Steven Spielberg predicts implosion of the film industry.

[ErikJ972]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 9:01am

Speaking at USC this week Spielberg predicted that a string of mega budget flops will change the film industry as we know it. He also talks about how Lincoln came very close to being an HBO film.
I found the whole article kind of depressing.
Link

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 9:17am

There were quite a few times last summer when I came out of the movie theater feeling really icky. The bloat, the waste, the indecipherable fight scenes, the product placements, the volume, the reactionary political undertones, the absolute middle of the road performances...

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.

[Brian07663NJ]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 9:20am

Haven't the most profitable movies been the ones ties to product lines: Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Transformers, etc.?

Kids toys, t-shirts, video games, Happy-Meal Toys, etc

How many of those would be possible for Lincoln?

I barely got through the movie Lincoln and it involved slowing down my heart rate and meditating. It wasn't a horrible movie but it certainly wasn't action packed and a major omg must see movie. Rarely, in the past few years, have a seen a movie that is even worth the $10-15 or better yet enticed me to even go to the movie theater. I jsut as soon wait for it to come on Netflix!

Nice try to cover up your flop Spielberg. Yes, it won awards but those awards are voted by industry people. Box office dollars begs to differ.

As for ticket prices being similiar to a Broadway ticket. HA seriously doubt people will pay $125 plus to see a movie. I have no issues paying for a live theatrical experience because it is just that - LIVE.

Updated On: 6/13/13 at 09:20 AM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 9:22am

"I barely got through the movie Lincoln and it involved slowing down my heart rate and meditating. It wasn't a horrible movie but it certainly wasn't action packed and a major omg must see movie either."

And so, audience members like you will get what you want for a little while longer.

ETA: according to Box Office Mojo, "Lincoln" made $275,293,450 on a production budget of $65m.

Updated On: 6/13/13 at 09:22 AM

[ErikJ972]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 9:25am

I don't think Spielberg was really whining or looking for any sympathy. I think he just sees it as the future of the film industry. And he's already involved in the other media he thinks will take over film.
I loved Lincoln. And I loved it for all the reasons Brian didn't like it. I kind of think you just proved his point.

[Brian07663NJ]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 9:28am

There is room in the movie theaters for good drama. Not everything has to be heart pounding action scenes and explosions. Lincon just fell short. My father is very involved in several Abraham Lincoln groups - like we all follow Broadway. He has had lunch with Doris Keans Goodwin (author of the book that the movie Lincoln was produced from). The entire movie was taken from only a few pages of the entire novel. It wasn't because there wasn't good sourse material! It wasn't because there weren't good actors and even some very good scenes. It just isn't what the general movie going population wants but it does have a place in the entertainment world. Unfortunately it didn't find a market.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 9:28am

Also, I guess anything under $300m at the box office is a "flop" nowadays for moviegoers like Brian?

[Brian07663NJ]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 9:30am

interesting on the box office numbers - thank you.

It did appear that he was upset that it didn't have longevity of 12-18 months.

[strummergirl]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 9:31am

Lincoln made a ton a money, it was in the top 2 in terms of box offices among last year's Best Picture nominees. $275 million worldwide, $180 million of which was domestic gross, is not a flop. Spielberg's had flops in terms of awards, critics, and even financial- Lincoln ain't one of them. It's not my favorite Spielberg (to me the real driving force of the movie was the script) but I appreciate its existence.

Soderbergh recently gave a similar speech that touched on much of the same territory although both he and Spielberg seemed to come from the middle-sized movies that now seem to be deferred to indie movies for fears those movies cannot succeed financially (How was Magic Mike not a given to be a box office success by studios?). And so the Soderbergh circa sex, lies, and videotape could probably not get their movie made in this environment.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 9:32am

I didn't get that at all. I thought he was saying this is how the industry changed in his lifetime, from 14 month engagements when he was getting going, to now they hand you the DVD as you leave the theater opening night. I thought he was saying it changed once then and it will be changing again now.

[Brian07663NJ]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 9:35am

Poor choice of words on my part using 'flop' since I have been educated on the box office figures - but - based upon Spielberg's comments (without knowing the financial data) he makes it sound like he suffered.

[ErikJ972]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 9:41am

I just don't see where he's complaining. Spielberg has already partnered with Microsoft to bring new content to Xbox Live. It's not like he's resisting the change. In some ways he's fostering it.

[AnthVoice2010]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 9:52am

The bloat, the waste...............wink..wink namo...you can say that again...

[Playbilly]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 9:52am

People have been decrying the end of movies since the talkies. As long as there is an audience, there will be "movies", and as long as there is a business, there will be theaters.

