Hollywood is Completely Bankrupt of Ideas
After seeing The Dark Knight Rises last Thursday night and spending the weekend reading about it and discussing it with friends, I've come to the realization that there are virtually no upcoming movies that I'm looking forward to.
Before I go any further, I want to emphasize how important it is that everyone who reads this goes out and sees The Dark Knight Rises. If you enjoyed Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, you'll love this movie. It's absolutely epic in scale and does a fantastic job book-ending the trilogy. More succinctly, Nolan is a genius whose trilogy feels more like a great set of novels than a series of movies; he is truly a master storyteller.
Anyway. I realize this isn't typical WSO-fodder, but I think it's worth having a chat about the current state of Hollywood and the endless slate of sequels, reboots, and miscellaneous watered down garbage we have coming our way.
Stated bluntly - With few exceptions, Hollywood is completely bankrupt of ideas
I'd like to first highlight a major exception in today's landscape of Hollywood junk.
Christopher Nolan
He is, in my view, the only Director consistently putting out high quality, original, and thought provoking material that appeals to a wide audience. Together with his brother, he crafts original stories that appeal to both mainstream and hardcore moviegoers.
It goes beyond the Batman movies. If you haven't seen Inception yet, stop reading immediately and watch it. Then watch it again. It might be the most original movie of the last 10 years and it also works great on a superficial action-movie level.
Frankly, I don't think anyone else could have even made Inception. Hollywood studios simply don't take risks and more or less only let Nolan do it because of how massively successful the first two Batman films were.
After Nolan, the mainstream of Hollywood is filled with an endless onslaught of mind-boggling sequels, unnecessary reboots, and dumbed-down PG-13 non-sense. Here are some examples of upcoming movies that absolutely, positively have no right to exist even in the abstract:
- A Judge Dredd remake
- A "dark remake" of Short Circuit (not kidding here, folks)
- Scary Movie 5
- A Total Recall remake
- A remake of Evil Dead
- Sequels to Independence Day
- A Jumanji remake (simply baffling)
- and many, many more...
First off, there is absolutely zero reason to remake Total Recall. The original is an absolute classic, must watch movie. And the fact that the remake is PG-13 can't possibly help its case. But at least the original is awesome. Do we really need a Judge Dredd reboot? Fucking Jumanji?!? And I'm pretty confident that ID4 worked just fine as a standalone feature.
Would it be so difficult to create new characters and story lines? I don't even necessarily need creativity to lead to classic movies, but new and "meh" would be better than the constant flood of recycled non-sense.
At this point, cable television is absolutely blowing film out of the water. Yeah, I'll go to the movies once or twice a year to see one of the few creative exceptions that comes out, but I'll damn sure be glued to my TV every time Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones is on.
So, is there any way for Hollywood to get out of this rut and start producing better and more original movies more consistently?
Frankly, I'm not sure. The complete focus on the bottom line has led to such a strong risk aversion that it's almost impossible for something truly original to break out. Without a known commodity and an audience-friendly MPAA rating there's too much perceived risk involved. But, you have to wonder, perhaps if studios thought "outside the box," so to speak, and took some perceived risks, they'd end up with some counter-intuitive success. For example, remember 300? Remember how awesome the trailer was? That had an R rating and a massive opening weekend. I remember hearing how stunned people in the industry were about its success, and that showed me how utterly foolish and myopic Hollywood had become.
This ended up being more of a rant than I meant it to be, but I'm sure there are fellow monkeys on WSO that feel similarly. I can't imagine there are too many folks on here who are eagerly anticipating the new Jumanji. I'd also be interested to hear from anyone who disagrees with me. Am I being too harsh? Has this always been the case? Is there simply a lack of good ideas left in general?






Comments
short circuit remake? maybe
short circuit remake? maybe they can use a real indian this time..
Money Never Sleeps? More like Money Never SUCKS amirite?!?!?!?
Nobody's had an original idea
Nobody's had an original idea in Hollywood since like 2002, this isn't a new phenomenon.
All we hear anymore is:
"based on the novel..."
"based on actual events..."
"the highly anticipated sequel to..."
"you've seen the TV show, now see the movie..."
"the true story of..."
"a gritty re-make of the classic..."
"from the director who brought you Memento, comes Memento with a more recognizable lead actor..."
"you've seen 18 of the movie-versions of these comics, now... see them all come together in STUNNING 3D!"
Hollywood thinks we're retarded, and Hollywood's right. Just look at who's been breaking the box office.
