Hollywood's Love of Analytics Couldn't Prevent Six Massive Blockbuster Flops 1029
Nerval's Lobster writes "In June, Steven Spielberg predicted that Hollywood was on the verge of an 'implosion' in which 'three or four or maybe even a half-dozen megabudget movies are going to go crashing to the ground.' The resulting destruction, he added, could change the film industry in radical and possibly unwelcome ways. And sooner than he may have thought, the implosion has arrived: in the past couple weeks, six wannabe blockbusters have cratered at the North American box office: 'R.I.P.D.,' 'After Earth,' 'White House Down,' 'Pacific Rim,' and 'The Lone Ranger.' These films featured big stars, bigger explosions, and top-notch special effects—exactly the sort of summer spectacle that ordinarily assures a solid run at the box office. Yet all of them failed to draw in the massive audiences needed to earn back their gargantuan budgets. Hollywood's more reliant than ever on analytics to predict how movies will do, and even Google has taken some baby-steps into that arena with a white paper describing how search-query patterns and paid clicks can estimate how well a movie will do on its opening weekend, but none of that data seems to be helping Hollywood avoid shooting itself in the foot with a 'Pacific Rim'-sized plasma cannon. In other words, analytics can help studios refine their rollout strategy for new films—but the bulk of box-office success ultimately comes down to the most elusive and unquantifiable of things: knowing what the audience wants before it does, and a whole lot of luck."
Better plots? (Score:5, Insightful)
These films featured big stars, bigger explosions, and top-notch special effects
Maybe they'll start making... (gasp)... actual plots to accompany those stars/explosions/special effects?
Movies used to be about the art, the story. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Better plots? (Score:5, Insightful)
Would be nice if our culture just became weary of entertainment cartel offerings, and people could once again take up more productive pastimes: making things, group outings and sports, exercise, hobbies...anything besides sitting on butts and watching brain numbing nonsense (yes, I'm as guilty as anyone)
Art, not science (Score:1, Insightful)
Movies used to be a form of art, not a form of science. And the science is not there to make a good movie, but how to extract as much money as possible.
lower the ticket price (Score:2, Insightful)
the price of the movies as gone up way to much it's at the point where it's much better to ppv at home.
Problem is, that hollywood is ran by MBAs (Score:5, Insightful)
Hollywood USED to be about making the best ART. Now, with the MBA's, it is about making short-term profit.
Likewise, Boeing used to make the best aircrafts (in both military AND commercial). The 787 is all about making short-term profit (in the same way that GE does).
Then US car companies, GM and Ford, used to be about making the best car possible. Now, it is about making short-term profits.
If we really want to restore America, we need to roll back the changes that reagan did. In particular, we need to require that executives NOT own any of the publicly-traded stock in that industry.
Re:Movies used to be about the art, the story. (Score:5, Insightful)
Even the Hobbit was a bit disappointing. My review of it was "Overall quite good, but could have used a lot less Temple of Doom".
Re:Better plots? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's like they think we can't tell the difference between a movie targeting our demographic and a good movie. Just because it targets our demographic doesn't mean we'll enjoy it.
theories (Score:4, Insightful)
but the bulk of box-office success ultimately comes down to the most elusive and unquantifiable of things: knowing what the audience wants before it does, and a whole lot of luck.
My personal pet theory is a lot simpler:
Not overfeeding them on the same stuff.
There are only so many times you can see the same movie and enjoy it. Hollywood blockbusters have largely turned into remixes of the same movie. If you know anything about storywriting, you've long realized that almost all Hollywood movies have the same script. Not just similarities the way most stories have, say, a beginning, a middle and an end, or a dramatic curve with a typical shape, but actually the same fucking script. Replace specifics like names, locations or technologies/species/etc. (giant robots/aliens/monsters/whatever) with placeholders and you'll see that they're pretty much all telling the same story.
And you can only hear the same story so often before it gets boring.
Threshold Ticket Prices Filter Consumer Masses (Score:4, Insightful)
I haven't gone to see any of these movies not because I wasn't _mildly_ interested, but because it wasn't worth $14--$17 times three: the cost of bringing myself and my family. That is a lot of cash to see a "meh" movie. It wasn't long ago that movies used to cost $6 a head.
