What's Gone Wrong with Hollywood?

Robb P

[b]Movies Are Over-Marketed[/b]
By the time they finally come out, we're sick of hearing about them. I can't wait for Deuce Bigalow to open so I can stop seeing commercials for it. Sometimes less is more.

As for "Cinderella Man", the trailer almost put me to sleep. I couldn't imagine watching the movie.

Aug 10 - 02:37 AM

Ben L

Cinderella Man was good, but I didn't see it because I wanted to. Who wants to see a movie called Cinderella Man? It sounds like a remake of that Jerry Lewis movie, Cinderfella.

Aug 10 - 04:05 AM

Nancy Elizabeth

What's gone wrong? Commercials before movies, having to pay almost ten bucks to see a film (not inciuding food) or oh.... how about the fact that you can rent a movie for so much cheapter when it comes out on DVD only six months later?

Granted, the "box office slump" is do partially to the quality of movies that we've seen lately. You don't get too much orginality anymore. Everything seems to be based off of an old TV show, an old movie, a video game, a comic book. a novel... Combine that with the fact that going to the theater is not as praticial anymore and people are going to stop going.

Not to mention people's expectations seem to be too high. They'll spend hundrreds of thousands of dollars of super fancy special effects and expect those alone to attract people when their story is crap.

Aug 10 - 04:56 AM

J. P.

not to mention the fact that Hollywood is completely bankrupt for original ideas, which explains the trend of butchering both classic American films or hacking recent Asian films (some no more than a year old).

Here's to hoping the trend stops before the Hollywood version of Oldboy starts filming (we can hope)

Aug 10 - 06:05 AM

Peter Kaplan

It's sad that Hollywood has so little to offer anymore. If it's not a re-make of some TV show, it's a sequel that no one asked for (a la Miss Congeniality 2). I really hope that there's still some life left in the industry, because I'm about ready to stop going to the theaters all together.

Aug 10 - 06:49 AM

David Jones

Movies seem so disposable, here one week and gone the next. I remember years ago when you would see on the movie ad 8th BIG WEEK.
Here are some of the other problems in my opinion

1) Ticket prices are too high and I dont know about everyone else but the closest theatre is almost 20 miles away--and now gas prices are too hgih
2) All the annoying ads before the movie starts
3) lack of good movies--sure they will get Duece Bigalow European Gigalo but not the more independent ones that look interesting

Does anyone else have Bad Movie Phobia (BMP) I have seen one too many bad movies and have trepidation about seeing any more

I love my movie and tv dvds and am more than happy to just stay home

Aug 10 - 07:46 AM

First Last

...and those f**king fantanas!

Aug 10 - 08:12 AM

Dan Nguyen

[b]Cinderella Man is (partly) what's wrong with Holly[/b]
I couldn't help but find it ironic that the movie Cinderella Man is given as the example of what films should be. Ron Howard has been making the same schmaltz since the beginning of his career as a director. His films are NOT intelligent or, for the most part, even factually accurate. For example, Cinderella Man depicts Max Baer as a inhumane sadist. In reality, the two deaths he caused in the rings devastated Baer and, as a result, almost destroyed his career. When Baer fought against Nazi favorite Max Schmelling, he did so wearing the Star of David on his boxing trunks. Instead of being depicted as the person he was, or even a human being, Baer is villainized in pure Hollywood fashion. People may not know all the details surrounding the history of it all, but they can smell BS from a mile away, which is partly why Ron Howard's pretentious schmaltz received the commercial fate it deserved. I, for one, am ecstatic that Cinderella Man tanked and wish the same fate on all of Ron Howard's films: he's a hack director, technically adequate, but completely devoid of originality and whose feel-good films make me dry heave.

I also find it funny that Cinderella Man is given as a counterpoint to Douches of Hazzard. I don't want to defend this film: I'm certain that it sucks big time. However, both Dukes of Hazzard and Cinderella Man are symptomatic of the same problem in Hollywood. Neither is original: one is the movie spin-off of a "classic" TV series and the other, a formulaic film that you can see coming a mile away. Neither film is terribly intelligent or has a message to communicate: Dukes is a pure throwaway flick and Cinderella Man, although taking place during the Great Depression, merely uses the historical setting as a backdrop to tell an "uplifting" story. I'm not exactly thrilled to see that Douches of Has-beens is raking in 30$ million opening, but to cry foul when Cinderella Man tanked is either disinginuous or completely moronic.

