Babylon had its wide domestic release on Dec. 23, 2022, and is seeing diminishing box office returns for several reasons. Babylon comes from esteemed filmmaker Damien Chazelle, writer and director of movies such as Whiplash and La La Land, and director of his most recent effort First Man. Babylon is an ode to early Hollywood, telling the stories, rises, and falls of multiple characters during the film industry's transition from silent to sound films in the late 1920s.
While Chazelle's films have never been box office behemoths, besides La La Land, which grossed over $400 million worldwide on a $30 million budget, they have often had smaller costs behind them to deem them successful. However, Chazelle's most recent and ambitious effort in terms of funding, First Man, was made using $59 million, which saw the film's return of $109 million fall somewhat flat. This set a precedent for Damien Chazelle's aptly titled Babylon, which has several factors surrounding the film's poor performance at the box office.
Babylon's Budget Made It A Major Box Office Risk
Arguably the biggest factor stems from First Man, with Chazelle receiving an increased budget of around $78-80 million for Babylon. This is an increase on First Man and does not have the real-world, sci-fi pull of something such as the 1969 moon landing of his most recent effort before Babylon. Spending almost $80 million on an original film that, despite its incredibly talented cast and filmmaker, has little-to-no pull in terms of general audiences, not just film enthusiasts, was always going to be a risk.
According to Deadline, this budget, along with the decline of interest in prestige films, the surge of COVID-19 and flu cases, and the impact of Winter Storm Elliot, contributed to the film's underwhelming box office return, despite Babylon starring the likes of Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt. The film was projected to make $12-15 million in its opening four-day weekend, yet only accumulated $3.5 million. At the end of its second weekend, Babylon made only $11 million, falling well below initial expectations. Due to its sizable budget, Deadline also reported that Babylon would need to make $250 million to break even when combining its $80 million production cost with an equal promotional budget.
Babylon's Reviews & Runtime Likely Hurt Its Box Office
Another factor that likely hurt Babylon's box office is its runtime and reviews. Regarding the latter, the film was first screened by critics on Nov. 14, 2022, and received mixed reactions. Since then, reviews for the film began pouring in, leading to its wide release in December 2022. Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes has the movie at a 55 percent critic approval rating from 246 reviews, the worst of Chazelle's movies by some margin. Chazelle's other wide-release films, Whiplash, La La Land, and First Man, received critic ratings of 94 percent, 91 percent, and 87 percent, respectively, meaning Babylon is easily Chazelle's worst-reviewed film.
This lack of acclaim, despite the film still appearing on some best-of-year lists from certain critics, has likely contributed to its diminishing returns. The lack of positive word-of-mouth for the film has presumably caused general audiences to forego seeing the movie in theaters. On top of this disappointing critic score, Rotten Tomatoes shows the film has an audience score of 49 percent, meaning the film is also not appealing to wider audiences. This means the film lacks positive word-of-mouth among general fans and critics, which has continued to harm its box office run.
Alongside the poor reviews comes Babylon's extensive runtime, which has likely contributed to its poor box office despite Babylon's intriguing cast of characters. Babylon features a runtime of 189 minutes, which could affect its box office for various reasons. Firstly, it is sadly the case that it is highly unlikely general audiences will see the appeal of spending three hours in the theater for an original film. Unlike films with similar runtimes, such as Avatar: The Way of Water and Avengers: Endgame, Babylon is not attached to any record-breaking franchise meaning people are less likely to spend time watching due to the unfortunate decrease of interest in original filmmaking.
Due to the movies mentioned above, like Avatar 2 and Avengers 4, being attached to previously successful franchises like the MCU at the box office, theater chains are not afraid to play multiple screenings of these tentpole films despite the long runtimes as they are almost guaranteed success. With movies like Babylon, though, that have other factors, such as poor reviews and a sizable budget going against it, theaters will be less inclined to show the film to the same extent, thanks to its long runtime. All of this has likely contributed to the film's poor box office, resulting in a less-than-positive haul domestically.
Babylon Had Big Box Office Competition
Another contributor to Babylon's substandard box office was its competition. Babylon was released in theaters on Dec. 23, 2022, only a week after the wide release of James Cameron's Avatar: The Way of Water. With the latter film exhibiting Cameron's expected dominance and longevity at the box office, Babylon would always have a steep hill to climb to turn a profit. Even without competition, Babylon's other factors would have meant that earning a profit was a tough ask. It just so happens that the film was released one week after the sequel to the highest-grossing movie of all time that already has an established fanbase and was expected to continue performing week after week going into 2023.
What Babylon's Box Office Failure Means
This failure of Babylon at the box office could impact Chazelle's career and the film industry. Concerning the former, Babylon's below-par returns could mean that Chazelle is not trusted with another budget of this size in the future. Despite Chazelle's apparent talents and the quality of films like Whiplash and La La Land — both often counted among the best movies of the 2010s — money is sadly the driving factor behind most filmmaking decisions, meaning studios may be unwilling to provide Chazelle with a large budget after Babylon's failure.
Concerning the filmmaking industry, Babylon's failure could mean that original films are also given smaller budgets in the future. The biggest issue with modern filmmaking is the growing disregard for non-franchise filmmaking. General audiences are losing their taste for original IPs, meaning more money is being spent on what could become the next biggest franchise or continue an already existing one. This meant that Babylon was the last of a dying breed, that being an original, non-franchise film receiving a sizable budget. It just so happens that, unfortunately, the film had various factors working against it that saw a diminishing box office return to end 2022, which could have big, regrettable impacts on the future of filmmaking.