Sic Semper Suckola
Brooks Barnes has written a post-Xmas N.Y. Times piece about how big-studio crap doesn’t float anymore, and how movies have to be sharp and dynamic and pushed along these days by social-network organs (and conversation-starters like HE?) or it’s hasta la vista, baby. Slick sludge ain’t doin’ it no more. Which explains this weekend’s modest success of Little Fockers.
There were plenty of 2010 films “clinging to the tried and true in 2010,” Barnes writes. “Humdrum remakes like The Wolfman and The A-Team; star vehicles like Killers with Ashton Kutcher and The Tourist with Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp; and shoddy sequels like Sex and the City 2. All arrived at theaters with marketing thunder intended to fill multiplexes on opening weekend, no matter the quality of the film.
“But the audience pushed back. One by one, these expensive yet middle-of-the-road pictures delivered disappointing results or flat-out flopped.
“Meanwhile, gambles on original concepts paid off. Inception, a complicated thriller about dream invaders, racked up more than $825 million in global ticket sales; The Social Network has so far delivered $192 million, a stellar result for a highbrow drama.
“As a result, studios are finally and fully conceding that moviegoers, armed with Facebook and other networking tools and concerned about escalating ticket prices, are holding them to higher standards. The product has to be good.” Or at least it can’t blow chunks. And it really helps if a new movie is, you know, really something. Yep, things sure are different these days.
I’d like to believe that’s true, but…
Meanwhile the Narnia sequel, written off as dead last week, only dropped 12% this weekend. WTF?
This argument is made every year and each time supporters pick one or two movies to support their thesis, ignoring all other evidence. Inception is the 5th biggest movie of the year and it cost a bunch load of money. The other four are: Toy Story 3, Alice in Wonderland, Iron Man 2, and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. This conclusion does not hold up.
Ben Barnes misses the obvious issue (shocker, I know). Had any of these films cost what they damn-well should have cost, they would have been break-even and/or token profit makers. Had Little Fockers, Sex and the City 2 and The Tourist cost $50 million, had Wolfman and A-Team cost $70 million, had Killers cost $40 million, then we wouldn’t be having this conversation. The problem is that everything cost around $100-$150 million, so everything, even little star vehicles like The Tourist, need to do blockbuster numbers to break even. That’s long-form suicide. Studios need to realize that tentpoles are supposed to be a few big pictures that ‘hold up the tent’ for the rest of the production slate. When every film is a tent pole, then the big hits merely soften the crash landing of the big flops, and no one makes money in the long run.
Yeah, I feel like that’s a catalog thing that gets run every year around the holidays (with this years’s titles pencilled in) because nobody wants to write anything new around the holidays.
There is simply no way that his theory is a reasonable way to describe a year in which ‘Alice in Wonderland’ made a billion dollars.
Wolfman probably would’ve turned something closer to profit if they hadn’t had to stop making it and then make it again…
The Barnes piece is a lot of nothing. Selective sampling, and broad conclusions that don’t hold up upon closer scrutiny. Sure, the studios are going for originality — that’s why we have so many superheroes landing next summer. And stars like Johnny Depp aren’t delivering — until they do when Pirates 4 opens.
Hollywood obviously still doesn’t get it; Do you not remember posting that horrific list of pure dreck they’re planning on releasing in 2011?
People who like movies are entertained by indie films,foreign films and rediscover classics. You don’t need to go to a movie theater any more to have fun.
Re MikeShaefer SF’s comment:
NARNIA 3 isn’t the flavor of the moment but, partially thanks to Michael Apted, is somewhat of an improvement on its predecessor PRINCE CASPIAN.
Re the NYT article–mainly a puff piece how studios search for new blood to help make the same old presold franchise product. Easier than generating at least semi-original ideas.
I always learn something from Brooks Barnes’ pieces. For instance, up until now, I had no idea that Ashton Kutcher was a “star.”
“gambles on original concepts paid off.”
They didn’t pay off for Satoshi Kon and/or his estate, it seems.
@Kakihara/DZ: I’ve mostly been a lurker here at H-E but I just want you to know I despise you as much as one person can despise another online. You contribute absolutely nothing to any discussion. If you’re just a megatroll doing it for the lulz then bravo, you’ve succeeded in being an anchor and a fucking disease to every topic you post in. In any event, wash your mouth out with a shotgun post-haste. God will not mind.
Jesus, JBM. Take a pill and calm down. It’s just teh internets.
