He really explained it clearly and simply. But while I understand his answer, I don't understand the question, lol. I might not be old enough. I think the film industry has evolved incredibly because of technology, and I'm happy because of that. I'm the kind of person who goes to the cinema and sees all the movies that are out. I love it.
There's room for $15 million movies because it's a relatively cheap gamble. They can risk releasing a few cheap movies a year, hoping that one becomes popular enough they can milk the IP dry. Or they find their next big actor/actress.
But past the cheap gamble phase, studios start doubling down and throw in big name actors, and start advertising the crap out of it, hoping to get people to watch it. There's no $25 million movies, because they end up $50 million movies.
>I think the film industry has evolved incredibly because of technology, and I'm happy because of that.
Well, evolved incredibly because of the technology mostly amounts two "3 out of 4 movies are superheroes in spandex for adult-children" who can't handle more depth even in their 30s and 40s...
The shallowness isn't because of some imaginary man-children.
It's a well-researched and planned strategy to ensure largest possible geographic spread, avoiding anything that would be too problematic for the box office. After all, the studios aren't planning just on local release for financials and considering international as bonus.
>It's a well-researched and planned strategy to ensure largest possible geographic spread, avoiding anything that would be too problematic for the box office.
Yes, but without the men-children to gulp those movies down, those scripts would themselves be "problematic for the box office".
The shallowness is exactly what makes it easy watching for large groups that can fit in whatever gaps they find with local preferences, combined with making it much easier for localised edits to be done.
Whether the movie includes comic book superheroes or not is not relevant - arguably, many a comic geek could probably point to reduction of depth in the plotlines in some of those. Same goes for typical US DoD propaganda pieces ^W^W^W^W Hollywood action movies, Disney reboots, "Butchered Love Actually Remake" CXXVII, and many other big budget plays that use this approach.
It works because while it's not a great meal, it gets you an equivalent of mcdonald burger in foreign country. Not great, not terrible, and the local adaptations probably aren't big enough to stop it from being "safe" choice.
TBH A24 are pretty exceptional. These days, outside of A24, I think there's better depth and quality in TV series overall. And TV is great visually too these days thanks to being all digital.
I believe that more auteur movies that challenges and surprise you still being made, but one problem is that superhero/franchises movies are eating big part of the attention on many cultures, and many people, specially young people, get the idea that this are movies.
In 2000-2010 I think the attention was more distributed, and in the 60s-90s was all over the place, the New Hollywood of the 60s with things like Easy Rider; Coppola, De Palma, Scorsese and Spielberg in the 70-80s, and the edginess of Tarantino in the 90s.
And of course, much more weird and experimental movies where more mainstream, see David Cronenberg, Jim Jarmusch, David Lynch, Wim Wenders, Stanley Kubrick, Roman Polanski, John Waters, even europeans/asians directors like Michelangelo Antonioni, Jean-Luc Godard, Ingmar Bergman and Andrei Tarkovsky.
Scorsese talk about that:
>Another way of putting it would be that they are everything that the films of Paul Thomas Anderson or Claire Denis or Spike Lee or Ari Aster or Kathryn Bigelow or Wes Anderson are not. When I watch a movie by any of those filmmakers, I know I’m going to see something absolutely new and be taken to unexpected and maybe even unnameable areas of experience. My sense of what is possible in telling stories with moving images and sounds is going to be expanded.
>So, you might ask, what’s my problem? Why not just let superhero films and other franchise films be? The reason is simple. In many places around this country and around the world, franchise films are now your primary choice if you want to see something on the big screen. It’s a perilous time in film exhibition, and there are fewer independent theaters than ever. The equation has flipped and streaming has become the primary delivery system. Still, I don’t know a single filmmaker who doesn’t want to design films for the big screen, to be projected before audiences in theaters.