Aug 10 - 08:33 AM

Brian Bara

"Cinderella Man" may have been a good film, but if no one cares about the subject matter, people just aren't going to go. I have absolutely no interest in watching a biography of a boxer I never of, in a film with an over-rated, blow-hard, asswipe star. Nor do I care see to see remakes of TV shows and movies that weren't very good to begin with.

And I agree, commercials at the movies make me crazy. Why should I pay $10.00 to sit through "those f**king fantanas" and every other awful thing I would zap through with my TiVo?

I love seeing a movie in a theatre, but I hate paying to see the crap that passes for movies these days.

Aug 10 - 08:38 AM

Victoria Leduc

People, check out the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly. There's an article about why people are not watching movies anymore (hint: ticket prices, rude people, ads, and the movies itself).

Aug 10 - 09:01 AM

Robb P

[b]DVDs[/b]
I think DVDs are a reason for the "slump" as well. People seem to love them, I know a lot of people will buy movies on DVD before they've even seen them! I think people are staying home watching their collection, and waiting for the big movies to come out on DVD.

Aug 10 - 09:43 AM

First Last

[b]"Hollywood" is basically outta touch[/b]
The declining ticket sales, MAY be due to the fact that the population as a whole is aging. IIRC, the average in the US''n'A is about 25-26; but movies are aimed at teenagers. Teens basically want to be entertained for 90-120 minutes: not that this is a bad thing. Movies ARE entertainment, first and foremost. But the chase of ever-more revenue-"Oh my God, this year is down 15% from last year"; and this makes NEWS- means quick, formulaic. I think the "surprise" (really only a surprise to the dolts in the biz) success of "Wedding Crashers" is because it appealed to the over-25 crowd. A real R-rated comedy, instead of pathetic PG-13 stuff. "We can't do anything R-rated because the sales won't be there."
Another issue is the use of focus-groups to determine future movies and rewrite/reshoot movies in the prodruction. Guess what? Teenagers will follow the crowd and the latest fads-ergo movies that look and act alike. No great industry analysis needed here. MST3K's Mike Nelson in his second book, made the case that these groups, NOT directors actually make movies.
Ticket prices are due to the higher and higher productions costs-read ridiculous star salaries, mean high rental costs for the theater and are passed on to us. Theaters actually make their money off concessions-which is why food/drink prices are also high.

Aug 10 - 10:31 AM

Dan Mills

[b]so many reasons already mentioned...[/b]
Cinderalla Man was a decent and predictable film, with great acting, just like most of Ron Howard's movies. I saw it, and yes it was painfully predictable.

There are some great articles on Slate that deal with the movie biz slump. Did you know studios spend on average $32mil for marketing, 90% for opening weekend only? That's because after they rake it in the first few days, they don't have to worry about bad word-of-mouth. Then studios can concentrate on DVD and TV synidcation, which is where the REAL profits are. It takes a lot more effort to get people into the theatres.

Aug 10 - 10:41 AM

Lochhead Seth

[b]I'll tell you what's gone wrong with Hollywood...[/b]
Nothing. Ticket prices suck. Food prices suck. But every once in a while it's fucking worth it. Movies are fantastic, even the bad ones. To think about the work and craft that goes into these suckers is mind blowing. I was tempted to go to the Dukes just to see Jessica Simpson in those shorts and I'm sure that's where the other 30 mil. came from. Advertisements? Who cares? Go buy popcorn or show up 25 minutes after your movie starts. Deal with it. These are the realities we have to suffer so that we can have our Batman Begins, our Wedding Crashers. I saw cinderella man in theatres and it was missing something, I have a feeling it was Jake LaMotta. That movie was pushed on us by critics and exectutives as the alternative to the summer blockbuster - it was the summer blockbuster, a movie with shitty dramatic interludes between fantastic action scenes. It was dumb, slow, and poorly marketed.

What Hollywood isn't getting is that audiences are intelligent, they want to be tested, and to think. But we're getting there. It's moving towards it. It has to. That's why there is nothing wrong with Hollywood. The slump is going to force change and if Hollywood is smart they will acquire and put time into more thoughtful, intelligent films whether they be comedy, action, or drama.

That's all.

Aug 10 - 11:54 AM

Isaac Reinhart

I totally agree with the above statements, but I find it very funny about how hollywood is making itself harder to save. In the past, Easy Rider came out, and changed the way films were made and marketed. Now, with our current generation of great directors, the film studios see much more worth in marketing the latest recycled shooting and running film than any of their artwork with powerful messages embedded.

Think about how much marketing some crap like The Island got, and then try to think about how much Reqieum for a Dream or Magnolia got. Aronofsky or Paul Thomas Anderson have the vision and talent to save hollywood from this drought, but unless they do what Hollywood wants, their films aren't marketed.

