When hollywood made good films.

[Rpffan]

And since we're in necro land I'll just add my 2 cents. :lol

The thought that Hollywood used to make good films and doesn't anymore is absurd. Today, as in any time in it's history, there are a few greats, some good, and a whole bunch of crap. It's ALWAYS been that way.

Great statement

 

[YenChih Lin]

Your theory is very interesting and actually very true… well, what should I say? I'm taking to a screenwriter (although I haven't seen your movie yet…) most times storyteller have to as it is said in germany "Klinken putzen" (make rounds to sell his/her story) and are given a very hard time, till one sees potential in this. Best example: BTTF . Robert Zemeckis told in the BTS IIRC that he went to many studios, before Spielberg picked it up.

Oh and Donner's a pro and Zack "the Hack"…

I was discussing this with a the same group of writers I went to see Star Trek Into Darkness with and I have a theory - many of you will disagree with it and some may even take offense to what I'm about to write but the more I thought about it the more convinced I became.
Hollywood has two types of filmmakers - there are storytellers and there are businessmen - the Storytellers usually give you something that you love and the businessmen are good at tricking into something you think you will like. Storytellers usually have a hell of a time selling their visions to studios but when these stories take off the businessmen are the first to say "we need a sequel" -- again, that's just business and the reason most sequels are terrible. It's possible for a storyteller to become a businessman but impossible for the vice versa to happen. Now - IMO the decline of story actually falls back on one man - and he is a storyteller. His movies, some good, some horrible but all "visions" gave Hollywood permission to start doing remakes, reboots, rehash or just resell their non visionary films. He himself is a thief, stealing his first big movie from a chinese action flick - but to the unknowing public it was fresh and clever - and it was, but still stolen.

Quentin Tarantino.

His style seems simple enough and he didn't come from filmschools or the inbred society that is Hollywood, but he has talent. Nevertheless he opened the door to the independent movie where Hollywood loves to graze, picking up those they feel will be their version of his films - problem is they're not. What Quentin did was to take all of his favorite 70's films and twist them into a modern background. His films are full of hidden nods and references from the knowledge of working at a video store for years. Now, I like his movies - but I don't like what they did to Hollywood. Execs took his ability to recraft and turned it into something ugly. They took his off the cuff dialogue and unique scenes and believed it simple to duplicate.

Now combine this warped version of storytelling and apply a 200m dollar budget and give it to Jerry Bruckheimer and you have the modern movie.

it used to be the writers in this town came from novels now they come from other movies - Quentin is the best example of this - people like Kevin Smith (IMO) are the worst. Directors came from stage and theater - now they come from music videos. Compare someone like Richard Donner to Zack Snyder. While Donner cut his teeth on WANTED with Steve McQueen, Snyder was directing Horses for a Budweiser commercial.

 

[Jedi-72]

I agree that Hollywood seems to have dried up. There's VERY little that has come out of it in the last 15 years or so that is of any real quality. One of my biggest disappointments is that they don't even try to make intelligent looking or sounding movies very much anymore. There was a time when even comedies were still for the literate and weren't relegated to sight gags and toilet humor. So many of the movies that I loved as a kid, and weren't at all geared toward or made for kids would, likely never get made today. If they were, they would be given the lowest common denominator treatment. Some of favorites, a few of which are classics that would NEVER get made today:

1. Kramer vs. Kramer
2. The Four Seasons
3. The Big Chill
4. Tootsie (If they made this today it would be an endless stream of off-color, unfunny, toilet humor jokes)
5. Brazil
6. Summer of '42
7. Blazing Saddles (Would NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER get made today)
8. Stand By Me
9. The Godfather (If made today would bare NO resemblance to the book or the classic we know. The focus would shift away from the family story to the blood and guts aspects of the mob).
10. My Favorite Year
11. The Pope of Greenwich Village
12. Diner
13. Dead Poets Society
14. Broadway Danny Rose
15. Radio Days
16. Fandango
17. 84 Charing Cross Road
18. Garbo Talks
19. Nothing in Common
20. Avalon

To name just a few.

