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This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
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Topic: Wonder Woman in 5/70mm
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Martin Brooks
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 900
From: Forest Hills, NY, USA
Registered: May 2002
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posted 06-02-2017 09:38 AM
quote: Bobby Henderson
I can't remember if Das Boot made a lot of money in its theatrical release back in the early 1980's. But it was at least a remarkable critical success, racking up several Oscar nominations (including Best Director for Wolfgang Petersen). That movie was popular here in the United States, regardless of it being a German language movie and one featuring German Navy U-boat men as the protagonists. The movie was still very terrifying and entertaining. I personally think it's one of the best war movies ever made.
You're talking about a different time and an era when intelligent adults still went to the movies and not necessarily to see comic book and superhero movies (although there were always popcorn films that appealed to everyone).
My bet is that the average young American, even the average young college-educated American, can't tell you the years of World War II and can't tell you who we fought and who were our allies. Assuming I'm correct, those people are not going to be interested in this movie. The battles they want to see are with aliens, superheroes, monsters or car gangs. Regardless of how critically acclaimed it is, I think it's going to fail commercially in theaters as most intelligent films do these days.
According to Box Office Mojo, "Das Boot" had a domestic lifetime box-office of just under $11.5 million. That's the equivalent of about $28.9 million in 2017 dollars.
The top 15 grossing (domestic) films so far in 2017 are:
Beauty and the Beast
Guardians, Vol. 2
Logan
The Fate of the Furious
the LEGO Batman Movie
Get Out
The Boss Baby
Kong: Skull Island
Split
Fifty Shades Darker
John Wick: Chapter Two
Pirates: Dead Men Tell No Tales
Power Rangers
A Dog's Purpose
Alien: Covenant
What does that tell us?
Not that the top films of 1982 were all that much better, but there is a little more diversity and maturity:
E.T.
Tootsie
An Officer and a Gentlemen
Rocky III
Porky's
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
48 HRS.
Poltergeist
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
Annie
The Verdict
Gandhi
First Blood
The Toy
Firefox.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 06-02-2017 10:30 AM
quote: Martin Brooks
You're talking about a different time and an era when intelligent adults still went to the movies and not necessarily to see comic book and superhero movies (although there were always popcorn films that appealed to everyone).
That's unfair to put all the blame for today's glut of super hero movies all on the average consumer. Millennials in particular are a popular scapegoat for every annoying problem these days (for example: compulsive mobile phone use) when just as many Gen-X and Baby Boom people are flat out guilty of the same damned thing.
Here's the real problem: The difference between now and 1982 is not every big movie studio was owned by a much bigger global media company totally obsessed with the stock ticker. The studios had more independence with making creative choices. Sequel-itis had not yet infected the production slate of every studio. Today movie studios are being strangled in the iron-fisted grip of Save The Cat bean counter tyranny. They're not allowed to take any chances anymore. Unfortunately the strategy of selling the customer the same old shit produces a product that is not very entertaining.
That Top 15 list from 1982 contained only 2 sequels (both of which were actually good movies and big hits). Most of the other 13 non-sequel movies on that list are now classics.
That Top 15 of 2017 (so far) has only 4 original movies in it. The rest are sequels and re-boots of some sort. This year's summer movie season is off to its worst start in overall ticket sales since 1999.
Most people who still visit movie theaters, whether they're young or older, just want to get out of the house and see something at the theater. Over the past couple decades and increasingly in recent years the customer has been forced to pick the least shitty flick from a collection of derivative, high priced yet predictable slop movies. Box office performance has been getting dodgy lately because more people are finally getting tired of picking the lesser of all evils at the box office. They're doing something else for fun rather than going to the theater.
quote: Martin Brooks
My bet is that the average young American, even the average young college-educated American, can't tell you the years of World War II and can't tell you who we fought and who were our allies. Assuming I'm correct, those people are not going to be interested in this movie. The battles they want to see are with aliens, superheroes, monsters or car gangs. Regardless of how critically acclaimed it is, I think it's going to fail commercially in theaters as most intelligent films do these days.
If all that was true then why is there such a great variety of series TV on cable and streaming services right now? A lot of these shows take big chances -like Game of Thrones murdering off its main character early in the series. There are some super hero series, but lots of other more brainy series like Downton Abbey and House of Cards are popular.
I have subscriptions to Amazon Prime and Netflix. I rarely ever watch traditional 2 hour Hollywood movies on either one of those services. It's almost always some TV series or something else like a stand up comedy special or documentary. The same goes for cable TV. I don't subscribe to HBO for the movies. If HBO didn't have some really good TV series I wouldn't pay for it. As it stands, I may get rid of Dish and get HBO Now.
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Martin Brooks
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 900
From: Forest Hills, NY, USA
Registered: May 2002
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posted 06-04-2017 01:22 PM
quote: Bobby Henderson
If all that was true then why is there such a great variety of series TV on cable and streaming services right now? A lot of these shows take big chances -like Game of Thrones murdering off its main character early in the series. There are some super hero series, but lots of other more brainy series like Downton Abbey and House of Cards are popular.
I think TV is actually doing a far better job than the movie industry in terms of seeking intelligent adult material, although some would argue that "Game of Thrones" is really about excessive violence and nudity. There's also the advantage of being able to tell a much longer story: "Game of Thrones" has been a 60-hour movie so far. Shows on premium networks like HBO and Showtime are special cases because the individual titles serve only to retain or acquire subscribers - it actually doesn't matter what the audience is for an individual show, although HBO did cancel "Vinyl" due to 'poor ratings'.
And while "Game of Thrones" has a large budget, most of the great TV shows have far smaller budgets than movies and as such, rely a lot less on special effects and explosions. Therefore they have to rely upon plot, exposition and character development.
People also watch TV and go to the movies with a different psychology. If "The Americans" were a movie, it would do little business, although it's been successful on TV.
Having said that, most of these TV shows, even the culturally significant ones, actually have relatively few people watching, since the market is so fragmented. The last season of "Game of Thrones" averaged 7.69 million viewers per episode, which is quite good (although would be a failure if a movie), but the just completed season of "The Americans" averaged just 744,000 viewers. In the UK, Downton Abbey gets about 11 million viewers per episode, but it's probably far less in the U.S., even though we have almost 5x the population. We don't know the audience for "House of Cards" because it's on Netflix.
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