Hollywood to implode...according to Spielberg

[scifiwolf]

Spielberg had budget problems on 1941, but I think the problem on Jaws was logistics more than budget, wasn't it?

 

[hammerhedd11]

The most perplexing thing to me is that Lucas and Spielberg seem to believe that if you offer too many choices to people, people will inevitably choose nothing at all. Now we've had a large amount of high profile flops this summer, yet we've also seen, just as we have summer after summer, a few films make an extraordinary amount of money as well. It's hard to argue that films like RIPD or After Earth would've done much better without such massive competition; these films didn't seem to connect much with audiences in the first place, nor did they seem to be received well either.

 

[Lord]

Star Wars wasn't an expensive film of the kind of Cleópatra, but it still had a relativelly big budget, if anything Jaws had a smaller one.

 

[Heretic]

I think the idea is that instead of making a hundred crappy films that have to make a billion dollars to break even, make inexpensive films to get us through the year, with a few very high quality tentpole releases that we view as "must see" events.

In fact...for certain films...like Gravity or Marvel Studios films etc...I wish they'd go on tour before releasing the film. Come to my city with the director or stars...charge me $50 to get in, give me a signed poster and a Q&A. I wouldn't pay it for a one night only RIPD event, but certain films could likely do so well on tour that it was a guaranteed money-maker by the time it went into wide release.

 

[MrMaooz]

The thing is though, the films that flopped weren't really well recieved either lol.

 

[Teelie]

The most perplexing thing to me is that Lucas and Spielberg seem to believe that if you offer too many choices to people, people will inevitably choose nothing at all. Now we've had a large amount of high profile flops this summer, yet we've also seen, just as we have summer after summer, a few films make an extraordinary amount of money as well. It's hard to argue that films like RIPD or After Earth would've done much better without such massive competition; these films didn't seem to connect much with audiences in the first place, nor did they seem to be received well either.

What they are saying is fragmentation. Have 100 films, you have 100 different audiences. Have 50 films, you have 50 audiences. 10 films, 10 audiences. The number of people in the audience doesn't change but the amount of money they bring to a single film does.

 

[Dr. Evil]

Hollywood is not imploding. Sure, the film side lacks creativity, but the TV side is red hot right now. Breaking Bad, Dexter and Burn Notice just ended, plus there are popular cable shows such as Mad Men, The Walking Dead, Homeland, Game of Thrones, American Horror Story, Suits, Rizzoli and Isles, White Collar and recent shows like Masters of Sex. These shows are very popular. On the broadcast side there's NCIS, NCIS LA, Big Bang Theory, Scandal, Modern Family, Supernatural and newcomers like The Blacklist, Agents of Shield and Sleepy Hollow.

 

[Teelie]

Fragmentation is there too. While it's an exceptional example, M*A*S*H pulled in "a Nielsen rating of 60.2 and 77 share and according to a New York Times article from 1983, the final episode of M*A*S*H had 125 million viewers."

Try getting even a quarter of that for anything these days.

This is ironically the problem of choice: too much of it and no one benefits.

 

[Heretic]

Fragmentation is there too. While it's an exceptional example, M*A*S*H pulled in "a Nielsen rating of 60.2 and 77 share and according to a New York Times article from 1983, the final episode of M*A*S*H had 125 million viewers."

Try getting even a quarter of that for anything these days.

This is ironically the problem of choice: too much of it and no one benefits.

What makes it especially infuriating is that...for instance...Food Network and The Cooking Channel are owned by the same company! HGTV and the DIY network are as well. These are companies directly competing with themselves rather than making one network as strong as it can be. There are probably tons of other examples.

 

[roach]

Hollywood is not imploding. Sure, the film side lacks creativity, but the TV side is red hot right now. Breaking Bad, Dexter and Burn Notice just ended, plus there are popular cable shows such as Mad Men, The Walking Dead, Homeland, Game of Thrones, American Horror Story, Suits, Rizzoli and Isles, White Collar and recent shows like Masters of Sex. These shows are very popular. On the broadcast side there's NCIS, NCIS LA, Big Bang Theory, Scandal, Modern Family, Supernatural and newcomers like The Blacklist, Agents of Shield and Sleepy Hollow.

The talk of Hollywood imploding was about the movie side.

 

[AnneFan]

The thing is though, the films that flopped weren't really well recieved either lol.

That's right. You have to have a good product to sell and people will be interested.