Perhaps the geniuses in Hollywood should use their analytics to actually pick per-movie MSRPs: something they can do with Google's analytics, after they've already bought the movie and are just trying to maximize their investment. Or if that would piss off customers, then just decide to roll out movies such that 3D is the same price as 2D as a special "bonus" or promotion, to effectively bring the price down on movies that you are afraid aren't going to do as well as you thought pre-production.
Re:Better plots? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's easy to understand why (Score:5, Insightful)
big stars, bigger explosions, and top-notch special effects
—exactly what keeps me away from cinemas.
Re:Here's an idea (Score:5, Insightful)
At least 10 years out of date.
You now need to spec 'first gross' or all the gross is gone before your turn to get a cut.
The absolute best movies have as many foes as fans (Score:5, Insightful)
I love Tarantino movies - lots of people love Tarantino movies - lots of people really really hate Tarantino movies.
I liked Watchmen. I thought it was excellent even if it did depart from the book a bit and yes, maybe grew a little dull at times, but was deep enough to get into. Fully half the theater walked out during the first half hour I was in there.
Rocky Horror sucks. The people who like Rocky Horror will tell you it sucks. It's the longest in-box office run of any movie every. It was made before I was born and it still shows every weekend at a theater a half mile from my apartment.
The problem with Hollywood movies today is they use the freaking formulas.
Star Wars - though a formula setter - didn't follow movie formulas of 1977. Yes, say all you want about it being stolen source material, I fully believe you, but it's not how movies were made back then. I know plenty of people who hate Star Wars, not a lot since I chose not to associate with those sorts, but there are many, many people out there who consider themselves too good for such low-brow action flicks.
Avatar - biggest hit of all time. Yes all the block-buster formulas applied, but it also had formula breaking blends of primitive people, aliens, advanced species, spiritual and technical aspects. Even while complying with every blockbuster formula out there it twisted in subject matter only really addressed properly in Japanese Anime and threw in every movie category possible and made it work. On the flip side - Suckerpunch tried exactly the same thing and failed because they focused too heavily on making it look cool and forcing the fact they did so on you. Avatar did it seamlessly.
With the exception of maybe Avatar most of the movies I mentioned, that succeeded or even better yet, did okay but got a cult following had tons of haters. They will endure because of it.
IMHO cult status trumps block buster opening any day. Yes, fine, huge payday on a blockbuster up front, this is what studios want. Cult movies are more of a long term investment. They keep on giving. Disney has learned this, they're milking movies that flopped forty years ago today and making a profit. Disney has learned that movies are long term investment, not just box office warriors. They build a brand and milk it.
You can milk a cult movie. No one cares about a box office hit they forget about and nobody talks about a few years later.
movies need to offer a premium experience (Score:5, Insightful)
Blu ray is $25 or so
Movie theater is $30 plus the junk food and other costs to see a movie once
If they want people to pay premium prices offer a premium experience
Roomier seats
Kick out people making noise
No kids in adult movies
No babies
Re: Problem is, that hollywood is ran by MBAs (Score:2, Insightful)
The us auto industry was never about making the best car
It was a union jobs program and pension plan that just happened to make cars people outside the cities and away from universities were dumb enough to buy
Pies in the face (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's all the PIRATES' fault! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Problem is, that hollywood is ran by MBAs (Score:2, Insightful)
The same thing that is killing USA's Auto companies (save tesla), Boeing, and hollywood, is that MBA's now run things.
Agreed.
Hollywood USED to be about making the best ART.
Now you're pushing it. Hollywood was always unabashedly commercial - they wanted money, and lots of it. But the people running things understood that judgment and even (*gasp*) a certain amount of risk taking were necessary. The MBA mentality is to boil everything down to simple minded formulas.
Now, with the MBA's, it is about making short-term profit.
They're not even doing that though. The chickens are coming home to roost, and I'm glad.
