Hollywood is screwed and the studios are to blame

When movie theaters became over-sized tv rooms to eat popcorn and slurp soda in is when the movies started to mostly match who would be in those kinds of spaces... teenagers, mostly male ones. I would say that since television got to over 50% of homes somewhere in the '50s is when that shift began, well before my time. It's probably amazing that anything other than plastic perfect people and stuff blowing up movies get made at all. I mentioned wanting to see Trumbo and got trolled by a younger person who couldn't imagine anyone wanting to see that when Exploding Plastic Franchise Part 3 was breaking all records supposedly.

I don't care if I ever enter a modern movie theater ever again. If there's one for a more paying-attention adult, and less gum-chewing while blabbing/texting, type crowd I might go.

 

I thought Canadians were polite, eh?

I've been expecting to lose it after all the pre-preview chatter the last few times I went to the theater, but surprisingly most times everybody decided to STFU and watch the movie.

I do try to stick to matinee shows, though. Cheaper AND usually less busy

 

I seem to have bad luck. The last time I remember a crowd fully paying attention to the movie and not trying to make MST3K type zingers or just plain yakking it up, was at a surf movie, although there were some appropriate 'Wow!'s and stuff.

 

Note that the latest Blumhouse movie is Benjy, a remake of the 1970s kid film. (Not kidding.)

We are living in weird times, that a film can bomb in America but make five or six times that amount overseas, enough to make it profitable. It's truly a world market.

 

i have several outlets for Foriegn and Independents, both cinema viewed and direct media (DVD Blu-ray), no worries here.

 

I don't care what language or content is used in a movie. I don't care what the target audience is. I don't care about the level of action. I just want something original. When I see what Hollywood offers up every few months, it feels like deja vu. We have seen this before. Only the names, faces, and locale were changed.

Hollywood also does too many focus groups, and tailors the movie to get a desired response. That's not art, dammit! That's bean-counting!

 

A lot of 'theaters' now don't even project a film, it really is just a big video screen. I guess we're lucky we got to experience getting a cartoon and a short feature and even some longer behind the scenes coming soon stuff that was yet another feature more than a typical trailer... now it's all short choppy commercials really, just like on tv. I suppose having 3D Imax is supposed to make up for the classy landmarks movie theaters used to be.

 

The movie screens will literally be video screens in the near future. Samsung has announced a 34 foot Cinema Screen display - the world’s first High Dynamic Range (HDR) LED theater display (ie, a pure LED screen, not LCD).

Samsung’s 34-foot Cinema Screen is the world’s first HDR LED theater display

It's a pretty exciting new development which will put conventional projection systems, analog or digital, to shame.

 

Actually, Wizard of Oz was an expensive film for the time that didn't make money in its original release. It got great ratings when it first aired on television and became a perennial cash machine for MGM after that, through TV rights sales, soundtrack, eventually home video, etc.

If Wizard had been a huge hit, there probably would have been a sequel in 1940, as that budget money have been a small dent in the pile created by the success of Gone With the Wind.

Andy Hardy and the Thin Man, Charlie Chan and the Universal Monsters were all moneymakers, and led to several sequels and offshoots in the 30s.

 

I see your point, but it seems to me that in the old days, there were franchise-type movies like the Universal Monsters and Charlie Chan, and there were more serious one-off productions like GWTW (probably not the best example because it's based on a book). Now every movie that becomes popular gets a sequel, except Titanic.

I blame Lucas and Spielberg.

 

This could explain why I haven't been in a movie theater since the last Harry Potter film.

 

Just like the fast food industry's main solution to increasing sales is adding more beef, cheese and bacon - The movie industry's main solution to getting more moviegoers is adding more of the same movies with explosions, goofy romantic plots and horror.

 

In fairness to big stars, after you paying taxes, accounting, manager, business manager and publicists, 10 or 20 mil can quickly become 2-4mil

 

His criticism of studios is fair enough but I disagree that "the tech companies that you’re now battling are smarter, better, and faster than you at almost everything." Tech companies are often insular, arrogant, beholden to technology beyond their control. Having a business reliant on the internet - which could go down at any second - is like having a delivery service and relying on a vehicle that you do not own, or are allowed to maintain. Whether its security issues in 'the cloud', Netflix's souffle-like P/E or, let's just say for fun, a cyberattack that takes down your site, Tech companies are in some real ways even exposed and vulnerable than studios. Microsoft is not your friend, and at the end of the day neither is google.

