THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Fun Stuff => ENJOY => Topic started by: GarandMarine on 16 Dec 2014, 12:06
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http://grantland.com/features/2014-hollywood-blockbusters-franchises-box-office/#.VJBzc0-n5qA.facebook
The article is incredible and I can't really add much to it with commentary, except to fervently hope he's wrong...
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It's a bitter thing but, ultimately, movies, especially the 'event' movies that studios depend on to keep up their cash flow, are expensive. Understandably, the studios are only willing to risk that sort of money on what their marketing guys tell them is a sure thing. The big problem is that franchise movies and sequels are not a sure thing in quality terms. Eventually, cookie-cutter repetition and the loss of all the originality that created the fan-base in the first place alienates fans and poisons the well, making the brand toxic.
The sad fact is that Lucas would never got Star Wars funded today. Too many risks: a largely unknown cast, an original screenplay and a genre that had previously been regarded as a niche outside of TV.
Although I love MCU, I really think that the wrong lessons have been learned from its success to date. We want fun and positive films, not adaptations of debatable quality of existing franchises from other media! Indeed, by the looks of things, even MCU, the standard-bearer, seems at risk of being drowned by schedule-fillers that will not contribute to the grand arc that promised to make it a modern model of how to make a multi-part franchise great.
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when the old studio system (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_system) died in the 60s, it took with it most of the big spectacle blockbusters, but made room for the small, low budget indie films of the 60s, 70s, & 80s. smaller & cheaper tech allowed people to make movies that would never have happened under the old system, giving artists a chance to get their start who never would have had a shot before. its from that pool that we got spielberg, rodriguez, tarantino, raimi, and many others.
the studios as we know them today are what grew to fill that void, eventually overshadowing the small independent films with new big spectacle blockbusters. as the movies and their budgets get bigger and bigger, they can afford to take fewer and fewer risks with those investments. movies get safer and less interesting. eventually, these juggernauts too will fall, making room for the new generation to get it's start.
i say: