posted
There is much being written about how hollywood is in a box office slump.
I say, Hollywood deserves it and much, much worse.
I've had my views of that city from outside to inside to outside, and as a screenwriter I can say that if karma and justice rains down they should lose a trillion dollars over the next decade.
For a system to go SOOOOOOOO mindlessly corporate, and almost drive out actual screenwriters is a bane upon themselves.
In 1990, I used to puke at sequels, remakes and TV shows to movies, and for the last 15 years, that has been over 50% of most of the crap they have thrown our way.
It has really bred a generation of films that is mainly written by guys who don't actually write but cut and paste from othere peoples old stuff. Real dialogue now a days consists of bits of pop culture. There is almost NOTHING lazier than throwing pop culture references into your movie.
And how many UNCREDITED remakes can they make? Like J-Lo's Maid in manhattan which is just Pretty woman without the prostitution. I've seen so many movies that were just lifted from other movies it makes me sick.
I have prided myself for almost 20 years on trying to write NEW, FRESH, and ORIGINAL ideas, and I've taken poverty, pain and exile as my pay.
Where hollywood is at now is the beginning of where it deserves to be, it deserves much much worse for cannibalizing it's own young.
To think that Jessica Simpson or Paris Hilton are STARRING in films is repugnant.
posted
Cliches. Movies nowadays are dripping with them. I can't stand that. I want to see something new, original and different with no formulas.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
I would be happy to see Hollywood slump right after Begins and King Kong comes out, because I want those movies to do well.
As a jaded Batman fan, however, the entire past Batman franchise does nothing but prove your point even more. We need something more minimalist. We're not all idiots, you know. More can be done with less. This applies to ALL movies, of course, but I do find it heartening that WB gave entirely free reign to Christopher Nolan, despite the prospect that his innovative style of filmaking could turn off most viewers.
Who knows. Maybe they're turning around. "Will it play in Peoria?" and "It's funny, but will it get them off their tractors?" may not be the ruling questions in corporate Hollywood forever. We can only pray.
Whilst I agree that there is nothing that is original, there are different atmospheres, different twists, narration methods, and mixtures of genres that can be applied to the movie industry. Of course, this would require focus upon art, rather than money, which is extremely unlikely. I know it's silly to keep returning to Christopher Nolan, but after Memento came out and became a rental smash, do you remember how many memory-oriented movies came out? I believe Paycheck was the only one with any intelligent premise, but not only had the story been written long ago by Philip K. Dick and only became producible in the wake of Memento, they also absoltuely butchered it with ridiculous action and poor acting. It just shows what the present Hollywood does with an innovative concept. They try and figure out a formula and mass produce it, rather than looking for new concepts.
By the way, are you aware that they're making TWO more Pirates of the Caribbean movies? Posts: 2258 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
Dude. P of the C was good! I enjoyed that movie a lot because it had SWORDS and Johnny Depp, a combination the world needs more of. But, what we need less of is 50s nostalgia movies and yeeky romantic comedies. Ew.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
I'm just looking forward to the day when Hollywood's recent infatuation with superheroes is over. In the meantime, video games seem to have more originality than the movies... which isn't exactly a bad thing.
posted
I do have to agree that I would LOVE to see more PotC movies.
Maybe they should stop running the movies like a business, which funtions around the forumla of finding a new resource and exploiting it, and more around art, which exists to raise questions about and ultimately express the human condition.
Of course, one does have to consider the fact that some of the greatest movies made nearly failed at the box office. Shawshank Redemption only became popular on video. It worked the same for Memento. And for Donnie Darko. I know I would've paid to see either in theater, if I had been able to. However, corporations did not pick these movies up or did not market them well, and their excellence traveled largely by word of mouth.
Hooligans is another movie that is doing well outside of the US, but the US marketers don't think Americans would like or could understand a movie that takes place in London. The same thing happened with Constantine. No one wanted to make a movie that took place in England. So they switched it up and stuck it in LA and put a man who became famous for playing stoned SoCAL surfers in the role of a complex, jaded, guilt-ridden charlatan. Oopsie. Another film is Layer Cake, starring Matthew Craig as an up-and-coming drug dealer. This movie has gotten fantastic reviews, yet it's only opening in select theaters in New York and LA. You'd think that the slow success of Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels plus the broad success of Snatch would alert coporations to the popularity of cockney life, but they just haven't.
And, finally, look at Garden State. Boy, howdy, it took forever to get this movie out into theaters, and people freaking loved it. Damn, corporations just don't catch on. If it doesn't have guns, a pair of breasts, or a nice set of abs, they just don't see dollar signs.
EDIT: I'm trying to think of what the first big hit superhero flick was. More than likely Bryan Singer's "X-Men," which I thought was great fun. Then Marvel went and signed a 10 motion picture deal with whoever and we're going to get flooded with crap.
Don't they understand that we LIKE superhero movies, but only when the characters have some level of depth? Is it any surprise that Spiderman did FANTASTIC, yet the broad majority of the movie was spent on Peter Parker, not Spiderman? Maybe it was because we cared about the characters, and not the fist-flying, explosion happy action.