Likewise, Boeing used to make the best aircrafts (in both military AND commercial). The 787 is all about making short-term profit (in the same way that GE does).
But the 787 isn't making any short term profit either. Bad enough when they're only focused on short term profit, but even worse when they can't even do that. The difference between then and now is that Boeing management used to understand that the way to make lots of money is to make good planes, and that designing them is not cheap. If you want low NRE stay the hell out of the airplane biz.
Re:Movies used to be about the art, the story. (Score:5, Insightful)
Even the Hobbit was a bit disappointing.
What do you mean, "a bit"? Bunny sled... birds crapping in the hair of 99% invented character... chased by tens of thousands of orcs, no problem... axe embedded permanently in skull of living dwarf... more Hollywood screen writing than actual Tolkein content... just for starters...
Re:Better plots? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Maybe they'll start making... (gasp)... actual plots to accompany those stars/explosions/special effects?"
They think they've found some "formulas" that are common to blockbuster movies... and maybe they're right. BUT... as much as I hate to say this again, correlation does not equal causation. The fact that many blockbusters may have followed particular patterns does not mean that following those patterns will automatically make a good movie.
All formulas aside... it STILL has to be a good movie.
Re:Art, not science (Score:2, Insightful)
A lot of people/companies profit from these flops, make no mistake about that.
Re:Better plots? (Score:5, Insightful)
exactly.
White middle aged male. I love a good indie flick that I have to watch in subtitles.
Take something simple and recent. the girl with a dragon tattoo. The original swedish movies are awesome. The james bond remake are a joke in comparison. Changing who is even the star.
I call it hollywoodifcation. when they take a good story and make it fit into hollywood story board.
Few "original" thoughts (Score:3, Insightful)
It's the entertainment industry in a nutshell - the second an act or movie becomes popular, EVERY studio/label/whatever clones it in an attempt to cash in on the success. Backstreet Boys takes off and sells millions? Enter N'Stync, 98 Degrees, etc. Dark Knight racks up a billion dollars worldwide? Now every superhero movie has to be "dark" and "gritty." Nirvana sells millions of records and overtakes Michael Jackson in the top 40? Enter the grunge era where every band that uses distortion and 4 power chords gets a record deal.
Very few people have "original" thoughts. Everyone else is about oversaturating the market to try to get their little piece of the pie.
Re:It's all the PIRATES' fault! (Score:5, Insightful)
Not even piracy is to blame - Redbox is.
Video rentals long predate Redbox. They were around 30 years ago.
Re:Here's an idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I saw "Pacific Rim", and it wan't a shitty movie. It wasn't a great movie, either. It was mediocre, in a particular way that seems to be becoming more common as businesses begin to feel more confident crunching the numbers on a work of art. It's happening in publishing too, as second tier authors churn out clones of The Dresden Files, Sookie Stackhouse, The Hunger Games, and of course, Twilight. The formula is "Like X but with Y" -- e.g. "Like Twilight, but with zombies." Some literary agents are even asking for this kind of summation in query letters.
I think this is because on a spreadsheet at least, it looks like you can make money without risk these days, if you just get the formula right. Usually these mediocre "me-too" books and movies aren't bad; in fact they often display a high degree of a certain kind of perfection -- the kind of perfection that consists of not making too many major mistakes.
Take "Pacific Rim". It's high-concept -- giant monsters vs. giant robots -- and the script and director work hard to deliver exactly what is promised. No time is wasted on back story or set-up; the exposition is somewhat crude and artless, but it is calculated to take the minimum time possible to get the viewer to the giant robot action. You have to admire the high level of artistic discipline required to predictably churn out something serviceably mediocre, but it means that you won't get something great. If *all* you're looking for in a movie is CGI battles between giant robots and monsters, it'd be hard to improve on "Pacific Rim"; it's just that most of us, even mecha-loving geeks, kind of appreciate a story that has a bit more creative excitement in it.
