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Post by YAKMAN is ICHIBAN on Dec 29, 2014 10:20:15 GMT -5
I generally only go to the theater to see big blockbusters, since they are the ones that benefit most from the giant screen and sound system. Comedies also do benefit from having a room of people laughing at the same time, the energy is much better than watching it at home, but the cost is usually not justifiable to me.
For the rest I tend to be willing to wait for Netflix.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2014 10:23:09 GMT -5
Actually Birdman wasn't a fox movie. It was just picked up for distribution by them. Most of time you see a film that's not an obvious studio production released wide, its people like WB, FOX or whomever distributing it, not actually producing it. And a closed, centralized system will always have an affect on the nature of how things are done, be it examples like business (Wall Street) or politics (DC). Anytime you have proximity and familiarity in such a concentrated way in any industry you're bound to end up with tons of organizational and structural problems. The wrestling industry is also an example of this. People only hire people they know or who worked for the competitor because they're stuck in the "hollywood bubble" of what they believe is the only option. Its basically ends up being confirmation bias run amok. But, I understand where you're coming from and do see how business is also a driving factor. Birdman's listed as having co-production by Regency and Worldview, and Regency is a Fox subsidiary. So it's more than just a distribution thing with Birdman, Fox did float something at least, I'd guess in the post-production but still. Even then, it's not a bad thing that they act as distribution companies to movies they see at Sundance, distribution is a big cost, it requires a lot of networking and studios have already done that. The centralized system is a huge advantage for that. For the rest of it, centralization has problems, yes, but these problems aren't really the result of it, especially not anything regarding the creative output (writers haven't needed to live in the same location as studios since the invention of the fax machine). "Breaking in" to entertainment will be hard no matter where an industry is located, people just have to face the facts that it's a high-demand job and there will always be thousands of people who want the same spot, and those thousands are all willing to jump through whatever hoop they need to. People will hire those who worked for a competitor because those people have experience that someone just trying to break in won't have. That's definitely not an issue with entertainment, I experienced it when I was a journalist, I couldn't get my resume seen by any decently sized paper unless I'd done an internship for them because they don't hire new grads, you have to work your way up from small-town papers, and they're not a centralized industry at all. Competitiveness + need for experience = hard for someone new to break into. For sure, I wasn't trying to say it was the ONLY factor, just a part of a larger issue that hollywood has. I mean, the laundry list of problems they've got at the moment....come on! haha! Its not the writers though, its more about the gatekeepers/keyholders/Vinz Clorthos/etc. They're the ones who actually make the decisions about what gets made. They all pretty much operate in LA and in that same environment.
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Post by James Fabiano on Dec 29, 2014 10:24:15 GMT -5
It's not as bad as Broadway is now. Can you name me a show running that isn't a remake of a movie or TV show? And no revivals, that's cheating!
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Post by Some Guy on Dec 29, 2014 10:35:18 GMT -5
I also think some franchises are different than others, so treating it like this is a bit broad. For instance, my favorite movie last year (Before Midnight) was basically the third part of a two character based trilogy. But nobody is going to confuse that with a Marvel franchise or anything like that. There is still an issue with minority or female driven films being way too few and far between, though. Apparently Grantland won't acknowledge this, even though Ridley Scott pretty much helped drive the issue further home with his crap about Exodus. There is an issue with minority and female-driven films being too few and far between, but there's also an equal problem with the fact that when there are minority and female-driven films, the response is almost worse, since they're also driven to a level where people demand it on "their" terms- and if they are met on their terms, they just move the goalposts in order to make it still a problem. Minority-driven films have a large base already- the Medea films have become a bonafide franchise as one big example, and romantic comedies are an entire genre based on female-driven films...but whenever they go through, it ends up as "No, not those, those are part of the problem too!", to the point the goalpost means "It has to be a minority or female-driven blockbuster movie"...which is also more than reasonable, but now- when the new Marvel timeline just said "Okay. Black Panther and Captain Marvel have movies confirmed for the next wave, adding more women and minorities to the Avengers franchise in the process", then people are still angry about even that. There does seem to be a point where no matter what they do, it'll never be enough, and as long as it's not enough, everything they do is wrong. The Madea films are really not a good example, since so many resent the movies for being largely terrible. Hell, Top Five just came out and that absolutely destroys any Perry movie, but it never got that wide of a release. As for women, there is clearly a pretty big market there but there still aren't nearly as many releases as there can be, and the nitpicky thing you mention isn't as prevalent for them as you think. Just for instance look at how huge the hunger Games movies are. Or how huge Lucy was. Or even a movie like Beyond the Lights, which doubled its budget despite zero advertisement. Then see how a Scarlett movie like Under the Skin gets a wide release of less than 200 theaters despite incredible word of mouth. This is still a problem that should be addressed. And yes, I liked Locke as well and forgot to mention that.