[best12bars]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 9:53am

I agree with Spielberg, but I don't think this massive shift is limited to just the movie industry. TV, publishing, radio, even theatre ... everything is changing now. I still think it's a direct result of the Internet.

The way entertainment is accessed, selected, marketed, discussed, distributed, developed, and sold to the public has changed so dramatically in the last 15 years. It's mind-boggling.

With so many choices and so many pipelines, the "big guns" have to find some way of standing out. Some way of justifying a huge ticket price, huge stars, and a huge budget. So they go BIGGER.

Broadway is just as bloated. It's just as tough for a small musical to make it on Broadway as a small film to be distributed by a major studio.

The one thing I think Spielberg got a bit wrong is his "grass is always greener" idea that running to a premium cable TV channel is his best solution. TV is just as much in a state of flux as the film industry, if not more so.

Look at recent HBO "winners" like Mildred Pierce, John Adams, and Boardwalk Empire. They are all successes, but reach a fraction of the audience of something like E.T.

The days when Spielberg's E.T. played for a year and four months in theatres is gone. He was right at the edge of the home entertainment market. VHS tapes were still fairly new, and there was no Internet (to speak of) then. We will never see the likes of an E.T. "event" movie again.

They may charge $25-50 to see an "Iron Man"-type movie in the theatres, but it will run only 6-10 weeks (if that). These massive Blockbusters of today must strike while the iron (man) is hot. Because four minutes from now, that movie is going to be available "on demand," on disc, on cable, etc. And with so many options and so much money spent to keep a film like that in the public eye, they can't afford to do it for more than a few weeks to a few months after it opens.

Times change. There will never be another "Gone With the Wind" event movie either. It's still the most attended theatrical movie ever, and it will always be. Because there was no TV back then, no Internet, no home entertainment releases, and few (if any) movies were even re-released in the theatres back in 1939. It was a "now or never" scenario, so the movie ran for 2 1/2 years (and longer) when it first came out.

Never again.

I don't think any of this is a bad thing. It's just time for another reinvention of the industry. And they will reinvent themselves.

Because the bottom line is that people will still want entertainment, and they will still pay for it. They may access it in ways that haven't even been invented yet and haven't even been thought of yet. But there will always be consumers willing to pay for new entertainment.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 10:01am

I long for the collapse of the $200m spectacle. It can't come soon enough.

[Addison D.]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 10:04am

^^^Agreed, B12B.

I think digital distribution will also change our movie-going options and habits. Theaters have the potential for infinite flexibility and customization of schedules, content etc.

There may be adjustments to the paradigm coming, but I don't think "implosion" is likely.


(Edit: This is the comment that made me a 'legend'. Just like Liza said: it's a Very Quiet Thing...)

Updated On: 6/13/13 at 10:04 AM

[AnthVoice2010]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 10:05am

Best 12 Bars...brilliant observations..

I'm not sure how you turn around when an entire generation has been built around the concept of "Now"...and not "Wait"...

......even if they slow down the release timings of DVD and Cable and VOD...we have bootlegs..

Bootlegs are getting better and better quality and sound with each year..and literally the turnaround time is a weekend before they are everywhere...

"Skyfall" was released in the UK first on a Friday...by Sunday morning anyone in the US who didn't want to wait another three weeks to see it in a theatre could get a perfectly acceptable boot.....

[strummergirl]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 10:07am

Brian, it took Spielberg years to get the movie off the ground. I think Spielberg is aware that how much of villain he can be considered around the industry and it was just pointing out that even there are studios that have said no to him.

It was already discussed that Lincoln was on the verge of being an HBO TV movie/mini-series. Spielberg does a lot of TV stuff but as best12bars states, the audience reach- especially on pay-channel HBO- is an extremely limited reach. It is no different than Soderbergh spending years trying to convince studios to produce and distribute Behind the Candelabra- with the only small victory being it is being theatrically distributed around the rest of the world.

Hollywood is now structured to basically if all else fails the blockbuster can still make a ton of its money in the foreign markets. Its how stuff like Alice in Wonderland can cross the billion dollar threshold.

As for TV. I love a lot of TV programs but I tend to roll my eyes when people not only want to say TV is at a golden age but that TV has eclipsed cinema. The talked about shows that people want to give awards to are not ratings juggernauts with the exceptions being the growing, record-breaking audiences for The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. The middle-brow still wins in ratings though in network shows with CBS pretty much having a sure thing with the NCISs and CSIs and their three-camera sitcoms while other networks rely on reality shows and football programming. Network TV is in a lot of trouble the way major Hollywood studio is and cable is where the a lot of quality programs are and maybe should be but cable has also maybe overreached because of so many channels, so many niche shows, and the whole way of watching TV has changed with the DVR and creation of Netflix.