>That includes me, and I’m speaking as someone who just completed a picture for Netflix. It, and it alone, allowed us to make “The Irishman” the way we needed to, and for that I’ll always be thankful. We have a theatrical window, which is great. Would I like the picture to play on more big screens for longer periods of time? Of course I would. But no matter whom you make your movie with, the fact is that the screens in most multiplexes are crowded with franchise pictures.
You won't see Gone with the Wind remade any time soon. Nor will you see The Song of the South. Because they are considered racist. Society, culture, laws, language, philosophy all changes.
Moreover, I’d expect DVD to have higher variable costs (physical, distribution, Blockbuster fees) that increase the time for breaking even.
But maybe the revenue from streaming is much lower to undo all the cost savings.
Too many choices, maybe? So they all get spread out too thin.
Back when VHS and DVD's were the thing, you'd pretty much get a very finite amount of choices, and usually went with one of those. Of course, you had the huge rental stores with thousands of flicks, but in most places, the selection was just a small fraction of that.
20 years ago, we'd go to the rental store/kiosk/whatever, set on seeing a movie. So we picked one, of the maybe 30 titles. Could be good, could be bad, who knows.
Today, I spend probably 20 minutes browsing 5 different streaming services before I find anything. And I've probably browed through hundreds of titles in that amount of time.
I'm not sure how much the studios get for letting streaming services show their movies either, compared to the rental stores back in the day, or flat out selling DVDs to consumers.
>Back when VHS and DVD's were the thing, you'd pretty much get a very finite amount of choices, and usually went with one of those. Of course, you had the huge rental stores with thousands of flicks, but in most places, the selection was just a small fraction of that.
Streaming has even less choices. The Netflix catalog for example is laughable, and they push even more for their own stuff.
I don't know if (Netflix catalog) has shrunk, but it seemed to be much larger back when they started out. I guess it's a result of too many steaming services, it's almost as we're back to the days of cable - but instead of various packages, we're paying $10/month to the various services.
Sad to say, but (semi-legal) services like popcorn time etc. were almost the pinnacle of online streaming. These days, I still have to fly the black flag, from time to time, if I want to find certain titles to watch on the go.
Netflix != streaming. You can generally stream almost anything, but it requires having the correct subscription: Netflix is just one of many many many. If you cobble together the 10-15 or so core streaming services, you effectively have re-built a cable television plan worth of networks, and there will be tons of choices, which you then access using something like the Apple TV app, which acts as the modern TV Guide and will automatically open the correct streaming service required to watch the movie/show you selected. Netflix was a disruptive service for DVD rental, but in the world of streaming it is only relevant because it saw the writing on the wall and used the money it had made to invest in building its own production studio. (Hulu has a slightly different way to bootstrap involving acting as the gateway infrastructure for networks while they built out their own tech; and Apple and Amazon exist only by shear force of cash combined with a level of competence Yahoo did not possess.) Off the top of my head, I have subscriptions with Apple TV+, Netflix, Hulu (with the Starz add-on), Peacock (NBC), CBS All Access, HBO Max, Disney+, and Amazon Prime Video... but I am certain I have something like five more that I am forgetting (does Adult Swim have one maybe? I am not sure as I just buy Rick and Morty from iTunes; I know Paramount+ exists, but I don't think I subscribe yet... oh, I must have AMC+, right?).
I think what you're missing from Matt Damon was the expectation created around the DVD release - imagine you have a huge advertising push for the theatrical release, that isn't easily forgettable for those who watched and those who didn't for quite some time.
And then months later there it was available for everyone to see at their homes (with yet another advertising push).
Like he said, the DVD release was like another theatrical release. You could own the film, or rent it and watch it twice if you'd like to - this may sound odd, but it was almost like a ritual. At least for me, renting a movie on Fridays was a whole process.
But it wasn't a chore, it was quite enjoyable. Sometimes frustrating because you were waiting for films for months before they were available... imagine as a kid wanting to watch some Diney or Pixar movie, it could be quite painfull after watching months of advertising for the movie, for toys and merchandising, for McDonalds Happy Meals toys, etc.