Begins is doing a similar thing, only on a far more abstract scale. From what I've read, Batman doesn't actually show up until 50 minutes into the movie. Much of the movie is spent setting up the character and explaining why a man who has every reason to seek out vengeance searches instead for justice. Some people call Begins coporate America's attempt to exploit another franchise, and in many ways, I agree. But it's just sheer dumb luck that Nolan poked his head up and decided he could do something really introverted and dramatic with it. Also, Warner Brothers does seem to be looking at their material in a very new light. They might be eager to ressurect a dying, money-making franchise, but they're looking to do it in a very new way with very new ideas.
I've read the script. If 50% of it is kept the same, then this will probably be unlike any superhero movie ever made, even more so than Spiderman, which attempted the same thing. Spiderman was a safer success because Peter Parker was the every day downtrodden loser everyone can identify with, so when they spent about an hour outside the suit everyone was fine with it. But in Begins the main character is a dark, self-hating and self-destructive man who goes through a long, bitter, bleak search for morality and justice. I remember reading it and commenting to my roomate, "This is an extremely ballsy move, if Warner Brothers okays it." And they did, and it still is. Many people think Begins will turn people off because it is too introverted, too dark, and not focused enough upon action and explosions. I can only hope that middle america will prove them wrong.
X Men 3 is walking a very uncertain road. We've liked the past two because it goes through intensive character development (although the first one cut out 45 minutes of the stuff ). But characters keep getting added, and I soon fear that the group will become too large and unwieldy for a practical movie. Singer did a fantastic job of using as little screen time as possible lay out his characters - none of them got abundant amounts of attention, yet through skillful artistry Singer made every moment count and we cared about every one of them. Now the franchise rests in the hands of Matthew Vaughan, the man who directed Layer Cake which I still have yet to see, and although his clever style was lauded in that movie I can only hope its surgical and precise enough to keep the series coherent. Every day I hear about new additions to the cast, though I doubt most of them. The most recent one, however, has been widely confirmed as true, and delights me utterly - Kelsey Grammar, our own Dr. Frasier Crane, as Beast. How they're going to pull of the look, I don't know if it'll be CGI or dubbing or what, but the voice and personality is PERFECT.
But, if Singer did such a good job with the first two, why did they give the series to someone else in the first place? Because Singer wanted to do a new chapter in the Superman story, which is not owned by Fox, but by Warner Brothers. Fox wanted the new X Men out as SOON as possible, and wouldn't wait for someone they now considered working for the competition, so they booted him off the job, which he had done FANTASTIC stuff with, and fired many actors he chose from the X Men cast to star in Superman Returns - most noticeably Cyclops, whose return is still uncertain. All over money. Again, art run like business.
Warner Brothers seems to be taking a very new approach to their material. Before Nolan they originally tapped indie director Darren Aronofsky to do the job, and he planned to take the series in an even darker and more psychotic turn than Nolan did. They gave him liberal control over the project and let him and Frank Miller write a draft with absolutely no interference. What they got, well, stunk. It was an R rated version where Batman tortured people nearly to death and Alfred was originally a large black man who owned a garage who went by the name of "Big Al." Arronofsky left the project, no one would pick up the script, until finally Nolan said he'd do it, and insisted on using the famouly-fanboy David Goyer as his writer, even why Goyer refused to do it because he had too much work. Again, WB went entirely hands-off, and what we got is a superhero movie that is a drama first, then a thriller, before finally a superhero movie.
Superman Returns is uncertain. Or at least, I'm uncertain of it. It keeps many aspect of the old series (for example Clark Kent looks EXACTLY like Reeve's Clark Kent) while trying to shoot for a more modern look and attempting to add more depth to the characters. I don't know much about the plot, but the general gist is that Superman has given up his role as the boy in blue. Man, talk about a change in direction.
So that's how it works for me. Marvel seems to want to pump out crap superhero movies, and only produces good ones when goood directors pick them up, whereas Warner Brothers are looking for new directors with new ideas and have a strictly hands off approach. Very heartening, to me.
Dang. This was a long edit.
[ May 25, 2005, 01:27 AM: Message edited by: Book ]
Posts: 2258 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
Marvel doesn't make movies, at least not yet. It licenses characters to Movie Studios. Meanwhile DC/WB hasn't had a great track record of movies lately. Catwoman comes to mind.
Posts: 796 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
Ugh, you're right. Catwoman was beyond terrible. Maybe they learned a lesson from that.
I know that Marvel doesn't make movies, it's just that with things like Electra, Daredevil, Hulk, and the soon to be bad Fantastic Four, I'd like to find out who produced what movie, and how, and why things turned out like they did.
DC hasn't had a good movie in years. I have high hopes for Begins and uncertain hopes for Superman Returns.
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). But characters keep getting added, and I soon fear that the group will become too large and unwieldy for a practical movie. Singer did a fantastic job of using as little screen time as possible lay out his characters - none of them got abundant amounts of attention, yet through skillful artistry Singer made every moment count and we cared about every one of them. Now the franchise rests in the hands of Matthew Vaughan, the man who directed Layer Cake which I still have yet to see, and although his clever style was lauded in that movie I can only hope its surgical and precise enough to keep the series coherent. Every day I hear about new additions to the cast, though I doubt most of them. The most recent one, however, has been widely confirmed as true, and delights me utterly - Kelsey Grammar, our own Dr. Frasier Crane, as Beast. How they're going to pull of the look, I don't know if it'll be CGI or dubbing or what, but the voice and personality is PERFECT. ![[ROFL]](graemlins/rofl.gif)
