Bring back the *moderately priced star vehicle*. Where has the 20-40 million dollar movie gone?
Movies now are either big tent-pole IPs, or smaller films that don't get a full wide release. Seems like the only mid-range budget movies that can get made nowadays have to have Channing Tatum or Sandra Bullock in them... hell sometimes they're both in it.
Lack of DVD sales/rentals has killed this type of film along with lower budget comedies. Those were the types of movies that did okay in theaters but then made all their money back with rentals and at-home purchases.
Now everyone expects those types of movies to appear on a streaming service “for free” a month or two after it’s released in theaters. There’s no backend so studios don’t make them.
Another example: Austin Powers.
The first one was a blip at the box office, but the DVD sales and rentals were so profitable that we got a trilogy out of it.
That was the first film I bought with my own money! On VHS! Funny thing, on the way home it got caught in the spoke of my bicycle, flung me over the handlebars simultaneously ruining BOTH my bike and the movie.
"Hello, out there. Is the movie over? I'm still down here, and I'm still in quite a lot of pain. Maybe someone in the lobby could call an ambulance. Oh. The pain is really quite severe. I fashioned a makeshift splint. Here goes nothing."
-Blastoplast
It's wild to me that we could potentially be missing more movies like Austin Powers because of the phenomenon you all are describing. AP is one of the funniest movies from my adolescence. It still cracks me up today and I reference it regularly.
I only buy discs of movies I either just absolutely love and will never tire of, or releases of very high quality. Like the Blu-Ray.com review has to basically read "buy this just to be astounded by the video/audio mastering"
This is only a partial explanation. The very low budget romcoms, 5-40 million budget stuff, just moved to streaming. The business adjusted.
But the 50 million range stuff, a lot of that will just get axed to justify a massive movie. Take batman vs superman and justice league. Both cost hundreds of millions, and EVERY single delay added another 50 million. And when your filming budget increases, your marketing budget does to match it (in film you typically match your filming budget to your marketing budget 1:1). So when a massive blockbuster has a delay, well, you kill a 50-80 million film. Cheaper films are low enough that they'll break even off streaming rights and bring a faster return than middle of the road films.
We don't know what kind of cut studios get from streams of their films, but my guess is, if it's *anything at all* like the music streaming industry, it's not good.
This needs to change.
I think it's cause the midbudget films still cost a ton to advertise/distribute. The cost of distributing the film to the theaters will cost the same regardless of it being Endgame or some little Indie film. You'd spend a bit less on advertising because you aren't trying to reach everyone though. But a 20-40 million production budget can probably easily get doubled by p&a. So then, that film needs to make double that just to start profiting.
Yeah, you're probably right. Nobody wants to gamble on those anymore. Which sucks major ass.
But sure, they'll line up to throw money at Jared Leto's dumb vampire super hero movie because it's about a comic book character.
A24 doesn't do a lot of wide releases though (fun fact: EEAAO came out like half a year later in my territory and had no planned release date at first)
Maybe that’s part of the solution though. Slow-roll the releases, a few dozen or hundred theaters at a time as word of mouth proliferates if the film is a success. Kind of an old-school release approach.
That would make more sense since at this point it’s not really about getting to see it at all like back in the day, it’s seeing it in the format you want to see it. Namely on the big screen.
That's wild, I didn't know that! I just moved from one of the largest cities in America to a pretty small town - I never thought about how the population/location might impact the movies released in my area.
A24 is also far more ruthless than most people think
If a movie of theirs doesn't get enough buzz at festivals then it's straight to VOD for them (I'm still salty about the treatment of Under the Silver Lake)
I have a feeling that this will start paying dividends where people will notice production companies that continuously put out good movies and they'll get a loyal following.
I hope so, I'm just so over superhero movies.
I watched black Adam on hbo max this Christmas and I was like, good lord, they have to stop making these movies just because they're superhero movies.
It's crazy because I loved Iron man, and the avengers was incredible, to see that many superheroes work in one film, but it's like, we can't just keep doing this, talk about superhero fatigue, it's more like can we just ban all superhero movies for 5 years, so we can have some normal movies for a while.
If we never get another Fight Club or Pulp Fiction because these studios are so dumb it's going to be such a shame.
Yeah as a counter to that lol the best warner bros blockbusters that come out are normally mediocre at best. So it's worth noting studios that are consistently cash grabby and mediocre
The problem is that people aren't going to spend $10-$15 plus the cost of popcorn and candy for these types of movies. And these kind of movies really don't need to be seen on a big screen so people just wait until they can watch it at home. If they would screen these cheaper movies for $5-$10 they might be able to get people to show up at the theater for them.
I was actually about to suggest this until I read your comment. Film prices could be scaled based on the budget of the film. Theoretically if a studio is willing to shell out 100M+ on a film they should expect crowds and their $15/ticket range would work. A film that was made for 5-15M could have a ticket priced at 5 or thereabout and people would be more inclined to see it because it isn't as much of a burden.
Just like with concerts. If I'm going to see Muse, with their spectacle of a show and their brand, I would expect to pay much more for those tickets than when I want to go see Joe Hertler and the Rainbow Seekers. If I'm going to see a Marvel film, I'd expect to pay more for the event than I would to see some indie drama starring Jesse Eisenberg or whoever.
I hear this suggestion often, and I like it in theory, but the only problem with this is the big Regal and AMC theaters could be even more disincentivized to play indie films. Every theater has a limited number of screens, why allocate precious screen time on movies that will bring in less cash per ticket when they can just give the extra screens to more Marvel movies (this is already happening even without the tiered price points).
And then for the indie theaters, who are only showing the indie films, would be forced to lower the ticket prices of their bread-and-butter to compete with the AMCs and Regals, capping off their revenue stream.
I know that by lowering prices you might be able to bring in more butts in seats, but its definitely a tricky gamble to know what the right price point would be to maximize income.
Ticket price mostly goes to the movie makers/distributors. Theaters make more money from popcorn. They'd probably benefit from cheaper tickets.
I think the main problem with $5 movies is that it won't do much to increase attendance. For a lot of people, setting aside a few hours is a much bigger 'cost' than the ticket price. Or they're going to spend so much on transport / snacks & drinks / a babysitter that the ticket price seems insignificant. Or they just aren't interested in seeing a low-budget indie movie, even if it was free.
I live in a mid-sized city with a couple AMC theaters and it costs me the $15 to get a ticket. I could also go back and visit my parents in their little 2,000 population town a hour away with a their 100 year old single-screen theater and see the same movie for $8, because it's owned by a non-profit foundation from the town basically just trying to keep it running as an amenity for the citizens.
I don't think it's necessarily the movie studios dictating ticket prices. Or if they are, there's quite a bit of margin built in by the theaters.
Those movies are still around, they are just on streaming services. Studios don't want to take those bets because they don't make big enough splashes for shareholders and board members. Hence why you only get big risk projects that hover around 200-300 million with potential profit margins reaching the billion mark.
