Shocker: Hollywood Admits Some Of Their Movies Really Do Suck
from the moment-of-weakness dept
The entertainment industry loves to point the blame for their troubles elsewhere all the time. This leads to ridiculous situations like blaming text messaging or BitTorrent as being behind the decline in movie going. While theater owners have been blaming the quality of movies for the slump, Hollywood has mostly denied it… until now. A few Hollywood execs are now suddenly willing to admit that maybe they’ve just been making particularly crappy movies lately, and that improving the product could help the industry. Of course, the theater owners need to realize that “the product” isn’t just the movie, but the entire movie going experience that needs to improve. A combination of good movies and a good movie-going experience would do wonders for the industry. It’s almost shocking to find out that Hollywood may finally be recognizing that quality does matter, though, it’s hard to believe enough will be swayed to actually do anything to change things. Update: Double shock. Disney’s new chief is saying all the right things about embracing new technologies and giving consumers what they want. Of course, talk is cheap. Let’s see what actually happens.
Comments on “Shocker: Hollywood Admits Some Of Their Movies Really Do Suck”
There's still ...
An issue of pricing. I’m not going to crab about the ticket price, here, it’s under $10. What I will complain about is the price of popcorn and refreshments… Is a bucket of popcorn EVER worth $5? especially when anyone can buy a bag of unpopped for $2 and make 4-5 of those buckets? Many don’t want to waste so much money on overpriced edibles and if they try to bring in their own, many theatres take issue with it. Then there’s the movie killers — the people tha make you regret going with their lack of manners or consideration. With movies rushing to DVD and home theatres becoming a lot more common in this day and age, I have a feeling that the industry will continue to decline. I can’t remember the last time I HAD or cared to see a movie in a theatre, but I really don’t feel an urge to anymore.
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With regard to the movie snacks – it goes beyond that. In some states bringing in ‘contriband’ snacks is punishable by law.
Honestly though – the thing that really gets me is that I’m paying $7.50 to watch big screen commercials before the show gets going. I probably wouldn’t mind so much if those commercials made the concessions or ticket prices less expensive.
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It’s all Hollywood’s fault: “Movie theaters usually sell various snack foods and drinks at concession stands which often represents their primary source of income; movie studios in the US traditionally drive hard bargains entitling them to more than 70, 80, or 90% of the gross ticket revenue during the first week” – Dictionary.
Confessions of a snack smuggler: “I fought the law. And the law won.“
We're still physical
People still feel the need to physically travel, kids still want to physically go to Disney parks.
Should Disney embrace new, uncertain technologies, or should they worry about their bottom line? The new Disney park in Hong Kong is having lots of problems, including mainland Chinese tourists with no manners who piss in public, spit, smoke in non-smoking areas, causing so much air pollution that some people had to get treated for asthma, get into fist fights over seats and disrupt shows, and sue the park for charging too much for water bottles.
http://www.sankei.co.jp/news/051002/kok061.htm
No Subject Given
The Dead Kennedy’s, 20 odd years ago on the music industry:
“The lowest common denominator rules
Forget honesty
Forget creativity
The dumbest buy the mostest
That’s the name of the game
But sales are slumping
And no one will say why
Could it be they put out one too many lousy records?!?”
Movie Theatre = Dead
What’s wrong with movies:
1. Being forced to sit through commericals
2. Insanely high priced snacks
3. Blatent product commercials within movies
4. Cell phones / Comments from gallery
5. High ticket prices
6. Lousy scripts / canned plots
7. Same actors in every Nth movie
8. “Compulsory viewing” – It’s the must see movie for Arbor Day!
9. 60″+ HDTV at home with DTS
10. Halo2/Warcraft, etc…more fun, less money.
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11. No ability to pause, rewind, fast-forward.
Seriously, I rarely go to the theatres. I can just wait for the movie to come out on DVD and watch it on our home theatre where I can have friends over and stuff.
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My WIFE told me the other day: “Yeah, you might as well go buy Warcraft. I mean, a night out to the movies costs more than that game and you get a lot less entertainment out of that.”
