The greatest irony here being that it was Disney himself who said he built his empire on the principle that if you tell a good story, the profits will follow. He must be rolling in his cryotank.

i know rite

See, I was worried I wouldn't have time to make the image before someone screwed up the timing by posting before I could, so I put a bland placeholder post up containing naught but the letter "t." And Mike is making a joke because it was a dumb post.

BUT HE DIDN'T KNOW WHAT IMAGE I'D REPLACE IT WITH.

Welcome to the internet. We will fuck you.

Dorkman hates Jews, now you hate Jews.

/total jew here

Brian Finifter, everybody! He'll be here all week. 

The guys who run Disney now are the exact opposite sort of people Disney himself was, in a business sense. Disney made a masterpiece once every three or four years. These guys want to crank out three or four piles of shit every year because they know people will go see them.

If you think about it, they're kinda modelling their business on The Asylum. Bigger budgets, and more time per film, but that's about the only difference.

I thought John Lasseter ran Disney animation now and he had his people in place. Seems like this guy was missed in the purge...

The industry in general isn't set up in such a way that a solid story film makes more sense than spectacle, in my opinion.  At least, not at this point.

Consider this- for eight bucks a month, I have unlimited access to Netflix, anywhere, any time.  I can watch anything on Netflix if I'm on my couch in front of my TV, I can watch it naked in bed in my room, I can watch it anywhere out and about if I have a full battery and wifi.  I can literally decide I'm bored waiting at the BMV and watch Pawn Stars just cuz.

So there's that.  Eight bucks a month and I have pretty close to unlimited entertainment, and that's just ONE service.  There's also on demand, redbox, hulu, and insultingly easy piracy options for seeing just about anything for free or so-cheap-it's-basically-free.

By comparison, if I want to take my girlfriend to the movie theater, I'm spending at least 25 bucks to have an enjoyable experience, not to mention the drive there and back to see a movie. 

The point I'm driving at is, as far as I'm concerned, I don't have a reason to go to see big movies anymore.  However, here's the rub- I DO go see fireworks every fourth of July, because I can't do something on that scale at my house.  So frankly, I'm more likely to go to the theater or IMAX or something a couple times a year IF it's a massive explodey spectacle of oohs and aahs that I can't replicate on my monitor or phone.  I LIKE thoughtful, interesting, funny, QUALITY movies, but the vast majority of them I have literally no desire to see 30 feet tall in front of me.  Nor do I have a frantic need to see it as soon as it comes out, because it's still the same movie by the time it hits the internet or Redbox or whatever and by that time I'll have a good idea of what the movie is and what the opinions of it were among people whose opinions I value.

So while yes, I care about seeing good films, I don't really care at all whether they get a theatrical release.  Around here at DIF there's a lot of talk about smaller budgets, or at least smarter use of budgets, and I think that's coming.  In my ideal world, the studios toss "story" guys a few million dollars to make smart and enjoyable movies that can wind up on Netflix or otherwise distributed on a subscription program or something, and then put out a few 200 million dollar movies every year that are the cinema equivalent of fireworks for me to go see if I want to grab some popcorn and go "oooh, ahhh!"  These movies don't have to be BAD, obviously you can put work into a spectacle (LOTR) and I'll totally want to see it in the theater.  But I can understand why a studio doesn't think there's a point to funding The Invention of Lying for a theatrical release, because I don't think it's worth going to the theater to see that movie anyway, even if it's worth a watch.

Do I make sense or have I made enemies?  I'm looking over my shoulder waiting for Brian or Michael to pounce and tear asunder my flimsy logic.

Last edited by Kyle (2011-08-19 19:40:13)

No, it's true. Digital and streaming options are changing the economics of film distribution. It doesn't make sense to shell out the $20-$40 to see a movie at the theater unless it's a film that's going to use the theater to its full effect. Why shell out that money for a movie that's going to be largely the same experience at home versus the theater? Do you really need to see Revolutionary Road thirty feet tall? Not for forty bucks.

But the problem is that studios and executives are still of the mindset that the only real thing that matters is box office gross. And opening weekend box office at that. It used to be that a movie could be said to "have legs." Maybe it didn't make all its money back in the first weekend, but it did steady enough business that over the span of a month or two it did okay. Not anymore. Executives only care about those first few days and as a result, the turnover is greater. Movies don't spend as long in the theater. And once it leaves the theater, they pay it even less mind.

The movies that thrive in that mindset are ones like Alice In Wonderland. Big spectacle, no lasting value. They're not really thinking about DVDs and On Demand. They're definitely not thinking about Netflix and Hulu. It just doesn't factor into their financial equations. So they're not thinking about the kind of movies we would choose to watch at home instead of shelling out the cash to see them in the theater.

Ideally, the economics of the system would be setup so that the decision makers were incentivized to make products with lasting value. Make the best movie you can with the best story possible and you have a product that retains more value over the long term. People want to see it again, own the DVD, go to a rerelease in the future. The company has a healthier portfolio that's more stable over the long term. As a result, the company makes more money in aggregate over the next 20 years instead of having one amazing quarter followed by one lousy one.

Structure the incentives so that the decision makers care about more than opening weekend. That's what needs to happen to improve the quality of movies. Don't know how you'd go about doing that though.