There’s a disconnect between what the masses find entertaining vs. what the elites find artistically valuable. This gap is far wider now than it has ever been.
Throughout the 60s and 70s 19/20 films that won best picture were in the Top 10 Grossing. Since 2003 there hasn’t been a single one. Even after they expanded the number of nominations there’s still only 0-1 nominations in the Top 10 Grossing every year.
This is really due to the the fact that nearly every film in the Top 10 Grossing is a sequel, a remake, or a franchise movie. These films print money so Hollywood keeps making them.
In 1979 Kramer v Kramer was the highest grossing film. In 2021 it was Spider-Man: No Way Home (the 12th Spider-Man film to come out since 2000). Spider-Man made over 3 times as much when adjusted for inflation.
You could say that the artistic portion of Hollywood is dying, though Hollywood is doing as good as always.
> There’s a disconnect between what the masses find entertaining vs. what the elites find artistically valuable. This gap is far wider now than it has ever been.
When you word it like that, you make it sound like "the masses" don't find movies artistically valuable, and "the elites" don't find movies entertaining.
What if "the masses" are able to find movies just as artistically valuable as "the elites", but just don't want to shell out $100 going to see a movie that can be viewed at home in a few months for free without any loss of fidelity? And what if "the elites" take just as much pleasure as "the masses" in seeing the newest Hollywood spectacle in 3D IMAX with 100+ channels of Atmos surround sound?
In other words, what if this doesn't have anything to do with social class, but rather with the fact that going to the theater costs 10x as much as it used to cost while home viewing is 10x better than it used to be?
I'm not saying the increased theater cost isn't worth it. To the contrary: some movies can really only be properly experienced in the theaters with all the bells and whistles—and those movies are the ones that people are willing to pay for.
Haven’t been to the theater in over a decade, does it really now cost that much to see a movie with hundreds of other people farting, chewing on popcorn, slurping their drinks, in maybe a good seat (maybe not), on a fixed rigid schedule?
If so, no wonder cinemas are dying… I’d do anything to avoid this “experience” especially if it costs so much.
Instead I can watch it at home on my decent sound system without 20 minutes of ads before the movie, no risk of Covid or flu, on my OLED screen, pausing whenever I need, with the volume I like, and subtitles if I feel like it.
> All that said, using the word "only" as you did indicates a certain level of economic ignorance.
I wasn't using "only" to say it's cheap from some absolute perspective, just that it's way cheaper than was claimed. For example, if someone says an Airbus A320 costs about $500,000,000, it's not economically ignorant to respond that no, it "only" costs about $100,000,000.
Yeah, but you're wrong to say that it's cheaper than what I indicated. I took my kids to see Avatar in IMAX last weekend and the total bill was north of $100 including a few snacks.
I think OP was talking about the academic/artistic elites, which nowadays seem more divorced from the general population than they used to be. And I think that has more to do with the internet than movie prices.
People who want to get into the "theoretical" aspects of a movie can go insanely deep very quickly, whereas the average person won't care as much. On one hand you have a bunch of nerds trying to make/recognize increasingly obscure references as our ability to remember and find things gets better, and on the other hand you have people who just want to see stuff get blown up.
One contributing factor to the lack of artsy movies is audience sensitivity. "Kramer v Kramer" would never be made today because it touches on many potentially offensive topics. Studios would rather put their money on safe bets, movies that avoid sensitive topics - sequels, remakes and comic book characters.
Another big factor is the global market. Chinese viewers aren't going to care about anything in "Kramer v Kramer", or even be able to understand a lot of it due to the language barrier. Movies about superheroes blowing things up is easy for anyone to understand.
There is also the "Television" series. I think the confines of a 90-120 minute film have just been played out if an artist is really interested in expression.
I had just watched the series The Serpent last week and that was as brilliant as any movie I can think of that I have ever watched.
To cut it down to a 90 minute movie would have just made it a rehash and most likely not very interesting.
Seems to me that movies these days have gotten a lot longer than 90 or even 120 minutes. Now, 2 hours seems to be a bare minimum.
One thing I really like about these serial TV shows (like Game of Thrones) is that they're limited to 1-hour episodes. So I don't have to dedicate 3 hours or more of my time to a single viewing; it's a lot easier to fit 1 hour into an evening. And then I can see more of the story in following evenings. I also don't have to sit in a theater holding my bladder for 3 hours, since TV shows are seen at home, and I can pause it if I don't want to wait until the end for a bathroom break.
