Saturday, March 11, 2006
GoatBoy's Rant-a-riffic Week of 3/6-10 Pt III: Blockbuster Bust
ITEM! It's time for another anti-George Lucas rampage...
From imdb...
Lucas: "The Blockbuster Is Dead"
Movie mogul George Lucas predicts Hollywood will soon start shifting away from mega-budget blockbusters in favor of making more independent films for less money. Alongside Steven Spielberg, Star Wars creator Lucas is cited as being chiefly responsible for the blockbuster phenomenon that has gripped the movie industry for the last three decades. But he now believes big-budget films can no longer be profitable and are going out of fashion, as evidenced by this year's Academy Award nominees, including independent movies Crash and Good Night, And Good Luck. Lucas tells the New York Daily News, "The market forces that exist today make it unrealistic to spend $200 million on a movie. Those movies can't make their money back anymore. Look at what happened with King Kong. I think it's great that the major Oscar nominations have gone to independent films. Is that good for the business? No - it's bad for the business. But movie-making isn't about business. It's about art. In the future, almost everything that gets shown in theaters will be indie movies. I predict that by 2025 the average movie will cost only $15 million."
There are several elements going on here. The biggest one is that, if you make good movies, people will go see them again and again. KING KONG and REVENGE OF THE SITH were not good movies. And they still made money. KONG may have cost $207,000,000, but its worldwide gross is currently $538,000,000. And that's before DVD sales. REVENGE cost $115,000,000, but has a worldwide gross of $848,000,000. I guess those are piddlin' numbers in Hollywood, but only with Enron-level accounting.
So, I can only imagine what money KONG and SITH would have made were they any good.
George, if independent moviemaking were bad for business, the Weinsteins would be out of work. And they're not.
George, what you need to come to grips with is that people go to the movies to see great stories. I always assumed the CGI would make everything cheaper, but clearly that's not the case. Two good episodes of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA cost a fraction of what SITH and KONG did, but are just, flat-out, better, more engaging ways to spend two hours of fantasy entertainment. Many would argue the same for SERENITY -- poorly distributed, marketed, and small-niche-appealing though it was. Look at what Harve Bennett did with STAR TREK II, budgeted at a fraction of TMP, but powered by Nicholas Meyer's ideas and direction.
Want a blockbuster, George? Instead of putting two unmotivated, boring characters around ten digital lava pits, put two well-written characters around one "fake" lava pit and have them say and do interesting things for interesting reasons. Instead of ten CGI characters, use one cleverly-crafted puppet. Or an interesting guy with a latex forehead. I don't hear anyone complaining that the original Yoda was not CGI. Instead of hiring Tom Cruise for WAR OF THE WORLDS, cast a good TV actor and trust the story and director to "sell" the public with a good picture. Bang, you just saved tens of millions of dollars. Did STAR WARS have any "hot" stars? No. Neither did JAWS, honestly. JAWS just had *good* actors. Hell, that's how the "blockbuster," in the modern sense, got started.
Do the math, George. Big budgets do not necessarily a blockbuster make. And if anyone killed the blockbuster, you're in the top ten suspects list. I will be more than happy to trade SITH and KONG for smaller, better movies.
I can't tell if George is happy or sad at the news he reported. All I know is that, of the films he's directed, the smaller-budgeted ones have been better movies.
I don't think the blockbuster will ever be dead. And lord knows, I love self-indulgent filmmaking. But if this all does something to ward off *boring* self-indulgence, then I'm all for it.
"Brain candy" (no, not the Kids in the Hall movie) is the ultimate "eye candy." Otherwise, kids wouldn't love bedtime stories, which have no special effects, no big name actors, and no CGI.
ITEM! It's time for another anti-George Lucas rampage...
From imdb...
Lucas: "The Blockbuster Is Dead"
Movie mogul George Lucas predicts Hollywood will soon start shifting away from mega-budget blockbusters in favor of making more independent films for less money. Alongside Steven Spielberg, Star Wars creator Lucas is cited as being chiefly responsible for the blockbuster phenomenon that has gripped the movie industry for the last three decades. But he now believes big-budget films can no longer be profitable and are going out of fashion, as evidenced by this year's Academy Award nominees, including independent movies Crash and Good Night, And Good Luck. Lucas tells the New York Daily News, "The market forces that exist today make it unrealistic to spend $200 million on a movie. Those movies can't make their money back anymore. Look at what happened with King Kong. I think it's great that the major Oscar nominations have gone to independent films. Is that good for the business? No - it's bad for the business. But movie-making isn't about business. It's about art. In the future, almost everything that gets shown in theaters will be indie movies. I predict that by 2025 the average movie will cost only $15 million."
There are several elements going on here. The biggest one is that, if you make good movies, people will go see them again and again. KING KONG and REVENGE OF THE SITH were not good movies. And they still made money. KONG may have cost $207,000,000, but its worldwide gross is currently $538,000,000. And that's before DVD sales. REVENGE cost $115,000,000, but has a worldwide gross of $848,000,000. I guess those are piddlin' numbers in Hollywood, but only with Enron-level accounting.
So, I can only imagine what money KONG and SITH would have made were they any good.
George, if independent moviemaking were bad for business, the Weinsteins would be out of work. And they're not.
