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Posted by Charles Everett (Member # 889) on 09-03-2003, 04:00 PM:
 
From all those overhyped sequels and expensive flops it gave us this summer.

Variety has a story this week about this. I found the story online; it's also in the weekly print edition dated 9/1-7. For those who don't read Variety I'll sum up who's saying "mea culpa":
Thanks to its three flops this year -- and especially because of Gigli -- Revolution now limits budgets to $40M per picture and will no longer hire any director who insists on final cut. (Martin Brest had final cut on Gigli.) The company also will cut down on profit participation by stars, producers and directors; profit participation means a picture has to gross more than twice its production cost just to break even.
Mike Blakesley brought up in another post that Disney may eliminate traditional animation. DreamWorks has already done that thanks to Sinbad; from now on DreamWorks' animated titles will be strictly computer animation.

[ 09-06-2003, 12:18 PM: Message edited by: Charles Everett ]
 
Posted by Rachel Gilardi (Member # 1016) on 09-03-2003, 04:06 PM:
 
quote:
Mike Blakesley brought up in another post that Disney may eliminate traditional animation. DreamWorks has already done that thanks to Sinbad; from now on DreamWorks' animated titles will be strictly computer animation.
What a way to take out the "personal touch"...maybe if they actually had a good story line with some of that tradition animation... Money talks though.
 
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 09-03-2003, 06:31 PM:
 
quote:
Thanks to its three flops this year -- and especially because of Gigli -- Revolution now limits budgets to $40M per picture and will no longer hire any director who insists on final cut.
Taking things like "final cut" away from directors is no guarantee. Hollywood will not be able to focus group and test screen their way out of this problem.

Here's the main issue: many films these days have no balls, no risk and little (if any) originality. Sure, I like a rollercoaster thrill ride of an action movie or escapist flick as much as anyone. But those kinds of movies are like eating a piece of candy. Do you want your entire diet to be nothing but candy?

I need variety in films. Does every film really need a happy ending with every plot point neatly and predictably tied up at the finish?

I watched "A Decade Under the Influence" last night on the Independent Film Channel. The 1980's and 1990's had some decent films here and there. But those last two decades SUCKED ASS compared to the innovative and gutsy films made in the late 1960's and througout most of the 1970's.

William Goldman wrote an article sometime back about this issue, comparing Best Picture nominees of certain years in the 1970's to what got nominated in the 1990's. The differences in quality are staggering.

I don't think any Hollywood studio would allow a film like "Network" to be made today (even though the subject matter is very relevant to the corporatization of mass media and news/infotainment currently). At least a judge had sense enough to throw out the "fair and balanced" lawsuit filed against Al Franken by Fox News. Don't look for a movie version of it to happen.

Scathing, accusatory novels like "Bonfire of the Vanities" and "Rising Sun" have been turned into watered down shit for the big screen. Denying a director final cut is not the key. How about denying the 15 producers, associate producers, executive producers and marketing guys final cut. All those money men are great at making bland, boring, predictable movies. I would have to say the problem is getting even worse considering Hollywood is now raking in a fortune off DVD, whose buyers are primarily dumb jocks who only like movies with explosions (some of that stuff is cool, but not 100% of the time).

I suppose the only hope is the rapidly declining cost of digital video and audio creation/editing equipment. That might "democratize" the story creation situation and take some of the say away from the money men. Musicians can already record their own CDs in a home studio and feature levels of quality as good as any high priced studio. So who needs Sony records and a $1 million album budget? Video cameras are getting better and less expensive. I just bought a 3CCD MiniDV camera last week for under $1,000.

With all the hype for "digital projection" the studios may actually screw themselves really good. You can already shoot broadcast quality video, complete with titles, graphics and effects on a minimal shoestring budget. If 2K is good enough for digital projection consumer cameras will easily hit that in just a couple years.

The point with all that techno-speak is the movie makers will eventually be able to make more adventurous, provocative movies without having to answer to a big Hollywood studio.
 
Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 09-03-2003, 07:05 PM:
 
There was a scientist researching the jumping power of frogs. He trained a frog to jump on command, and measured the frog's jumping distances. The scientist then cut off one of the frog's legs and repeated the test. The frog didn't jump as far with one leg missing. The scientist then cut off the frog's other leg and repeated the test. The frog didn't jump. What did the scientist conclude?

The way these studio Suits think, the conclusion would be "Frog with no legs loses hearing."

Box office history shows that audiences will pay to see a good story well told. Most audiences aren't trained to appreciate technique and couldn't care less about it. It's the story that counts. Technique without a good story is just a technical exercise, a demo reel. But a good story, even with mediocre technique--is still a good story! In animation, it doesn't matter if it's done in 2D or 3D--both blockbuster and bomb have been done both ways. Look at my beloved Studio Ghibli, a small strictly-2D studio that routinely sets box office records in Asia. Or look at Pixar, a strictly-3D studio that routinely sets box office records everywhere. I'm sure both of them will continue to enjoy success, as long as they continue to greenlight good stories.