Granted, I have been using this justification for years and years, but to hear my Wife tell me that… wow, the movie industry is in trouble and they had better find a way to start reinventing themselves.
PS. I do think its a fairly natural extension for movie producers to start taking on the production of video games as well. Sony seems to be expanding rapidly in this area, and I think we will see a lot more of it in the future.
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Not to mention that there are so few “original” ideas anymore. Everything is a remake of an old movie, old TV series, video game, comic book… What’s wrong with being original???
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What’s the matter is that they can’t possibly have any new ideas, They’ve all been done,re-done, and repackaged for resale. They ran out of ideas about six years ago. Even when we had all of this new technology to make CGI movies in a basement(Sin City- which was still based off of a comic book). There are no original ideas left it seems. All of the cliche’ish horror movie characters have been covered, every cutsy love story(including ghost chicks, internet hook ups,and BASEBALL for Gods sakes,BASEBALL!!,etc.)has been made, Disney ran out of classic fairy tale movies to rape, even christianity has been cashed in for hundreds of billions of dollars (it’s almost like , “well thats the greatest story ever, oh well i give up.”), creative thoughts and originality has been throw away along with the morals and scrupples of socity. I haven’t seen a movie(other than Episode III(which I still didn’t see))that made me say more than “heh, I’ll have to see that on DVD” ,in a long time. But hey, maybe all of this reality T.V. BS is an easy way for us to turn off the T.V.,save our money, and get back to OUR reality. What ever happened to dinner, wine and sex?
P.S. I’m aetheist, more or less.
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Actually, I think there are orignal thoughts & ideas out there, it’s just that no one is grabbing them. It’s far too easy to market a stupid Dukes of Hazard movie to the least common denominator than to take a chance & make something that might not make a gazillion dollars, but rather challenges our intellect & perception. Occasionally – and I mean OCCASIONALLY – a movie will come along that makes you go, “wow – i needed that!”… American Beauty, Raising Arizona, Nightmare Before Christmas, the Fisher King… these are some of the movies that did it for me
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Yea. But Dukes of Hazzard didn’t clear that much at the box office. That idea was during the 80’s when I was growing up. Did they honestly think someone who’s now 25 years old is going to go and watch that crap? I mean for real, Sean Williams Scott, Jessica Simpson, and Johnny Knoxville? Todays kids have no idea what the Dukes of Hazzard were even about. They’re wrapped up in hip-hop and being trashy little sluts(ala Paris Hilton). I agree there hasn’t been a good Forest Gump, Silence of the Lambs, much less a good Joe Vs. the Volcano. But, still it just seems like they’re not even trying to win an Oscar anymore. The Cinderella Man? Another boxing movie trying to ride the heels of Million Dollar Baby. Which they handed to Eastwood because there wasn’t any great drama’s last year. I give props to Fox for Ray. but even that if you watch it once(for me at least) it’s good enough. But in conclusion your exactly right there hasn’t been a good box-office blast type of movie in a long while, drama/artisticly speaking. All rehashes.
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I agree – Mirror Mask and Serenity are truly original films that have just come out. I couldn’t name any other films that are playing right now, because I quit caring about the movies.
I have been saying for the past several years that Hollywood is out of ideas, and it’s just getting worse.
Thank goodness for independent film makers.
Along with all the other gripes about movie going that have been given here, I would add that the “self-love” fest that has been going on in Hollywood where they use award shows to hype movies, and try to make certain movies more popular, in order to squeeze every penny from us “poor dumb sheep” grates on my nerves.
Who gives a hoot’na haller about overpaid, self absorbed, worthless to humanity types getting praised by a society who’s sole purpose is to make more money.
The good actors, the ones worthy of praise, find it in their fans, and garner a following (who doesn’t think Johnny Dep does a decent if not brilliant job most of the time? Tim Burton, etc. etc.). The rest need the “awards machine” to generate hype (which really only comes from, and in return, is only for, the media anyway).
Nope, for most of Hollywood, it has become only about money, not a craft.
And don’t get me started about the MPAA lawsuit shenanegens.