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Reflecto
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Post by Reflecto on Dec 29, 2014 10:39:23 GMT -5
There is an issue with minority and female-driven films being too few and far between, but there's also an equal problem with the fact that when there are minority and female-driven films, the response is almost worse, since they're also driven to a level where people demand it on "their" terms- and if they are met on their terms, they just move the goalposts in order to make it still a problem. Minority-driven films have a large base already- the Medea films have become a bonafide franchise as one big example, and romantic comedies are an entire genre based on female-driven films...but whenever they go through, it ends up as "No, not those, those are part of the problem too!", to the point the goalpost means "It has to be a minority or female-driven blockbuster movie"...which is also more than reasonable, but now- when the new Marvel timeline just said "Okay. Black Panther and Captain Marvel have movies confirmed for the next wave, adding more women and minorities to the Avengers franchise in the process", then people are still angry about even that. There does seem to be a point where no matter what they do, it'll never be enough, and as long as it's not enough, everything they do is wrong. Could you define what these people mean when they say "on our terms"? If you mean those angry fans that want more female and minority representation but tend to get nitpicky about it, that's a hopeless quest on the part of the studios. The best approach for them in that case would be to just bite the bullet and put out the best Black Panther and Captain Marvel movies they can. That is really all that can be done. As long as the movie is good and well-marketed, then there will be an audience for it. Right now, the Black Panther and Captain Marvel films will get well-marketed as part of the Marvel system, and Marvel is on a hot enough streak so that we can safely say the movies will be awesome. Once they succeed, inevitably more minority or female-driven superhero movies will come to pass- heck, just Marvel announcing Captain Marvel seems to be what finally got DC off their ass to make a Wonder Woman movie. It goes back to the same point: If there is a proven audience, it'll get made.
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Post by Apricots And A Pear Tree on Dec 29, 2014 10:50:21 GMT -5
Hollywood has been downhill since they started making Talkies.
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Reflecto
Hank Scorpio
The Sorceress' Knight
Posts: 6,847
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Post by Reflecto on Dec 29, 2014 10:50:30 GMT -5
There is an issue with minority and female-driven films being too few and far between, but there's also an equal problem with the fact that when there are minority and female-driven films, the response is almost worse, since they're also driven to a level where people demand it on "their" terms- and if they are met on their terms, they just move the goalposts in order to make it still a problem. Minority-driven films have a large base already- the Medea films have become a bonafide franchise as one big example, and romantic comedies are an entire genre based on female-driven films...but whenever they go through, it ends up as "No, not those, those are part of the problem too!", to the point the goalpost means "It has to be a minority or female-driven blockbuster movie"...which is also more than reasonable, but now- when the new Marvel timeline just said "Okay. Black Panther and Captain Marvel have movies confirmed for the next wave, adding more women and minorities to the Avengers franchise in the process", then people are still angry about even that. There does seem to be a point where no matter what they do, it'll never be enough, and as long as it's not enough, everything they do is wrong. The Madea films are really not a good example, since so many resent the movies for being largely terrible. Hell, Top Five just came out and that absolutely destroys any Perry movie, but it never got that wide of a release. As for women, there is clearly a pretty big market there but there still aren't nearly as many releases as there can be, and the nitpicky thing you mention isn't as prevalent for them as you think. Just for instance look at how huge the hunger Games movies are. Or how huge Lucy was. Or even a movie like Beyond the Lights, which doubled its budget despite zero advertisement. Then see how a Scarlett movie like Under the Skin gets a wide release of less than 200 theaters despite incredible word of mouth. This is still a problem that should be addressed. For the Madea films, the big problem is that they do "have" to be mentioned, even if people resent them for being largely terrible, simply because it ties into the whole issue with franchises as a whole: It doesn't matter if the franchise is "GOOD", it matters if the franchise is "POPULAR." Even though the Madea films are largely terrible, it doesn't change the fact that SOMEONE'S shoveling that crap down their throats enough to make the Madea films popular- and because they're popular, they've become a franchise. As for women, you did hit the nail on the head there- there should be a large amount of more, big female-driven action movie franchises- and hopefully Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman can start that ball rolling more.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2014 11:08:55 GMT -5
I think what's different now than before is that you have studios fighting out for weekends five years from now, and a shift away from movie people running movie studios. There have always been problems, trends to lament. I'm not to terribly concerned, but I'm also kind of ready for people, at least people who should know better, to say wait a minute these Marvel movies are generic cookie cutter bullshit. Forgive me if this is too subjective an assessment, but I think a good reason the Marvel budget hasn't popped is because the movies are hardly cookie cutter at all. They're on a bit of a hot streak. Under different circumstances I figure most moviegoers would definitely be feeling the burnout by now, but IMO quality writing has done a lot to delay that for them. I consider Marvel to be the new Pixar. All of their movies had critical and commercial success so far
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