit (The Firm) after hit (Jerry Maguire) on original adult movies in a range of genres purely based on his "star power". Anyway, when four-quadrant blockbusters pulled adults away into watching the same movies as their kids and quite enjoying them, Paramount and Sony started struggling. Now, we're in a position where Sony has to sell it's "Tom Hanks in a WII U-boat thriller"Greyhound to Apple TV+ for $70 million and Paramount has to hand it's "Kumail Nanjiani in a progressive rom-com" The Lovebirds to Netflix to stand any chance of making profit. 

The monumental shifts in the way audiences consume their filmed entertainment, and the way studios have adapted to that change, over the last decade has made the mid-budget movie an endangered species. And, 2016 (which was an exceptionally good year for movies) was also the last time the mid-budget, counter-programmers dominated the theatrical slate and were actually seen by audiences in theatres. So, let's chronologically dive in to the best mid-budget flicks of 2016...

On the 22nd January, Sony kicked the year off with a bang when they released J Blakeson's hugely underrated and frankly terrific The 5th Wave into theatres. This teen sci-fi/thriller starred Chloe Grace Moretz as Cassie Sullivan, a teenager who has to navigate alien attacks and human corruption to survive the "end of the world" and find her younger brother. It's the perfect fusion of script, direction, performance and music and hands down one of the best commercial movies ever made. Sony lined up a decent $45 million budget to adapt the first book of Rick Yancey's bestselling trilogy. This was cheap enough that it's eventual $109 million worldwide cume made it marginally profitable for the studio, although far from the highs Lionsgate experienced with The Hunger Games. The point was that The 5th Wave is exactly the sort of star-driven, responsibly budgeted and well-made movie that has all but become extinct. Sure, the movie may not have broke "big" but enough older teens and adults saw it in theatres to prevent it being a bomb. It sure earned it's 15 UK rating, giving adults enough poignant brutality and tense action beats to justify itself as not another "for kids" flick. It's a terrific movie and you should damn well check it out. 

On May 15th, Warner Bros. debuted Shane Black's neo-noir action comedy The Nice Guys into theatres to red hot buzz and positive reviews. The film works as a brilliant homage to the buddy cop action flicks of the 1980s whose main audience appeal became seeing big stars like Mel Gibson and Danny Glover spend two hours pretending to hate each other. Black wrote Lethal Weapon, the 1987 classic that arguably made buddy cop movies popular, so it's very apt (and ironic) that he's the one taking us down memory lane. For The Nice Guys, Black swapped out Gibson for Ryan Gosling and Glover for Russell Crowe, becoming exactly the sort of star-driven, R-rated counter-programmer that has slowly died out over the years. It's superb, character-driven and exceptionally funny entertainment for adults and although it's mere $62 global cume couldn't justify it's $50 million budget, it's enjoyed a healthy post-theatrical life and become a popular "you must see this movie" for most like-minded adults. 

June 21st brought us another unmitigated success for Sony who essentially proved that with the right star and with a bit of release date luck, audiences could still show up for original movies. Jaume Collet-Serra's "Blake Lively stranded out at sea...with a shark!" thriller clicked with audiences to the tune of $119 million worldwide on a mere $25 million budget. Just like Alexandra Aja's Crawl three years later, The Shallows proved that adults would still show up for R-rated horror genre thrills based around a deadly water creature. It's aggressively "fine" as a movie, doing nothing "new" but working mostly as "I saw it and had a good time" popcorn entertainment. It broke out because it was a solid mid-budget counter-programmer for adults who didn't care for Finding Dory or Independence Day Resurgence.

One year before The Greatest Showman broke big with both adults and kids, Damien Chazelle's adult-skewing La La Land revived the modern original musical on August 31st to the tune of $446 million worldwide on $30 million budget. It's one of the highest grossing "for adults" flicks of all time to not include action and is one of the biggest original live action musicals of all time too. The Ryan Gosling/Emma Stone flick clicked with audiences (and The Academy) because it was crowd-pleasing and escapist enough to remove people from real life without being kid-friendly or overtly fantastical. It also evoked nostalgia in adults for the glamorous "golden age" of Hollywood when style and stardom went hand in hand. I certainly don't think La La Land A) justified all the hype and B) deserved all those Oscar's but as a mid-budget, counter-programmer, it's one of the best success stories of recent years. 

Two "based on a real life American hero who doesn't see himself that way" flicks ruled the fall of 2016. Both also nabbed Technical Oscar Nominations for Sound Editing too. They were Clint Eastwood's drama Sully and Mel Gibson's WWI flick Hacksaw Ridge. Both films are unmitigated successes in terms of their quality and commercial performance, but most of all they broke out as mid-budget studio programmers precisely because they had big stars. The reason why Sully earned $240 million on a $60 million budget in September while Michael Bay's 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi bombed ($69 million on $50 million budget) was because adults were drawn to "another Tom Hanks as humble American hero". Again, Hacksaw Ridge only earned $180 million on a $40 million budget whilst Queen of Katwe bombed with only $10 million worldwide because it featured Andrew Garfield in his first post-Spider-Man role. Both films are "star and concept" sells, harking back to an era when adults didn't need to know anything else than who was the lead star and what the hook was to see a movie in theatres. 

Lastly, we come to Morten Tyldum's sci-fi romance flick Passengers which broke big in December by justifying itself as the biggest "for adults" counter-programmer around despite fierce competition from Patriots Day, Hidden Figures, Fences and Collateral Beauty. Sure it's $110 million budget makes it borderline being a blockbuster, but it's hugely impressive (and profitable) $303 million global cume was a rare win for an explicitly adult film lacking much in conventional action. It had the stars (Chris Pratt fresh off Jurassic World and Jennifer Lawrence) and the concept (two passengers on a voyage to a distant planet are woken up too early by their machines) essentially becoming a high budget romance flick for adults. It was R-rated (mostly for sex) and became a popular date night movie choice. The movie itself is "fine I guess" getting by mostly on the chemistry of it's two leading stars. 

So, that was 2016. The final year where an annual theatrical slate was dominated by mid-budgeted, "for adults", star-driven counter-programmers, and audiences actually saw them in theatres. The likes of Passengers and The 5th Wave wouldn't stand a chance of earning what they did now, and even the likes of Tom Hanks as "another humble American hero" wasn't enough to make Sony stick to Greyhound being a theatrical release. It's sad to think how much things have changed in four years. In 2019, adults ignored all the traditional for them "star and concept" movies in favour of the recent Disney blockbuster. And, as well as being an exceptional year of high quality movies, 2016 also saw the curtain call for the mid-budget movie, bringing a thirty year domination as Hollywood's bread and butter to an end. Thank god Paramount has Mission: Impossible and Sony has Spider-Man right?