Box Office Potential
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Never underestimate the power of nostalgia. In 2016 only two of the top 10 grossing films were based on original concepts. The other 8 were adapted from stories dating as far back as 1894 and up to 2003 according to an article from Quartz. The best example of the force of nostalgia is the success of the recent Star Wars trilogies, the first in the 2000’s, and the second in the late 2010’s, which despite poor to moderate critical reception, have raked in billions in box office returns; no wonder Disney has two further trilogies in development.
Another concept that uses nostalgia to its advantage is the Netflix series Stranger Things, which perfectly captures the essence of the 1980’s children adventure movie, to attract an audience of people who grew up watching films like the Goonies, ET, and Gremlins. But it doesn’t rely too much on nostalgia; it works in and of itself to attract a new generation of young adults, effectively doubling the target market. The way to capitalize on nostalgia is thus to use it as the foundation but to create something novel enough to compel the new generation. Many critics complained that The Force Awakens, the first of the most recent Star Wars trilogy, was simply a rehashing of the old. Disney responded with The Last Jedi, which many critics complained was too distinct from past installments. Clearly one must strike a balance of nostalgia and novelty to curry favor among the critics but even despite the sub-par criticism, these films went on to gross 2.1 and 1.3 billion respectively. And yet, the drop off between those two, and the poor performance of the spinoff Solo, shows that nostalgia or novelty will only take an audience so far - there must be balance in the force.
Concept Development
To strike a balance between nostalgia and novelty it is first crucial to figure out exactly what people are nostalgic for. Different age groups are obviously nostalgic for different things, but for the sake of maximizing profits, let’s focus on the largest demographic of film goers, 25-39 year olds, who make up 24% of all movie-goers. This demographic was raised in the 1980’s and 1990’s, a time when children’s movies weren’t only high-budget animated films or indie coming-of-age dramas, but were, at heart, adventure films, like Goonies, ET, and Gremlins, along with Neverending Story, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, and Hook, all of which performed well in the box office. Stranger Things not only tapped in to nostalgia, but tapped into a nostalgia representative of the largest film demographic.
With 80’s and 90’s children’s adventure films as the nostalgic foundation, the following step is to take the adventure in a novel direction. The adventures in the films listed fall into the following categories: searching for treasure, caring for creatures, and exploring foreign lands. Stranger Things only shortly invokes the element of caring for a creature, but mostly focuses on a group of children joining forces, to save the town from an alien invasion. It’s a kid’s adventure film that puts its kids in a completely novel adventure, at least seemingly novel. It was heavily influenced by JJ Abrams Super 8, released just a few years prior, as well as a little seen TV show from the 90’s called Eerie, Indiana. It’s not a completely novel direction but it was novel enough to be hailed by critics for originality.
To achieve novelty, one must take children to a place or on an adventure that they have never been on before, but at the same time, invoke nostalgia through use of the themes listed above. What place have kids not explored before? The first thought was space but now we’re getting into unrealistic territory. What’s a realistic place that kids have never explored before that involves exploring foreign lands, plus searching for treasure? What better time and place than the American frontier of the 1860s, a time when prospectors journeyed across vast stretches of unexplored territory, braving dangers along the road, in search of rumored gold. How does a child fit into the story? Maybe he ran away from home. Why? Why would any child run away from home - an argument with his parents. Then to put together a team of children. Are they are all runaways? Perhaps the rest are orphans for convenience sake but also to distinguish the main character from his peers. And to set off, he steals a horse from his father’s farm, despite not knowing how to ride that well, forcing him to learn to ride on the go, but also to learn to “care for creatures.”
Finally, just as it is important to strike a balance between nostalgia and novelty, it’s also important to strike a balance in tone. Most of the above mentioned 80s and 90s movies are generally light-hearted, despite moments of danger. But can you really characterize the American frontier of the 1860s as light-hearted? Not really. And if it’s truly a darker place, can audiences handle that darkness? The target market, in their 20s and 30s, can certainly handle darker themes, but the question is, will they see it with their children? Evidence shows that even when the genre wades into darker territories the audience is quite resilient, as demonstrated by above-average box office receipts for decidedly dark takes on the children’s adventure films, such as Stand by Me, The Lost Boys and It. This coupled with the fact that recent Pixar films are exploring darker themes demonstrates that younger audiences can not only handle darker tones, but their parents welcome it. At the same time, there are plenty of light-hearted moments to strike a perfect balance.
Hidden Market Potential
The nostalgic element alone is designed to capture as wide of an audience as possible but there’s one segment, that if specifically targeted, will drive up returns even further. While the average movie-goer is a Democrat, according to article in Hollywood Reporter, there’s a specific genre of film that Republicans are drawn to: westerns. This makes perfect sense in light of the popular campaign phrase, “Make America Great Again,” suggesting that the America of the past was superior, or in other words, conservative nostalgia. While Song of the River is not a conservative film (there are some conservative as well as liberal themes), marketing efforts should subtly capitalize on that nostalgia, to draw conservative viewers, but in a way that won’t alienate liberal viewers, hence the tagline Go West, Young Man as a marketing tool. This strategy is especially important in today’s political climate because conservatives are feeling increasingly outcast by Hollywood, according to several sources, and are starving for new content as evidenced by the overwhelming reception of the new Roseanne episodes and the high box-office returns for recent conservative action movies portraying the American military in a positive light (American Sniper and Lone Survivor). Song of the River thus offers something for the whole family, regardless of political party, by serving up a dual-nostalgia of a children’s adventure tale set on the American frontier.
Box Office Projections
Budget: $100 million/Gross: $400 million
The budget is derived by averaging the budgets of all traditional-style Westerns produced in the last 10 years (Magnificent 7, The Revenant, The Lone Ranger Django Unchained, True Grit) excluding Cowboys vs. Aliens (more science fiction) and The Hateful 8 (more a stage play) and films that didn’t rank in top 20 for genre by gross, equalling about 150M.
Additional cost savings can be derived by using name actors in cameo appearances alone. The above-mentioned westerns rely heavily on established actors in starring roles, which greatly increases the budgets, while productions like Stranger Things and Super 8 faired well without big actors. Song of the River can leverage star power in cameo capacity (the script is written to accommodate many), allowing use of names in marketing at discount.
The gross is deduced by averaging the box office returns of the movies mentioned above, which is $150 and averaging that number with the box office reception of recent children adventure film Super 8 (260M), so about 200M, but multiplied by two (two installments). This assuming the audience would be a balance of western enthusiasts and young adults.