Things had a different cadence, a different rhythm, and probably things were appreciated differently.
Mind you I'm not saying "oh those were the days!", I'm saying it was different and apparently it was more profitable for movie makers.
But for me sometimes browsing movies to watch on apps can become quite boring, there's something about the "i want this now, a lot of it, and fast" that I can't quite put my finger on it. Probably delayed gratification plays a role on this.
FWIW, for me, I find the delayed gratification just tempers it: I will almost never be more excited to watch a movie than the day I hear about it... if I can't watch it right then 1) I will almost certainly forget to watch it without a reminder (so they will have to pay for their ad at least a second time) and 2) I will have time to let my brain decide "well it probably will suck" (and it almost certainly wouldn't need to be advertising to me this hard if it were actually good: I'd hear about it from the first wave of people who see everything if it were!).
Well I was talking about a different time, where film distribution (literally) was still done by a lot of players, and movie theaters actually had several owners (before they closed down or got bought by big chains). A time when local theaters didn't have access to the movies for some months as well.
With that said, the majority of people won't forget it, especially with the media budgets used for advertising - promos, appearances, going on the talk shows tours, PR to news/magazines/, etc that's all coming out of the promotion budget. You probably don't realize it but you get in contact with movie promotional material several times before it launches.
Maybe you like just a particular set of movies, so the majority leave you little impression. I have movies that are completely oblivious to me, others that stick and leave me curious, but probably with so much content, noise and distraction it's normal to don't recall it all.
In my youth I recall that The Matrix, LOTR, Kill Bill, Harry Potter, all left me with big anticipation to watch them, for months if not years.
I don’t have inside knowledge, but my impression is that streaming is moving spending from cable and satellite (basically zero-sum) while DVD sales have basically disappeared, without any new revenue stream taking over.
Why isn't technology reducing the costs to make these movies as well?
Why does it cost a hundred million?
Is it because actors are paid millions for a few months of work?
Maybe that's the real problem.
Previous to technology the limited number of movie stars and rock stars had a more or less monopoly because the entertainment was funneled through a very few channels.
Now entertainment is democratized and widely available.
Maybe the real reason is that these people aren't willing to work for reasonable wages.
Star salaries can definitely bloat a movie budget but it still costs 10s of millions to make a "small" film. Look up Blumhouse productions, they make low budget horror movies (if a big star is involved, they get a low salary and a share of profits/revenue) and it still gets into the $20-$40 million range
> Maybe the real reason is that these people aren't willing to work for reasonable wages.
If you want cheaper actors you can cast cheaper actors. But obviously you won’t get any actor to take minimum wage gig if they have a better offer somewhere else.
This has nothing to do with unwillingness to work for less money. And trying to put the blame for what movies get made on actors who have absolutely no control over that is just silly.
I saw the Robocop (2014) remake on telly the other day. I couldn't help but wonder why the movie even existed. Its production values were vastly higher than the original, but it was just a completely boring movie. It's like the Total Recall remake. They just have no soul. There's just nothing there in terms of writing. Nothing witty, no great lines. In the original a guy rips his face of revealing his skull, and collapses. Completely daft to be sure, but it was funny. There's a creative spark that current films just don't seem to have. The characters have no personality. The actors have no charisma. Let's face it, Arnie is not a great actor. But he does have onscreen charisma.
There's just a different level of acting in the original Total Recall. Arnie, Ronny Cox, the growling Michael Ironside, Sharon Stone. The other supporting actors bought something to the table. With the remake? Nothing! Colin Farrell was boring, and his wife was leagues behind what Stone portrayed.
Maybe the problem is with the film certificate. RoboCop was a 12A, so I guess the executives thought "to hell with the writing, writing is hard."
Hollywood occasionally gets it right, I guess. Joker (2019) was pretty good, despite being a 15. I thought it was a very cohesive film in the way they chose characters like the dwarf, why Fleck committed the murders he did, and how the whole thing developed. You could tell there was a whole lot more thought put into the script.
