Hollywood Needs To Fail Again

[Donnie Darko]

John Carter was not like other disney products, its like coca cola selling sweaters, nobody cares.

They should start making more animated movies like little mermaid and lion king.

I know I am getting off the main topic, but Disney Animation Studios is actually crushing it right now, both financially and with quality. Over the last five years, they put out The Princess and the Frog, Tangled, Winnie the Pooh, Wreck It Ralph, and Frozen, all of which were very good, and with the exception of Winnie the Pooh (which might be my favorite if them all), did very well at the box office (I think Frozen is like #9 all time now).

 

[samsnee]

It's surprising how they've stepped up their game, while Pixar has been less than stellar, relying too much on sequels and prequels.

 

[The Endless]

Yea Disney are picking up the slack from Pixar, who have disappointed recently considering their past quality.

And i don't think they are too concerned about John Carter and Lone Ranger flopping. They have a ready made blockbuster production line with Marvels films.

 

[samsnee]

They're clearly in the franchise game these days, as are all studios. A big summer movie can't just be a big summer movie, it has to be the start of a trilogy or something bigger.

While I appreciate having an overall plan so that one day, you can watch all movies in a series and see how it connects, I do feel that it holds back some of the potential of the first movie, as they are trying to build to a third act in a later movie.

 

[Donnie Darko]

It's surprising how they've stepped up their game, while Pixar has been less than stellar, relying too much on sequels and prequels.

I can't make any excuses for Cars 2, but I actually really liked Monsters University, and I am really looking forward to Incredibles 2. I love the Toy Story sequels, as well.

 

[The Endless]

The Incredibles 2 has been on my most wanted list since the end of the first film. I hope Pixar knocks it out of the park.

 

[samsnee]

Only if they actually get Bird to direct and not produce. That's the only movie that felt natural to have a sequel.

 

[Kane52630]

I don't get the notion that it needs to fail again, there's more out there in general and there's more than just Hollywood. In other words, there's more sh** movies out there, but at the same time there's more great sh** to see. Just yesterday I saw a great indie horror film (or in general, Indie or not) that you probably wont ever see in the theater.

 

[Lord]

Brave wasn't bad either, up until now their only real stinker has been Cars 2. Not that hopeful about The Incredibles 2, sure, it's the one with the most open possibilities, however, when you really think about it, the first one is something very difficult to surpass.

 

[redhawk23]

Yea Disney are picking up the slack from Pixar, who have disappointed recently considering their past quality.

And i don't think they are too concerned about John Carter and Lone Ranger flopping. They have a ready made blockbuster production line with Marvels films.

People lost their jobs over John Carter. The presidents and such that greenlit both of those movies are gone.

 

[redhawk23]

Prisoners and 42 are both in that $30 to $50 million budgeted range. Blue Jasmine is probably worth mentioning as well. None of them were released during the traditional Oscar period either. All of them seemed to do well at the box office as well. Last year was the first time in a while that I think the traditional dramas seemed to mount something of a comeback at the box office.

That said, I do think a lot of the traditional dramas have disappeared to television. Heck, Behind the Candelabra had all the ingredients of a motion picture including auteur director and big name stars. Mad Men and Breaking Bad certainly were playing in the traditional drama mode as well. That competition certainly seems to have something to do with the box office success of the genre.

Behind the Candelabra WAS a theatrical release outside the United States.

 

[The Endless]

People lost their jobs over John Carter. The presidents and such that greenlit both of those movies are gone.

And they deserved to. If only for the atrocious marketing campaign and wasteful use of money.

But in the grand scheme of things, it hasn't really affected Disney negatively.

 

[terry78]

That's the only downside to this type of thing, if your project ****s up people across the board can get affected career wise, not just the execs.

 

[Lord]

John Carter was pretty decent and i liked it quite a bit, but i do think they wasted too much money in it, with The Lone Ranger it was even worse, it had a great cinematography, but you could have told that story with much less money, unlike John Carter, it didn't really have a bunch of Aliens and a weird world to worry about.

 

[The Endless]

Yea i can't understand how those films cost 200 million dollars each. I just can't. Same with Green Lantern. A coke head gambling addict who lives in Vegas is more fiscally prudent.

 

[redhawk23]

And they deserved to. If only for the atrocious marketing campaign and wasteful use of money.

But in the grand scheme of things, it hasn't really affected Disney negatively.

Both of which actually fall on Stanton.

 

[The Endless]

Both of which actually fall on Stanton.