I've made something of an effort over the last couple of years to go back and re-read many classic sci-fi novels from the 40s - 80s, and almost without exception the great stories break some canons of taste. If you read a great novel critically, you'll almost always see that it has structural or artistic flaws; rules are broken, but so that the story can reach levels you can't get to by adhering strictly to a formula. I don't know as much about cinema as I do about books, but I bet it's much the same: you've got to be willing to try some things that are wrong, or questionable at least, to rise above mediocrity.
Re:Better plots? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is they are relying on customers to tell them what they want in movies. I
Not surprisingly, the easiest things to describe are described ( Explosions, stars, special effects), and the more difficult things to describe are not described well ( plot, character development, etc...).
Its like a GM in baseball using viewer feedback to determine how to build his team instead of actual measurable facts ( hits, walks, strike outs, innings pitched, earned runs, etc).
Re:Better plots? (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly. Let's look at the Metacritic ratings of these movies:
R.I.P.D. - 25 (They wouldn't even screen it for critics)
After Earth - 33
White House Down - 52
The Lone Ranger - 37
None of these films can be considered to be loved by critics, and most of them are hated. Super expensive special effects are like polishing a turd. Don't waste the money unless your product is solid (like the LOTR trilogy). Seriously, Hollywood spent $200 million on The Lone Ranger. And over $100 million on The Great Gatsby. Did anybody ask why they needed special effects on these films that should have been able to have been made at under $10 million each?
Re:Better plots? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Better plots? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Maybe they'll start making... (gasp)... actual plots to accompany those stars/explosions/special effects?"
They think they've found some "formulas" that are common to blockbuster movies... and maybe they're right. BUT... as much as I hate to say this again, correlation does not equal causation. The fact that many blockbusters may have followed particular patterns does not mean that following those patterns will automatically make a good movie.
All formulas aside... it STILL has to be a good movie.
Here's you a formula: fast movement, slow movement, scherzo, fast movement. The classical formula for a symphony. In the hands of a Beethoven, even the worst is good. In the hands of a Harvey Blorkfarter... Hey, who remembers Harvey Blrokfarter?
Here's another formula: pairs of rhyming lines in iambic Pentameter.
Formulas are just the framework. It's what you put on the framework that counts. You can use the best materials (paints, words, musical themes, star-grade actors) and it's still going to be piece of putrid trash if the spark isn't there.
The downside of the computer era is that we think that everything can be digitized, reduced, run through mathematical processes and produce gold. It's just the modern-day philosopher's stone, in a way. But computers are just tools and no customer survey can ever replace actually being in touch with your customers. No formula can replace a creative inner Muse. Art is art, not science, and it is better so, or all the artists would be replaced by kaleidoscopic art generation machines a la 1984 and the human touch would be lost.
Re:Better plots? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, its not that this younger generation is any wiser (they are not), its just that the movies being produced today are unappealing garbage compared to what they were 25 years ago. They are appealing to the lowest common intellectual denominator and that is seems to be why, the movies are filled with sugar filling of expensive special effects with little sophistication. The action and violence is vastly overdone and grotesque. The themes are either artificially saccarine or often far too graphic. Overall for me it has made seeing a movie such a disgusting thing I stay away.
I grew up in the 1980s, seeing Back to the Future, Batman (1989), the Original Star Trek movie series, non sci fi such as Funny Farm, and so on, which I always find far more pleasant and to have a feel about them that seems more down to earth than the stuff made today. Even the lesser rated 80s movies like Nothing But Trouble are better than what is generated today.
Re:Here's an idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Batman does not have any superpowers either.
Re:Not a flop, at least not yet. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's way too early to mark Pacific Rim off as a flop.
As of today it's worldwide haul is $175 Million, which is close to it's actual budget of $180 million.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=pacificrim.htm [boxofficemojo.com]
It has not yet opened in China or Japan, where it is expected to do gangbusters business. It may or may not make back the marketing costs and become profitable, but there is a good chance that it will, which will put it into the esteemed category of "Movies people think were flops but which actually weren't".
The jury is still out.
Yes, I expect it will make a good profit when all worldwide takings are added up. We must also remember that movies have to gross about three times what ever it took to make them in order to break even. There is usually an expensive promotional budget on top of original production costs, and the theaters and DVD/Blu-ray retailers also get to take a profit.