 

[Probe Droid]

Hollywood always has been a business whose goal was to make as much profit as possible. But the mentality has changed from luring audiences by making a quality product offering a good story that is told well through interesting characters, to dazzling them with sex/violence/explosions/ and CG crap and hope they won't notice that the story stinks and the characters are cardboard. Unfortunately, way too many films with no discernible qualities have made mountains of money.

Hollywood also always was run by businessmen, who handled the money end while letting artists create the product. Now the businessmen think they can do both. They hire people with no more chops than "directing" a music video and give them a feature film. Also, the home market has made it possible for crappy films to still make money, so the movie factories keep churning them out. The obsession with the opening weekend bonanza also has taken its toll. Films used to be given time to find an audience. Now if it doesn't clobber at the box office right out of the gate it's pulled in 2 weeks. A real shame.

 

[Wes R]

I agree. I was watching that TCM documentary series "The Moguls" about the men who built hollywood. They wanted to make that cash but they also were very picky about the product that came out of the studios and had their names attached. Now anything goes and quality be damned.

 

[Solo4114]

It's all about the marketing anymore.

There was a time when actors and genres sold tickets. These would shift from period to period, but the general approach was genre + big name actor = win.

Around the mid to late 90s, though, you started seeing the beginning of the current "remake" trend with 1960s TV shows being optioned as films. The Fugitive, The Brady Bunch, the Beverly Hillbillies, hell even McHale's Navy and Sgt. Bilko. Eventually, what I think the marketing guys figured out was that it's not the genre or the actor's name that sells. It's the BRAND. ANY brand. A brand can be an actor, or a genre, or a board game, or a comic book, or a TV show, or a freaking amusement park ride. And that....was that.

I think the business side of Hollywood took a look at the numbers and figured out that the bulk of their audience is primarily between the ages of 12 and 25, and thinks "older than 5 years" = crap when it comes to films. Thus, you have a 5-year revolving window. To an extent, though, they ALSO know that they can bring in those who might otherwise be jaded 25-40somethings based on the branding of old properties from the 1980s and 1990s, the same way they did back in the late 90s with branded "Nick at Nite" style properties.

Once you slap the brand overtop of some generic elements, you don't HAVE to take a risk with your otherwise mediocre dreck. The brand will do the work for you, coupled with a clever trailer.

 

[Riceball]

I think that there are several factors going into this issue, number one is that tastes change over time, what was popular with people at one time are no longer popular or appealing years later. The other thing is that as budgets for movies increased so did the adversity to risk, movies cost too much to make to justify a lot of risk, at least that's the way the studios feel. It also doesn't help that as the price of movie tickets increase more people are unwilling or unable to go the theaters to watch movies which makes it tougher for a movie to make their money.

As for 3D, it's simply a way for the studios (& theaters) to make more money off a given movie, that's all. That's why nearly every movie from the big studios that comes out, esp. action flicks, are released in 3D as well as 2D, to make extra money even most of the time the 3D doesn't add anything to the movie at all.

 

[Forsaken]

I think the biggest problem with modern movie studios is there reliance on hired bean counters.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/06/b...lm-script-with-data.html?pagewanted=all&_r=2&

Al

 

[jlee562]

I've talked about this before in other threads, but the release of films on the global market also plays into this. Stories have to be more universal than before. There's less reliance on cultural specific mores.

 

[ghostryder]

Lynda Obst: Hollywood's completely broken - Salon.com

 

[SSgt Burton]

*sigh*


I guess everyone forgets all the "bad" films that came out of the 50s and 60s... and 70s... and 80s.

To say that only the last 15-20 some odd years has seen the decline of Hollywood is nonsense.

Hollywood isn't doing anything it hasn't already done for decades (make a whole bunch of bad films and a few good ones). We're just old enough to understand the difference now.


And just to troll the thread ( )... T2 was one of those "businessman" films.


Kevin

 

[Brent M]

There are good AND bad movies every decade. Romanticizing too much about the past will cause you to miss the good stuff going on in the present day.