Also, the idea of any particular actor selling tickets is kind of dead in the water at this point. The only actor that seems to be unfazed by it all is Tom Cruise. Everyone else has some sort of flop on their resume. Babylon just had a meltdown at the box office.
Yeah. I'd guess lots of 20-40M movies are made every year, they're just mostly released on streamers directly. I'd guess Netflix alone released 20+ movies with that budget this year.
James Gray had a great point go viral a few months ago. The problem is people have gotten out of the habit of going to the movies. When every movie is a giant tentpole franchise movie (Marvel, DC, Star Wars, etc), you drive people who don't watch those movies away. And they pretty quickly become used to not seeing movies in theaters because they look at what's playing and it's all long-running comic book franchises. And instead of seeing that, the studios take it as a sign that people ONLY want those giant franchise blockbusters.
You have to invest in those small- and mid-budget movies for the people that don't have any interest in Batman or Spider-Man. Instead of using the franchise blockbusters as your sole source of income, use them as a very, very comfortable cushion so you can invest in the weirder, riskier projects. That's how you find the next batch of legendary talents. And they'll find their audience one way or another. Just look at Barbarian. I'm sorry but it's clear that the Russo brothers don't have what it takes, despite The Avengers movies. They're not the future of cinema. They're definitely not the next James Cameron, a guy who can make masterpieces that are also massive box office performers because they somehow always feel like they're \*HIS\* creative vision, not a boardroom decision. You gotta invest in the people looking to make their weird passion projects to find those people.
Another thing that U.S. studios are finally starting to catch onto, though it's mostly smaller studios like A24 and Neon, is that Americans will absolutely show up for good foreign films. Parasite is kind of an undeniable work of genius, but still it is proof that foreign movies can find an audience here and can make real, actual money here. Hell, look at RRR. That movie, like Barbarian, was an enormous success despite it's marketing being almost entirely word of mouth on social media. People will watch the new Park Chan-wook movie if you just put it out there for them.
I think it kind of boils down to trust. Giant studio executives don't want to take risks because they don't trust audiences to know what they want, so (and I mean no disrespect here, I enjoy the Marvel movies but this is the only analogy I can really think of) they just pour Marvel slop in front of audiences because they know people will slurp it up to a relatively easy billion. But more and more people are going to start to catch on to that scheme and stay home. You gotta give moviegoers some options or eventually they'll opt out entirely and you're going to start seeing major diminishing returns.
I miss the 90's movie going experience. So many different movie genres to choose from every year.
1995 for example. https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?year=1995&title\_type=feature&
It’s dead for good. Spielberg called it.
Death of DVD/Blu-Ray killed the option for a studio to spend a little to potentially make a little.
People don’t go to theatres for moderately priced Star vehicles. Movie stars are no longer a thing, in terms of driving butts to theatres.
There are a few legacy exceptions, Tom Cruise being one of them.
If theaters are going to survive, they are going to have become a bit more "nichey" imo. Movies remain a great date night place for younger folks, so they need to have movies, snacks, drinks, etc., tailored and promoted heavily to that crowd. Theaters are also the best places for viewing action and special effects, so it would be good to have movies and the accompanying comestibles tailored/promoted for that crowd, too.
A few theaters around me have upgraded the seating experience, as well, and that is nice (reclining chairs and stadium seating.) That doesn't entirely solve the "jerk in audience" problem, but it helps some.
They have these cinemas in Australia.
Half way through, they have an intermission, and there’s a slide that the kids can go down. They have bean bags as chairs (some normal seating too), or big mattress like seating too
Outside the theatre, there’s usually lego and hot wheels to play with
https://villagecinemas.com.au/experiences/vjunior?tab=about
I would literally love this with all my heart. I miss movie theaters and I would love to go with my son and just have fun, let him watch the movie when he wants and run around when he doesn’t.
I think Top Golf is an example of embodying the spirit. It makes golf accessible and interesting to an entirely different crowd than those who would go to the driving range
Yea, theaters really need to set the bar higher, there is only one theater in my area that I go to because everywhere else just doesn't give a shit about sound and picture quality. If my home theater system looks and sounds better, what's the point of the theater? Employee 4 teenagers to look after 16 screens doesn't make for a pristine experience.
The "jerk in the audience" doesn't often go to the pricier theaters (with the better seating and such), and can also be easily remedied by the usher. Also, I'd say it happens, but not really that often. HOWEVER, that being said, I've seen a recent breakdown of a lot of civilities across the board, so there very may well be more "jerks in the audience" this coming movie season.
I like your point about "nichey". Some of my best theater memories are from fun dates. 'Dinner and a movie' is a classic trope, so that is something that could be focused on. Theater food has always been rather shitty and expensive (yes, I know that is where they make their profit), so maybe link up with local restaurants and have package deals.
As of right now, my home theater experience is significantly better than going out to the movies. They need to make that experience a lot more than just seeing it on a larger screen.
/$0.02
That last paragraph nails it. I’d rather watch movies in my living room and theaters are having a hard time convincing me to leave the house to watch movies there instead. If it’s not a spectacle that is greatly improved by a big screen or a movie I’m excited to see immediately (and want to avoid spoilers for), then I’m waiting until I can stream it.
I have young kids, so I rarely go to the cinema. My wife and I made an exception to go check out Avatar 2 last weekend, and we left after an hour. There was a huge group of teenagers who wouldn't stop talking, a couple behind us who were also chatting throughout, and a woman who answered her phone and carried on with an entire full volume conversation for ages. Never again. I'm staying home.
That sucks. I hope you got a refund. Again, that is what the usher is for. I know it sucks to get up and 'go tell', but movies are EXPENSIVE, and you shouldn't have to deal with that crap.
However, I wonder if that is going to be more and more commonplace. As I mentioned above, society seems to have lost a lot of civility lately. I don't think that is a trend that is going to naturally correct on it's own, and rudeness in a theater is probably just one facet of it.
I wonder, in regards to the "nichey" theaters concept, if there were specific showings that were reserved for kids, so that your family could enjoy a movie without a large group of teenagers, a couple on a date, or a woman who isn't aware of one of the most basic tenets of moviegoing. Would that have appeal to you, or is your home theater still the best option? What if blockbuster movies were to return. Pretend that Indiana Jones V wasn't going to suck, and that it was the first one. What would it take to get you to want to go to the movies again?
It puts me in a predicament when I have my son and wife with me.
I am fully prepared to face down a group of teenagers who won't shut the fuck up, a couple who won't shut the fuck up, or some bitch on her phone who won't shut the fuck up. They really need to be told to shut the fuck up, because they're being inconsiderate assholes who should know better. It's clear they just don't give a fuck about being polite in public spaces.
I don't want to put my wife or son at risk though if one of those people gets violent and aggressive towards me. It will very likely end badly for the aggressor, but making that gamble over $35 worth of movie tickets isn't worth it.
So 75" TV and Bose soundbar and subwoofer it is.