Re:Better plots? (Score:2, Insightful)
These films featured big stars, bigger explosions, and top-notch special effects
Maybe they'll start making... (gasp)... actual plots to accompany those stars/explosions/special effects?
Why do you think this is anything new? Hollywood has always made crappy movies.
Where do you think MST3K got their raw material? Old crappy movies.
Re:Better plots? (Score:5, Insightful)
The only true Batman movie is the 1966 version [imdb.com]
. "How was I to know they'd have a can of shark-repellent Bat-spray handy?" Instant classic :).
Re:Better plots? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is NOT the plots. There are only a very few plots. (e.g. "boy meets girl", "the man who learned better," etc. etc.)
The problem is storytelling. Hollywood invests millions in stars, explosions and what-not, and pretty much forgets that the basic goal of what they have to do is tell a story . Neither "Citizen Kane" nor "Casablanca" have special effects, but they're on pretty much everybody's "best of all time" lists. If you're not telling a captivating story, you're wasting the audience's time and money.
It's all about a dead cat (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with Hollywood films right now can be summed up by they're killing the cat in an attempt to save it. What do I mean?
There's a popular screenwriting book called Save The Cat - The Last Screenwriting Book You'll Ever Need [amazon.com] that sets a page by page forumla for events within a typical movie. Things like, an opening image, setting the theme, introducing the hero, start of a B plot at the beginning of Act II, cross points for A and B plots, the great False Defeat, leading up to a Crisis of Self Confidence, and then the Big Payoff.
Blah blah blah blah.
Slate has a good article [slate.com] on how this book as turned movies into showdown of formulaic familiarity.
It's not like the forumla is bad, per se. But if every film had been made this way we'd never have classics like Bridge Over The River Kwai, Laurence of Arabia, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, yada yada yada. Because the formula is limited. At its heart, it harkens back to Campbell's Hero With a Thousand Faces [wikipedia.org] thesis (which every /. nerd into Star Wars should have heard about). A fine way to tell the Great Hero story, but terrible for deep character studies. And that's what's missing in Hollywood film and why good television like The Sopranos, The Wire, Game of Thrones and Mad Men have become so popular (and let's not forget the first few seasons of Battlestar Galactica, which were fantastic).
In fact, George R. R. Martin's entire Song of Ice and Fire series eschews the whole Great Hero narrative and offers flawed characters with conflicting motivations told from multiple points of view, and - sorry to bring this word in on a tech site but... - that's why it's art. Which is also why Transformers isn't.
A lot of people have been discussing issues with the blockbuster cycle and financing, and that's all part of it too. But there is a serious dearth of experimental writing involved too. The whole Hollywood system is screwed up. But let's at least Thank God for HBO and other cable network financing of long form multi-episodic storytelling.
Re:Better plots? (Score:3, Insightful)
James Bond is an interesting case study. Just when you think they wouldn't get worse... they get worse. People thought Roger Moore wasn't much good compared to Sean Connery, but he was fantastic compared to what came later.
Re:Movies used to be about the art, the story. (Score:4, Insightful)
But damn... Radagast the rabbit sledding superhero? ... At some point during production someone had to think "wtf is this?"
That right there is the problem. Peter Jackson has become too powerful and there isn't anyone around him who can say, "No Peter, that's shit! Drop that scene."
George Lucas is the epitome of this malady.
Re:Better plots? (Score:5, Insightful)
its just that the movies being produced today are unappealing garbage compared to what they were 25 years ago
No they're not. They're about at the same level of quality as they were 25 years ago. You just remember the really good ones, you forget the stinkers that came out to the theaters every weekend. Good movies stuck around longer too, these days a movie has a month or two to earn almost everything, but 25 years ago a good movie could stick around for 6+ months. So they were more "present."
The summers of 1982 and 1984 were spectacular years for movies, but otherwise I think the movie quality is about the same. Production values are way way up though, which is part of the problem. No way should The Lone Ranger have had that high a budget. I know they were trying to recapture the Pirates magic, but still... Sounds like it had the same problems as John Carter -- decent movie that was budgeted way too high for it to be able to break even on modest returns.