[AnthVoice2010]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 10:09am

$200 million dollar spectacles always exsisted..

"Cleopatra" cost $35 million in the early sixties, which today, with inflation, would hover around $300 million...

The Motion Picture was built for spectacles...

"Birth of a Nation"

"The Big Parade"

"Wings"

All Huge Spectacles. All Released before 1935.

That will never change!

[Brian07663NJ]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 10:12am

well said best12bars

[best12bars]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 10:24am

The Internet has changed everything, bootlegs included.

I don't think you can reverse (or more specifically "downgrade") a change in human behavior, though. You can't take the "on demand" consumers and make them stand in line for 2 1/2 years of repeated viewings to see a movie (like they did with Gone With the Wind). Those "now or never" days are no more.

In a way, I miss them. I miss thinking of The Wizard of Oz as a once-a-year TV "event" movie that (as a child) was as special to me as my birthday or Christmas. That's why it was the most-seen movie worldwide ever. Because it was part of that "now or never" era that is gone.

It's the same behavior I have about laundry (yes, I know that sounds silly). But if I have a whole week to get it done, I will put it off or straggle it along and maybe I will or won't get it done. But if I have just 2 hours in my week's schedule to do laundry, I get it done. The "now or never" behavior works, and people rise to the occasion.

As far as the "bloat" in the movie industry that Spielberg laments, I think it's funny that he thinks premium cable TV is the answer for him. I hope he realizes that the TV industry (as all entertainment industries are) is suffering from the exact same bloat.

Does he think that his "Lincoln" would have ever been produced on that scale on TV ten or twenty years ago? He should re-watch "Roots" or "Upstairs, Downstairs" to see how the budgets used to be in TV's golden age. They had four dollars, but they made magic with them.

"Lincoln" on TV may be Spielberg's idea of a solution for him, but it's part of the same inflated problem he's lamenting for the TV industry.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 10:28am

"They had four dollars, but they made magic with them."

Personally, I still seek that sort of stuff out. After last summer's hollow sensations like "Hunger Games" and "The Avengers" I find myself numb to the fact that a computer can very expensively create a cartoon of cities being destroyed that look "realistic."

Give me a "Wizard of Oz" nylon stocking tornado, PLEASE.

[best12bars]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 10:43am

I"m a hundred percent with you, Namo.

But I wonder (as I'm sure the movie industry wonders) would the majority of today's consumers be willing to put up with a "4 dollar budget that makes magic?"

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.

So it's the same thing with TV or even Broadway. Would they stand for it?

I'm not talking about the "Trip to Bountifuls" that get made, which won't cost a lot to begin with. But would people stand for an "Iron Man" on a "Trip to Bountiful" budget?

Speaking of the blockbuster movie bloat, there is another internal implosion going on now within the visual effects industry. Some of you know this, since there was a big protest at the Oscars, and the state-of-the-art company Rhythm & Hues, who won the award for Life of Pi went bankrupt. That's because studios and production companies are now farming this work overseas, mostly to India, where 3D animators make $5,000 per year, not $100-200 thousand per year. It's the sweatshop or "slave" approach that plagues many global businesses now. This is playing and will continue to play a major role in the current shape of the movie industry (and TV industry as well).

EDIT: By the way, when I say "visual effects," I hope people realize I don't just mean space aliens and dinosaurs. Nearly all big budget movies, even period pieces like Lincoln or TV's John Adams, have substantial visual effects in them. There is so much "green screen" work going on today. Instead of building an indoor or outdoor set of an 1880s factory, it's created via CGI. Not to mention the "effects" work being done on today's movie and TV stars to remove or reduce wrinkles and (a very different kind of) bloating. "High definition" and IMAX screens may be a wonderful thing to consumers, but they are an aging star's worst enemy. "Visual effects" are everywhere and most people aren't even aware of it.

Updated On: 6/13/13 at 10:43 AM

[Brian07663NJ]

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

I agree FindingNamo and best12bars...

those were the days
latex appliances, real sets, etc
I thought it an abomination when they rereleased the original Star Wars with the added CGI inclusions. I use the word inclusion exactly as it relates to a precious gem - a bit of matter stuck inside it.

Making a movie was an art.
It was an event to see the Wizard of Oz and the Ten Commandments once a year and look forward to it.

I laugh when Disney tries to market the sale of the classic animated features - "get it now before it is sealed in the vault" - yeah - for a few years until you decide to repackage it and sell it again. HA

What happened to the old days?