Intermission 006 - The Blockbuster Bubble (Page 1 of 2)

I think part of the problem is that the studios (not just the studio heads who are there for the 2-3 years, but the actual studios) do not have to take any responsibility in the eyes of the consumer for their films...whether good or bad.  They are invisible.

After many years of working with slow PC's and crashing software, I had enough of Microsoft and switched to a Mac.

But when I go to the theater and have to sit through a crapfest like Battle: Los Angeles, I don't walk out saying I hate paramount, or universal, or whatever studio produced that movie (see, I don't even remember    ).  There is no brand.

Pixar, and Disney to a degree, are slight exceptions.  There is a certain expectation I have when I go to see a Pixar film.  Even with their lesser work.  Cars 2 is a "Pixar film," and half the country was up in arms when it came out.  Pixar had to answer to the public.  Does 20th Century Fox carry this same burden?

So maybe what we need is a business model similar in theory to the Old Hollywood.  When Warner Brother's was an actual brand, and people noticed a certain sensibility in a Warner's film versus a Universal film.  Treat the studios like a director, basically.

Oh, I forgot I had sort of instigated the discussion. Cool beans.

I think another aspect to consider on this subject is how movies are made today versus back then. What I mean is this:

Dorkman talks about how Ghostbusters actually had a preset release date to meet, and they were given at least a whole year to do that. Not only does that happen almost always now, but the time window is much smaller in a lot of cases. The key difference in that regard is in Dorkman's impression of the Studio Executive: "We don't understand this weird thing you're doing, but as long as you can meet our date, we'll give you X amount of dollars and leave you alone to go do it".

Back in the day, a movie studio was often owned by one guy. One guy who was extremely loaded and also had other businesses, so he didn't live and die by this studio making money hand over fist. He wasn't as invested in the product itself, he was only as invested as the amount of money he put in. An artist could come in and say:

"Hey, Mr. Big Time. I was thinking I'd like to make a sprawling war picture, that takes place in the future and they're fighting over water."

"The future, you say? Fighting over water?"

"That's right. Water is a rare commodity at this point."

"Hmmm. I don't know, that sounds kind of depressing."

"I'm way ahead of you, sir. At the center of it is a really touching, really hopeful love story."

"People do like a good romance. Tell me, is there action?"

"You bet! It's in the future, so there are lots of hi-tech gadgets and chase scenes involving hover craft!"

"Sounds exciting! How much?"

"Well, Big Time, we've worked it out in advance and we could do it comfortably for $3 million."

"Sure, sure. You know what I'd like to see? Can a water tower blow up in the third act, maybe have the two leads kiss in the foreground?"

"What a great idea, sir! The city is planning to detonate an old water tower just outside of town anyway! Instant production value!"

"Excellent! Tell you what, if you can work in a scene at the bowling alley I own on 7th Street--"

"Oh, I know that place! I met my fiance there!"

"Even better! Have the leads meet-cute there, and get that nice, young actress from our last picture. Do all that, and we're good. Hell, I'll even give you an extra million to make the picture extra special!"

"Yes sir!"

Then, the guy would go off and make the picture, the big wig would stay out of it. He wouldn't get involved. He's a businessman. His needs are met. Even if the movie doesn't make a mint, he knows his bowling alley will become popular and make the profits. AND, he gets to see a water tower explode all cinematic like.

Sadly, movies aren't made with such carefree ambition anymore, at least not often. Now, studios are run by so many people, all serving a wealth of different masters, who all have their own agendas and ideas. You know what else? You can bet dollars to donuts those guys are gonna be breathing down the artists' necks, especially after they put so much money on the line (God movies cost way too much to make these days), and the studio's clout and success depends so much on this one picture quite often.

It's even worse if the big dogs aren't checking up, but rather sending their underlings. Those guys are middle men who desperately want to keep their cushy jobs, or sometimes just want to justify it! And don't even get me started on marketing, test screenings, focus groups and the "formula" of producing box office gold! God forbid you over think, and therefore over sell your movie!

Yeah, John may be thinking of a sweet spot in the early-to-mid-'70s when things had loosened up, but that was short-lived.

In the studio era, one guy ran the studio, but he had a hell of a lot to say about the movies that got made there. He assigned the cast and crew, and they made his picture. Movies were carefully crafted around stars and starlets... or they were thrown together in a few months because there was a crew sitting around earning a salary with nothing to shoot.

Once the studio system collapsed, the studios got taken over by corporations who really did let film makers have a lot of leeway but also started demanding more certainty of profit. And thanks to Jaws and Star Wars, everybody thought they could make a blockbuster.... AND they mostly didn't want to shoot on the back lot or on a cheap and reliable sound stage.

You could remake Casablanca today for $1 million plus cast salaries. AND HAVE DINOSAURS.

(i said this on Facebook, but..)
it's a moral issue,.... you'd feel better taking people's money when you give them something good....

"Life is about movies; anything else is a bonus!"- Me   

That actually would be a fun writing exercise for me!  I'm gonna try my hand at Terra Blanca!

  Is that okay with you Michael?  Just for the fun of  it, plus, I haven't written anything really involved in awhile...

Trey, I just want you to know I was having a depressing evening and you just completely cheered me up.

Go for it, switch. I wasn't planning to write it.

I don't know who this Pavlick person is, but I, John Pavlich think he sounds smart... and I bet his dick is huge.

On the subject of creativity, I think in many cases that spark really comes back to self-doubt and conflict in your environment. After several movies you've got bank and back yourself; it's like getting older and losing the urge to draw. The thing you need to express often isn't there any more.

If the bubble does pop in a few years or a decade, I'd like to think that the availability and quality of consumer-grade film-making gear would play some part in that destruction. Surely they will factor heavily into the reconstruction of the new paradigm. There are guys out there now shooting movies on these shoestring budgets of $100K or $50K. In five or ten years, you'll be able to outright buy all the gear you could need for maybe $20K and just go and shoot movies. Hell, you can already kinda do that now, so long as you're willing to make a few compromises and willing to do a bit of clean-up work.

Film making is getting to a point where it could feasibly become a weekend hobby.

Trey, I think the ultimate goal should be a middle-ground. I definitely don't want 100,000 dollar budget features to be the only thing that comes out, but there's also no fucking reason for movies to cost 200 million. I would argue 20-40 million dollar features are the sweet spot, and unfortunately that's the exact area that's pretty much died out. This is also a reason why everything is gutless and PG-13-ified now, with movies costing 100 mil+, studios have to appeal to the broadest possible demographic, so they'll force Die Hard and Alien movies to be fucking PG-13, which is insane. This particularly pisses me off, because you look at a movie like Aliens, which was made for 18 million. Even with inflation, that's at most 40 million in today's dollars, and yet its so much bigger in terms of scope and action than most blockbusters made today. Almost all of the beloved movies from the last 30-40 years fall into this category, and I think its deeply wrong that budgets have skyrocketed the way they have. This is what we need to get back to, the mid-budgeted, R-rated genre movie. When the bubble bursts, my hope is that we'll get 5 robocops, aliens, or district 9s instead of another one of these goddamn Transformers movies.

also I'm not sure if your familiar with the awesome Doug Trumbull hippy space flick "silent running" but that was done by the studio after easy rider came out and they wanted to experiment with lesser budgeted movies. So he got only one million but creative control and made a very interesting film.

Its also been Robert Rodriguez plan starting with spy kids, he found the more money he gave back the more fun it was to be creative. Now days there's little over sight on him as long as he keeps it low.

Last edited by Deamon (2011-10-29 06:57:30)