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This topic comprises 4 pages: 1 2 3 4
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Author
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Topic: Steven Spielberg Predicts Implosion
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Scott Norwood
Film God
Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 06-14-2013 06:29 PM
quote: Mike Blakesley
If you're an investor, what are you going to want to put your money into?
I would never invest in a movie with any expectation of getting a return on that investment. It is actually hard for me to think of any worse investment.
Still, if someone put a gun to my head and asked me to invest in movies, I would never go for the $200m "blockbuster" title. Instead, I would invest in a bunch of low-budget horror movies. Neither investment would be creatively satisfying, but the cheap horror movies would be more likely (as a group) to break even.
I actually kind of hope that something does change in the mainstream film market. It has been a while since I have seen a widely released current film that I thought was any good ("Lincoln" was the last, actually), and I would really like to see more creativity in the films that actually make it to the multiplexes, rather than this seemingly endless stream of sequels, remakes, and reboots. I have no problem with high-budget movies, if they are good, but we need more films like Inception and fewer films like Man of Steel.
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Monte L Fullmer
Film God
Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004
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posted 06-14-2013 11:56 PM
quote: Mike Blakesley
You have movies, TV, podcasts, webcasts, games, amateur video, etc., all running at a pace about 20 times faster than it was then, in terms of how long the product will last in the marketplace.
..and "GooGoo" Plexes shoving multiple screenings of one movie, which in turn is returning these plexes into small 3 to 6 screen plexes.
Case in point: with "IM3" opened up in our area of 5 multi's back in early May, there were over 130 screenings of the film on the opening day with the majority of them for the 3D presentation. Talk about major overkill of screen usage. Thus, obviously with the following weekend, attendance took a major reduction (as so mentioned in trade magazines of almost 60% in attendance) in attendance.
Wasn't the idea in the first place to construct a multiscreen plex to have all of the screens with a different feature being presented on them?
Back in those days, it was an event to go to the theatre of your choice and find the movie of your desire to watch. Now, it's total competition due to what's available to get the people out of the houses that contains their home entertainment systems and come to their venue(s).
quote: Scott Norwood
I would never go for the $200m "blockbuster" title. Instead, I would invest in a bunch of low-budget horror movies
I bet you could have kicked your self for not investing into the recent sleeper hit, "The Purge": Cost only $3M to make and have garnished $43,644,850 for one week.
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Terry Lynn-Stevens
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1081
From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Dec 2012
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posted 06-16-2013 10:57 AM
quote: Aaron Garman
I think he's right, it just has to eventually implode. The studio system did finally and the aftermath gave us a decade of unbelievably great films.
I think Spielberg and Lucas have forgotten their roots, movies have always been difficult to get into theatres, and for all of those students they were talking to, they should remind the students that for every Spielberg/Lucas, there are a 100,000 wannabe film students.
As for Lincoln, there is no way the movie would of made it to cinemas if it did not have Spielberg's name attached, and for the record, the newer Spielberg stuff is not as moneymaking nor is it as good as the 70's and 80's body of work.
With Red Tail, come on Lucas, Red Tails was simply a flop.
Now, what Spielberg and Lucas failed to mention to the film students is that more than ever, there are now more franchises than in the 80's and 90's that appeal to world audiences. Pirates. Dark Knight, Iron Man, Transformers, Harry Potter etc all appeal to world wide audiences and they are made for the world wide audience. Movies now get a major release in China whereas in the past they did not. Look at Skyfall, a billion dollar title.
quote:
"The pathway to get into theaters is really getting smaller and smaller," Lucas said.
I don't believe this at all.
Maybe Spielberg and Lucas should as the Weinsteins about their long history of getting smaller pictures into theatres.
quote: Monte L Fullmer
Wasn't the idea in the first place to construct a multiscreen plex to have all of the screens with a different feature being presented on them?
You can still go to a multiplex and find the movie you want. Multiplexes have always played movies on multiple screens, so your point makes no sense.
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Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 06-16-2013 11:06 PM
The difference is, there used to be far fewer prints overall. In my area, the big city of Billings used to have a 7-plex, a 4-plex and a 3-plex, all owned by the same company. Rarely would you ever see a movie in more than one of those buildings. Even the original "Star Wars" which played over a YEAR in Billings at the Rimrock 4 (a mall plex) never played on more than one screen there.
But now, Billings has two plexes, a 14 and a 10, and not only are the same movies playing in both buildings but on multiple screens in each building. Right now, for example, Man of Steel is playing in two screens in the 10-plex, and two or possibly three in the 14. (For some reason the 14's showtimes aren't displaying correctly right now so I can't be sure.) Plus it's also playing here, and in two screens in Laurel, plus it's in Miles City's single screen too. Back in the '70s there would have been ONE print in action for all those screens, instead of the at least nine there are today.