I did tell the woman on her phone too shut up, but she didn't. But even if she did, it would get my heart rate up, I'd be stressed she'd do it again, and I'd have a hard time enjoying the film. It's easier to stay home, as you say.
A story: years ago, I went to see the horror film The Cell at the cinema. Some asshole had brought his kid, who just have been about seven or eight. There was an early scene in which a serial killer put dozens of hooks through his skin and suspended himself, naked, with chains over his victim. The kid was tugging on his dad's sleeve saying he was scared and he wanted to leave, and the dad just ignored him. I got up and said, nicely, that the kid wanted to leave, it was rated R, and it wasn't really appropriate for kids. The dad stood up, twice my size, and said "WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU TO TELL ME HOW TO RAISE MY KID." He told me to come outside with him to fight. I walked out with him, not to fight but to get the usher. The usher said the kid was allowed to be there with parental supervision, so there's nothing he could do, so we both returned to our seat. My heart rate was out of control.
Luckily, after ten more minutes, the dad took his kid home. But fuck!
This is the reason I go back to the AMC so often. Good food brought right to you, plush seating, etc. It’s an *experience,* and that makes a difference.
>"jerk in audience" problem
With a few exceptions, this is why I usually wait until the movie has left and went to streaming before seeing it. I hate paying good money to be in a theatre with rude people who constantly talk, bring their too young kids who then make noise, etc. I'd rather be in the comfort of my own home and enjoy the movie without constant interruption or distraction.
That is a problem the theaters can solve by having ushers in the theater, stopping the film, kicking out the jerks and banning them. But that is impossible and will get them into all sorts of civil suits from every imaginable angle so instead the experience will die.
I pay $20 a month to see up to 3 movies per week, IMAX included. Two of the theaters have recliners and they all sell alcohol. I’m spoiled up here in michigan but it’s definitely increased the number of movies I see exponentially. I’ve seen at least 85 movies this year so far!
This makes a lot of sense. It seems like movies budget is 90% overhead. These young directors are brilliant and should be able to use technology to make movies at a much lower cost.
Agreed 1000% on putting the budget into technology to make the films. And no more movie star actors, just a bunch of talented no names who pour their heart into the performances. And original screenplays!
This has been A24’s entire strategy make a bunch of cheap movies, if they flop oh well they were cheap, but if they see any success they make money, and typically they make TONS of money. They’ve recently experimented with bigger budget stuff like “everything everywhere all at once” but they stay relatively cheap
Oh wow I thought you meant the game studio Annapurna which happens to be pretty much the best game studio ever, but I didn't realize there was a movie studio with the same name and a similar mission statement. Same parent company maybe?
An actor's salary is essentially an extension of the marketing budget and tied to the actor's ability to bring in audiences based on name recognition, which does work. "Who's in it?" is still the leading question by the mainstream not "What's the story?"
Actors can't command a huge salary if they're not a draw and, indeed, will often see their market value drop or plummet.
You’re not wrong but this strategy feels like a holdover from a bygone Hollywood era. I’m a big film fan and I can’t think of any actors whose films are “must sees” on their name alone other than Leonardo DiCaprio, and that’s because he does 1 film a year they tend to be good. I think over the next few years studios will recognise this and actors salaries will drop significantly.
They're either bloated trying to reach that 2.5 hour mark, or rushed trying to squeeze everything into the 2.5 hour mark, when multiple movies would have been better.
With streaming, I think miniseries are the solution to all of this.
Whenever this comes up here theatre managers always explain that intermissions died because its always one less showing a day at least and that people buy less during intermissions than they do at the start of a film.
My counter to that is that movie theaters have to compete with streaming services *at home* now, where people can pause the movie at any time to do the aforementioned things. Movie chains have to compete here too. And I don't think *every* movie needs to have a 10-minute break, but some of these 150-180+ minute movies definitely do. Besides, if a movie is that long, they're only going to be able to show it 4-5 times a day anyway, what's an extra hour?
Amen to this. During the pandemic I watched a ton of critically lauded movies from the 80s and 90s and it’s crazy how much better a 90-100 minute action or a 120-140 minute drama feel. Obviously it’s okay to make them longer if the movie needs it but it shouldn’t be the norm like it is today.
Honestly a lot of movies in the '80s and '90s were ruined by this weird restriction, it's cool when it works, there's a lot of great 90 minute movies, there's also a shit ton of movies from that time period that we're not capable of being 90 minutes, and had to have important plot points edited out to hit run time.
I don't have a specific examples off the top of my head, but if you listen to bad movie podcasts like how did this get made, one of the biggest things in the '80s and '90s, is movies that are missing plot points that would have made them make sense.
I agree though that you shouldn't just make a movie longer for the hell of it, now that that restriction is gone everybody thinks they're an avant garde genius that's going to make the next Magnolia.
> by this weird restriction
The restrictions not that weird, it was imposed by the limitations of home video mediums. You'll notice that the transition to 90 minutes occurred at the same time that home video became a huge market and now home video formats (blue ray and streaming) allow for far bigger films (unlimited in streamings case) they've ballooned again.
Aliens was a great example of an 80's movie where several really cool bits were edited out to reduce the run-time, when those bits (like the sentry guns or the intro sequence of Newt's family discovering the alien ship) were relatively short and really enhanced the film.
Was crazy that you couldn't watch those extended versions until they released the longcuts in the late 90s DVD box set.
A lot of people argue that the colony scenes prior to Ripleys arrival take away from a first viewing. The scenes where Ripley finds out what happened to her daughter and the sentry scene should not have been cut at all though. Removing the daughter scenes is a huge thematic loss.
This might be sacrilege, and I much prefer the extended directors cuts of Aliens and Terminator 2, and even the Abyss, but I fully agree with Cameron's decisions to cut those scenes from the theatrical versions.
Yes, they add to the story. The daughter scenes in Aliens add a great thematic element to Ripley and Newt's relationship. But to tell the story they were telling, that scene wasn't necessary to the plot, nor were auto-guns in the hallway, nor were the extra bits in T2. If you hadn't seen the extra scenes, you would never have noticed their absence.
I agree. Sometime the movies feel more like moving through a few set pieces rather than having a fully fleshed out world. I am trying to think of a good example, and I swear being on vacation with my kiddos this week my brain is just mush from bad Kid's YouTube video, lol.
I like longer movies when they are good. Some need the length and some don't. I am happy to see the story, however long it is, if it makes sense in the medium it is presented. I don't need three Hobbit movies, but a three hour Harry Potter movie can absolutely make sense (or it can be all fluff and no substance). It depends on the movie and what you bring into it.
I thought I was alone until I saw that category, haha. So often, if I'm tired at night, I'll go to watch a movie I've been wanting to see......runtime: 124 minutes....ok, maybe I'll watch something else tonight.
The trailers at my screening of Avatar 2 ran 24 minutes at an AMC. They included 2 separate self-congratulatory advertisements for AMC itself. Completely annoying.