I grew up in the 1980s, seeing Back to the Future, Batman (1989), the Original Star Trek movie series, non sci fi such as Funny Farm,
I did too! However, you have to acknowledge the quality even of the movies you just mentioned -- Star Trek 1 was edited and directed poorly and comes across as listless and plodding. Star Trek 5 was a disaster all around. I loved Batman(1989) when it came out, but I have to admit that it doesn't hold a candle to the Christopher Nolan movies. Though Michael Keaton made the best "Brooding Bruce Wayne."
And even Back to the Future had the sub-par part III.
Re:Better plots? (Score:4, Insightful)
In spite of the summary several of those films are doing fine in the box office and a few hits like Man of Steel more than erase any losses from the others.
Re:Better plots? (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? Pretty much everyone I know agrees that Casino Royale and Skyfall have been some of the best Bond movies. Compared to, say, Moonraker, there's no competition.
Re:Better plots? (Score:4, Insightful)
Give a somewhat unproven director $100 million to make "his vision" that he sold you on storyboards? That can be a hell of a risk.
Except they don't do that. They give $100m to a director who made $1m on a $100k budget and then expect the same sort of ROI. Even then, the studio has its hands in the mix for most of the production - how many blockbuster movies only go through one writer (or writing team) before they come out? How many of them have the editing the director wanted, and not the editing the studio decided would sell best?
Hollywood would probably do better if it actually took risks, but it doesn't.
Re:Better plots? (Score:5, Insightful)
The average movie was not better 25 years ago than today. 25 years ago most movies were schlock, just like today. But the only movie you hear about from 25 years ago are the GOOD ones. Bad movies don't make it onto the best 20 movies of 1979 critics list.
Lots of great movies are being made, it's just that you generally won't see them at the local 5 screen mega-cinema. There are good movie critics out there that can point you to good movies. Some are even made by Hollywood.
Re:The day human beings become rational ... (Score:5, Insightful)
For a long time, movies have been losing their appeal to me. The "theatrical experience" is not near what I expect anymore.
I am told the movie starts at 7. I arrive no later than 6:45 so I can be seated well before the movie starts. So its already dark in the theater and they continuously bombard me with loud ads, keeping me from conversing with my friends. And I am considered rude for trying to communicate with my friends before the movie even starts? Ok, 7PM arrives. Movietime! More ads. Previews. Yet more ads. Coke, cars, TV personalities. When is the show? Ok, 30 minutes go by - they have screened all their crap and finally the splash screen for the feature presentation. By this time I am wondering just what I am doing here. This was delay upon delay trying to get eat the popcorn I had ( served in a little box ) so I would have to get some more. And the drinks are single served so I gotta pay for another specimen.
Kids laughing. Babies crying. Phones ringing. Lots of distracting lights from texters. The guy behind me taking off his shoes and propping his feet up on the vacant seat right next to my nose. I ask myself why oh why did I do this?
It took several years to delete my old ways, as the old perceptions I had of the theatrical experience had lost its flavor and no longer delivered satisfaction. I felt entering into a theater was just dropping my pants for a financial screwing at the snack counter, and a royal waste of time in front of the screen. If they are going to screen all those ads to me on my time ( time between when they *say* the movie starts to when the movie actually starts ), they should at least compensate me with free snacks.
Many industries abuse their customer base. This is what happens. Demand destruction will not happen overnight, as there is a lot of habits formed over the years that have to be broken. But once broken, the onus is now on the marketer to re-establish the habit if they want to have a viable business model.
It may look like a good business move to go ahead and hike the admission price to $15, surcharge the "silver experience" tickets sold last year, take money from other businesses to run ads to your audience when they came for the movie, mark up the snacks ungodly amounts, and sell dirt-cheap popcorn in little boxes to encourage repeat sales. Consider the demand destruction as your neglected audience finds other things to do. Then make your business decision.
Consider once your customers have other plans, how do you lure them back?
