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The Slow Death of Hollywood

mattstoller.substack.com

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Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#191

Post by Retra »

goto11 wrote: post #64
ravenstine wrote: post #51

Hollywood is hanging itself by its own velvet rope. Remakes are seen as an excellent investment because, so long as they are properly stylized and full of dazzle, they are low-risk and have reasonable returns. Usually. This won't work for them forever, and I think everyday people are catching on to the fact that they're just being resold the same stuff they've already bought. The other day, my cousin's 11 year old so…

> everyday people are catching on to the fact that they're just being resold the same stuff they've already bought. But Hollywood have always done this - recycling old ideas in new wrapping. And Hollywood have always been criticized for being vapid entertainment, empty spectacle etc. "catching on to the fact" suggest that this is some secret insight which undermines the enjoyment of the movie. But I'm pretty sure mos…

>According to Wikipedia, Aladdin grossed "$923.7 million, against a production budget of $183 million". So despite you and your nephew, Disney seem to manage OK.

That's not an objective way to look at things. If there were only 1 model of car being sold this year, you can bet it will sell with record numbers and produce more profit than any other vehicle in the past. The fact that records are being broken so rapidly is a bad thing; it means there's very few films worth watching, so everyone is going out to see the same thing.

Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#192

Post by asdff »

kingkawn wrote: post #178

A friend teaches English in south east Asia. His younger students refuse to watch any movies from before ~2010, saying they are too old and slow. I think the focus on remakes is an attempt to capture this market that would otherwise not bother watching older content.

The poorly aged CGI didn't help. That and shitty sound is what stopped me from watching many older movies as a kid.

Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#193

Post by webwanderings »

luckydata wrote: post #185
goto11 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> everyday people are catching on to the fact that they're just being resold the same stuff they've already bought. But Hollywood have always done this - recycling old ideas in new wrapping. And Hollywood have always been criticized for being vapid entertainment, empty spectacle etc. "catching on to the fact" suggest that this is some secret insight which undermines the enjoyment of the movie. But I'm pretty sure mos…

> But Hollywood have always done this - recycling old ideas in new wrapping. And Hollywood have always been criticized for being vapid entertainment, empty spectacle etc. Not to this degree. The last good year for movies was 1999. This is the list of major releases that year: The Matrix Fight Club The Sixth Sense Toy Story 2 The Green Mile American Beauty Being John Malkovic Office Space The Iron Giant Magnolia Austi…

Good point. I think “Hollywood” got eaten up by globalization (China) and easy route of super hero movies all-the-time. The Disney’s and big studios alike have no patience to make money off of creativity. Why do we even need Toy Story 4 to begin with? And how many super hero movies one need to drive same points again and again?

Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#194

Post by parasubvert »

Animats wrote: post #169
sytelus wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This won't work for them forever You are under estimating the power of formula. Disney had a huge run with prince-princess stories for kids and they only recently toned it down because of huge negative effects on kids. They can easily go on forever on this theme if they want to. Vast majority of movies made in Indian cinema (aka Bollywood) are information-less and even story-less movies that just revolves around on…

Yes. Pixar has a template: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___. Pixar movies are "nobody becomes somebody due to external event". That's a common pattern, beaten to death in the Star Wars franchise. But it's not the only pattern. It's not Game of Thrones . It's not Star Trek. It's not even most winners of "Best Picture" Oscars.

This is completely nonsensical.

Toy Story? Cars? Inside Out? Up? Coco?

None of these follow that template. Sure, some like a Bugs Life and Rattatouille follow this, but in quirky ways. All conventional narrative structure involves an external incident. That sets up the central conflict of the narrative.

Disney movies like Big Hero 6, Moana or Frozen are more likely to follow it, though again, there’s a lot more craft in the story and surrounding context than the base structure suggests.

Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#195

Post by jjeaff »

hello_moto wrote: post #145
ravenstine wrote: post #51

Hollywood is hanging itself by its own velvet rope. Remakes are seen as an excellent investment because, so long as they are properly stylized and full of dazzle, they are low-risk and have reasonable returns. Usually. This won't work for them forever, and I think everyday people are catching on to the fact that they're just being resold the same stuff they've already bought. The other day, my cousin's 11 year old so…

> He told us he didn't want to see it because they(Disney) were just taking a 2D movie that he'd already seen and are just doing the same thing again with actors to make more money On-point... next one on the pipeline is "MULAN" Cartoon to Real Human.

News flash, all major motion pictures are created "just to make money". I like the Disney animations and rather enjoy the live action remakes.

I also enjoy remakes of classic movies. It doesn't appear that I am alone.

But what is the criticism really? That they are making something they know lots of people will like?

It's not like a remake is any less effort than an original.

Even the script has to be rewritten and I would guess it takes even more effort to come up with a rewrite that doesn't stray too far from the original.

Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#196

Post by nappy »

luckydata wrote: post #185
goto11 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> everyday people are catching on to the fact that they're just being resold the same stuff they've already bought. But Hollywood have always done this - recycling old ideas in new wrapping. And Hollywood have always been criticized for being vapid entertainment, empty spectacle etc. "catching on to the fact" suggest that this is some secret insight which undermines the enjoyment of the movie. But I'm pretty sure mos…

> But Hollywood have always done this - recycling old ideas in new wrapping. And Hollywood have always been criticized for being vapid entertainment, empty spectacle etc. Not to this degree. The last good year for movies was 1999. This is the list of major releases that year: The Matrix Fight Club The Sixth Sense Toy Story 2 The Green Mile American Beauty Being John Malkovic Office Space The Iron Giant Magnolia Austi…

This is anecdotal to the point of being noise. How about comparing the top X grossing movies of 1999 vs. last year? Still subjective, but a step forward from "just the ones I enjoyed and I'm bothering to type" and two Netflix releases.

Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#198

Post by TylerE »

scarface74 wrote: post #188
majormajor wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, but I think it's safe to say that there were a lot more original movies a few decades ago than there are now. Hollywood used to take more risks. It's harder to get people to go to the theater due to a bunch of factors like improved TV tech and increased competition for time, but "hollywood" is also capitalizing on those things. Look at how many original series are on Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, etc, and compare tha…

Not according to the numbers. https://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/?view2=ytdcompare

That doesn't take inflation into account though. You'd expect it to go up 3-4% in $ terms even if sales were the same. That the number is actually flat over the last 4 years does mean sales are down a bit.

The $6.05B 2016 figure would be about $6.45B in 2019 dollars.

Box office trends have been shifting over the last decade or so... the big blockbusters (superhero movies especially) are bigger and bigger, but the mid-budget stuff that was a mainstay of the 90s and early 2000s (think stuff like Will Ferrell and Adam Sandler movies) is getting squeezed pretty hard.

To give one look at the distribution.... last year the 100th best performing movie did ($21.7M / $700M) = 3.1% of the #1 movie.

In 2010, ($26.5M / $415M) = 6.38%

In 2000, ($18.7M / 260M) = 7.19%

Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#199

Post by ars »

How do you write this article without mentioning youtube?

I watch far more youtube, than traditional Hollywood. And I don't mean random clips, but high quality content.

He's worried that Hollywood won't criticize China, or the military. Instead you'll find that on youtube.

Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#200

Post by fouc »

luckydata wrote: post #185
goto11 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> everyday people are catching on to the fact that they're just being resold the same stuff they've already bought. But Hollywood have always done this - recycling old ideas in new wrapping. And Hollywood have always been criticized for being vapid entertainment, empty spectacle etc. "catching on to the fact" suggest that this is some secret insight which undermines the enjoyment of the movie. But I'm pretty sure mos…

> But Hollywood have always done this - recycling old ideas in new wrapping. And Hollywood have always been criticized for being vapid entertainment, empty spectacle etc. Not to this degree. The last good year for movies was 1999. This is the list of major releases that year: The Matrix Fight Club The Sixth Sense Toy Story 2 The Green Mile American Beauty Being John Malkovic Office Space The Iron Giant Magnolia Austi…

That's almost 20 good new movies in 1 year. I feel like I have trouble finding 20 good new movies for the recent years.
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