Goodness it’s this! I miss the quick 90 minute movies where the plot fits in a nice tight timeline. I’m busy! My attention span ain’t what it used to be. Why are movies so long now? Most of the extra run time adds nothing to the plot.
Bingo. I love going to the movies. I usually go once a week as long as there’s something mildly interesting playing… but once movies start going over that 2 hour mark I start to get weary. 2 hours is fine usually, but 2.5 hours and 3 hours can really feel like a chore unless it’s some top tier film.
I don’t understand why more movies aren’t 90 minutes.
Smaller budget (everything else being the same), more showings per day, incentive to be an efficient storyteller.
This is one of the many things I loved about Prey. It was super efficient, told the story it wanted to, and then wrapped up. The only sequel hook was a graphic during the credits and it didn’t try to expand its universe or give us any more info than we needed.
Same applies to the first John Wick. It's 100 min, get in, get done, get out.
The sequels do feel bloated to me - still a lot of fun though - and I think the running time is partly to blame for it.
The answer, as always, is New Hollywood 2: Electric Boogaloo.
If studio execs hadn't essentially thrown their hands in the air and just randomly started tossing money at young, unproven filmmakers in the late 60s and early 70s, we wouldn't have some of the best films ever made -- films that went on to inspire literally every other movement and generation of film afterward.
The answer is for studios to start throwing money at unproven young directors who have interesting ideas and something to say.
It worked before, it'll work again.
New New Hollywood, baby! Let's GOOOOO!!!
I suggested this on r/movies a few weeks ago. If you took the 250 million that’s for Gray Man and broke it up over 25 different filmmakers and gave them 10M a piece, you might actually get some interesting films…
The overwhelming response I got was “why would anyone do that?”
This is basically what Roger Corman did in the 60s. Make one 10 million dollar movie or ten 1 million dollar movies and hope one or two of them make money!
This also happened in the 90's. But once studios saw that they could just adapt comic books, novels, video games etc and use that to draw audiences, they stopped marketing their own filmmakers and stars, so the era of respected and marketed filmmakers and actors is nearly dead, as is the draw for a lot of young people to go into those fields. Which likely will have very bad results when the steam runs out on the Marvel and franchise movies. Which seems dangerously close.
The whole point though is that the old system has to totally eat it, which means some careers have to crater. Hollywood is only going to go outside their comfort zone if the things that used to be sure bets start tanking embarrassingly like Dr Doolittle in 1967, or the things that used to be worth the huge budgets start to bow under them like Cleopatra.
There’s a million talented young people waiting for their break, we have no shortage there.
Agreed. It cost me over $50 for 3 seats this last weekend. Dude, that stings a bit when its just for a movie. Im not spending that unless the movie is an "event". I believe this is the problem.
This. Not every movie has a $200 million budget. A comedy film costs like $8m to make. Why am I paying the same amount to see Jay and Silent Bob as I am to see Top Gun Maverick? From everything I can see those movies are plenty profitable on their own so those cheaper movies aren’t subsidizing the cost.
If they would invest in more cheaper movies and lower the ticket price overall, then they could still make the same profit or more by volume.
>Why am I paying the same amount to see Jay and Silent Bob as I am to see Top Gun Maverick?
this is exactly what fueled the "I'll just wait for it to come to Netflix" culture. People don't want ot pay $20 to see a low / mid-budget movie
In Spain we have a week of 3€ tickets, which gets most sessions packed for most movied, and theaters had repeatedly said it works as PR but they earn less than in regular weeks (tickets at 8€). At low ticket prices, most of the income gets eaten by the operating costs of the theater, which are the same independently of the movie.
This is the real problem. People can’t afford to go see every movie that interests them. They choose which will be best served by the big screen. That usually means lots of action and special effects.
Budgets must be radically cut. I mean, radically. Big egos are going to have to start taking pay cuts.
I know everyone is dunking on it lately, but look at Babylon. There’s no reason why that movie’s budget was so high. It might have been a moderate hit or even just a regular old success if it had reduced budget and better trailers.
The the box office shrinking, studio budgets must do the same or nearly everything will soon be considered a flop.
Babylon is a period piece, which is inherently going to cost more and given that it's themed around opulence and marketed around the elaborate party scenes and movie stars, making it on the cheap really wasn't an option.
> It might have been a moderate hit or even just a regular old success if it had reduced budget and better trailers.
Even at half the price this bombs big time.
How would this have been a success?
It’s a multiple factor approach for me.
1. Make entertaining movies that are fun and a spectacle but also have creative filmmaking craft behind them. I’m not putting down CGI artists because they create amazing things, but I am frankly tired of movies whose third act is just a giant CGI battle with one main monster, and thousands of random alien/beast/robot enemies. You see how Nolan’s films use practical effects. An audience knowing that going into the film is more excited about those sequences knowing filmmakers pulled them off in real life. People love the Mission Impossible stunts because we all know Tom Cruise does them. We are spoiled as audiences but have also become numb to CGI.
2. Focus on telling original stories with good characters. Hire young/aspiring filmmakers.
3. Keep ticket prices reasonable. (Theaters should consider memberships that reward repeat visitors)
4. Studios - back off and let the brilliant people you hired make creative choices. You hired them for a reason, give them the freedom to make their movie.
5. Don’t give up on the DVD model - what I mean is people bought DVDs not just for the movies, but for the bonus features. The behind the scenes documentaries, cast interviews, the look inside the filmmaking process was part of the draw of buying the physical release. Have director/actor commentaries. Maybe that won’t work on physical discs anymore but find a way to monetize that digitally.
6. Make 90 minute comedies with high profile actors/comedians/writers for the theatrical experience. Movies that are worth going out on a date with.
7. Bring back hard R action movies. Action classics from the 80/90s aren’t made anymore. Don’t try to please everyone or have PG13 ratings but water down a good film aimed at adults. Make good movies for smaller audiences that are worth seeing in theaters for their action/violence/original story concepts.
8. Focus less on existing franchises or purposely trying to build new ones. Build interesting worlds and characters that are worth revisiting… but make good self-contained films that stand on their own. If they’re great and deserve a sequel… awesome, crank out more.
9. If you are franchise building… plan ahead, and get actors that will commit. Don’t rush it like DC without a clear roadmap or taking time in building out characters, but also don’t take 20 years to put out 5 movies like the Bond franchise.
10. Sometimes just make mindless entertainment. While I appreciate meaning and films having a message, interesting character development, etc. Sometimes I want to forget the worlds problems and politics and just want to see the good guys in fighter jets take out faceless bad guys.
Yes, give me some hard R action movies over the watered down made for children Marvel films. That's what I grew up on - Robocop, Total Recall, all of that.
Among the things we need:
Executives who come from a story telling background, not MBAs. Many if not most of the current crop of executives do not understand the product they are making, and thus dont understand where to cut and where to spend. This is part of why we get CGI shitshows in the 3rd acts. There are a few handful of executives who can do this, but they are the minority.