I generally agree with the heart of what you are saying more or less. A huge shift has occured - in 1979 you could only see a movie in a theater. (Not even physical media was a big business back then yet.) However, the one thing I would note here is how the distribution business has shifted mostly to VOD subscriptions.
Awards, as a marketing tool, are still worth playing and winning for the producer of a film if not mainly for the purpose of selling their title to a VOD library. And while the effect for the VOD distribution might not be 1:1, it is worth having that sort of content in your offering.
Academy Awards are a strange beauty pageant - the campaigning that must happen and the way a title must be made to win is too strange. It’s kind of like food - aiming to be a fast casual franchise is different from wanting to start a michelin restaurant.
The Oscars are a marketing tool. They're great marketing, with some interesting caveats, but they're marketing. They're not even unique, to the extent they ever were, and they long since stopped trying to be "all things to all people" or "consensus" other than being a consensus of Hollywood insiders.
Ultimately, they're a sampling of Hollywood insiders' opinions of which films were the most "Oscar" of the previous year's pick of Hollywood films, publicized to promote those films, the general idea that Hollywood is still relevant in the film industry, and the even more nebulous idea that what Hollywood defines as films are relevant in our culture.
It isn't even about the "Best" in any real sense: "Best" is either subjective, in which case Hollywood's idea is as good as anyone's, or is defined through long-lasting cultural impact, in which case nobody can pick out the "Best" films of a year a few months after that year is over.
Is it even guaranteed that the year's best, longest-lasting films will even be made in the Hollywood system? Will they be the ones eligible for Oscars? Hollywood wants people to think so, which is part of what the Oscars are for, to legitimize the Hollywood process and culture, but the world is bigger than that now. We've grown up.
> Ultimately, they're a sampling of Hollywood insiders' opinions of which films were the most "Oscar" of the previous year's pick of Hollywood films, publicized to promote those films, the general idea that Hollywood is still relevant in the film industry, and the even more nebulous idea that what Hollywood defines as films are relevant in our culture.
So why does Avengers make $2B per movie - mostly overseas - if it's irrelevant? Why are more people watching Hollywood movies (and spending more money to do so) than ever before if Hollywood is irrelevant?
Just because you have different tastes than Hollywood doesn't mean Hollywood is in decline. Maybe you think the quality is. That's subjective. Someone's always going to think that.
But it's hard to argue the relevance is... Objectively, it just doesn't seem to be the case.
Are the numbers fake?
How do you define "relevant" other than people watching content in an industry defined by... people watching content?!
Avengers, fast food, they all fulfill a real need. The question is, should the Oscars celebrate the Michelin restaurants, or KFC? It's ultimately their decision, whether we approve it or not. I believe we have prizes for different productions - Cannes, Sundance... so if I don't enjoy the Oscars lists, I certainly have other lists to choose from.
I hope the Oscars are able to swallow their pride and just shrink down to size. I do still think that a best picture nomination means something and I enjoy picking a couple off each year's list to watch.
The alternative is that the Oscars keeps trying to build a big tent (like when they expanded best picture to 10 movies so they could throw a few gimmes in there to mass audiences) and IMO that's doomed to failure. The MTV Movie Awards already exists and does its thing for big blockbusters, the world doesn't need another.
All this said I am going to be interested to see where cinema is in 5-10 years. My personal theory is that once superhero movies face an audience decline (which, to some level, is inevitable) they'll end up in a difficult spot: their budgets are astronomical and will have to be trimmed back, which will result in less impressive movies, which could lead to a downward spiral. Maybe at that point we'll see a revival of mid-budget mass movies. ...but probably not.
I'm not saying superhero movies are directly attributable, just that their decline might be a moment for a shakeup. I'm not particularly convinced it will happen because I think streaming and prestige TV have also had a strong effect on what the movie industry does and doesn't do.
In terms of the kind of movies I'm thinking of, looking back through past best picture winners I'm thinking of things like A Beautiful Mind, No Country for Old Men, American Beauty. But also "frat pack" type comedies like Knocked Up, Dodgeball etc etc, they were their own mini industry for a time!
Obviously it's difficult to say which of those would be affected today (effectively asking which movies do we not know about that haven't been made today) but the mid-budget decline is a well documented thing.
> do you think the release of one superhero movie per quarter
This in sense large number of people have only so much time. With Superhero stuff dropping in with high frequency and kids forcing families to watch them, other mass movies do not stand much chance to find audience time.
The Oscars, as an award, are a bit of self-congratulatory back-patting by the industry. That's fine. I honestly don't know why people ever watched it.
Or rather, I do know. It's because people used to like watching movie stars glam themselves up and be generally famous and fabulous at each other. There are so many better entertainment options now.