Accountants and MBAs don't tell good stories. It's not in their nature. Yet they're the ones wearing the Suits. Go figure. These Suits have shown that they couldn't recognize a good story even if it kicked them in their collective asses. Yet, the Suits blame the technicians for expensive Suit failures. Yeah I know, it's the Human Condition. Still, the Suits just don't get it. "It's the story, stupid!"
 
Posted by Per Hauberg (Member # 529) on 09-03-2003, 07:06 PM:
 
I'm getting really worried about Sinbad showing up in so many topics here - always for the bad.
We will be premiering tomorrow, and the bad feelings still grow: I arranged a Hunt for Sinbad's Treasure last week, sending out flyers to 6.000 families. The kids can do all of Malling and neighbour village on bike in less than an hour. On this tour, they should spot and report 10 Sinbad clinger figures in shops, with the possibility to win free premiere tickets for their whole school class. 6.000 families were invited, nine fetched the aswering sceme, seven returned and two were filled out correct. I am afraid, we're not going to do better in little Denmark than You did on this one. Have rumours really be whirling this way by internet, or has that adventure comeback of animated pictures, started by Lion King. finally turned ?

p.
 
Posted by Martin Brooks (Member # 1269) on 09-04-2003, 08:27 PM:
 
I was "forced" to see Sinbad and it really wasn't bad - I was very surprised that it held my attention. And I thought that the voice characterizations were actually quite good (and I used to be in that business.)

As for Hollywood, I doubt that very many lessons will ever be learnt. Unfortunately, the media giants have trained the audience to mainly like crap. They only care about 18 to 35 year olds. And they (as well as the financial demands of A-list stars and directors) have forced budgets up so high, that for a movie to be successful, with few exceptions it must appeal to the lowest common denominator. And so we have a plethora of comic strips with less plot than the actual comic strips themselves, sequels and concept films composed of nothing but explosions and effects. Movies are constructed not to confuse a horny 12 year old who's flunking school.

I find it amazing that when a movie is made of a TV show, it's usually the lower-budget TV show that had the more complex and more literate plots. Sometimes there are advantages to not having the budget for effects.

What has always been surprising to me is that whenever I have seen one of these big budget effects disasters, it has seemed like the last thing anyone thought of was the story and script.

While it's true that some director's egos hurt films, making films by committee and focus groups hurts the quality of films even more. Hollywood is not going to help things by taking final cut away from the director.

IMHO, another reason for the decline of film quality is the fact that we're becoming a less literate nation. I think we have fewer people who are capable of writing a decent film.

It's not only the US that made better films in the 70s. If you think of films that came out of the French New Wave as well as Bertolucci's films, there was a lot happening in Europe as well during this period that's not happening now. Another difference in the 70s was exhibition. Films would open in a few theaters and then spread. And in big cities, there were mid-sized chains who mainly played intelligent, independent and foreign films. In NYC, the Cinema 5 and Walter Rugoff chains primarily played these kinds of films. Today, such films are segregated into the few art houses. Every multiplex is showing exactly the same films.

Even if someone today made the equivalent of Easy Rider (which was made when Hollywood was still grinding out big budget disasters like Paint Your Wagon and Hello, Dolly), it could not be successful today, due to the fact that films have to open wide and the marketing dollars necessary to promote films are as big as the development budgets.

Frankly, one hope for the resurrection of a strong independent film market is digital projection. At least that would greatly lower the cost of distribution. Although more important than lowering distribution cost is the need for a receptive audience. And I don 't think we have that anymore. We've trained the audience to be dumber and dumberer.

This isn't unique to the film business. The music and radio business have done exactly the same thing.
 
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 09-05-2003, 01:38 AM:
 
quote:
I find it amazing that when a movie is made of a TV show, it's usually the lower-budget TV show that had the more complex and more literate plots. Sometimes there are advantages to not having the budget for effects.
Quite true.

One reason for this: writers for TV make a better living than writers for movies.

Lower budget films often have more original stories and involving characters since the filmmakers have more creative freedom. Their work is not focus grouped to death in the same manner as a big budget Hollywood film.

Francis Coppola made this comment in the "Decade Under the Influence" documentary on IFC: "you can't have art without risk." That's the fundamental problem with major film projects. The suits want to be guaranteed record setting box office numbers without doing anything risky or orginal. They take no chances. They just expect the same kind of movie repackaged in a different wrapper to sell better and better.

Eventually people will get tired of the nonsense, especially with things like ticket price inflation creeping up now (and not to mention less and less free time to even watch a movie). The music industry is in crisis over the same habit of retreading the same old shit to death. Except they keep using the Internet as a scapegoat instead of admitting the real problems and taking steps to solve them.
 
Posted by Thomas Procyk (Member # 1170) on 09-05-2003, 09:52 AM:
 
We got Sinbad last week in sub-run. (The tail was labled by the previous theater: SinBAD) It did mediocre business even on our crazy bargain day, and this week it goes down to only 2 matinee shows in our smallest house. [Frown]

The main problem with this movie was the title. Titles that are only people's names never do well for some reason. Gigli, Sinbad, Lizzie McGuire, Antwone Fisher, Bagger Vance... people don't remember names let alone what the movie is about. Before I saw the trailers for Sinbad, I thought that unfunny African American comedian was finally making a feature. [Razz]

On the plus side, when sub-runs get movies that have bombed, the prints are usually pristine!