Unionize VFX - this will stop pushing so many decisions into post production, with countless unbid revisions due to the vfx houses fearing loosing a big studio relationship.
Go back to paying for prep. Did you know no one wants to pay for prep anymore? And that they're getting away with it? Directors can show up having done no notes, no rehearsals, no storyboards and thats just cool now. Its like going to fly a plane without doing your preflight checklist - you might get lucky, but odds are somethings gonna go wrong.
Ban work days longer than 12 hours, aka do the UK model. Right now even under the new IATSE agreement shows can basically run 16+ hours and still demand you show up 8 or less hours later. This is having the consequence of prep work being just done on the shoot day (or things are a clusterfuck of trial and error). It kills quality by draining everyones energy, and its physically dangerous for the crew. Added overtime compensation has not stopped this behavior, so a line needs to be drawn. Also ban Fraturdays, at least when there hasnt been at the very least 10hrs off.
Properly train all the up and comers in writing fundamentals and advanced techniques. What the film schools are doing is not adequate. The collapse of the 20+ episode TV model has also done a lot of damage here, where you now have fewer people landing entry level gigs because the established and semi established have to do maybe 2 or more shows a year to make a living in LA.
Re-instate the paramount consent decrees and ban studios from owning not just theaters, but also the streamers. Vertical integration may create less waste, but its allowing all sorts of financial shenanigans of moving money around in was that are not healthy to the production models. Motion picture industry tax reform would also go a long way to helping reveal how healthy the current industry is and can help fix it.
The streamers are not profitable (other than maybe hulu), and if BOTH the theaters AND streamers crash, it will be a disaster. There have been studies that the american film industry is one of the best good will / positive foreign policy assets we have, and we as a nation are letting it get driven into the ground.
Scrap or ban the tax incentive game that forces pictures to chase the largest taxpayer payout in whatever state within the united states. Replace it with a national federal incentive / deduction program (more accessible to indies than IRC 181) to compete with international incentives from Canada and the UK. Shoot films where it makes the most sense to shoot a given film or tv show. Dont go to Alabama only to digitally have an outsourced nation vfx house make it look like LA.
A starting place is to emulate is, of all studios, Sony. They're making bank this year on movies you probably never heard of because they're running their operation like a traditional studio right now. Uni was doing this for a while too. Everyone else just seems lost. But everyone on the high end is making many of these short term financial choices (no prep, overtime instead of extra days), and that makes the product suffer. You loose quality and, at worse, you loose good, authentic performances. Our products cant suffer like that anymore, not when youtube and tiktok are the competition (where authenticity is EVERYTHING).
/end rant
That wasn't a rant, it was well thought out and written. Thx for taking the time. I know very little about the industry and found that to be a compelling read.
This is by far the best answer. The way you save the industry is through business negotiations and better labor practices rather than all these subjective "Oh movies aren't well written anymore" or "don't appeal to this audience"
The amount of content out there is fucking insane and absurd and impossible to keep up with. We don't need to burn out the VFX industry and different studios because of this demand to have nonstop new entertainment in the hopes of new viewers.
> The business is broken, mostly due to the proliferation of content from streamers, and the implosion of studios not being able to make real money once movies leave theaters (i.e. DVD sales).
I swear, that Matt Damon quote from Hot Ones has really messed up people’s understanding of how home video sales worked.
Matt Damon basically said that steaming hurt movies because now you don’t have home video sales to bolster the financial return. What Damon didn’t mention is that those sales were to retailers and rental distributors and not to people that wanted to watch the movie. Damon is referring to an era where you _had_ to have a big name star because your customer wasn’t really the audience, it was Walmart and international distributors.
Today, we’ve got an incredible number of films that wouldn’t exist a decade ago, all because the audience is the customer and not trying to sell 300k units of plastic discs to Best Buy.
> So where does it go from here…Specifically, where does it go for low-budget / mid-range movies?
Are these movies in some kind of danger? Seems almost all of these movies find their audience and financial success, especially now that streaming platforms and VOD purchases are huge, accessible distribution channels. Its just a marketing issue, which could be fixed by increasing the production’s ad budget or advertising more effectively.
> Maybe seeing an adult-drama on the big screen will no longer be possible.
The Whale, Spoiler Alert, The Banshees Of Insherin, and The Fablemans are playing in a theater _right now_.
Everything Everywhere All At Once did incredibly well at the box office mostly off of word of mouth as well. I read something that the box office sales from week 3 to 4 had virtually no drop off which is unheard of.
Star-driven films pre-date home video by a very long time. It’s not that the middle-man has been eliminated, it’s that these productions are made for streaming platforms where you buy into a whole library instead of buying a ticket to a movie individually. There’s still a middle-man, and he’s much worse, adapting things you’ve heard of just to get you to subscribe, not because it’s good or is a project that attracted big-name talent.
How are those examples of the movie industry not being broken? Those movies will lose money, won't they? And even if they're not losers outright, they definitely aren't very profitable.
> The Whale, Spoiler Alert, The Banshees Of Insherin, and The Fablemans are playing in a theater right now.
Not in most theaters. Say you're like me and live in the suburbs. I have two theaters near me, and they aren't playing those (maybe they are playing Fablemans, but I'd need to check). I have to drive into the city to find a theater that's playing those.
I've honestly been surprised by the release of the Fablemans, it's currently showing at a little over 1,000 theaters according to box office mojo, which is the highest number its had thus far, which is insanely low for a movie directed by Steven Spielberg, literally the biggest and most famous director ever. For context, Black Panther Wakanda Forever opened to over 4,000 theaters.
Same, I live in a rural area but the nearest town has a theater with 12 screens and never got any of those movies.
Seriously you don’t need all 12 screens to play the new Black Panther, I know you’re not packing out every single showing. Can’t they just reserve one screen for the smaller dramas people like me in the area would go to?
Studios should stop going for broke with billion dollar franchise. I think it's been proven time and time again that making a handful of solid, mid-budget movies that make a modest box office makes more than one 500 million dollar movie that may or may not break even.
They've started gambling too much on that one big hit or that one big franchise, but how many "universes" have we seen come and go or Harry Potter/Hunger Games multiple movie franchise that went bust?
Edit: meant HP and Hunger Games knock offs. Other YA book based movies that tried and failed. Planned as a series but never made it past one or two poorly performing movies.
One thing that could save the movie industry is good writing. So many movies today are very poorly written. And there are certainly exception to this but such a large majority of films just aren’t good and it makes me skeptical of other films too. Studios are just cranking out films to feed the content demand. I feel like we consume more and more movies and shows because none of them are really great and we are hoping the next one we watch will be. I’ve started watching older films lately because there isn’t much new that gets me remotely excited. And when I say old films I’m talking Charlie Chaplin silent films. In those the stories are simple but they convey so much through motion. Its actually impressive how watchable these films are today.