George, what you need to come to grips with is that people go to the movies to see great stories. I always assumed the CGI would make everything cheaper, but clearly that's not the case. Two good episodes of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA cost a fraction of what SITH and KONG did, but are just, flat-out, better, more engaging ways to spend two hours of fantasy entertainment. Many would argue the same for SERENITY -- poorly distributed, marketed, and small-niche-appealing though it was. Look at what Harve Bennett did with STAR TREK II, budgeted at a fraction of TMP, but powered by Nicholas Meyer's ideas and direction.
Want a blockbuster, George? Instead of putting two unmotivated, boring characters around ten digital lava pits, put two well-written characters around one "fake" lava pit and have them say and do interesting things for interesting reasons. Instead of ten CGI characters, use one cleverly-crafted puppet. Or an interesting guy with a latex forehead. I don't hear anyone complaining that the original Yoda was not CGI. Instead of hiring Tom Cruise for WAR OF THE WORLDS, cast a good TV actor and trust the story and director to "sell" the public with a good picture. Bang, you just saved tens of millions of dollars. Did STAR WARS have any "hot" stars? No. Neither did JAWS, honestly. JAWS just had *good* actors. Hell, that's how the "blockbuster," in the modern sense, got started.
Do the math, George. Big budgets do not necessarily a blockbuster make. And if anyone killed the blockbuster, you're in the top ten suspects list. I will be more than happy to trade SITH and KONG for smaller, better movies.
I can't tell if George is happy or sad at the news he reported. All I know is that, of the films he's directed, the smaller-budgeted ones have been better movies.
I don't think the blockbuster will ever be dead. And lord knows, I love self-indulgent filmmaking. But if this all does something to ward off *boring* self-indulgence, then I'm all for it.
"Brain candy" (no, not the Kids in the Hall movie) is the ultimate "eye candy." Otherwise, kids wouldn't love bedtime stories, which have no special effects, no big name actors, and no CGI.
# posted by Doctor Lao @ 1:09 AM 
Comments:
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Has someone charted the cost of films versus the amounts they've brought in, from 1905 to the present? I'm guessing that today's films are hardly bringing in anything, in those terms. Just about every other industry has trimmed the fat--I was talking to a former Este Lauder employee who said that 15 years ago the company would send you home in a limo if you worked late; nowadays you wouldn't even get a thank-you--but Hollywood still charters planes to fly its caterers to location shoots, even for a single scene. I've been hearing firsthand tales of the MIAMI VICE film shoot, and it's as if the production company is in the grips of a BREWSTER'S MILLIONS mania to get rid of as much money as they possibly can.
And with tickets now at over $10, I don't want to go to the theater unless I know in advance that the film's good--yeah, I'm a chintz. And in the case of nearly every blockbuster I've seen lately, with the exception of BATMAN BEGINS, I feel like I got robbed. I'm still waiting for Lucas to mail me a check for sitting through SITH, a film that made me long for the brilliant cinematic presence of Jar Jar Binks.
So how long can this system last? How long before the Hollywood studios start pawning the silverware? Sounds like Lucas sees the end approaching. Glad to hear it--I feel like we all suffer when movies are both bloated and crappy, a situation that's become the norm.
And with tickets now at over $10, I don't want to go to the theater unless I know in advance that the film's good--yeah, I'm a chintz. And in the case of nearly every blockbuster I've seen lately, with the exception of BATMAN BEGINS, I feel like I got robbed. I'm still waiting for Lucas to mail me a check for sitting through SITH, a film that made me long for the brilliant cinematic presence of Jar Jar Binks.
So how long can this system last? How long before the Hollywood studios start pawning the silverware? Sounds like Lucas sees the end approaching. Glad to hear it--I feel like we all suffer when movies are both bloated and crappy, a situation that's become the norm.
Tickets are $18 at some LA theaters. Even though they're still taking home all of the cash, I love it when studios boo-hoo over how they fear DVD sales are hurting them. If a movie ticket costs $10 ($8 here in the sticks), why not wait to read the reviews and then buy or rent it on DVD?
One of the big places movies could save a lot of money is simply in hiring actors. There is no shortage of good actors in the US. A big name is great on a poster, but some of the biggest films of all time did not have huge actors in the starring roles. People went to the story. They went to the concept. They went to the director. They went to the emotional experience. I hear about eight-figure salaries and I wonder what they actually need with that money. What was Toby McGuire thinking when he was holding out for even more millions of dollars for Spider-Man 2?
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for employees draining their employer of every dime possible. But what's the point when you're pulling in over $1,000,000 a year? What could you possibly want? It just baffles me.
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One of the big places movies could save a lot of money is simply in hiring actors. There is no shortage of good actors in the US. A big name is great on a poster, but some of the biggest films of all time did not have huge actors in the starring roles. People went to the story. They went to the concept. They went to the director. They went to the emotional experience. I hear about eight-figure salaries and I wonder what they actually need with that money. What was Toby McGuire thinking when he was holding out for even more millions of dollars for Spider-Man 2?
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for employees draining their employer of every dime possible. But what's the point when you're pulling in over $1,000,000 a year? What could you possibly want? It just baffles me.
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