Steven Spielberg predicts implosion of the film industry.- Page 2

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 11:16am

Disney was always that way. Rereleasing their movies in theaters every seven years or so when there was a new generation of kids to see them.

PS. I also want to say to think there is some sort of art, very expensive art, to the CGI stuff, but to me, those movies are animated features.

Updated On: 6/13/13 at 11:16 AM

[ErikJ972]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 11:26am

"PS. I also want to say to think there is some sort of art, very expensive art, to the CGI stuff, but to me, those movies are animated features."

Agreed. Plus I think it's just overused. And always gives me the feeling I'm watching someone else play a video game instead of a movie.

Jurassic Park came out 20 years ago this week. I wish more movies that used CGI blended them with physical effects like that movie did.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 12:00pm

The last time I saw a movie that used CGI with restraint and taste was CHRONICLE (Kind of CARRIE with boys--you should check it out).

I think it's great that Spielberg and Lucas have more obstacles to overcome to make their movies than in the past. And I agree that the bloat of movies is ridiculous at this point. I mean, THE HOBBIT? Come on!

And they're absolutely right about television being more sophisticated than film at this point. It's a...shifting and exciting time for entertainment, I think.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 7:00pm

This from the man who wanted Megan Hilty gone and the role of Ellis enlarged? Puh-leeze. The man has lost his mojo.

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 7:25pm

This thread is very interesting; enjoing all the insightful comments.

I love going to the movies. I'm sure the MoviePass people want to revoke my membership because they lose A LOT of money on me every month.

It may be harder for non-blockbusters to find distribution, but they find a way, and many end up doing quite well in relation to their budgets. I always think it's weird when I hear people complain that there are "no good movies to see." Rarely a week goes by when something worth seeing doesn't come out.

Just in the past weeks we've had Mud, Frances Ha, Before Midnight, Stories We Tell, What Maisie Knew, The Place Beyond the Pines, Much Ado About Nothing, The East and The Iceman that were all smaller films "worth" seeing for one reason or another.

Sometimes the big CGI blockbusters can be really good too; the new Star Trek movie was pretty damn awesome.

[strummergirl]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 7:42pm

I loved Chronicle so much. It was a million different things at once and mostly worked, and the effects were pretty seamless for the story but never gratuitous.

Whizzer- What kills me is almost none of those films you listed should need to be independently financed. A Bradley Cooper-Ryan Gosling drama should be a studio lock to make money. Jeff Nichols should not have to wait a year for a good old-fashioned boy coming of age story to finally be theatrically released in theaters after it was shown at Cannes the year before. Shouldn't the Box Office that Mud has made, making it into the weekly top ten more than once despite being in less theaters, be a sign for studios that there is a problem going on if they were not even claiming a movie like that could be profitable?

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 8:03pm

Good points strummergirl. I'm not trying to say that everything's rosy and the film industry doesn't have its issues, ha. Just pointing out that many good/worthwhile films are being distributed and perform well at the box office.

[strummergirl]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 8:11pm

Of course, Whizzer. I just think unless a filmmaker is actively seeking more artistic freedom than what a regular studio would want from them (like Paul Thomas Anderson with The Master and the whole Annapurna Pictures model in getting filmmakers like Kathryn Bigelow, Spike Jonze, David O. Russell, and Harmony Korine making movies with them for having no studio authority), there is no reason some of these movies could not have been made in a major studio. Those same studios that usually just take up distributing them with their 'indie/art house arm' would have been churning out the same movies 20-25 years ago. Quality has not changed but the mainstream visibility of that quality has been hurt greatly by the industry business model.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 8:37pm

But I don't feel sorry for Spielberg or Lucas. "EVEN WE CAN'T GET MOVIES IN THEATERS!" Oh, cry me a river, you two. This is all YOUR fault.

Very funny, absolutely true and, oh, how I wish I'd thought of it myself!

***

And thanks for the media overview, best12.