 

[Lord Boron]

Problem is now everything has to fit the formula. They could not make a good Jaws today. It would have an overly CGd shark that they feel would need to be on the screen every 10 min, they would have Quint, Brody, and Hooper played by buff, generic looking young guys, and the score would be generic, non-thematic music by one of Zimmers clones. And it would need more explosions. People running from a fireball is always good. And some slow motion bullit-time, when Brody shoots the scuba tank. Oh, and lets not forget the shaky camera. People LOVE the shaky camera.......

 

[YenChih Lin]

Speaking of Hans Zimmer, I fear he's past his prime… I liked his older stuff, but now, he does nothing memorable today . Same goes for today's composer… where are the Goldsmiths, Horners, Silvestris and Williams? Same goes for the TV main title theme… nothing I heard in the last probably 5 years are stuck in my head, well perhaps Warehouse 13, TSCC, that's it… where are the defining themes that fits the series and gets stuck like X-Files, Thundercats, Transformers and Knight Rider? It can be too minimalistic if you ask me.

The last memorable and likeable score was by Robert J. Kral with DC Animated Movie "Green Lantern: First Flight". It was much better than the movie score… sorry John Howard Newton.

 

[Solo4114]

It's not whether there are more bad movies now than there were then. It's more HOW the movies are bad and WHY they're bad. And then the way that Hollywood goes about selling the public those movies.

Of course there was crap back in the old days, and there was mediocre or workmanlike stuff that people don't remember because it's overshadowed by the classics. Call it the Salieri Effect if you want.

What I've seen, though, is a far, far more calculated, formulaic approach to marketing and branding of movies nowadays, used to cloak the crap. Here's two examples.

1.) Red Dawn (2012) -- this film is entirely generic, and isn't particularly well done. It's just an invasion movie with some teens acting as partisans. If they put it under a different title, say "American Partisans" or whatever, and changed the names of the characters, people would refer to it as "That crappy Red Dawn ripoff." Why? Because it's not a very well done film (which is not to say that the original is exactly a cinematic masterpiece, of course). But, Hollywood knows that just the story and the actors alone isn't going to be attractive enough to bring people in to watch it. Ergo, they slap the "Red Dawn" title on it, give the kids the same names as the characters from the original, and kick it out the door. Now, it didn't end up doing well, but I expect that this was their calculus.

2.) G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009). This film is GARBAGE. It's got awful acting, a boring and uncharismatic cast (with a handful of exceptions), and a really, really stupid story. Strip out all name references to the G.I. Joe franchise but leave EVERYTHING ELSE the same, and what do you have? A big-FX crapstraviganza that probably would've flopped. And when you watch the film, aside from those names and such, there's basically NOTHING that has anything to do with the original storyline from the toys, cartoons, or comics of the original franchise. If it was "U.S. Commandos" and the main good guy was named "Spike" instead of "Duke" and the main badguys were called "Arthur LeMarche" and "ZODIAC Overlord" instead of "Destro" and "Cobra Commander", the movie would've made a paltry sum at the box office. But you dress a dude up like Snake Eyes, and give everyone the right names....and now you've got box office boffo.


It's all just a contemptuous attempt to manipulate the audience -- and it works. And they KNOW it works, which is why they keep doing it. THAT, in my opinion, is what has changed. It's the way in which films are marketed, rather than how many good vs. bad films there are. The great triumph of modern Hollywood is in making boatloads of cash from BAD movies.

 

[John Hart]

There was a lot of crap made years ago. Genre gems such as "Laserblast", "Ator, the Fighting Eagle" and the like. The problem now is they spend $200 million, not $2 million on this crap. Speilberg was right, this is going to sink the movie industry.

 

[Michael Bergeron]

*sigh*


I guess everyone forgets all the "bad" films that came out of the 50s and 60s... and 70s... and 80s.

To say that only the last 15-20 some odd years has seen the decline of Hollywood is nonsense.