I hate victims who respect their executioners
Follow BH & Co. on Twitter: @DumbLuckCapital
twitter.com/DumbLuckCapital
Never saw the original Total
Never saw the original Total Recall, but Biel and Beckinsale in the same movie? Can't be too bad.
Speaking the truth man. I
Speaking the truth man. I mean their fucking remaking a spider man series that ended like 4 years ago! Same goes for video games. Im tired of having to fucking gush over the next call of duty.
TheKing: After seeing The
After seeing The Dark Knight Rises last Thursday night and spending the weekend reading about it and discussing it with friends, I've come to the realization that there are virtually no upcoming movies that I'm looking forward to.
Not looking forward to Man of Steel? You must have seen the teaser trailer during TDKR. Nolan will be pretty involved, although technically not a director but a producer in this one, though he will be heavily involved in the creative process, or so I've heard.
Also I think Aronofsky is another good modern director (he made Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan, The Wrestler, etc). He's coming out with a new film called Noah in 2014 - could be good
And I think it's gonna be a long, long, time
Eh The Dark Knight Rises was
Eh The Dark Knight Rises was by far the weakest of the trilogy. 6/10
Man of Steel looks like it's
Man of Steel looks like it's going to be epic!
-MBP
Most film now adays are just
Most film now adays are just remakes of older films as they cannot come up with new ideas other than pushing the boundaries of what is no longer taboo so they can be seen as breaking new ground.
Films are going the way rnb songs and videos went over the last 10 years
BlackHat: Nobody's had an
Nobody's had an original idea in Hollywood since like 2002, this isn't a new phenomenon.
All we hear anymore is:
"based on the novel..."
"based on actual events..."
"the highly anticipated sequel to..."
"you've seen the TV show, now see the movie..."
"the true story of..."
"a gritty re-make of the classic..."
"from the director who brought you Memento, comes Memento with a more recognizable lead actor..."
"you've seen 18 of the movie-versions of these comics, now... see them all come together in STUNNING 3D!"
Hollywood thinks we're retarded, and Hollywood's right. Just look at who's been breaking the box office.
What really gets me, though, is how fucking hard would it be to create a new character? I mean, look at the 1980s. So many action movies were cranked out with new characters all the time. AND they were rated R and didn't rely on CGI out the ass to make entertaining movies. I'm not saying Commando is the greatest film of all time, but it's enjoyable and not a remake of Judge Dredd.
I mean, seriously...Judge Dredd? Why not just make a similar movie, darken it up a bit, and create a new character? I understand wanting name recognition, but that's just ridiculous. How about you make a good movie and market it well. Eventually, even our stupid populace will grow tired of this crap.
Lastly, I blame so much of this on big studios' complete lack of backbone when it comes to making rated R movies. So much shit gets watered down to appeal to larger audiences. Right now, a remake to Robocop is in the works, if that comes out as PG-13 then all is truly lost.
Check out my WSO Blog
I personally was extremely
I personally was extremely disappointed by the new Batman. Contrived plot and cool effects do not make for an interesting movie to us snobs. Good popcorn flick though and definitely was going to sell tickets, so I understand the reasoning I guess. Give me the arthouse film with the schizophrenic genius director that does a better job of depicting reality than his less-than-schizophrenic brethren anyday.
I hate victims who respect their executioners
Follow BH & Co. on Twitter: @DumbLuckCapital
twitter.com/DumbLuckCapital
Totally agree with you!!!
Totally agree with you!!! With that said, I can't wait for The Wolf of Wall Street.
The hills are alive with the sound of horsepower! - Jeremy Clarkson
Going
After seeing The Dark Knight Rises last Thursday night and spending the weekend reading about it and discussing it with friends, I've come to the realization that there are virtually no upcoming movies that I'm looking forward to.
Not looking forward to Man of Steel? You must have seen the teaser trailer during TDKR. Nolan will be pretty involved, although technically not a director but a producer in this one, though he will be heavily involved in the creative process, or so I've heard.
Also I think Aronofsky is another good modern director (he made Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan, The Wrestler, etc). He's coming out with a new film called Noah in 2014 - could be good
re: Man of Steel - I actually managed to see TDKR at a pre-midnight screening through a buddy of mine who had a broker connection. Started at 7pm and had no previews whatsoever, which was fucking awesome. That said, it could be solid and includes Nolan, one of the shining beacons of hope for big budget hollywood movies.