32 comments
[ 0.27 ms ] story [ 81.6 ms ] threadBut I too disagree with those premises.
Matt daemon is saying there isn’t room for the ~25 million dollar movie, because cinema ticket sale now has to carry the entire revenue stream.
But I’ve seen mostly smaller movies in cinema for the past two years.
Hell, parasite, which won best picture was a $15 million production, so obviously there is room for “small” movies
But past the cheap gamble phase, studios start doubling down and throw in big name actors, and start advertising the crap out of it, hoping to get people to watch it. There's no $25 million movies, because they end up $50 million movies.
Well, evolved incredibly because of the technology mostly amounts two "3 out of 4 movies are superheroes in spandex for adult-children" who can't handle more depth even in their 30s and 40s...
It's a well-researched and planned strategy to ensure largest possible geographic spread, avoiding anything that would be too problematic for the box office. After all, the studios aren't planning just on local release for financials and considering international as bonus.
Capitalism, ho!...
Yes, but without the men-children to gulp those movies down, those scripts would themselves be "problematic for the box office".
The shallowness is exactly what makes it easy watching for large groups that can fit in whatever gaps they find with local preferences, combined with making it much easier for localised edits to be done.
Whether the movie includes comic book superheroes or not is not relevant - arguably, many a comic geek could probably point to reduction of depth in the plotlines in some of those. Same goes for typical US DoD propaganda pieces ^W^W^W^W Hollywood action movies, Disney reboots, "Butchered Love Actually Remake" CXXVII, and many other big budget plays that use this approach.
It works because while it's not a great meal, it gets you an equivalent of mcdonald burger in foreign country. Not great, not terrible, and the local adaptations probably aren't big enough to stop it from being "safe" choice.
Go check out The Green Knight. It's outstanding, and it's in theaters right now.
Or almost anything else A24 releases. And that's just one studio.
In 2000-2010 I think the attention was more distributed, and in the 60s-90s was all over the place, the New Hollywood of the 60s with things like Easy Rider; Coppola, De Palma, Scorsese and Spielberg in the 70-80s, and the edginess of Tarantino in the 90s.
And of course, much more weird and experimental movies where more mainstream, see David Cronenberg, Jim Jarmusch, David Lynch, Wim Wenders, Stanley Kubrick, Roman Polanski, John Waters, even europeans/asians directors like Michelangelo Antonioni, Jean-Luc Godard, Ingmar Bergman and Andrei Tarkovsky.
Scorsese talk about that:
>Another way of putting it would be that they are everything that the films of Paul Thomas Anderson or Claire Denis or Spike Lee or Ari Aster or Kathryn Bigelow or Wes Anderson are not. When I watch a movie by any of those filmmakers, I know I’m going to see something absolutely new and be taken to unexpected and maybe even unnameable areas of experience. My sense of what is possible in telling stories with moving images and sounds is going to be expanded.
>So, you might ask, what’s my problem? Why not just let superhero films and other franchise films be? The reason is simple. In many places around this country and around the world, franchise films are now your primary choice if you want to see something on the big screen. It’s a perilous time in film exhibition, and there are fewer independent theaters than ever. The equation has flipped and streaming has become the primary delivery system. Still, I don’t know a single filmmaker who doesn’t want to design films for the big screen, to be projected before audiences in theaters.
>That includes me, and I’m speaking as someone who just completed a picture for Netflix. It, and it alone, allowed us to make “The Irishman” the way we needed to, and for that I’ll always be thankful. We have a theatrical window, which is great. Would I like the picture to play on more big screens for longer periods of time? Of course I would. But no matter whom you make your movie with, the fact is that the screens in most multiplexes are crowded with franchise pictures.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/opinion/martin-scorsese-m...
Back when VHS and DVD's were the thing, you'd pretty much get a very finite amount of choices, and usually went with one of those. Of course, you had the huge rental stores with thousands of flicks, but in most places, the selection was just a small fraction of that.