 

I disagree that the public gets the culture it deserves. Movies are part of culture, and they are most often influenced by a host of factors, but what we (the public) wants to see is so far down on the list of influences it hardly even registers. They are far more likely to be influenced by the powerful than the average Jack or Jill.

Did the public demand the many Hollywood movies that depicted Asians in such stilted and stereotyped ways, as pointed out by Bruce Lee, and others? See discussion here: http://www.ntac.hawaii.edu/AAPIcourse/downloads/pdf/readings/AsianAmericaStereotypes.pdf
I agree that Asians are better represented and portrayed today, but why weren't they properly represented from the git-go?

Similar statements could be made about the portrayal of native Americans, as well as African-Americans in movies.

I imagine that there are other books that deal with how movies function as part of mass media to shape popular opinion. See Parenti's Make-Believe Media: The Politics of Entertainment: Make-Believe Media: The Politics of Entertainment: Michael Parenti: 9780312058944: Amazon.com: Books

And here is an older work on the same topic: Cinema, Politics and Society in America: Philip Davies, Brian Neve: 9780719008320: Amazon.com: Books

 

Yep, when it got to the point where my home projection system had a larger screen and overwhelmingly better sound than the local mall cinema, I just stayed home. Now, I don't even care about the "big picture" experience. There are so few films made today that really deserve viewing on a grand scale that I'm perfectly content with my consumer flat screen and small surround system. I still watch a lot of "filmed entertainment," but it is either long form TV series or smaller, more offbeat movies - both share the possibility of decent writing and acting. Since I'm not 14 years old, and have no interest in comic book heroes in action movies that are largely CGI, or reboots and remakes of movies that were probably better made the first three times they redid them, I have little reason to go to the cinema. Every once in a while, something slips through the cracks, but....

 

Let's say some genius would decide to remake 'Bridge on the River Kwaii'. You know the final Bridge scene would be all CG, probably a Teal colored locomotive going down in Orange flames. and a lot of studio heads would think that was cool. Or would think the audience would think that was cool.

 

IMO, Hollywood would be better off if they reverse their role of weaponized culture handlers and producing propaganda pieces. Industry technology is excellent these days (not referring to CGI) and I really think some really beautiful work could be produced.

 

The real threat to Hollywood is outlets like YouTube and the changing entertainment consumption patterns of Millennials. Most movies are far more disposable today, meaning that any single movie barely registers on the audience's minds.

 

Is part of audience reluctance to see original films due to ticket prices? The theater near me charges $15 a ticket, so maybe more moviegoers are going for what they think is the 'safe' bet rather than take a risk.

 

I know in my case, it is almost a matter of convenience over the "experience." And when you add that few things really justify the big screen experience (I did go to see Gravity in IMAX, but that was rare for me), it's just far easier to pull a movie from the stream at home than go to what passes for a movie theatre today. I know there are exceptions. There's a little art house here in Austin, right downtown, couldn't be a nicer place to view a film. I think I went there more often over the course of a couple years than I had any theatre in decades, simply because it was easy and worth the trouble. I don't know that I'm typical of the average potential movie consumer-- I'm now in my 60s. When I lived in NY, we had friends who would drive to the city to see a film or go to the Jacob Burns film center in Pleasantville across the river to catch some obscurity. I do have one friend who is close to 70 years old who is fanatical about going to the movie theatre to see new releases. He catches a lot of stuff, from big Hollywood to off-center independent films. Then again, he likes going to the mall. And thinks the food is good! (Musician).

 

I went to a Dolby Cinema presentation a few weeks ago, and they made a strong point that they want to provide a "premium experience" for the audience with a really large screen, a bright image, and huge sound... all things you can't get at home. It was a very impressive presentation. The only problem is, it's basically their version of "fake Imax," so it's a way for theater owners to charge you $3-$5 more for a ticket over a standard film. I'm actually willing to pay that if we get no commercials, comfy seats, and all that crap.

 

This...oh definitely this! I know most people nowadays tend to go to movies (I dare not call them "films", sorry) so that they can shut their brains off for a couple of hours and focus on the explosions, effects, T & A and childish fart jokes, but -and it might just be the intellectual snob in me- but I still like to think when I'm watching something. Well, most of the time, at least...

 

since Vidiot raised the Imax issue: The Brand-Confused World of IMAX and LieMAX - John Canfield