Updated On: 6/13/13 at 08:37 PM

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 6/14/13 at 1:56am

"I have seen a few younger people comment on the (poor) production quality of Upstairs, Downstairs or Roots. It's almost as if they can't see the incredible quality of the story or acting or direction, because they are hung up on the bad film stock or the cheap sets."

It's interesting, I tried to get friends to watch Orphan Black on BBC America and failed miserably for that same reason. They think it looks "cheap", there are no well known actors other than Maria Doyle Kennedy, and it's on a channel no one watches.

Tatiana Maslany is giving one (well, four) of the best performances on TV (she just beat perennial winner Claire Danes at the Critics Choice Television Awards) and people are missing out simply because it doesn't have glossy Hollywood production values and or the right cable channel pedigree.


I can't blame Spielberg for the state of the film industry. For all his overblown blockbuster hits throughout the decades, most were still well-acted, good stories. You can't say that about the majority of comic book franchises.

[tazber]

Posted: 6/14/13 at 6:46am

Who wants to pay $50.00 to see World War Z?
Link

[javero]

Posted: 6/14/13 at 1:58pm

I agree with everything best12bars wrote and will add...

What's too fringey today, by Spielberg's estimation, might well be tomorrow's break out franchise. Successfully recouping the investment in a bloated summer box office behemoth is becoming a dicier proposition each year.

Interesting that he was silent on the issue of actor compensation and script acquisition costs. Now that the old studio system is a distant memory for most movie goers, the A-list players are demanding a pretty penny. I have to question at what point will a few of them price themselves right out of the market, especially the ones who are little more than eye candy.

Like most posters at bww, I'm not a huge fan of Tyler Perry's oeuvre but give the hack his props for the nanoseconds it takes him to get new product to market. A Tyler Perry film project does not languish for years as he attempts to outbid half of Hollywood for rights to adapt his stage dreck to the big screen.

Finally, I could on for days about Scientology nut-job actor x or white hot model-turned-NON-actress y or rapper/wrestler-turned-NON-actor z being grossly overpaid but they're the ones it seems who put butts in seats, at least to see the least common denominator genre aka summer blockbusters. I try not to question the taste of others but the blockbusters are increasingly starting to look like an endless stream of hour-and-a-half-long Saturday morning cartoons with Taco Bell/KFC & T-Mobile commercials interspersed. I'm well past the point in my life at which the world will come to an end if I don't buy a Superman mug, tee or poster.

[best12bars]

Posted: 6/14/13 at 4:10pm

I have to question at what point will a few of them price themselves right out of the market, especially the ones who are little more than eye candy.

I don't think any major movie star (certainly not the long-term stars) have a "one size fits all" salary.

Many of them, if they like a project enough and believe in it (and believe they will "grow" from it and perhaps be "awarded" for it), will work for SAG scale or not much more. But if it's a summer blockbuster with a large budget, they expect to be paid their usual (big star) salaries.

Yet the ticket prices at the box office are exactly the same, regardless.

It's the same thing we bitch about on the Main Board---how a show with eight musicians and a cast of six on a bare stage can charge the same price as Wicked or Lion King.

My answer to that is we would never see smaller projects then. They don't bring in the masses like a blockbuster (ever), so if ticket prices were lowered across the board for the smaller films or stage shows, they would all lose money. Every single one of them. And that would be the end of that.

I will say this about the "summer blockbuster" ...

The studios call these "tentpole" movies. That's the giant rod (no pun intended) that holds the rest of their offerings up. Studios need "tentpole" films so they can afford to release a "Zero Dark Thirty" or a "Silver Linings Playbook" or "Tree of Life." They need "The Avengers" and "Iron Man 9" to throw some cash in the flow.

If they take the "pole" away, to stay with their own industry metaphor, the entire tent would collapse.

And my answer to that is ... then maybe it ought to.

Like I said (much earlier), it's time for a reinvention of the way things work. It's already started, whether they like it or not (just as Spielberg says).

[Jim Colyer]

Posted: 6/14/13 at 5:40pm

I don't see how we can keep supporting $200 million movies.