=TMP=
 
Posted by Michael Gonzalez (Member # 593) on 09-05-2003, 12:23 PM:
 
Hollywood is never going to learn it's lesson. The studios are going to claim that they learned their lesson, they are going to make the cutbacks (many of them wrongly) but the moment some kind of movie trend come out they are going to copy it just like everyone else. Scream broght back the teenage slasher movie so everyone had to bring in their copycats. The first X-Men movie started a comic book trend that had to be copied. And of course every studio had to make a war movie. Also even though they say that they learned their lesson from Gigli, as soon a J-Low has another hit movie, the studios will be lining up to bankroll Gigli 2. It is never about stories and characters, it is about what genre of movie and what actor is "hot" at the moment.
 
Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 09-05-2003, 01:34 PM:
 
quote:
and what actor is "hot" at the moment.
Back in 1995, Paramount released the movie "Clueless". They had a TV show of the same name so after. Alicia Silverstone was a hot item after that. She did "Batman & Robin" and two low budget films. So step in Columbia Pictures with what "Clueless" did at the box office (56 milion), they gave Alicia's New production company a two picture deal and 14 million dollars. The first picture of that deal was "Excess Baggage" (1997). It's opening weekend was $6,309,583 on 2211 screens. It finished for a total of $14,515,490 at the box office. She was hot at the moment and became poison after "Excess". Now she has a new TV show "Miss Match" on NBC Fridays. A lot of the problems at Columbia goes back to when Peter Guber and Jon Peters ran the studio soon after Sony bought the studio. They used the deep pockets of Sony to make some really wonderful films [bs] . Their is a book about that time they ran the studio.
 
Posted by Charles Everett (Member # 889) on 09-05-2003, 04:25 PM:
 
JLo isn't getting anything soon. Thanks to Gigli her role in her next movie, Jersey Girl, is reportedly being reduced to a cameo. Miramax also moved that picture back 4 months to keep it away from unintentional turkey jokes. Gobble, gobble!

Here's more from the Variety story:

quote:
Work can dry up for anyone associated with a B.O. clunker. Despite scripts for such mega-hits as "American Graffiti" and "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom," Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz became virtually invisible after "Howard the Duck." The 1994 "Radioland Murders" was their last onscreen credit.

But the most dangerous aspect of a clunker is that the entire studio administration can come under fire. In "Final Cut," a post-mortem on "Heaven's Gate," Steven Bach wrote, "Press reaction went beyond ambushing Cimino and the movie to encompass finally the company and the industry in which 'Heaven's Gate' had happened."

The film eventually caused UA's parent company, Transamerica Corp., to dump its entire entertainment arm. "Within three years of the 'Heaven's Gate' debacle, the management of every major company in the motion-picture industry had changed," wrote Bach.

So clearly, a clunker is a tricky thing to deal with.
And yes, Variety name-checked Ishtar and Waterworld in this story.
 
Posted by Ron Lacheur (Member # 1126) on 09-06-2003, 04:43 AM:
 
So did Waterworld " BOMB " or just the critics didn't like it?

I remember that it was quite popular around here that summer.
 
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 09-06-2003, 11:02 AM:
 
I would not call "Waterworld" a bomb, at least not dramatically. The movie had its moments. There were just other points to it that didn't work. And I didn't buy the Exxon Valdez joke at all.

"Waterworld" was raked over the coals for costing $200 million without having the potential for making 4 or 5 times that. Remember all the pre-release doom-saying about "Titanic"? That movie cost even more than "Waterworld" to make. But everyone forgot about the cost of "Titanic" when it grossed over $600 million in North America alone.

I'm not quite sure about this, but I could have sworn I heard that "Waterworld" actually broke even via box-office earnings and its take on home video. A lot of people showed up just to see the cause of all the fuss. The picture certainly wasn't a financial debacle like "Heaven's Gate."
 
Posted by Aaron Mehocic (Member # 15) on 09-06-2003, 03:37 PM:
 
Yes, Waterworld did break even in spite of its $200 million price tag. This was reported in Boxoffice magazine some years ago, though I'm not sure which edition it was printed in.
 
Posted by Ron Lacheur (Member # 1126) on 09-06-2003, 04:23 PM:
 
Heaven's Gate wasn't anywhere near Waterworld. I haven't seen the film, but one of these day I should make an attempt to see it. It basically ruined Camino's career.
 
Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 09-07-2003, 04:06 PM:
 
quote:
Titles that are only people's names never do well for some reason.
Amadeus
Annie Hall
Billy Jack
E.T.
Forrest Gump
Gandhi
Jerry Maguire
Mary Poppins
Norma Rae
Oliver!
Patch Adams
Patton
Rocky
 




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