That said, I've always sort of found Superman to be a shitty superhero. He's just too powerful, to the point that I have trouble suspending disbelief (even for a comic book movie) and feeling that he's in any danger without plotlines that are way over the top. Plus, I mean, we just had a Superman movie like 6 years ago.
Aronofsky is definitely awesome, though. The Wrestler was tight as hell. I think my beef is way more with more mainstream movies. It wasn't always the case that big budget stuff had to be an endless slew of garbage.
Check out my WSO Blog
It may not be your thing, but
It may not be your thing, but there are a lot of really great indie flicks out there if you're tired of the crap that Hollywood keeps churning out.
"Life all comes down to a few moments. This is one of them." - Bud Fox
the batman movie sucked. the
the batman movie sucked. the fight scenes looked like some kids re-enacting wwe in their back yard. bat wing was retarded and the story was cheap. with everyone able to film hd on their cell phones and cg jim carry's face on lady gaga, it blows my mind that movies can still cost so much to make. i hope indy movies are on the rise because hollywood reprocesses the same garbage time and time again. although some like this. im still pissed off about madagascar 3 not living up to the hype
If the glove don't fit, you must acquit!
They are also making a sequel
They are also making a sequel or remake of another Paul Verhoven classic, Starship troopers. So you have ST, Total Recall and Robocop getting redone. There is no way you can take a hyper-violent Paul Verhoven film and water it down PG-13 style and expect it to be successful. Those movies were great because Verhoven had a disturbing style to his films; the gov't was always ultra oppressive fascists, lots of gore as well as excruciatingly painful death scenes.
Since we are on the subject I figure I should share this story with everyone. When I was in ugrad we had a hollywood movie exec come to class to talk about the business. He went on about falling sales figures and narrow profits. I raised my hand and asked him politely "isn't it the movie industries fault? Each move that is put out is marketed based on how much is cost to produce. Why not make cheaper films that are light on special effects and heavy on story or comedy?"
He didn't really have an answer. This was 5 years ago or so. Remember Avatar? All you really heard leading up to lease was that it costs a Krillion dollars to make with super duper cameras that were made just to shoot this one film and perhaps the technology would catch on at a later point.
noke2012: It may not be your
I hate victims who respect their executioners
Follow BH & Co. on Twitter: @DumbLuckCapital
twitter.com/DumbLuckCapital
The Coen brothers and Paul
I was saying this a few
The answer to your question is 1) network 2) get involved 3) beef up your resume 4) repeat -happypantsmcgee
WSO is not your personal search function.
Everything is a damn remake
Agree with you. The worst
SonnyCrockett: The Coen
I hate victims who respect their executioners
Follow BH & Co. on Twitter: @DumbLuckCapital
twitter.com/DumbLuckCapital
sorry double
It's too risky to be
"One should recognize reality even when one doesn't like it, indeed, especially when one doesn't like it." - Charlie Munger
BlackHat: noke2012: It may
And I think it's gonna be a long, long, time
Two Words - Pacific Rim Maybe
Going
The answer to your question is 1) network 2) get involved 3) beef up your resume 4) repeat -happypantsmcgee
WSO is not your personal search function.
op,
It's very easy to watch the
It doesn't seem like it'll
craigmcdermott: It's very
And I think it's gonna be a long, long, time
I want to point out that I
You forgot Mad Max 4...
RIP WSO Chat.
To reiterate: I am not saying
Check out my WSO Blog
FSC: I want to point out that
Check out my WSO Blog
You're in PE, so you must
RIP WSO Chat.
craigmcdermott: It's very
1) $$$, 2 part finales 2)
BanditPandit: btw, Coen
I hate victims who respect their executioners
Follow BH & Co. on Twitter: @DumbLuckCapital
twitter.com/DumbLuckCapital
I'd like to see more movies
I'd give TDKR a 7 out of
Head of Metal Website: www.headofmetal.com
https://twitter.com/headofmetal2012
Here's a list of my favorite
TheKing: To reiterate: I am
Nolan is great but so is
Here to learn and hopefully pass on some knowledge as well. SB if I helped.
Moonlight Kingdom was
I think you're failing to
Expendables is a good idea
Baby you're the perfect shape, baby you're the perfect weight. Treat me like my birthday, I want it this way and I want it that way. It makes a man feel good baby.
mr_gondola: Moonlight Kingdom
cplpayne: It's too risky to
I'll probably go see the
Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art - Andy Warhol
AQM: Here's a list of my