 

[jmc]

The thing I see becoming a risk in the coming decade or so with more and more content being made exclusively for distribution online is that cinemas are going to be more or less exclusive to 'franchises', essentially to use a sports analogy, the big teams will play in the big stadiums. Studios are focused on the 'product', they want quick and easy dollars and the films reflect that. Between May and August this year the film have been average at best, with only a few highlights here and there, there's little care given to creating genuinely good films with solid stories first and foremost, it's about franchising. Eventually if good directors aren't given the opportunity to bring new ideas into the Hollywood system and given the budgets required then they will go elsewhere. It's not a coincidence that some of the best story telling has shifted away from film to tv/online programming because that's where all the creativity is, whether it's Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, House of Cards or Orange is the New Black. In fact if Google or Apple or even Facebook ever got into the content creation business much like Netflix then the studio system would collapse for Hollywood, no only would those companies have more than enough money to compete they would have a far easier and cheaper means of distribution. It would be game over.

 

[Solidus]

I don't think theater going will disappear. Just because of the experience it gives you will never fully be able to replicate in your home. Screens have gotten bigger but are still just a fraction of what a theater is.

I think the more competition there is they will have no choice but to make better films possibly. It may be clustered for a while but honestly there has always been bad films just not this expensive as ones. So even with easier distribution I think the demand for theaters will always remain. It's about the experience of seeing something larger than life. There may be some problems here and there that will come. But I think in the long run it will still chug on and we will get good films and bad films. Even on the expensive or indie front.

 

[jmc]

I agree that certain films are made to been seen in the cinema, but they are few and far between. A film like Gravity or Avatar yes you have to see in cinema because it was tailored for it, you'll never get the same experience watching it at home. A film like Iron Man 3 or Man of Steel? Not so much, those films weren't shot to be an experience, they were shot as entertainment and despite how good they look in the cinema you don't lose a hell of a lot by watching them on your 48in HD TV with your surround sound. And frankly, most big budget films don't have directors who understand how to fully suck the audience in to the film they watching and use the full size and scope available to them.

 

[Lord]

Cinema will never really die, as stated before it offers a certain experience that other places can't replicate, and theaters are even trying to improve the film experience with better seats and IMAX, while not as tailor made like Gravity or Avatar, Iron Man 3 and Man of Steel are still films where watching them on the big screen gives you a completelly different experience than watching at home, thank that to all their set pieces.

Home entertainment and netflix won't really end Cinema either, it may bring more originality and quality to the plot, but many people still notice the big budgets of the major films better. Netflix isn't even available in every country and i think piracy would be the closest thing to taking oun the business, However it still didn't, people still like to go out to the cinema.

What i think Spielberg and Lucas mean isn't that Cinema will end, but just an implosion, due to the oversaturation of these kinds of film, and after that Hollywood may rethink a strategy, just as they have done over the years like in the 2nd half of the 70s due to the popularity of Jaws and Star Wars.

 

[dark_b]

i think Lucas and Spielberg made it very clear.

you can not have 6 150-200million big budget movies in 3 months durring summer. and than cry on the interner how the studio f... up. its impossible for so many movies to make a profit.

 

[Octoberist]

This is what's going to happen, and it's happening now:

Movies like Gravity costed under 80 million. Man from UNCLE got their budget cut, for the best, and now it's going to be a 70 million dollar films. Prisoners cost about 30-40 million; I can bet you a few years ago, it would've cost 100 million under the wrong studio.

My point is that mid-range genre films will be making a big comeback. Limitations helps with the creativity anyway, and will be rewarded if the film's good.

 

[dark_b]

i like mid range genre movies. directors and writters get a little more freedom. its the perfect creative compromise between studio and artist(directors,writters,....) for an expensive movie. we all win.

than in summer we get buildings collapsing .

 

[Octoberist]

Exactly. I think it's SAFE enough for filmmaker to create original but ambitious stuff. That includes films like Looper.

 

[jmc]

Cinema will never really die, as stated before it offers a certain experience that other places can't replicate, and theaters are even trying to improve the film experience with better seats and IMAX, while not as tailor made like Gravity or Avatar, Iron Man 3 and Man of Steel are still films where watching them on the big screen gives you a completelly different experience than watching at home, thank that to all their set pieces.

Home entertainment and netflix won't really end Cinema either, it may bring more originality and quality to the plot, but many people still notice the big budgets of the major films better. Netflix isn't even available in every country and i think piracy would be the closest thing to taking oun the business, However it still didn't, people still like to go out to the cinema.