The Oscars have usually done a decent job of promoting something with some kind of artistic merit but not a ton of attention. Not always, but every year there are usually a few films that deserved more than they got. If you were looking for something a bit different from the usual fare, there are worse places to look than the Oscars' list.
It'll be slightly sad if that flounders because there's no longer an appetite for watching famous, beautiful people be beautiful and famous. But it doesn't affect the industry one way or the other.
I actually kinda hope that the voracious appetite of competing streaming services means more filmmakers get a chance to be seen. If that means the death of Hollywood-as-we-know it, the machine for producing a tiny number of very famous people... oh well.
Streaming has made entertainment a hyper-competitive field that is no longer fixed to any time blocks. How could the Oscars compete? Would you rather watch the rise of Pablo Escobar or Matt Damon open an envelope in the most smug, self congratulatory room in the world?
Back in my day ... Those rose tinted glasses are rewriting a lot of history.
“I used to be in the movie business where you made something really because you cared about it,” he told NPR. The very definition of movie, he went on, “is in such transition that it doesn’t mean anything right now.”
I don’t think that critique applies because it’s not really young people driving this stagnation industry side and I don’t think they are the target of the OP’s ire. It’s people like Lorne Michaels who have decades long careers that have their hand prints all over entire genres, the ones who make up the Great Filter that decides where 90% of the big money goes. Most of those people aren’t very young and I suspect face the same concentration of age problem at the top that our politics experiences.
I like to pick on "Raiders of the Lost Ark" as the birth of what I call the storyboard film. Characters, dialog, character-interaction, even plot are secondary to the primary construction of the film as a string of storyboarded action sequences.
Sure, "Raiders" was unabashed about that. It was reviving the style of serials that were constructed in the same manner. And I think there's a place for those films. Sadly that seemed to become the template for The Blockbuster Film ever since.
Then "Pirates of the Caribbean" and their whole franchise took that storyboard model to the point where it became almost a parody. There were so many "climatic battles" in those films that I never had any clue as to when the film was actually about to end. (And we seemed to go past two hours for action films on a regular basis by then as well.)
When all the super-hero films started crowding the release schedules they were so bad I stopped going to the theater altogether. :-(
Indeed, the old New Hollywood, the iconoclast directors that were the new hotness (compared to geriatric John Ford and the like), are themselves the old and busted new Old Hollywood, ready for disruption.
They did not die as heroes, therefore lasted long enough to become villains.
> “It should be for the industry,” he said, “and not for the consumers.”
It arguably already is, always has been, and that's why it's in decline. The demographics of the Academy put the voting members out of touch with the public in a way that makes the award winners a big list of head-scratchers. I was shook when Everything Everywhere All at Once got a bunch of nominations though, maybe there's hope for this thing.
Meanwhile, Martin Scorcese spent virtually his entire career making movies about being depressed, violent, and Italian and somehow that's just good cinema.
He really didn't. People who don't really know his work think he just makes mobster movies. But he is actually a quite a varied filmmaker. How does being "depressed, violent, and Italian" fit into The Last Temptation of Christ (which controversially reinterpreted Jesus' story), or Hugo, about the great French filmmaker Georges Méliès? Or Kundun about the Dalai Lama? Or Silence about Japanese Christians?
Even most of his mobster movies aren't really about being depressed or Italian.
Casino's main character is Jewish. Gangs of New York is about Irish Catholics and American Protestants. The Departed is about Irishes. The Wolf of Wall Street may be about depression (haven't seen it), but is not about violence nor about Italians. The Irishman certainly has a lot of depression, and certainly violence and Italians, but even then.....it's called the "Irishman".
Goodfellas is probably the one prime example that is certainly about violence and Italians, and I'm not sure that's that depressed.
It starts well. But the last third is really weak IMO, it's some juvenile revenge fantasy and then the protagonist is called a hero and gets the girl. I'm not sure that there is any irony there. I was disappointed. Scorsese became better after that.
There surely is! This scene is so over the top, it is clearly not meant to be taken literally. Some people even interpret it as a hallucination by Travis while he is dying.
Compare this to the music industry and the Grammy Awards.
No one watches the Grammies anymore (for some value of "no one"). But people are still listening to music, and money continues to be made. There is still a music industry, albeit increasingly dominated by older artists and material. People still go to concerts (hello, Taylor Swift).
The Oscars have no real purpose anymore, either, but people still consume video content; just on their home screens. The big "movie and TV" companies will continue to churn out crap to fill the void, and consumers will still search for some opinions they respect as to the content worth watching. People in the industry will still seek validation that they're something more than disposable units like K-Pop "stars."
Next evolution: awards shows move to subscription channels, so people in the industry and anyone who really wants to can watch them. Like most baseball games.
There is a movie theatre near us that hosts birthday parties - you get a party room for an hour or two and then the whole group gets a theatre all to themselves to watch a current-run movie that the organizer has chosen.
We called them up not too long ago to ask about booking a party. Nope, they said that they didn't expect to have anything kid-appropriate available to them during our requested weekend (next month).
A few local theaters here will let you rent out a whole Theater for about $150 and let you bring your own Blue Ray movie to play. Friend of mine did it to propose to his now wife. Took her to a great dinner, rented the entire theater, showed her favorite movie and proposed. they were the only 2 people in the room.
That's interesting. As a parent of young kids myself I have noticed an absolute dearth of kids movies in the theatres (it's cold outside and we need something to do!). The only one has been the Puss in Boots movie but it's definitely for older kids (part of the plot is Puss literally being pursued by Death) so we haven't been.
I'm surprised the theatre couldn't just put on an older movie but maybe the deal with their distributor forbids them from doing so?
Puss in Boots was a fantastic movie for my 7-yr-old, in my eyes it's more like a hispano-western and the artwork is super interesting for me 40-yr-old. Watching it on a small screen where I constantly do breaks would be a shame.
We have a small movie theater in Linz, Austria, where they do do put up older movies, just a few months ago I was the only of two dressed as expected for Reservoir Dogs. And then they skip movies altogether and I have to the big one outside the city center. I wish they'd digitalize the movie-wishlist so I could enjoy older movies with friends that we actually want to see.
> I'm surprised the theatre couldn't just put on an older movie
I've been thinking about that too. I've really wanted to get the kids out of the house lately, but there was nothing new to watch in the cinema. I wouldn't mind taking them to see an old film.
When I worked at a movie theater (many decades ago) the theater did not have prints of random movies laying around. The only prints we had were the movies we were currently showing, and those were decided weeks in advance.
This has been the primary business model of the theater in my small town for at least 30 years. Tables, not rows - and they sold pizza in addition to normal movie snacks. It was pretty awesome as a kid.
This is due to contracts. When we get a movie booked for our 1 screen theater, we are stuck with that movie and only that movie for the time we run it. 1 screen = 1 movie. We aren't allowed to show anything else during that usual 2 to 3 week timeframe. With one sort of gotcha being the inbetween week going from a release to a release, since we aren't technically showing any movies from the Monday to Thursday. Advertising for special events in those times are even more trickier as we aren't allowed to post some of them on our website or facebook because of these terms.
The movie producers and distributors are very much at fault for this set up.
It would be super great to be able to run a kids/family movie on Fri + Sat Morning then do a more adult movie on Sat night/ Sunday, but it just isn't allowed.
The people killing movies in a theater is the movie companies, not the theaters.
I'm somewhat shocked that they aren't set up to play whatever movie that someone might bring in over their system, so long as it was a closed theater for just the guests... shame.
That's almost certainly a rights issue. Even if legal, movie studios probably wouldn't be happy about not getting a cut of the action and would stop releasing movies to that theater. Which is too bad because it seems like there could be a system where you can select from a studio's library of past releases and pay a fee for viewing. Just like their opposition to VCRs which ended up greatly improving their bottom line instead of killing them off like "the Boston Strangler", Hollywood can be very myopic about current versus new revenue streams.
> there could be a system where you can select from a studio's library of past releases and pay a fee for viewing.
People have had this system at home for 15+ years. The question is does watching it in a movie theater provide sufficient utility for the cost compared to watching it at home.
I do wonder if Alamo Drafthouse might change that. Unlike AMC/Regal/etc., they're not forcing you to watch 30 minutes of ads before a movie, charging absurd prices for low-effort, low-quality concessions, or hiring minimum wage workers who don't care if the theater is filled with screaming teenagers. Instead, Alamo Drafthouse feels like a cultural throwback 1990s Blockbuster, a place where you go to have movie nerds show you movies and include you in their nerd-dom, and with better food.
And yeah, the self-congratulatory nonsense that is the Oscars is out of touch with audiences, but there are lots of studios that are doing great things--they're just not trying for Oscars, so they're not winning them.
I think Alamo will stick around but there may be 1-2 per city instead of lots serving many pictures.
I think theaters can be fairly cheap to run and my city already has a few “hobby” theaters that don’t make money but are kept open by someone who really likes movies.
>I think the theater business is dead, it will just take a long time.
