Why are black films struggling this year?

The projections have just come out and Sonic is going to crush Mutasa. Barry Jenkins who is an Oscar winner has now posted back to back to back flops. And keep in mind Mufasa is an animated film that only has a cast that's like 80% black but those are voice actors.

The Piano Lesson was one of Netflix's Oscar Bait films released weeks ago and not a single review on this board.

Sing Sing I saw this one it was fine but I think I was the only person on this board to see it, I don't think it even got a wide release.

The Fire Inside might not even crack the top ten when it comes out next week.

Hard Truths who knows when this is coming out you can say the same thing for Nickel Boys.

Exhibiting Forgiveness is critically one of the highest scoring films of the year...half the audience walked out of the surprise screening I went to with AMC.

Not Another Church Movie ended up mathematically as one of the biggest flops of the year.

Bob Marley did well...as did Bad Boys 4 commercially but that was February and June.

So I guess the general question is how many of these prestige are you going to see...it any. Why do you think they aren't doing well?

I don't know what a black film is.

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I have a dream
that one day,
films will judged,
not by the color of their target demos,
but by the content of their characters.

That order is taller than I am...

Well I just listed 10 of them from this year. But I would say a film that is majority cast with African American's, perhaps written and directed by one, or that covers the issues of black life.

If you wish to purchase to own...Criterion has a section.
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/b/cri...lives/_/N-2wwb

Streaming...well here's Tubi's page
https://tubitv.com/category/black_cinema

Perhaps you have Cable here's Starz in Black's schedule
https://www.tvinsider.com/network/st...lack/schedule/

I'm trying to figure out why that sets them apart from other films. Does being black make them better?

I think it's more a question of...is this a genre and why are these films doing so poorly.

Is "black" a genre? No it isn't. It doesn't tell you what type of film it is; only who's in it. It is a classification though, although not a very good one.

I would call what you're doing pedantic, but saying that film has classifications and genres wouldn't even be correct.

• Movie classifications
  Also known as content rating systems, these systems categorize movies based on their suitability for audiences. They consider how a movie treats issues like violence, sex, substance abuse, and profanity.
  
  Genre
• This is a category that describes a movie's narrative elements, such as its setting, characters, plot, mood, tone, and theme. For example, a movie's genre might be Western, romance, horror, or action.

Okay I'm going to go play "pin the tail on the robot" now since that doesn't make my headache as bad as this thread does.

I saw The Piano Lesson. It's not the type of film that generates a lot of interest or passion. It isn't very interesting and there is a lot of talking. I want to see Sing Sing but it never played near me. Sing Sing didn't get a very wide release, but is going to be re-released next month in more theatres. I also want to see Hard Truths and Nickel Boys, but they don't seem like the type of film to appeal to the general public. I suspect some black led films fail because they are smaller films with limited appeal and they don't always get a wide release

Not sure I'm understanding what this thread is getting at. More than half the films which get released commercially are box office failures and a much smaller number of them make over 100K at the box office. Naturally, if you pick any set of ten films from a particular year at random, there's a good chance none of them will be notable box office successes. Having only two films starring black people gross high for a particular year isn't some big failure, especially since there are far less films out there with a mostly black cast than there are films starring a mostly white cast. Given that, the issue is simply one of math. A low sample size (based off the films mentioned in this thread) is going to result in a high standard deviation and not an accurate determinant of the popularity of the type of film. Anyways, ever since the end of the Hays code, I'd say the trend is that diversity is growing more and more prevalent in film.

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I can’t wait to watch the black film about Bob Marley, a mixed raced singer who said the colour of a persons skin should be as unimportant as the colour of their eye and who music and message is symbolic of that statement, universally recognised as such. Okay.

Whole lotta movies not doing well this year. Furiosa should have been a hit, it was a bomb. The Fall Guy shoulda been a hit it was a bomb. Almost nothing hitting the box office numbers we've coming to expect. Not a lot that's working for audiences right now to get their butts in theaters.
Mufasa? Who asked for it? Who wanted it? How big was the real audience versus the imagined audience? And I would argue that a Lion King spinoff is not necessarily built on "blackness" when it's a bunch of CGI animals.
I just don't know that the thread title holds water compared to the market in general.

Amen.

Seven thumbs ups for one of the most markedly antiintellectual, context-ignoring and malicious responses I've seen in a while, to a thread that simply asks why films made by black filmmakers struggle in box office. Oh, and mocking a famous anti-racist speech on top.

Actually, it's just a joke, using word play on the word "character."

Take a breath. Try to imagine the "least-evil" reading of the text. Ask clarifying questions. Avoid mind-reading and jumping to conclusions. Start friendly. All that simple stuff that applies to face-to-face communication? It applies here too.

My response to most questions like this is to question whether we're actually seeing a trend, or if it's just some form of confirmation bias. These kinds of impressions are usually based on a handful of examples which are, in turn just whatever a specific person happened to notice (or not notice, in the case of counterexamples), which means there's all sorts of selection bias effects, too. Very often the question itself is already a step too far, because it's past the question "why do I think this is happening?"

And then, even if we could rule all that out as an explanation for the perception, you'd still have to figure out how to differentiate between trend and mere noise, which is an increasingly likely explanation when the number of data points is small.

I feel like some of the responses here are purposely obtuse. Beyond genre, films can fairly and productively be categorized by issues or concerns on broader topics. And this is now and always has been the case. Black (a broader category than just African-American). LGBTQ. Class Bias. Women's Issues. Political and Social Equality. When films become just about who is in them, how well they performed, and how well they are made, you're stripping them of the contextual substance that makes them interesting and relevant. Would you really praise Boys Don't Cry just for Hillary Swank's performance? Is Mississippi Burning only a crime drama with consummate direction by Allan Parker. A simple review of The Godfather might praise the performances by Brando and Pacino, the masterful direction by Coppola, the memorable theme music by Nino Rota. But a meaningful and authentic critique of the film would examine the way it challenges our assumptions about morality, the "American dream" for immigrants, and ... so other topics a thoughtful viewer would read into it.

I can sympathize with the general sentiment that we all wish films could be judged just on their "merits" (and what those are we'll argue endlessly, by the way). But we are a long, long way from any such ideal future, and our reluctance to deal with some issues forthrightly and honestly and authentically just further demonstrates that we will never get to that future if we insist on not talking about the issues. It will continue to be the function of film or political or social activism ... or community discussions. Otherwise it becomes about discussing whether Die Hard is a Christmas film.

And so I will conclude by "coming clean" that I do consider black film as a recognizable category, broadly encompassing films made by black filmmakers, or films for black -- and white and asian and ... you get it -- audiences encompassing topics examining the concerns of black people. But I haven't seen any of the movies the OP referred to because I get to pick maybe 3 or 4 movies a week to view and there's a universe of topics (not to mention mindless entertainment) that will connect with my own background more directly.

Still ... I guess this topic is of immediate interest for me in the aftermath of watching Juror No. 2 and wondering how I'll write my review. A well acted, well directed film. And one with blaring racial stereotypes that have me questioning whether director Clint Eastwood was oblivious to them (unlikely), used them with the intent to challenge us (hmm), or just didn't care (double hmm).

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I sense that this thread will be locked at some point so I better make a post now...and so I'm going to go completely controversial and say: