No, I’m sorry Hollywood, Halo is not to blame for the lousy weekends you’ve been having the last few weeks. It’s just not. Halo, specifically, is a symptom but not the disease.
The disease is that you believe you’re the best and most attractive entertainment option in the world and can define the terms by which the audience can consume that content. That’s not the case. Video games are more popular then ever before and yeah, kids are spending their disposable income on them instead of movie tickets.
Who’s to blame for that? You put up crappy movies and expect that people will turn out just on account of because? Not going to happen, at least not anymore.
Blaming Halo for the lousy opening of The Heartbreak Kid and other movies is an easy conclusion to reach. It basically absolves the studios of any fault by shifting it on to the video game companies. It means you don’t have to do any real soul-searching or reconfiguring of your business model since big game release dates now just have to be scheduled around like competing blockbusters.
But the real problem is much more deep-seated than that. Time to really look at whether your content and the attendant marketing are pulling their weight in competing against the other entertainment options out there. Now.