I think the word you are looking for is dying. Dead vs dying is not the same thing. Dead is dead, unless it's a zombie. Dying a slow death is what you're describing, but miracles can happen that prevent the actual death.
Also, peaking doesn't mean dead. I'm just really confused by your definitions
Dead as in no cares about investing in it because it’s dying.
So sort of like in the fashion sense. I mean bellbottoms still exist, but they are rare .
Or similar to the expression “jump the shark” in that it is still popular, but less so over time. And its inevitable demise is known so it speeds up its demise.
I would love to see it become a golden era of the niche matinee where smaller theaters can flourish that show older films, art films, foreign films etc.
I would love to see distributors offer up high-quality digital copies of their films for small theaters to screen. Might be another source of cash flow to the rights-holders. It would be nice to see, just as an example, "Andrei Rublyov", on the big screen in 8K or whatever quality.
> I would love to see it become a golden era of the niche matinee where smaller theaters can flourish that show older films, art films, foreign films etc.
You should love the reality we live in, then, because that's exactly what's been happening and it's in some sense part of the problem.
My spouse and I go to the theaters as often as we ever have, but it's very noticeable that the lion's share of the movies we now watch in theater are special showings of older movie classics or "cinema of country X" type festival events, which than often select from the last ten years or so. This has held for the past half-decade across two countries.
When we lived in Seoul, there was a few years when it was a popular couple date option to go to open air rooftop cinemas showing modern classics like "Her" or "Before Sunrise", or to go to the Silver Cinemas originally subsidized for seniors where you'd watch old Hollywood classics from the 40s to 60s (we managed to watch a 70mm projection of all the 4 hours of "Lawrence of Arabia" that way). Now in Berlin, there's a large selection of small cinemas showing random movies from all eras. Our favorite is situated in an old DVD store and specializes in a combo of movies and serving specialty whisky ... it's as hipster as it sounds. I think the last movies we went to see there were "First Blood" and "Persona" and "Leon", I guess.
And it's fun, but at the same time it's kind of sad your only two options are watching the latest Marvel flick or All Time Top 250 movies from the 1970s. That still means so much that movies used to be is gone. The second-tier smaller blockbusters you had in the 80s and 90s for example, non-franchise original IP, or the even the lesser known movies from decades past. If you're not on top of the food order, you're just gone.
I'm not too doom-y and gloom-y overall on the state of movies, there's still more interesting movies each year than I can keep up with if I aggregate all the possible venues. But the selection in cinemas is, well, very two-note.
While I lament the number of bookstores and music shops that have gone away, and that boom times are unlikely to come again (and birth wide variety) … what remains are generally purposeful, well-cared-for, well-appreciated places.
It's not what I'd wish, but it's where I hope things go for the theatrical experience as well.
I think you are wrong. It's a great excuse to get out of the house and go out to do something still somewhat lowkey social. You can't always just hang out at home.
Agree with this, but the overall effect is that there will still be a great reduction in the overall numbers of theatergoers.
Used to be that if you wanted to see a new movie you had to see it in theaters. Now you have a lot more options, so going to the theater is more of a planned, special event.
I think the analogy to music fits. Before recorded music there were tons of music venues because if you wanted to hear music (and not your own), you had to get out of the house. Live concerts and performances most definitely didn't die, but they became more of a special-event type of thing.
Totally agree with you. Going to movies is a fun and easy group activity with friends.
Box office numbers for blockbusters still shows plenty of people like going to the movies. You just don't hear about much outside of the blockbusters anymore.
Comedy and romantic comedy seems to have largely died out for some reason.
I disagree. I leave my home for 2-3 hours/MONTH to refill my prescriptions and run a couple errands. Been that way since March 2020 when Covid appeared and have no intention of altering my routine.
I am not attacking here, I am genuinely interested. Why do you isolate like this? Are you or a family member severely immunocompromised? Or is it a general unease over catching COVID? If it's the latter how long will you continue to live this way? Just curious, you will of course live your life however you want.
I isolate because it's the safest way to live in terms of avoiding Covid.
It works just fine for me: everything I need can be ordered/delivered to my front door/mailbox.
I live alone (with my cat so, far from alone... but I digress) and am not immunocompromised or otherwise ill.
In fact, the opposite is true: I won the Richmond Half-Marathon in 2018 in a time of 1:55 [sub-9-minutes/mile] (Men 70-75); finished 3rd in 2019 in 1:57; and am determined to win this year's race (Men 75-80; I turn 75 on June 8 and the race is on November 11, 2023).