I know it is … I just think DZ deserves to be an hero.
Agree with Scott.
Every year someone writes a trend piece, every year Poland rips it to shreds, every year no one manages to trump William Goldman’s wisdom on Hollywood. Nobody knows anything.
I do know that Burton/Depp/Wonderland was going to make at least $200 million domestic no matter how bad it was.
So much depends on marketing. Wouldn’t you think a Depp-Jolie teaming would bring in big numbers? But Tourist’s marketing never bothered to hide there was a bad movie coming down the pike.
Does Yogi Bear’s poor showing mean we don’t have to worry about the Snagglepuss movie? Then again, if you told me to choose between watching Snagglepuss or Marmaduke, I’d pick the Puss.
Apologies for the name-mistake in my comment. Ben Barnes = BROOK BARNES.
while it’s easy to imagine smaller budgets, the problem is that the P&A at this point on a major film is completely out of control.
Jessica Alba in Little Fockers is a RAY OF SUNSHINE and if the rest of the movie were shots of blank construction paper with no sound, it would still easily warrant my THREE STAR-solid “B” opinion for her delightful work alone (plus she shows her feet.)
I don’t know, it was painless. I appreciate that it’s Jeff’s “Everyone is stupid and I’D BE MUCH HAPPIER IF THE ELOI, FAT PEOPLE AND PARTY ELEPHANTS were SITTING NEXT TO ME IN MY THEATER SHOWING SMART MOVIES” punching bag of his “Have I mentioned I’m a curmudgeon” season, but it’s pretty painless. It’s certainly NOT worse than MacGruber, Couples Retreat, Bounty Hunter, or Backup Plan.
Sorry, I know it’s the symbol of all derision in the universe because ACTORS LIKE TO MAKE MONEY from time to time, but it’s a silly holiday family movie with boner jokes. I’d rather watch LITTLE FOCKERS 800 times than ever even KNOW what the fuck TINY FURNITURE is, or who that horrid Village Thrift Store rich-kid ironist tattoo chick is who made it.
I guess she’s for people who think Kristen Schaal is TOO sexy.
@ScottMendelson makes a good point. The sequels, prequels and copycats keep coming.
Social networking, another form of “word of mouth” is helping those movies that are really really good really fun and funny, interesting and complex. IMO movie media will move to the livingroom and computer. There will still be theatres. I love going to the theatre for the experience and besides I can’t afford a 54″ super screen to watch movies. I love getting out of the house to watch “good” movies….I don’t want to waste money seeing trash or slow movies with no focus.
The sad part is I actually sympathize with Lex after seeing that Tiny Furniture trailer.
“It’s certainly NOT worse than MacGruber, Couples Retreat, Bounty Hunter, or Backup Plan.”
There’s a quote for the DVD cover.
Just to echo the common sense comments noted above: WTF?
This was in the the NY Times???
To paraphrase Top Cat, who is overdue for his own film, “I hates these thesis pieces more than I hates meeses !”
Uh, helloooo, “Jackass 3D” is outgrossing “Social Network” by a mile, “Grown Ups” got devastating reviews and is Sandler’s biggest film to date, “Alice in Wonderland” scored a billion bucks, as noted above, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
I am now preparing a major piece for the New York Times about the dawn of films for left-handers who wear size 10 loafers and don’t wear wristwatches.
My research holds up as well as the work done on this beauty….
Did any of you SEE Alice in Wonderland? As cookie-cutter a project for Burton as that sounds (as he works his way through the Giants of Mildly Quirky Literature), it was by far the best-made, most intelligent, least trashing-its-source material thing he’s made since Big Fish if not Ed Wood. There’s no call for lumping it in with other craptacular paycheck gigs… like another fucking Pirates of the Carribean movie.
Did any of you SEE Alice in Wonderland? As cookie-cutter a project for Burton as that sounds (as he works his way through the Giants of Mildly Quirky Literature), it was by far the best-made, most intelligent, least trashing-its-source material thing he’s made since Big Fish if not Ed Wood. There’s no call for lumping it in with other craptacular paycheck gigs… like another fucking Pirates of the Carribean movie.
Burton’s AiW was actually pretty damn craptacular…did YOU see it? Calling it his best since Big Fish isn’t really fair…that’s like saying The Wrestler is Mickey Rourke’s best leading performance since Angel Heart — there’s really not a whole lot of candidates there that don’t entirely suck balls.
Having said that, though, I much prefer Sweeney Todd.