I love that old classic Looney Tunes little where Bugs Bunny AND Daffy Duck argue back and forth whether it is rabbit hunting season or duck hunting season. Their common goal is to avoid the wrath of Elmer Fuddshotgun e. Every argument can and will be made to keep them alive. Surprisingly, that 1951 scene is eerily reflective Today’s Hollywood. Every stakeholder in the entertainment industry – studios, cinemas, BROADCASTING– is working towards different goals. This means that everyone has different definitions of success. Coupled with the unprecedented pace of Hollywood PR, it is difficult to reach a consensus as a result.
Hits still exist, but every success story comes with asterisks, caveats and qualifications. Box office stands around 15 percent below pre-pandemic levels globally and roughly 20 percent domestically. From 2014 to 2019, 28 Hollywood films crossed the $1 billion mark at the box office. In the last five years, as of this writing? Only 11. The success of broadcasting can be measured and argued through infinity beautiful mind –esque permutations. Total hours watched, total views, unique families, completion rates, subscriber acquisition and retention, engagement among high-risk users…I need an Ambien just thinking about it.
No one can agree on which metric matters most.
As Comscore’s head of market trends Paul Dergarabedian told the Observer, “It depends who you’re talking to: audiences, studios, theaters, financiers. What’s their north star in terms of what they consider successful?”
Success then vs. now
Despite the best efforts of Hollywood’s infamous accounting, success has been fairly straightforward throughout the history of cinema. A movie was released, ticket sales were tallied, and the market made a decision. Bob is your uncle.
The 2010s, when annual domestic box office hit $11 billion five years in a row, were particularly easy to read. Opening weekend and total gross versus budget were widely accepted evaluation tools.
Similarly, the early gold rush revolved around relatively binary equations. By mid-2022, Wall Street pays off Netflix for the continuous growth of subscribers. The broadcaster’s quarterly earnings were enthusiastically covered by the media as a draft pick for the grab (I was guilty too). It was an easy and exciting story to sell.
However, neither framework is implemented as cleanly as it once was. As founder and analyst of TVRev Alan Wolk notes, “The industry has never had the patience to let a show or movie find an audience. They want immediate metrics,” he told the Observer.
Studio success = life cycle monetization
Home entertainment, such as VHS and DVD, has long served as a financial safety net. The collapse of this market, coupled with the increasing fragmentation of Hollywood, has increased the importance of multi-window success.
Digital turnkey value and streaming in new ways. SonyS ‘ Mrs. Webb failed at the box office, but was the studio’s most-watched film on Netflix in 2024. F1: The movie it was a hit at the box office, but never made the top 10 of Nielsen’s weekly airing charts. Greenland 2: Migration has struggled in theaters, however ranked in the Top 10 for digital rentals/purchases through Amazon, Apple tv, Google AND Rakuten TV as of this writing, per FlixPatrol. Theatrical hits can become broadcast hits. Streaming flops can be licensed externally. All around, studios need to evaluate a longer performance cycle to understand the contributions of a given title.
Avengers-level hits move the needle more than anything. But at the studio level, success often comes from maximizing potential in as many windows as possible rather than dominating just one.
Streaming success = retention
Streaming growth has slowed significantly in recent years. There is a lot of streaming performance data available. But the context does not.
Samba TV recently announced that the first episode of Apple Margo’s Got Money Troubles however, it was watched by 1.2 million American households no time frame given, as Entertainment Strategy Guy pointed out. Netflix boasted in its latest Engagement Report that non-English programming accounts for more than a third of all global viewing. STILL the visibility of main non-English shows pales in comparison to that of their English counterparts.
Data-driven arguments that decry failure and proclaim success are easy to conjure up. For example, the studio behind Show A announced that it drew 7.5 million viewers in its first five days, while Show B has never made a Nielsen broadcast list in two seasons. Which one would you rather have? Trick question, it’s both Daredevil: Born Again. The industry has yet to standardize a clean rating rubric.
Data from Digital i shows that about a third of streaming viewership in 2025 was driven by customers at greater risk of canceling their subscriptions due to low usage. At the same time, only a minority of elite shows manage to increase their audience during the season. Title-level ratings are still extremely important. Shows are not renewed if their viewership does not justify the budget. But the platform’s overall success has less to do with a single show’s performance and more to do with what viewers do after watching it.
Wolk hits what executives really want to see: “The most important metric is one that is notoriously difficult to measure—attention. In the fragmented world of feudal media, it’s not how many people see your show or movie, but how passionate they are about it.”
A small, targeted audience, even with a high risk of cancellation, can be more valuable under the right circumstances than a large audience of passive consumers. Macro success now orbits retention, reduced inhibition, and sustained engagement rather than raw achievement and growth at all costs.
Exhibitor success = stability
Cinema owners loved it Barbenheimer. But you know what they like more than a big weekend surrounded by uncertainty? Consistency.
Expositors protect against the downside by programming for predictability. of opening weekend is still crucial. But according to Dergarabedian, it’s not necessarily the most important metric.
“The most accurate measure of success is how long it stays in the top five or top ten, how it stays up week after week,” he said. “It’s a direct reflection of how the audience feels about the film.”
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania...We’ve seen big openings followed by cataclysmic falls that cut off box office legs and wrecked narratives. Exhibitors will trade the volatility of massive potential to ensure sustainable health. Once again, their definition of success differs from their partners.
The cost
Why does this lack of a uniform meaning matter? It’s not just the blur of post-performance analysis on our end. Without mutually agreed upon standards of success, the decision making that empowers the creator throughout development, budgeting, distribution and beyond can be flawed.
Studios need titles with blockbuster potential in every window. Exhibitors watch films that deliver guaranteed results. Broadcasters want to keep you in their digital ecosystems for as long as possible. Marketing departments try to get viewers into a weekend frenzy. Sony mourns a box office bomb, while Netflix can rejoice. Different departments are working towards different goals at the same time. If no one can agree on what constitutes success, all you might have is a recipe for failure.