20 years ago, we'd go to the rental store/kiosk/whatever, set on seeing a movie. So we picked one, of the maybe 30 titles. Could be good, could be bad, who knows.
Today, I spend probably 20 minutes browsing 5 different streaming services before I find anything. And I've probably browed through hundreds of titles in that amount of time.
I'm not sure how much the studios get for letting streaming services show their movies either, compared to the rental stores back in the day, or flat out selling DVDs to consumers.
Streaming has even less choices. The Netflix catalog for example is laughable, and they push even more for their own stuff.
Sad to say, but (semi-legal) services like popcorn time etc. were almost the pinnacle of online streaming. These days, I still have to fly the black flag, from time to time, if I want to find certain titles to watch on the go.
And then months later there it was available for everyone to see at their homes (with yet another advertising push).
Like he said, the DVD release was like another theatrical release. You could own the film, or rent it and watch it twice if you'd like to - this may sound odd, but it was almost like a ritual. At least for me, renting a movie on Fridays was a whole process.
But it wasn't a chore, it was quite enjoyable. Sometimes frustrating because you were waiting for films for months before they were available... imagine as a kid wanting to watch some Diney or Pixar movie, it could be quite painfull after watching months of advertising for the movie, for toys and merchandising, for McDonalds Happy Meals toys, etc.
Things had a different cadence, a different rhythm, and probably things were appreciated differently.
Mind you I'm not saying "oh those were the days!", I'm saying it was different and apparently it was more profitable for movie makers.
But for me sometimes browsing movies to watch on apps can become quite boring, there's something about the "i want this now, a lot of it, and fast" that I can't quite put my finger on it. Probably delayed gratification plays a role on this.
With that said, the majority of people won't forget it, especially with the media budgets used for advertising - promos, appearances, going on the talk shows tours, PR to news/magazines/, etc that's all coming out of the promotion budget. You probably don't realize it but you get in contact with movie promotional material several times before it launches.
Maybe you like just a particular set of movies, so the majority leave you little impression. I have movies that are completely oblivious to me, others that stick and leave me curious, but probably with so much content, noise and distraction it's normal to don't recall it all.
In my youth I recall that The Matrix, LOTR, Kill Bill, Harry Potter, all left me with big anticipation to watch them, for months if not years.
Why does it cost a hundred million?
Is it because actors are paid millions for a few months of work?
Maybe that's the real problem.
Previous to technology the limited number of movie stars and rock stars had a more or less monopoly because the entertainment was funneled through a very few channels.
Now entertainment is democratized and widely available.
Maybe the real reason is that these people aren't willing to work for reasonable wages.
But 25 million seems like a lot for a small film that's mainly script and acting.
Horror movies require a ton of special effects which I imagine is where huge budgets start to come into play.
But many of the best movies I've ever seen don't require tons of special effects.
Taxi driver, good will hunting, the godfather, moonlight, etc.
It's possible if the quality is there.
If you want cheaper actors you can cast cheaper actors. But obviously you won’t get any actor to take minimum wage gig if they have a better offer somewhere else.
This has nothing to do with unwillingness to work for less money. And trying to put the blame for what movies get made on actors who have absolutely no control over that is just silly.
There's just a different level of acting in the original Total Recall. Arnie, Ronny Cox, the growling Michael Ironside, Sharon Stone. The other supporting actors bought something to the table. With the remake? Nothing! Colin Farrell was boring, and his wife was leagues behind what Stone portrayed.
Maybe the problem is with the film certificate. RoboCop was a 12A, so I guess the executives thought "to hell with the writing, writing is hard."
Hollywood occasionally gets it right, I guess. Joker (2019) was pretty good, despite being a 15. I thought it was a very cohesive film in the way they chose characters like the dwarf, why Fleck committed the murders he did, and how the whole thing developed. You could tell there was a whole lot more thought put into the script.