Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die.
It was a fun movie, entertaining. Not a great movie. Not a bad movie. I'm glad I went to see it in theaters. It had the vibe of an early 2000s movie you watch one summer, because it's something to do on a weekend.
I miss that. Just normal movies. Not big events. But, I think this movie might have proved for me how that is dead.
Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die - had a budget of $20 Million dollars. That is a LOW theatrical release budget. Bottom of the barrel, bare minimum budget. That is the marketing budget for some other movies.
For some perspective, here is a semi-random assortment of movies.
Palm Springs (2020)
Release Format: Hulu
Budget: $5 million
Box Office: $1.5 million
Uncut Gems (2019)
Release Format: Theater (US) / Netflix (Intl.)
Budget: $19 million
Box Office: $50 million
Joker (2019)
Release Format: Theater
Budget: $55–70 million
Box Office: $1.079 billion
Dune (2021)
Release Format: Theater / HBO Max
Budget: $165 million
Box Office: $411 million
Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
Release Format: Theater
Budget: $170–177 million
Box Office: $1.496 billion
So GLHFDD is not Dune, or Top Gun, it isn't a franchise. It probably stands closer to Palm Springs and Uncut Gems, not just obviously in their similar budgets, but also in their uniqueness. They are one-off movies.
I haven't mentioned what GLHFDD made at the box office yet, I'll get back to that. One big difference between that movie, and movies like Uncut Gems and Palm Springs, is how they will spend that budget.
Uncut Gems, an A24 studio movie, notoriously does not spend much on marketing. They rely nearly exclusively on their reputation, and maybe in this case, the draw of Adam Sandler. The vast majority of the marketing of this movie, though, would have been word of mouth, and the accessibility of being available on Netflix.
Palm Springs, similarly, did not need to spend much money on marketing at all. The movie did not release in theaters; it was a Hulu exclusive, outside of some limited showings at drive-in theaters. So while Palm Springs only brought in $1.5 million from those showings, on a $5 million dollar budget, it seems likely they got their value's worth through viewership on the platform.
So how did Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die do?
On a $20 million dollar budget, it returned $9 million.
For an independent studio, this isn't great. There may be a Blu-ray release in the future, but that isn't going to close the gap. The next movie will likely be licensed to one or more streaming services, but still, $11 million is a steep hill to break even.
Movies, as a whole, are not going anywhere, but theatrical releases don't serve the same purpose or even the same customer they once did.
Paramount Skydance recently purchased Warner Bros. Discovery, the latest in media consolidation. In one way, this may actually be a good thing for fans of going to the movies.
Much like streaming platforms use their own network as a means of advertising, reducing their need for a larger marketing budget, Paramount's network is movie theaters.
Whether it's audience fragmentation, media empire consolidation, or just "the economy", it's increasingly difficult for smaller, fun, independent movies to succeed on their own, without relying on being bought up by a major streaming service at a film festival.
Speaking of massive budget movies produced by streaming networks based on already pre-existing IP, I'm pretty excited to watch Project Hail Mary (budget $240 million) from Amazon Studios this weekend.