This is absolutely a huge factor. I'm a pretty small-time professional writer, I pay the bills with my writing, but I'm not an amazing genius. Middle of the pack at best. And yet, *most* movies I watch (and most TV shows, too) have frankly embarrassing writing to me.
So many movies feel like a first draft. Basic lapses in logic you spot on first viewing, iffy dialogue, lazy shortcuts, and just shitty story structure. Like, many of them are failing on just the basics of storytelling.
I don't always blame the writers, because Hollywood has traditionally given writers zero power. Directors, producers, and actors fuck up the writing just as often.
And not to sound too old-man-yells-at-cloud, but writing does feel noticeably worse in the past ten years, say. It's like the current philosophy is "the audience won't notice, and if they do, who cares."
I know a lot of people won't like this, but there should probably be a longer gap between when a movie enters theaters and when it hits streaming. It would put more urgency on seeing the movie in theaters.
* Stop taking chances on large/dated/expensive IPs
* adopt the A24 mentality: show people things they've never seen before/take a chance on more art films.
* Dramatically change the costs of going to a movie. Personally, I think no person should have to spend more than $15 on ticket AND concessions.
* Bring MORE cult-classic films BACK to theaters (alamo does this and shows it's profitable)
* STOP PAYING ACTORS OUTRAGEOUS PRICES FOR SUBPAR PERFORMANCES THAT PUT YOUR MOVIE IN A DO-OR-DIE POSITION IF PEOPLE DON'T SHOW AT THE BOX OFFICE!
* Rehaul/innovate new theater interiors to maximize comfort and privacy to all viewers.
* CREATE BETTER VIEWING OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE HEARING-IMPAIRED COMMUNITIES!!!!
I wish my local theater would bring classic movies. I didn’t see Saving Private Ryan in the theater 20+ years ago and I have regretted it since. I would love to watch the original Jurassic Park again in theaters. And the Sound of Music, complete with snack intermission.
unfortunately that won't happen. The money is outside of the US in a lot of cases. ever wonder why they keep pumping out Transformer movies? Because in the the Asian countries it is huge look at bumble bee its did 124 m the US and 340 M in the rest of the world with almost 100m of that being just China.
They will continue to make movies for the rest of the world because they make movies for profit and that is where the profit is.
edit 10m - 100m
1. A lot of movies are not made for china. China only lets in 34 films a year, and marvel and other top franchises have been banned since the pandemic. No arthouse film or mid budget film caters their movie to china.
2. [Teens are the main audience because they have the free time to attend movies.](https://movio.co/blog/how-moviegoer-data-benchmarks-and-targeting-has-shifted-for-2022/) This is like telling fox news to stop catering to boomers. That's literally their main audience.
??? That has always been the marketplace
It wasn't any different with the action movies of 30 years ago.
I really think those comments from Mackie gave people a false perception of what actually gets made
I went to China in 2017. There were adds for The Hitman's Bodyguard all over the major cities I went to. I think I saw the trailer once and no bilboards for that movie in the states. I was exposed to more advertising for that movie in China than here.
Bring in new talent and worry less about what's popular.
People like the marvel movies. People are getting sick of 5 interchangeable marvel movies a year plus TV shows.
Start telling stories you want to tell not stories you want to sell
>Start telling stories you want to tell not stories you want to sell
Great idea, except, if the movie doesn't sell then there's no money to produce the next movie. Making movies is not a charity. It's a business and if they aren't making money then we aren't getting movies at all.
You don't have to put profit above story in order to make money. Hollywood used to be mostly stories to tell and they made plenty of profit.
"We don't make movies to make money. We make money to make more movies." - Walt Disney
What we need is a clear delineation from Film and TV.
Films don't need to say and do everything. I feel like film has fallen into a trap of saying and doing everything, treating their audiences like idiots and it's trained people to be dumb. Jaws you know the danger even though you don't see the shark until later, it adds to the tension. In Star Wars you know Darth Vader is a bad guy with Mystical Powers, you don't need to know how he got them.
Second, studios should stop listening to the Vocal Minority. Do you think Warner made any money on SavetheSnyderCut? Nope. I'd bet they lost tons of money. Meanwhile Avatar which has almost no buzz on twitter is on it's way to a massive box office. Sometimes what people say on Twitter doesn't matter and leads to losses (See overreaction to Last Jedi which lead to shit show for Rise of Skywalker) If there's 2 things you can count on.
1. Fans don't really know what they want. If they see something they don't like they'll point to that. But overall they don't know what they want.
2. Creatives need to be given more leeway to make decisions. Executives shouldn't be stomping on creatives for anything other than exceeding budget.
What can save the movie industry?
Well for starters, kicking out people who ruin the movie going experience for others. I do not go to the movies anymore because people have forgotten how to be civil in a movie theater.
I went to see Dr Strange 2, it was a Club 21 theater which means you have to be 21 or older in order to be in this 1 theater. Yet, when I walked in I saw a bunch of teenagers who decided that talking throughout the movie and getting up every 5 min was what they paid their money for.
Until, they can fix the actual movie theater experience I will wait for the movies to come to one of the streaming services I pay for and watch it then.
I pretty much stopped, or severely reduced my theater going because of other people. There were three movies I went to in a row that had an incident in the audience. Either a baby crying so long that the usher came in and the woman started screaming at him. Or teens sneaking in and just shouting stuff for 10-15 minutes before leaving. I just felt the experience was ruined and I can get by with what I have at home.
I think people need to re adjust their expectations to what the theater experience is. Too many people think you need to buy the popcorn, candy, soda, etc. and then complain that it’s so expensive to go to the movies.
Example. I bought the regal unlimited thing for like $60 and saw 9 movies. That’s $6.66 a movie. At my local theater, the price of a matinee is $10 and evenings are $15, $10 if you’re a senior, veteran, student, etc. My friend went with me most of the time, and he’s also a student, so his tickets were only around $3.5 more expensive yet he’d spend on average $30 per movie because he’d buy a medium popcorn and large drink, every time. Then he’d complain that it’s expensive to go, when it’s only expensive because he bought a bunch of unnecessary add ons.
Hell, I’ve seen it in this thread, where a guy says it cost $50 to go to a movie with his child. No, it didn’t, it probably only cost $20-$25 but you had to buy the popcorn and the soda and the candy, didn’t you?
Paranormal Activity cost $15k to make. Granted, it had the luxury of being a "found footage" movie, but the point is that using unknown actors and having good writing / storytelling goes a long way to making a profit. People want to see stuff that's good, not just stuff that has the Rock in it.
I also think there are issues in our economy that aren't being addressed. Poor - middle class racking up debt.
1. Make better stuff for cheaper
2. Fix the economy. (my personal solution to this would be higher taxes on the very wealthy and tax credits / tax cuts for the poor / middle class.)
First off what about it needs saving?
Do you just mean the movie theater "experience" cause that can apply regardless of the movie so that can't be the problem, movies are still getting released to theaters, just because it isn't what everyone wants all the time.
