Spielberg predicts Hollywood meltdown

[ShyViolet]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... tdown.html

[Ben]

Well, with respect to The Beard, that pricing structure isn't going to work. The bigger cost movies sustain the lower cost (and lower grossing) movies. If he wants us to pay $25 to see Iron Man 4, fine, and of course that film will make a mint...or people will just wait to see it on video or free on TV, just like they do with Broadway shows as they wait for a touring company or the inevitable movie.

If they only pay $7 for something like Lincoln, then Lincoln-type films wouldn't make a quarter of the money that this one in particular did, which means their budgets would be miniscule, which means that those kinds of films become un-viable, which means those kinds of films won't get made at all.

Yeah, those kinds of things might move to TV, but why can't they be made cheaper anyway? And, in the end, the theatrical experience will probably crumble for all kinds of films as more people choose to watch at home, either in their own home theaters (as I plan to do when mine is completed) or on regular smart screens.

Spielberg has been down this road before: he predicted that $100m budgeted movies would be a thing of the past when he did Hook...in the early 1990s! He suggested that films that big would disappear as studios couldn't afford to do them. Then digital technology caught up and made the kinds of $100m and $200m movies he spent the rest of the decade making possible.

With the economy the way it is, movie prices aren't going to change. The way people consume their movies will change. We're not going to spend more to see the latest big budget potential disappointment...we're going to wait to see those films at sensible prices. Hollywood will "implode" if the studios *begin* to charge these kinds of prices...that kind of idea isn't going to save it...!

[Randall]

Two-tier pricing? Not a totally bad idea, really. It's always amazed me that anyone would pay $12 to see a rom-com in the theatre.

But then, I'm really only advocating for lowering that price, not raising it for blockbusters. I rarely go to the theatre anymore, because it's already not worth it if I'm buying the Blu-ray anyhow.

[EricJ]

We've seen a lot of doom predicting for, quote, "$250M movies"--
And while it's understandable that we're getting a lot of them in the fallout from "After Earth" (but it had Will Smith in it, it was supposed to work! ), the only "$250M movie" I can think of this summer off the top of my head is....that somebody obviously got an early peek at Lone Ranger.

Around the same time, we also had an industry essay about the dangerous trend of "Studios too loyal to their talent"--which encompassed After Earth, The Internship and Lone Ranger--and attacked few more specific symptoms of the disease:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/i ... ice-566329
Studios don't own talent under contract as they did back in the 40's; now, all they can do is own franchise names, get overexcited when they get a major deal to recreate one of those big franchise names with the same elusive/expensive actor, and pass TOO much of that overexcitement on to the customer.

[Ben]

$250m movies work...when they work. But nothing should really be costing that much. There *are* ways to curb costs but no-one's doing them.

And I'll say it again. When a $250m movie "only" makes $500m, it's the $30-60m rom-coms that make $100-200m that keeps everything going, the same way that television works when they have a episode that eats the budget and a slimline episode that features just two of the cast and a single location.

It's when big vanity projects like After Earth bomb (and it deserved to) that we get this silly talk.

[EricJ]

I'd also put it down to a lot of the insider-town worries over World War Z, which went through a whole slog of recasts, rewrites, reshoots, delays, etc., that has most boardroom execs thinking they're seeing Waterworld all over again.
I'm sensing a lot of diplomatic "THAT Movie Which Shall Remain Nameless" in their speech, that they're supposed to know and we don't--and trying to make wide sweeping blanket statements without specifically referring to it--but Ranger or Z, it's hard to tell at this point.

[Ben]

I don't think Ranger is being aimed at at all, not from what I've seen. Sure, Disney is nervous as they have a big gamble, but it's not like Oz and Iron Man Three haven't cushioned them in case of a stumble, and Monsters will be there to pick up slack.

Personally, the more I see of The Lone Ranger the more entertaining it looks. There hasn't been any bad mouthing of it on the industry's side and I think, to be honest, that everyone is hoping the momentum of Oz, Into Darkness, Iron Man, and Man Of Steel will continue and make Ranger the next summer hit.

Sure, it's a risk, but it has many built-in factors. After Earth and WWZ should have them too, but they were both out of control films (one because of its star, the other because of an inexperienced director). It's those films - films that often start shooting before a script - that give the hypothetical $250m movies a bad name. Ranger, remember, went back to the drawing board over budget and script to make it more viable.

Those other films are fair and easy targets...but I see no-one out gunning for The Lone Ranger. I think most on the industry side want to see it be a hit and sustain the western genre that everyone wants to make at least one of in their careers: they all - and who doesn't? - want to play "Cowboys and Indians"...!

[James]

I think we're close to reaching a breaking point for audiences. At $10 a ticket and the exorbitant price for snacks, a night at the movies for a family of 4 can easily reach $75. And that is ridiculous. That makes movies a "once every few months, if that" experience.

Another major issue is the movie experience itself. I saw Man of Steel this weekend with the family. After all that anticipation we get our seats and right before it starts a guy with two toddlers sits next to us. And neither of those kids wants to be there watching a 2.5 hour movie. When the film starts we sit through 20 minutes of commercials and trailers. If I'm paying that much money and the experience sucks, I'm going to think twice about doing it again.

Both problems are at the theatre level. There needs to be a huge shift in the way theatres run if Hollywood wants to avoid the issues raised in that article. And I'm talking BIG shifts. Right now theatres are almost no more than audience processing facilities. How about we customize the experience.

- Instead of rows of seats how about a few theatres with booths and tables? I have a theatre nearby already serving pizza, hamburgers, chicken, corn dogs, and more. Go full on restaurant.

- Take out the back 20 rows of a theatre, enclose it, and turn it into a kids play area. Hire someone to run a two hour mini-daycamp during each showing. Have games and toys and crafts. Give parents a pager in case of trouble.