Stanton did all the marketing? And who gave him the blank check?

 

[Lord]

With all the money they spent, it's still incredible how CGI companies go bankrupt, if the money isn't going there either, then where is it going to? Some actors like Johny Depp, Robert Downey Jr and Liam Neeson are getting expensive, but those are exceptions. From what it seems, they need better planning and more time to do so, it's crazy how some of these are done in around a year.

People also like to rip on Michael Bay, but he's actually delivering amazing results when it comes to special effects fast and relativelly cheaply, each Transformers film takes around 1 year and a half to make and aside from the 2nd film, they haven't spent more than 200 million on the film yet, the new one is even being done at around 160 million, which is amazing when every Marvel and Disney movie is spending more than 200 million.

We all like to rip on Michael Bay, but he does seem to be careful with the money and better planners in the production than most other filmmakers doing major budgeted films.

 

[terry78]

Yeah, you can say Bay has a frat boy mentality but he doesn't just throw money around. He knows how to budget and how to use practical effects when need be and not just smear CG all over unless it calls for it. He did build a full sized Bumblebee for reference for the first TF.

 

[The Endless]

Bay is a FX expert himself. He knows the ins and outs. A lot of these blockbuster directors aren't technical experts when it comes to CGI and what not. So it makes sense that someone like Bay would get more bang for his buck that some others. You could of course include Cameron as a FX expert too. They ain't standard point and shoot directors.

 

[samsnee]

With all the money they spent, it's still incredible how CGI companies go bankrupt, if the money isn't going there either, then where is it going to? Some actors like Johny Depp, Robert Downey Jr and Liam Neeson are getting expensive, but those are exceptions. From what it seems, they need better planning and more time to do so, it's crazy how some of these are done in around a year.

That's what blows my mind too. FX companies are getting shut down, but yet these movies cost at least $150M each.

 

[The Endless]

Maybe the technicians (or whatever you want to call them) from these smaller FX houses are getting snapped up or are moving onto the bigger ones like ILM, WETA etc. Merging the smaller ones into the bigger ones seems plausible.

 

[DACrowe]

I guess I just don't get the Chicken Little attitude about it. Hollywood has been like this since Heaven's Gate failed. Heaven's Gate killed the decent budget auteur films that drove 70's cinema.

I am replying to all of it, but ust quoted that part.

The amazing era of Hollywood cinema from the late 1960s until 1981 (Raging Bull) did dry up around Heaven's Gate. However, they still were releasing mid-budgeted dramas, comedies, and an assortment of other style of films for adults until the early 2000s.

Further, the independent market thrived from about 1994 to 2004, creating a wealth of mid-budgeted films that gave us filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino, Danny Boyle, David Fincher, Sam Mendes, Darren Aronofsky, Christopher Nolan, Stephen Soderbergh, Paul Thomas Anderson, even Kevin Smith.

Yes, they had to struggle to get their first efforts made, but all of those filmmakers could move on and develop a reputation. As you pointed out, the Coens and Paul Thomas Anderson struggle in 2014 to make a movie on a comparative budget to 1994 or thereabouts. Tarantino may have had to scrape together for Pulp Fiction, but then the industry would bet big on him immediately afterwards with Jackie Brown and Kill Bill. Now, that environment is dying or dried up. That is why so much creativity is shifting to television, because the only movies getting made are either painfully cheap or exorbitantly expensive, and either way, creativity is greatly limited.

 

[jmc]

^ And TV networks like HBO and now Netflix are leading the way with that creativity and subsequently changing people's viewing habits. The problem with cinema now is that the big action films aren't really moving anything forward anymore, innovation and creativity has made way for safe and shiny looking. It's now about saturating the market with a handful of movie styles and just changing the lead characters. Cinema has slowly become more and more like the entertainment equivalent of McDonalds. It use to be about experiences, but now we are bombarded with so much prior knowledge with trailers and advertising that we more or less know already what we're going to get.

 

[dark_b]

i hate that the fanboy community didnt see how hollywood was trying to train us like dogs to like one type of summer movie.
there was a time when fanboys above 20 years old were more happy to get 3 comicbook movies than to get 1 good comicbook movie.

thats why today when a movie is realesed that is different it gets rejacted. and thats why fanboys got happy when pa Kent and Joer El gave cliche stupid speeches that didnt make any sense. . destiny and THE ONE. hahaha . how about a character that makes his own choices and makes his own mistakes?

yeah you can all hate me.