People I know keep getting Covid; some 525 people/day in the U.S. die of Covid; long Covid basically destroys lives and is doing so to millions of Americans.
It's as if by declaring an emergency over, by some magical spell it becomes true to many; not to me.
I already know EXACTLY how long I will continue to live this way and have told this to my family (daughter/son-in-law/6-year-old grandson who live in Pittsburgh, whom I last saw in person in November 2019).
When the U.S. death rate from Covid equals that from car crashes (45,000 in 2022; 120 people/day), that is when I will toss my 3M N95 masks in the trash and live like everyone else.
What with the current figure of 525 deaths/day — up from around 300, the lowest it's ever been, in October 2022, since when it's risen steadily — I project around 2027-2030.
Interesting approach. Why choose a metric such as car crashes instead of something like the flu? Although I think they are both likely in the same ballpark.
I'm glad to see you are still active despite being isolated.
You are obviously a smart person and likely more familiar with the medical aspects of this than me due to your background. Do you feel at all that you are staying this path due to the initial justified fear of the disease and now it's simply a part of your mindset or do you think you are able to frequently reassess your isolation from a new unbiased point of view? Again this is not an attack, you are obviously making many sacrifices to live this way and sometimes it's hard to take a step back and see the whole picture. Pros vs cons.
Were you an introvert before (as that may have eased the transition)?
What are your thoughts on those that no longer isolate, especially people with kids?
Feel free to ignore some or all of my questions:)
Again, no judgement, just interested in the mindset and perspective of those that have made this decision.
If I use that metric I'm never ever gonna feel safe from Covid! Best I stick to car crashes, no?
No, I don't think for a second I'd continue my lifestyle unless the evidence justified it.
I'm always looking for evidence making it safe to abandon my extreme approach but so far I haven't found it.
The thing is, I don't feel like I'm making any sacrifices to live how I'm living — with the exception of not seeing my family in person (FaceTime isn't a substitute).
You called it: I'm basically an introvert, happiest sitting quietly with my cat on my lap reading.
This has always been the case my entire life, for many decades before Covid.
I'm totally fine with others who don't isolate, whether or not they have kids.
I find no fault with anyone's approach/behavior, but I must say every time I see a picture of an crowded airport, as happened with the Southwest Airlines debacle, I marvel at the way almost all people don't give any thought to Covid.
I appreciate your answers.
I admit to being one of those that really doesn't give much thought to COVID but I think it's due to having school age kids. During the year long initial isolation phase my kids didn't do well so now they are in school and back to normal. With that said they are surrounded by kids coughing and sneezing on each other all day so I see it as an inevitably so don't worry about it. We all got COVID about 8 months ago and thankfully all recovered pretty quickly. Symptoms were equivalent to the flu but I know these vary from person to person.
All the best and I hope we hit your metric sooner than later. Good luck at your race!
well i'm so glad you get to define what everyone else gets to do. it's such an honor to be limited by your preferences. thanks for being that person for us all.
Yes, movie theater going probably will become a niche activity, but not until the current superhero spectacular trend ends. These movies are made for viewing in large auditoriums with huge screens and dozens of speakers. The gap between home entertainment systems and movie theaters continues to narrow and special effect ladened movies are the last movies that still are solidly on the movie theater side of the gap. Once that burns out, even if home entertainment systems never catch up with movie theaters, there won't be much left to keep most of the theaters in business.
IMAX is just too rare for most moviegoers. I'd have to drive 5 hours to watch a movie on IMAX, and thought I'd have loved to see Avatar 2 on it, it's just not worth it for most people.
Matt Damon has a great explanation of why the movie industry has shifted the way it has. It has a lot to do with the loss of DVD sales covering much of the cost of movies.
The Movie industry has been written off before. First it was Television, then it was video. Each time it survived. It took advantage of the unique attributes of the Cinema to produce a product that couldn't be replicated easily. But I think COVID demonstrated that we don't really need or miss Cinema when it's not available. Streaming and Video games carried us through. But now we can go again, we don't really care enough or want to go. What Diller may have meant in terms of the Oscars is that the spectacle of it may be over, but I think the award itself is still relevant, but they may need to broaden the acceptable nominees to include films that were streamed. The Movie business won't die but it may shrink some more untill it finds a stable area.
Unfortunately, most of those superhero movies have adult content smushed into them. It rarely adds much to the story but does limit the lower age range of the potential audience. Seems like they're mainly aimed at horny teenagers and adults who still act like horny teens.