- Have showings where talking and turning on cellphones are absolutely forbidden - and enforce it. Have showings that allow talking and social media.

- Need 20 minutes of commercials and trailers? Start them before the show is scheduled to start.

- Instead of only giant bathrooms all the way at the other side of the building put small ones right outside every theatre and pump the audio from the movie in.

- Make coming to the movies an event. Major opening weekend science fiction movie? Before every screening have a costume contest and give the winner two free passes. Lots of kids in the crowd? Have some employees stage a funny skit before the show. Those trivia slides before the show? Ditch them and have someone ask questions at the screening with small prizes.

Now here is the kicker to all this -- don't change your prices! I'm already paying $75 and up. I'm not happy most of the time and not planning to come back for awhile. Make changes like these and I'd probably be willing to pay you that $75 a lot more often

[EricJ]

Personally, the more I see of The Lone Ranger the more entertaining it looks. There hasn't been any bad mouthing of it on the industry's side and I think, to be honest, that everyone is hoping the momentum of Oz, Into Darkness, Iron Man, and Man Of Steel will continue and make Ranger the next summer hit.
Those other films are fair and easy targets...but I see no-one out gunning for The Lone Ranger. I think most on the industry side want to see it be a hit and sustain the western genre that everyone wants to make at least one of in their careers: they all - and who doesn't? - want to play "Cowboys and Indians"...!

On this one, sorry, Ben, I'm going to have to admit I DO know more:
About a year ago, I was sent a focus group survey for a painfully detailed four-page scene-by-scene synopsis, and it sounded...about EXACTLY as much of a Pirates-sequel knockoff as you'd expect it to be from Disney's marketing.

Fortunately, Depp is playing Tonto "reverently", imitating Jay Silverheels' hmh-kemosabe delivery, since the script intended Tonto to, yes, be the roguish creatively-thinking main character--with the Ranger reduced to the Will Turner-esque stalwart hero who can't keep up--and, like Jack Sparrow's legend-in-his-own-mind from the first Pirates, we're not supposed to know whether Tonto really IS a mystical shaman, or just thinks he is.

Then, of course, we have Rossio & Elliott trying to throw the usual percentage of mystical mumbo-jumbo in (Tonto believes that iconic Ranger villain Butch Cavendish is the "incarnation" of a native spirit he has to exorcise, and R&E are going to try and make him look right), and director Gore Verbinski pretty much trotting out every "quirky" dead-Western-town gag from Rango verbatim with live actors. (The two first enter into town rushing through a water main, interrupting a tent preacher, sound familiar?) Followed by Helena Bonham Carter playing yet another ratty-haired madwoman as the local bar gal (guess she thought Tim Burton was going to direct), and a wild action highlight scene where the Ranger and Tonto have to chase a train, and first heroically ride off to the William Tell Overture...on circus elephants, the only "horses" handy. If anything, this scene is perhaps the perfect visual metaphor for the film: Galumphing, overdone, unnecessarily CGI'ed, and wildly bizarre compared to what we were reasonably expecting.
We've already seen enough of the train crash in trailers; suffice to say, one of the questions on the survey was "Have you seen Shanghai Noon?" Uh, yes, I have.

It's getting a lot of praise from folks--like, other studio execs--who haven't seen it yet, and think it has all the ingredients of a Summer Blockbuster just from Frankensteined names and spare-parts of other hits, and....the fact that they do think so sight unseen is a big source of the problem right there.

Another "Doom of Hollywood" article blames it down to fears over shrinking profit margins, and that the margin is shrinking because of "fading DVD sales".
At first, wasn't sure if they actually meant DVD-DVD's--as opposed to Blu-ray's, which, five years after taking over and making DVD's extinct, studios still consider a "fad" and never take into account--but then it's followed by more paranoid doom-n-gloom about how "Audiences want to buy their movies through Amazon and Netflix".
This delusion has taken hold of everyone who even remotely works in Hollywood, and until we can conquer it, there's not much hope--The patient has to want treatment before he can be healed.

[Ben]

At this point, I go to the theater to see if I want to buy the Blu-ray. I hardly have any "great" theatrical experiences.

Luckily, we go on cheap night at our local, when Monday and Wednesday is a couple of pounds cheaper. We take our own popcorn bought in a store for half the price. And we go without a drink or have one before we go.

[ShyViolet]

Spielberg proven wrong?

http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblo ... ce-profits

[EricJ]

So....the top five movies of the summer were the Culty Fan-Buzz Indie-Horror movies, the two CGI movies that had a reliable family base for knowing what they were doing, and the Marvel movie whose grosses were fueled by a record-breaking opening, from folks who THOUGHT it was going to be as good as the two before it?
I'm not sure how that's helping the article's point, except to fall back on the Pirates 4 defense of how much the "flops" made.....WORLDWIDE! Things like that don't help, you know.

[Randall]

This article is very poorly written. Spielberg and Lucas never said that Summer of 2013 was going to be the "Hollywood Apocalypse." Spielberg simply said that a lot of blockbuster-styled flops would force Hollywood studios to change their ways, someday. That, and the middle-sized film was being squeezed out of production due to the studios spending so much on huge movies.

The article goes on to say that the most profitable movies of Summer 2013 were mostly smaller films. As Eric said, this doesn't exactly refute Spielberg's points. And the fact is, there were still a bunch of big-budget flops this summer, even after overseas grosses. Sure, a few films did well---- no one ever said that ALL of them would bomb. But the fact is, bigger budgests don't guarantee profitability, and can often mean the opposite.

I'm not really sure what the writer was tryin to prove. The article is just an excuse to write *something* to fill space.