No wonder movies have no legs anymore. It's not the movies' fault -- it's distribution, combined with our "gimme-gimme-now" society.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 06-17-2013 01:22 PM
quote: Mike Blakesley
Not really....Carmike was doing five and six film prints in Billings before digital went mainstream. I'm sure other chains and other cities were the same.
I noticed that practice really start taking off in the mid 1990s. I remember when the AMC Grand 24 theater opened in Dallas. They had Die Hard With A Vengeance playing on either 4 or 6 screens. They did the same thing with Batman Forever a few weeks later. When our local Carmike theater was running film it opened a few movies on 4 of its 8 screens. I particularly remember Pearl Harbor. The theater had 2 prints, but interlocked it across 4 screens. I made copies of the DTS CD-ROM discs so every screen would be playing it in DTS.
Of course when "digital" took off it made it possible to play the same movie on every screen. The Carmike 8 here was doing midnight shows of some movies, like the final installments of Harry Potter or the Twilight series and filling as many screens as they could. All 8 if necessary.
quote: Mike Blakesley
Back then, movies were much cheaper to make than they are now. If you're an investor, what are you going to want to put your money into? A movie based on a well-known property virtually guaranteed to be a hit and give you a solid return on your investment, or a risky unknown concept which, if it fails to catch on, could cost you your job?
Like so many problems with the entertainment industry this is all their fault. They don't have to produce & market movies in such an expensive manner. A Titanic-sized ego has clearly gotten the better of too many people making movies these days. Lots of lower budget movies are actually more profitable, but they just don't gain the ego-stroking high profile of a so-called "summer blockbuster" release or a high brow project intended to win Oscars.
Actors are nowhere near the marketing draw they used to be. I saw one news story recently how magazines are dropping movie stars as a cover priority in favor of TV stars or other kinds of celebrities. So if actors don't sell tickets like they used to, why pay one of them $20 million or more to star in the movie. Talent is arguably the biggest thing that balloons the size of a movie production budget.
Not every movie needs to be embellished from beginning to end with CGI effects either.
I think certain investors are attracted to $200 million productions due to things like marketing tie-ins, product placements in the movie, merchandising, international sales, etc. It's tough to launch a line of toys with a movie costing under $10 million to make. When a studio spends big it can also lose big. In a way these global media companies who control movie studios are kind of too big to fail. A studio like Paramount could take a bath on a $200 million flop, but parent company Viacom could afford to eat those losses. 30 years ago a major flop would simply ruin a studio -kind of like what Heaven's Gate did to United Artists.
quote: Mike Blakesley
So they tend to go with the tried and true.
The problem with that notion is the big studios don't know for sure anymore if what they're doing is tried and true. But it makes no difference since the big studios control what is booked on commercial movie theater screens. Viewers can either buy one of the 12 flavors of vanilla playing at the multiplex or just stay at home. If the customers stay at home and just want to watch TV the parent companies of those big studios have content tightly controlled there. Cheap, un-scripted "reality TV" programming is spreading like an infection across most of the non-premium cable TV channels.
I wonder what these global media companies would do if a lot of the viewing population took up other hobbies and activities that didn't involve watching movies or TV. I know my TV watching habits have dropped off a great deal since getting more serious with a fitness routine.
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Terry Lynn-Stevens
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1081
From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Dec 2012
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posted 06-18-2013 10:29 AM
quote: Bobby Henderson
A Titanic-sized ego has clearly gotten the better of too many people making movies these days. Lots of lower budget movies are actually more profitable, but they just don't gain the ego-stroking high profile of a so-called "summer blockbuster" release or a high brow project intended to win Oscars.
quote: Bobby Henderson
The problem with that notion is the big studios don't know for sure anymore if what they're doing is tried and true.
I am not exactly sure if you know what you are trying to say, the studios know exactly what they are doing right now when it comes to tent pole movies, just because you might like how things were doing in the past compared today, it does not mean what the studios are doing is wrong.
In the last few years, movies such as Pirates 4, Skyfall, Dark Knight Rises, Transformers part 3 have all grossed a billion plus dollars. Movies are global grosses are global now and movies do not need to play for 6 months in a theatre to do well, so get over it.
This year, Iron Man 3 has made a billion, these studios know exactly what they are doing. Fast 6 has made north of $600 million and it is still climbing. The next Fast 7 movies will be a guaranteed billion dollar hit...
How many of those smaller "profitable" pictures does the studio have to make in order to generate the profit of a major tent pole? And where are all the tie-in profits from the smaller more profitable movies that you speak of?
quote: Justin Hamaker
One of the problems with the "niche" film market is the studios prevent the development in special interest films in smaller markets by their limited release patterns. My theatre doesn't even advertise these movies because we never know when they will be available. When they are available, it's usually so far out that they are no longer worth playing because our interested customers have gone elsewhere.
Can you expand on what you mean by a "niche" film? Generally a small niche movie generally will not perform well outside of a major market.
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