Hollywood isn't doing anything it hasn't already done for decades (make a whole bunch of bad films and a few good ones). We're just old enough to understand the difference now.


And just to troll the thread ( )... T2 was one of those "businessman" films.


Kevin

Jedifyfed! :lol

And since we're in necro land I'll just add my 2 cents. :lol

The thought that Hollywood used to make good films and doesn't anymore is absurd. Today, as in any time in it's history, there are a few greats, some good, and a whole bunch of crap. It's ALWAYS been that way.

- - - Updated - - -

There was a lot of crap made years ago. Genre gems such as "Laserblast", "Ator, the Fighting Eagle" and the like. The problem now is they spend $200 million, not $2 million on this crap. Speilberg was right, this is going to sink the movie industry.

You mean fix it.

When films like Cleopatra did poorly in the box office film went into a lower budget phase and we got movies like MASH and Easy Rider and many more. What will happen if enough big budget films bomb is the budgets will decline. That's a GOOD thing. It forces you to make a better film because you can't just throw money at it.

 

[Solo4114]

When films like Cleopatra did poorly in the box office film went into a lower budget phase and we got movies like MASH and Easy Rider and many more. What will happen if enough big budget films bomb is the budgets will decline. That's a GOOD thing. It forces you to make a better film because you can't just throw money at it.

Honestly, I don't see that happening. The solution seems now to be to fix the marketing so that they ensure a better opening weekend, and who cares what happens next. That's what seems to be going on right now, actually. They need the big budgets for CGI 'splosions, and for marketing campaigns. They need them also to option known brands which make audiences less wary about a film and more inclined to give it a chance.

So, if anything, I see more consolidation and centralization and control than I do fragmentation, competition, and "wildcatting."

 

[Michael Bergeron]

Honestly, I don't see that happening. The solution seems now to be to fix the marketing so that they ensure a better opening weekend, and who cares what happens next. That's what seems to be going on right now, actually. They need the big budgets for CGI 'splosions, and for marketing campaigns. They need them also to option known brands which make audiences less wary about a film and more inclined to give it a chance.

So, if anything, I see more consolidation and centralization and control than I do fragmentation, competition, and "wildcatting."

While that's what is indeed happening I see it as a failed philosophy that should self correct itself. You can only have so many Iron Man movies before the audience really starts to roll their eyes. You'll get lower budget films being made with their follow ups being big (because they can count on the return at that point).

The Lone Ranger, John Carter, Miami Vice, Pluto Nash, The Island... All glaring examples of why throwing huge money at marketing and hoping for a good opening weekend doesn't work.

 

[Solo4114]

While that's what is indeed happening I see it as a failed philosophy that should self correct itself. You can only have so many Iron Man movies before the audience really starts to roll their eyes. You'll get lower budget films being made with their follow ups being big (because they can count on the return at that point).

The Lone Ranger, John Carter, Miami Vice, Pluto Nash, The Island... All glaring examples of why throwing huge money at marketing and hoping for a good opening weekend doesn't work.

See, my bet is that they won't figure that the basic strategy is flawed. They'll figure the particular mix of elements was flawed. E.G. "Well, obviously, westerns don't work. The problem was we did a western. We should've done Pirates 5." Or they'll figure the brand was weak "What's the last time anyone talked about the Lone Ranger? Just another example of Disney trying to modernize an ancient property and having it fail miserably. When will they learn? They should've done a Thundercats movie instead."

And when they DO finally do a Thundercats movie -- and they will -- it will be a hit based on the same premise that G.I. Joe the Rise of Cobra was a hit: because it followed the formula.


On the whole, their strategy is a successful one, so until it starts failing across the board with properties that really "should" do well, you won't see things change because...why should they? Until audiences reject superhero or really any "branded property" movies across the board, Hollywood won't change it. Basically, as long as people keep drinking soda, Hollywood will assume any failed soda was because of the formula or the packaging or whatever. "People love soda, they just didn't love THIS soda. We shouldn't have tried to get cute by selling a neon-blue soda." People will have to reject soda altogether before you start seeing juice as an alternative.