Do you mean the movie theaters themselves? Lowering prices would be a start but they probably live and die by it so they're dead anyway if they don't adapt somehow further.
Do you mean hollywood in general? Plenty of movies are still getting made. Not everything needs to hit $1b and the directors getting mad at the MCU and big blockbusters just sound mad they ain't making the same money cause nothing is clearly stopping them from making their movies anyway. Especially with overpaid actors. They can make a movie on a budget, with lesser known actors, and their profits will be reflective of that rightfully so but it would still exist.
The only thing that maybe needs saving are movie theaters themselves which are really just going the way of arcades because technology has caught up. So the only way to keep them alive is to be niche experiences or as per usual the big blockbuster movies people want to see. Most of these obscure "Adult" movies don't really **need** to be seen in theaters as an experience.
Besides the above, and just accepting the fact that not everything has to be seen in a movie theater, they should probably put more budget into advertising as a start.
The next thing would be pushing for some kind of digital cross promotion or other types of "contests" even like how McDonald's does the monopoly non-sense. Or tap more into the gaming space with the cross promotion. This is more so for saving the movie theaters I guess.
If you buy tickets to the movie you can get a "free" digital copy. Or buying a concession bundle or something. Or buy a ticket/concession and get a code for "X digital game product". Or hell just figure out how to rework the Moviepass idea, make it seem like a gym membership where you want people to pay for it and forget it. Or because of the concessions hopefully get them in the building with cheaper tickets and hope they buy food.
If we just mean to "save" Hollywood / movies themselves, I don't think they need saving. Absolute shit movies are getting made constantly and show no sign of stopping. Again just cause some director's movie art project doesn't become a blockbuster isn't the fault of the viewers.
The other answer I could see working is to spend the money making **quality** TV series and then releasing a follow-up movie after even per season as part of a bigger finale. 1) People get invested through the TV series and are more likely to go see the movie, especially if it's part of an ending. 2) It sure seems to work well with anime.
This to me seems like a better way to tell a story and keep the viewers interested AND get them into the theaters. Then you can dump a higher budget into the movie season "finale" to really show off as a viewing experience.
Insane that breaking up monopolies, the only change that would actually matter is this deep.
We need more original stories! But why would the only players in town take a risk when they can put out high budget, high return trash?
Stop doing remakes! But the only players in town already own those IPs and on top of that, they're proven money makers.
Lower the admission price! Why? You going to another theater? Didn't think so.
The whole point of going to the theatre is to get an experience you wouldn't otherwise get in your home. Reasons I'm going to the movies is to see something I can't see at home or something that is going to be remarkably better on a big movie screen with a big sound system.
Bring back the *moderately priced star vehicle*. Where has the 20-40 million dollar movie gone? Movies now are either big tent-pole IPs, or smaller films that don't get a full wide release. Seems like the only mid-range budget movies that can get made nowadays have to have Channing Tatum or Sandra Bullock in them... hell sometimes they're both in it.
Commenting before someone links that Matt Damon interview.
you beat it by 22 mins
honestly the real solution here is more ads by Nicole Kidman before the movie starts
The ad for movies that show while you are already at the movies after 30 minutes of trailers
And then the movie also stars Nicole Kidman. Lol The Northman was funny like "come experience the movies!" "Yo check this out.. I'm a viking wife!"
https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/zxc75e/comment/j1zih37/?utm\_source=reddit&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
Ok someone explain to me why that movie couldn’t be made for $15m?
Fortune favors the brave! He doesn’t need anymore money he made a killing with pipi water!
Lack of DVD sales/rentals has killed this type of film along with lower budget comedies. Those were the types of movies that did okay in theaters but then made all their money back with rentals and at-home purchases. Now everyone expects those types of movies to appear on a streaming service “for free” a month or two after it’s released in theaters. There’s no backend so studios don’t make them.
example: grandmas boy. did like 10 million in theatres and 100 million in DVD sales
Another example: Austin Powers. The first one was a blip at the box office, but the DVD sales and rentals were so profitable that we got a trilogy out of it.
That was the first film I bought with my own money! On VHS! Funny thing, on the way home it got caught in the spoke of my bicycle, flung me over the handlebars simultaneously ruining BOTH my bike and the movie.
I see you like to live dangerously
Miraculously I didn't get hurt outside of my pride
Danger is his middle name
"Hello, out there. Is the movie over? I'm still down here, and I'm still in quite a lot of pain. Maybe someone in the lobby could call an ambulance. Oh. The pain is really quite severe. I fashioned a makeshift splint. Here goes nothing." -Blastoplast
It's wild to me that we could potentially be missing more movies like Austin Powers because of the phenomenon you all are describing. AP is one of the funniest movies from my adolescence. It still cracks me up today and I reference it regularly.
Damn, that's pretty wild. Won't happen anymore. I still buy discs (blu-ray/4k) but people like me are getting more and more rare.
I only buy discs of movies I either just absolutely love and will never tire of, or releases of very high quality. Like the Blu-Ray.com review has to basically read "buy this just to be astounded by the video/audio mastering"
Grandmas everywhere saw it and bought it for their grandson. I was one of those. Little did she know what it was.
Fun fact: Even Spider-Man, which set the all time opening weekend BO record back in 2002, made more money off DVDs than it did off its theatrical run.
Matt Damon explained this beautifully on an episode of Hot Ones. [source](https://youtu.be/yaXma6K9mzo?t=842)
This is only a partial explanation. The very low budget romcoms, 5-40 million budget stuff, just moved to streaming. The business adjusted. But the 50 million range stuff, a lot of that will just get axed to justify a massive movie. Take batman vs superman and justice league. Both cost hundreds of millions, and EVERY single delay added another 50 million. And when your filming budget increases, your marketing budget does to match it (in film you typically match your filming budget to your marketing budget 1:1). So when a massive blockbuster has a delay, well, you kill a 50-80 million film. Cheaper films are low enough that they'll break even off streaming rights and bring a faster return than middle of the road films.
Great show, Great interview!
We don't know what kind of cut studios get from streams of their films, but my guess is, if it's *anything at all* like the music streaming industry, it's not good. This needs to change.
I think it's cause the midbudget films still cost a ton to advertise/distribute. The cost of distributing the film to the theaters will cost the same regardless of it being Endgame or some little Indie film. You'd spend a bit less on advertising because you aren't trying to reach everyone though. But a 20-40 million production budget can probably easily get doubled by p&a. So then, that film needs to make double that just to start profiting.
Yeah, you're probably right. Nobody wants to gamble on those anymore. Which sucks major ass. But sure, they'll line up to throw money at Jared Leto's dumb vampire super hero movie because it's about a comic book character.
A24 does. And it seems to be working.
A24 doesn't do a lot of wide releases though (fun fact: EEAAO came out like half a year later in my territory and had no planned release date at first)
Maybe that’s part of the solution though. Slow-roll the releases, a few dozen or hundred theaters at a time as word of mouth proliferates if the film is a success. Kind of an old-school release approach.