Re:Better plots? (Score:4, Insightful)
Peter Jackson was better known for Heavenly Creatures, Braindead, Meet the Feebles, and Bad Taste. The last three all hit cult status and demonstrated his ability to work with 'creatures', which is a major part of the LOTR trilogy. It's not a huge leap from any of his earlier films to one laden with orcs, elves, huge battles and gore.
Re:The day human beings become rational ... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not just simply a glut; it's a bad glut.
If you boil everything down to bare bones, there are only a few plots. What matters is execution. When your monster invasion movie has at least three scenes ripped off from Evangelion in the trailer alone, that is a bad sign, to give just one example.
There is a reason Nolan films do well: Nolan is not perfect, but he does go the extra length in execution.
Re:Better plots? (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean, unlike the young people during the recessions of the '80s?
That said, I haven't been to a cinema for years. I used to go with my housemates and some other friends when I was a student, until we realised that for the cost of us to go a few times (including food and so on) my housemates and I could buy a projector and a set of surround-sound speakers - the DVD was cheaper than the cost of two people going to the cinema - and my friends could come around and bring food and beer (generally of a higher quality than available in cinemas and for less money). When I graduated, one of my housemates bought out my share in the projector, but I bought another one on eBay for just under £200 that's lasted me 5 years (it now tells me the lamp needs replacing). My cost per film, including renting the DVDs and the cost of the equipment, is under £1 and I get to sit on a comfy sofa and watch films with people I like, not random strangers who think shouting at the screen or using their mobile phone is a good idea (oh, and I can pause it if I need to go to the toilet). How do cinemas think they can compete with that by constantly increasing prices?
Re:Better plots? (Score:5, Insightful)
We're all just really into our specific fields. We're all geeks.
Re:The day human beings become rational ... (Score:4, Insightful)
It is an art and what makes one clothes designer great and successful and another rubbish, it is art, and entirely intuitive.
All those films listed as flops, I've seen the trailers and immediately was meh. Why? No idea really.
I enjoyed a one minute action scene in The Americans (it was edgy, unpredictable, funny, clever) more than the 2 hour (felt like) big battle at the end of Man Of Steel, and likewise Iron Man 3. Yaaaawn. Emotionally it was just endless boredom. It gets to the point where you're watching and just thinking... Matrix I, oh now we're doing Dr Octopus, oh now we're doing Bourne, etc.
Yet some years ago the latter would have seemed impressive.
I think TV writers understand this better or have better opportunities to weave complex stories and set up more sophisticated surprises and shocks.
NOW I know Joss Wheedon is going to kill a favourite character right in the middle of me laughing at something else... now I know... and writers know I know... so they have to think of something more clever.
They can still invent clever things in blockbusters -- like for me how they used the three levels of dream in Inception to overlay three action sequences running at different speeds, that was cool.
But honestly, most of the appeal of Iron Man for me was Downey's version of the character, whilst all the ohh look terrorists ohh look action was very meh. Ben Kingsley's switch to London drughead was the most memorable thing in that film.
Maybe that's it, we love the quality of characters and storytelling. The rest is just bling.
Hey I'm off to get a job as film critic now :-) Yeah I know, don't give up the day job.
Re:The day human beings become rational ... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure ripping off scenes from Evangelion was a selling point of Pacific Rim. And let's face it: Evangelion is completely unknown to most western audiences.
Re:The day human beings become rational ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Ok, 30 minutes go by - they have screened all their crap and finally the splash screen for the feature presentation.
30 minutes after the scheduled start time? Over exaggerate much? What the hell theater do you go to? Every movie I've gone to it's maybe 7 minutes after the start time. Sure there are ads before the start time but it's not like you're strapped in your seat with your eyes pinned open all Robot Chicken style being forced to watch them. Also they aren't that loud.
Not Only This... (Score:4, Insightful)
God help you if you try to buy it for home. When you find one movie out of the lot, where the experience was good, or you liked the plot... You bring it home, and every time you want to watch, you're forced to sit through 15 minutes of unskippable ads. W.T.F.?
Is it a wonder everyone pirates?