Aug 10 - 12:18 PM

Eric Nichols

[b]What's Gone Wrong with Hollywood?[/b]
I'd like ask the execs at Sony Pictures, the guys who brought us Stealth.

I mean, honestly, would any one of us allow someone to pitch us a movie about an A.I. controlled stealth plane that goes postal and starts attacking its controllers. I don't even want to take the time to come up with a list of the movies that are based on the premise of "an advanced A.I. turning on its creators."

Aug 10 - 02:10 PM

Timothy McCollum

[b]Remaking Bad Movies[/b]
Even then it is still rehash. In addition can you imagine the amount of marketing it would take to get someone to see a movie with a bad heritage?

Somehow I don't think saying "See the Waterworld that should have been" will cut it.

It would push the ad people to actually work.

Some of the trailers today do more to hurt their films than help. I think the recent Hitchickers trailer said it all with it's voice over talking about how you had to put in sex and explosions to sell the pitch.

The ad guys get excited about editing together those blast and boobs. But try to edit dialogue in a way that entertains. They just don't have the brains to do it.

The other night I watche the trailer for "What's eating Gilbert Grape" on DVD. I actually laughed at one point. The trailer viewed in reverse.

I think that if they were to try to make a trailer for it today all it would have would be a cardoors slamming, arnie getting beat up, and the house burning. How little that would say about what the film was about.

Aug 10 - 02:42 PM

Spike Friedman

[b]Deep Impact[/b]
I think everything wrong with Hollywood can be traced back to the double asteroid summer. Do you remember the trailer for Deep Impact? The one that showed the tidal wave destroying New York? They gave away the movie in the trailer, but because it was bludgeoned into our heads we all saw it. Armageddon was a substantially inferior film, but it too did very well with the beat you over the head marketing campaign. They got us to see two stupid asteroid flicks in a row with loud noises and shiny pictures and said "JACKPOT! This will never fail"
What has happened since that summer is that the studios have tried to turn every damn weekend into the big Asteroid event weekend, when frankly audiences are only willing to put up with 3 or 4 of those a summer. This summer look at Star Wars, Batman, War of the Worlds, and the Fantastic Four. Those movies were of varying quality but they were all beaten into enough skulls to get big grosses (Batman was great and deserved it's money and then some, Star Wars and War of the Worlds were fine and their respective directors were going to pack the seats on those weekends, and Fantastic Four got in while the getting was good). At that point I think everyone in America collectively said "enough of this crap, let's see some penguins" and Stealth and the The Island happened (Kingdom of Heaven's failure is a little trickier, but personally I just don't think it was marketed in a memorable way). Last summer a lot of people got burned with crap like the Village on late summer opening weekends, and this year were prepared to wait for reviews. Hollywood thought coming into this year, "oh, look at what has worked in the past, let's do it to the MAX!" and America thought "Hollywood is stupid, I'm gonna chill at home and watch Entourage." If Cinderella Man were released now, after everyone got maxed out on action I expect it would gross 85-100 million.

Aug 10 - 03:15 PM

Tyler Sperdoj

[b]groupthink[/b]
personally, i dont think we're letting the box office slump enough! my friend went to go see dukes of hazzard last night because his other friends wanted to go see it...and why did they want to go see it you ask? cause jessica simpson is in it and she's hot:) see, it's dickheads like this that somehow gain something by watching some stupid bitch "act" that cause this whole shit parade of unoriginality. if people keep thinking in groups and keep going to movies (even movies they know damn well are shit) for a lack of something better to do, then the industry will never change...and on that note, it probably wont!

Aug 10 - 04:10 PM

juan carlos petruchi

is because executives are morons!!

they don't have a clue of what people want to see, and i'm not talking about quality (thay don't even know what that means), they have no idea how to make a comercial film, most of the succesfully comercial films lately came from ideas of their directors (batman, wotw, LOTR, spiderman, incredibles) and the empty studio products crashed and burned(the island, steahl)

other thing might be that hollywood is believing his own lies, a while ago there was a csi episode in wicht someactor killed someone and someone asked grisson if he knew that moviestar, he replied: "that's not a movie star, clark gable was a movie star", orlando bloom, colin farrel, etc, are not movie stars, even if they are good actors, but studios want to imposed them to you to go see their movies, but people doesn't buy it, so they check reviews before going instead of trusting the lead actor experience in staring in good movies

in a way it reminds me of the problem with the HMOs, as long as executives and not doctors are the ones making the decisions, nothing will works

Aug 10 - 05:31 PM