Those movies are incredibly violent from top to bottom and feature near constant scenes of characters engaging in activities that would get kids killed if emulated, or arrested if not killed. But a chaste kiss or profane language or mild inuendo is what makes them inappropriate for children? (The marvel moves in particular have been widely criticized for avoiding even implying that sex is happening anywhere, https://bookriot.com/why-are-mcu-superhero-movies-sexless/ )
Personally I don't think they'd be improved by adding sex, maybe improved by some better innuendo. I think movies in general WAY overuse sex scenes where its totally unnecessary or where some innuendo (or even just people heading to the bedroom) would suffice for plot purposes. It's not like movies usually acknowledge that people ever go to the bathroom, but you know if movie plots were real life half of them would have been tripped up because someone was in the toilet at the wrong time.
But when it comes to the marvel movies, I'm really at a loss at what adult content you think is making them unsuitable other than their fundamental violence.
“I used to be in the movie business where you made something really because you cared about it,” he told NPR. The very definition of movie, he went on, “is in such transition that it doesn’t mean anything right now.”
Pretty rich stuff coming from a dude who presides over a studio that's basically pumped out nothing but reboots, sequels and schlock for the last decade.
He must really care about the cinematic masterpieces (/S) that are the Mission Impossible and Transformers franchises since they keep making so damn many of them even after most of us long ago stopped caring.
He's not wrong about the movie business in general though, he's just right for the wrong reasons.
Whatever is left of the film and TV industries in 10 years after AI has disrupted literally every facet of content production, is going to be wildly different and likely unrecognizable to the industry of today. Legacy incumbents like Paramount might have an advantage in that they'll have the capital to invest in the new tools and be able to re-capture a sizable portion of the market, but more likely they'll have too much momentum and inertia to adjust to the changing times quickly enough, and will be left in the dust by new more "AI focused" studios who are able to pump out A LOT more content for a great range of niche audiences A LOT more quickly, and who are better able to figure out distribution to allow them to monetize they're content more effectively in a post scarcity media industry.
I guess this hypocrisy has a long tradition. MGM's long-standing lion intro sequence has "Ars gratia artis", art for the sake of art. Is art for the sake of art what you think of when you think of MGM?
> Pretty rich stuff coming from a dude who presides over a studio that's basically pumped out nothing but reboots, sequels and schlock for the last decade.
Which studio? I thought Diller was mostly into matchmaking / travel agent / other websites.
Just thinking of the term "movie goer". I don't hear it much and not sure it really reflects the current crop of modern cinephiles. 25 years ago I had a regular cadence with a couple of friends to grab dinner and see a movie on a Thursday. It was usually an offbeat movie night in the review theatres in Toronto. First we picked the movie (you scanned the entertainment section of a NEWSPAPER!) and then where to eat. The effort of organizing ourselves and getting out created a commitment to the whole scene. We would debate what we saw, make comparisons and recommendations. We also traded hard to get movies from our respective video stores.
Better or worse, I don't care, but it was a lot different. I could see people caring about the Oscars more in the past because there was a commitment beyond the couch. You couldn't normally see an Oscar nominated movie unless you got to a theatre. I can see the Oscars becoming a footnote pretty soon.
I've been listening to The Video Archives podcast and really enjoy the analysis and movie lore. It will be interesting to see how this present generation of movies gets analyzed and the stories they generate.
I think the movie business is changing, but I doubt it’s dead. Whether that means change from a business or a creative perspective, I think the answer is “yes”.
I still go to the theaters pretty often. The subscription style pass at Regal is pretty useful.
What might help the "actual movie" business would be to actually use exclusivity effectively.
There's no real exclusivity to a cinema, because home video is too compelling. Even if it says "only in theatres" on the ad, you're still doing mental math of "okay, so that's N weeks till it hits $streaming_service".
They can counter this by bringing back something like the old Boomer "in my day, we got a serial and a cartoon and the feature!" angle.
Put together some 10-minute shorts. Make it clear they're never coming to home video (or on a massive delay-- like if you do a serial, release a packaged version 5 years after the last installment). If you can make them a serial or recurring characters so people get vested in regular installments, all the better. Animation might be a good choice, because you can slip it in front of anything all the way down to G-rated kiddie films. Suddenly, there's something you can only get at the cinema that's not a $9 box of Goobers.
Yes, in short, I'm saying to bring back the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. The main film still goes to streaming and DVDs eventually, but now viewers are also saying "I did want to see the new Wile E. Coyote bit, so I may as well move up my plans to see Superhero Colonoscopy VII to this weekend."
I don't think that it matters. Like movies in the cinema are so insanely more expensive to go to per hour of intertainment compared to something like Netflix.
