Are box office numbers all that matters in Hollywood?

Love, Simon has big prospects after the big screen. Photo / Twentieth Century Fox

Have you seen the numbers?

Black Panther, Ryan Coogler's adaptation of the Marvel comic book series, recently crossed US$1 billion in box-office receipts worldwide, putting it in the top 10 moneymakers of all time. Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One is another commercial phenom, its opening-weekend take of more than US$40 million ($55.1m) counting as the director's best showing in a decade, its accumulated revenue of US$192m ($265m) positioning it as one of this year's biggest triumphs.

Unless it isn't. In a recent article in the Hollywood Reporter, analyst Pamela McClintock postulated that, with a production cost of US$175m and a sinus-clearing marketing budget, Ready Player One might have to earn more than US$420m - maybe US$500m - just to break even. (The scratch formula to calculate a studio's portion of a film's gross is to divide total box office in half). McClintock wrote, "While the movie launched ahead of expectations ... Ready Player One's debut isn't enough to guarantee success."

That might be hard to believe. But just as precise definitions of what constitutes a movie are changing, the notion of what constitutes "success" is undergoing a radical shift in Hollywood, as audience expectations evolve and platforms multiply and otherwise solid business models melt. In February, Netflix made The Cloverfield Paradox available on its streaming service after a surprise teaser during the Super Bowl; according to Nielsen reports, around five million viewers watched the movie over the next seven days, a figure that would translate to around US$45m at the box office. They had even better numbers for Bright, another straight-to-streaming title starring Will Smith that reportedly garnered 11 million viewers over its first three days.

Why should anyone outside the movie industry care whether a bunch of LA fat cats get richer? Because, as with household budgets and government spending, money in Hollywood bears a direct correlation to priorities and values. In that risk-averse and imitative business culture, sure things are the collective grail, whether in the form of audiences for superhero spectacles and hit book adaptations, or endless cycles of sequels. The more profitable a movie is, the likelier it will be copied.

Game Night, an R-rated comedy that opened in February, hasn't made any headlines about record-breaking earnings. But it has quietly cracked US$100m at the box office, more than three times its modest US$37m budget.

Black panther recently crossed US$1 billion in box-office receipts worldwide, putting it in the top 10 moneymakers of all time. Photo / Marvel Studios

Ava DuVernay's A Wrinkle in Time has been unfairly labelled a disappointment, even though it's been in the top five box-office earners since its March opening. Now at US$106m in receipts, DuVernay's fantasy adventure is almost certainly guaranteed to become a staple on DVD and Blu-ray. The teen Love, Simon, which has already earned back twice its US$17m budget, has rosy prospects after it leaves the big screen.

Then there are movies that open in theatres only to disappear in a matter of weeks - a sure sign of failure. But maybe not: Such blink-and-you-missed-them indies as Swiss Army Man and A Ghost Story might not have set the theatrical world on fire, but both performed well on streaming sites.

Hollywood might finally be accepting these new realities: For the first time, the Motion Picture Association of America has included home-entertainment statistics in its annual survey of demographics and trends. This year's takeaways: The American market has matured to the point of flattening; growth is overseas, especially in China. Teenagers still crave getting out of the house and the multiplex offers an affordable option; per capita attendance figures are highest among Hispanic and Asian filmgoers. And guess what: Women still account for 50 per cent of the audience.

Those last data points were proved during the first quarter of this year, when the highest-performing movies were led by women and people of colour. What once might have been considered "niche" is now most assuredly "mass", and vice versa. Success comes in a variety of shapes and sizes. As tiny a space as a box office can't contain it, much less measure it.