You're forgetting that habits can change over time. Imagine if Google got into making original material and made it cheap and easily available for people everywhere. That would be a massive turning point. It would only take one of these tech giants to do this to cause a seismic shift in how people view entertainment. There is something to be said about the cinematic experience no doubt, but just because we have massive movies each and every year doesn't mean these massive blockbusters are going to have longevity, at the moment it's over saturated, we have more and more 'event' films every year, to the point where they're all kinda blurring together.

What i think Spielberg and Lucas mean isn't that Cinema will end, but just an implosion, due to the oversaturation of these kinds of film, and after that Hollywood may rethink a strategy, just as they have done over the years like in the 2nd half of the 70s due to the popularity of Jaws and Star Wars.

The question I suppose is whether Hollywood is going to be the one shifting to a new strategy. At the moment there's no signs in there being a change of strategy, in fact you could argue it's the contrary, they're just looking at the dollar signs. Netflix may not be in every country on the planet yet but they're they ones who've started the ball rolling for original material online, and so far it's been a success and done relatively cheaply. If there is no change in the mindset from the Hollywood studios then the risk is someone else will come along with a better strategy that suits both the creative minds and the audiences. I don't know if cinema would end, but it could very well evolve into something else.

 

[Lord]

I'm not sure if it's true but don't you have to pay for Netflix? Because if that's so i doubt it will be popular in some of the countries who already have their oun sites to watch all this type of content for free or can easily download it, i know that here it wouldn't be very popular due to torrents and a site called Wareztuga, which has been shut done many times by corporations but due to the fandom it allways came back, so i'm not sure what it would be able to acomplish in bigger countries like Russia.

 

[hammerhedd11]

What they are saying is fragmentation. Have 100 films, you have 100 different audiences. Have 50 films, you have 50 audiences. 10 films, 10 audiences. The number of people in the audience doesn't change but the amount of money they bring to a single film does.

I guess I just simply disagree with their conclusions then. I don't see too much competition as a bad thing. Of course "quality" is a highly subjective term, but the films that people really want to see will win out. And I don't think we can really argue that blockbuster films will really crowd out the rest when we have lower budgeted films like The Heat, Gravity, The Butler, or Now You See Me making over a 100 million. Those aren't huge budget superhero/action epics yet they have far surpassed some of their summer competition.

 

[roach]

I guess I just simply disagree with their conclusions then. I don't see too much competition as a bad thing. Of course "quality" is a highly subjective term, but the films that people really want to see will win out. And I don't think we can really argue that blockbuster films will really crowd out the rest when we have lower budgeted films like The Heat, Gravity, The Butler, or Now You See Me making over a 100 million. Those aren't huge budget superhero/action epics yet they have far surpassed some of their summer competition.

It's not about competition. It's about studios putting a lot of their money and effort behind a movie that may flop and hurt the studio.

The other thing we have to look at is Steven and George are insiders. They know more about whats going on behind the scenes than we do.

 

[hammerhedd11]

They specifically mentioned that they think there's going to have to be fewer movies released in the future. I don't know how that wouldn't be referencing competition, specifically that more movies means that the studios are worse off.

And I think their idea of a few huge budgeted flops is not new, nor do I understand why they think it's new. We've had that this year, last year, and every single year that movies have existed. We've had movies like Cutthroat Island bankrupt an entire studio. We've lost many movies studios over the decades, and new ones have risen in their wake. That's not new, nor will it ever be new. That's business. Studios always run the risk of hurting themselves, and losing everything, but, contrary to what Spielberg and Lucas believe, that is something they have and will always contend with, and is not a new phenomenon. I think it's a mistake to take Lucas and Spielberg at their word simply because they are big names. True, Lucas is an insanely successful businessman on his own terms. That does not qualify them as experts on economics, and how businesses run.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

Star Wars wasn't an expensive film of the kind of Cleópatra, but it still had a relativelly big budget, if anything Jaws had a smaller one.

The Jaws budget was less than Star Wars, but Spielberg went way over it. Star Wars cost $11 million. Compare that to the other big blockbusters at the time like Superman: The Movie ($55 million), Close Encounters of the Third Kind ($20 million), Apocalypse Now ($31.5 million), and Moonraker ($34 million). Even earlier films like The Godfather Part II ($13 million) and The Towering Inferno ($14.5 million) cost more than Star Wars did.

Perhaps my words were a bit of an exaggeration in my original post, but my point was that Star Wars did not have this astronomical budget like today's blockbusters. And that is true.