Want to watch cartoons? Great! Disney plus is actually quite cheap. Streaming is much cheaper and far more convinient than going to the movies, and if you have kids you either have to pay for tickets and snacks for everybody, or you have to get somebody to look after them.
Adding a single exclusive cartoon is not going to change that.
That's not because the kids are weird. It's because new movies mostly suck and are distributed through an inaccessible labyrinth of disconnected streaming services. Movies were killed by studios, not by the incomprehensible preferences of a new generation.
Kids are smart. Their preferences fit to the shape of the arising world better.
Studios don't have to be dumb for a more optimal solution for { attention, culture, interest, sharing, signalling, popularity, fame, value, narrative, etc. } to arise.
Studios being dumb did contribute, but I think that played a more subdued role. The dominating factor is that new mediums solve the core reason for Hollywood's existence better.
We grown-ups are who the kids follow. If you don't take your kids to the movies, theater shows (my 7-yr-old saw here first opera last month, a kids-version. she's decades ahead of me) or concerts then they won't keep the industry alive as teenagers and adults.
I'm sure we'll start to see tiktok/youtube movies in the theaters soon enough. By that I mean studios pulling in stars to make god knows what (if we're lucky it'll be something like Freddy got fingered).
The power of the Paul brothers et al is incredible.
My nephews are spoiled and got lots of stuff for Xmas including a PS5. What they were most excited about was me bringing back ‘American Prime’ for them.
Sending pics of the bottles to their mates, they sold the empty bottles for 10 quid each at school.
Kids would buy them to put water in and pretend they were drinking Prime.
2022 had 2 of the top 20 biggest box-office movies of all time (Avatar 2 and Top Gun: Maverick) and the last 5 years have seen 9[1]. There are still big-budget movies being made and raking it in at the box office. I think, covid, the rise (and seeming decline) of streaming services and the tightening of belts generally are going to affect the movie business and probably it will and should change. But is it finished? Of course not.
Adjusted for inflation, and considering pent up demand from closed theaters in 2020 and 2021, it's not quite as impressive.
And both of 2022's winners were sequels (2009 and 1986), suggesting that this is milking the last and the new generation of creators aren't bringing in comparable audiences.
I'm not sure pent-up demand is really a reasonable expectation in this case. People couldn't go to the cinema for a while so they watched things via streaming. It's not like when cinemas were open again they were going to rush in and gorge themselves on overpriced popcorn.
> It's not like when cinemas were open again they were going to rush in and gorge themselves on overpriced popcorn.
Anecdotally, and intuitively, I think it is exactly like that? After sitting inside watching TV for two years, people were absolutely missing in-person, out-of-the-house experiences like the cinema. And they were sitting on two years of savings so the popcorn prices were easier to stomach.
I am extremely irritated by this article and the comments made by Barry Diller. First of all, how dare he dismiss the Oscars as "an antiquity" and claim it is "terminal." The Oscars have been a prestigious and highly anticipated event for decades and it is insulting for someone like Diller to belittle its importance and relevance.
His statement about the decline of the film industry and the "perfect storm" created by increasing ticket prices, the pandemic, and the surge of streaming platforms is a weak and oversimplified excuse for the decline of the movie industry. He's blaming the decline of the movie industry on factors that are beyond anyone's control and not taking responsibility for the lack of innovation and creativity within the industry itself.
Diller's comments about the film industry being in transition and not meaning anything right now are completely inaccurate. The film industry is alive and well and continues to evolve, as evidenced by the success of streaming platforms and the continued production of highly anticipated movies.
Furthermore, his statement that the Oscars should aim for a smaller, less discerning audience is unacceptable. The Oscars should continue to strive for a large and diverse audience that reflects the film industry as a whole. It should not be for the industry only and exclude the consumers who drive its success.
How dare you dismiss his dismissal? I suspect both you and Diller have
skin in the game, but I'm guessing Diller has more data to back up his
prognistications.
Throughout the 60s and 70s 19/20 films that won best picture were in the Top 10 Grossing. Since 2003 there hasn’t been a single one. Even after they expanded the number of nominations there’s still only 0-1 nominations in the Top 10 Grossing every year.
This is really due to the the fact that nearly every film in the Top 10 Grossing is a sequel, a remake, or a franchise movie. These films print money so Hollywood keeps making them.
In 1979 Kramer v Kramer was the highest grossing film. In 2021 it was Spider-Man: No Way Home (the 12th Spider-Man film to come out since 2000). Spider-Man made over 3 times as much when adjusted for inflation.
You could say that the artistic portion of Hollywood is dying, though Hollywood is doing as good as always.