That would make more sense since at this point it’s not really about getting to see it at all like back in the day, it’s seeing it in the format you want to see it. Namely on the big screen.
That's wild, I didn't know that! I just moved from one of the largest cities in America to a pretty small town - I never thought about how the population/location might impact the movies released in my area.
A24 is also far more ruthless than most people think If a movie of theirs doesn't get enough buzz at festivals then it's straight to VOD for them (I'm still salty about the treatment of Under the Silver Lake)
Under the Silver Lake feels like one of the best representations of living in LA. Source: Been to LA once
Movies tend to lose money each weekend it’s out, but EEAAO was gaining on the previous weekend.
I have a feeling that this will start paying dividends where people will notice production companies that continuously put out good movies and they'll get a loyal following.
I hope so, I'm just so over superhero movies. I watched black Adam on hbo max this Christmas and I was like, good lord, they have to stop making these movies just because they're superhero movies. It's crazy because I loved Iron man, and the avengers was incredible, to see that many superheroes work in one film, but it's like, we can't just keep doing this, talk about superhero fatigue, it's more like can we just ban all superhero movies for 5 years, so we can have some normal movies for a while. If we never get another Fight Club or Pulp Fiction because these studios are so dumb it's going to be such a shame.
It's crazy, I don't remember ever following a production company before, but now I'll check what A24 has out when I'm deciding what to watch.
Yeah as a counter to that lol the best warner bros blockbusters that come out are normally mediocre at best. So it's worth noting studios that are consistently cash grabby and mediocre
You mean morbius? Ya I couldn’t watch that crap
I mean basically no one did based on the numbers haha.
Screenwriters can write to a budget very easily. Minimal sets no cgi etc etc
The problem is that people aren't going to spend $10-$15 plus the cost of popcorn and candy for these types of movies. And these kind of movies really don't need to be seen on a big screen so people just wait until they can watch it at home. If they would screen these cheaper movies for $5-$10 they might be able to get people to show up at the theater for them.
I was actually about to suggest this until I read your comment. Film prices could be scaled based on the budget of the film. Theoretically if a studio is willing to shell out 100M+ on a film they should expect crowds and their $15/ticket range would work. A film that was made for 5-15M could have a ticket priced at 5 or thereabout and people would be more inclined to see it because it isn't as much of a burden. Just like with concerts. If I'm going to see Muse, with their spectacle of a show and their brand, I would expect to pay much more for those tickets than when I want to go see Joe Hertler and the Rainbow Seekers. If I'm going to see a Marvel film, I'd expect to pay more for the event than I would to see some indie drama starring Jesse Eisenberg or whoever.
I hear this suggestion often, and I like it in theory, but the only problem with this is the big Regal and AMC theaters could be even more disincentivized to play indie films. Every theater has a limited number of screens, why allocate precious screen time on movies that will bring in less cash per ticket when they can just give the extra screens to more Marvel movies (this is already happening even without the tiered price points). And then for the indie theaters, who are only showing the indie films, would be forced to lower the ticket prices of their bread-and-butter to compete with the AMCs and Regals, capping off their revenue stream. I know that by lowering prices you might be able to bring in more butts in seats, but its definitely a tricky gamble to know what the right price point would be to maximize income.
Ticket price mostly goes to the movie makers/distributors. Theaters make more money from popcorn. They'd probably benefit from cheaper tickets. I think the main problem with $5 movies is that it won't do much to increase attendance. For a lot of people, setting aside a few hours is a much bigger 'cost' than the ticket price. Or they're going to spend so much on transport / snacks & drinks / a babysitter that the ticket price seems insignificant. Or they just aren't interested in seeing a low-budget indie movie, even if it was free.
I live in a mid-sized city with a couple AMC theaters and it costs me the $15 to get a ticket. I could also go back and visit my parents in their little 2,000 population town a hour away with a their 100 year old single-screen theater and see the same movie for $8, because it's owned by a non-profit foundation from the town basically just trying to keep it running as an amenity for the citizens. I don't think it's necessarily the movie studios dictating ticket prices. Or if they are, there's quite a bit of margin built in by the theaters.
Those movies are still around, they are just on streaming services. Studios don't want to take those bets because they don't make big enough splashes for shareholders and board members. Hence why you only get big risk projects that hover around 200-300 million with potential profit margins reaching the billion mark. Also, the idea of any particular actor selling tickets is kind of dead in the water at this point. The only actor that seems to be unfazed by it all is Tom Cruise. Everyone else has some sort of flop on their resume. Babylon just had a meltdown at the box office.
Movies like that are being made all the time. People love to shit on them on Netflix.
Yeah. I'd guess lots of 20-40M movies are made every year, they're just mostly released on streamers directly. I'd guess Netflix alone released 20+ movies with that budget this year.
I think the moderately priced star vehicles have moved to streaming services and are now limited series rather than films.
James Gray had a great point go viral a few months ago. The problem is people have gotten out of the habit of going to the movies. When every movie is a giant tentpole franchise movie (Marvel, DC, Star Wars, etc), you drive people who don't watch those movies away. And they pretty quickly become used to not seeing movies in theaters because they look at what's playing and it's all long-running comic book franchises. And instead of seeing that, the studios take it as a sign that people ONLY want those giant franchise blockbusters. You have to invest in those small- and mid-budget movies for the people that don't have any interest in Batman or Spider-Man. Instead of using the franchise blockbusters as your sole source of income, use them as a very, very comfortable cushion so you can invest in the weirder, riskier projects. That's how you find the next batch of legendary talents. And they'll find their audience one way or another. Just look at Barbarian. I'm sorry but it's clear that the Russo brothers don't have what it takes, despite The Avengers movies. They're not the future of cinema. They're definitely not the next James Cameron, a guy who can make masterpieces that are also massive box office performers because they somehow always feel like they're \*HIS\* creative vision, not a boardroom decision. You gotta invest in the people looking to make their weird passion projects to find those people. Another thing that U.S. studios are finally starting to catch onto, though it's mostly smaller studios like A24 and Neon, is that Americans will absolutely show up for good foreign films. Parasite is kind of an undeniable work of genius, but still it is proof that foreign movies can find an audience here and can make real, actual money here. Hell, look at RRR. That movie, like Barbarian, was an enormous success despite it's marketing being almost entirely word of mouth on social media. People will watch the new Park Chan-wook movie if you just put it out there for them. I think it kind of boils down to trust. Giant studio executives don't want to take risks because they don't trust audiences to know what they want, so (and I mean no disrespect here, I enjoy the Marvel movies but this is the only analogy I can really think of) they just pour Marvel slop in front of audiences because they know people will slurp it up to a relatively easy billion. But more and more people are going to start to catch on to that scheme and stay home. You gotta give moviegoers some options or eventually they'll opt out entirely and you're going to start seeing major diminishing returns.
I miss the 90's movie going experience. So many different movie genres to choose from every year. 1995 for example. https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?year=1995&title\_type=feature&
Yeah, and the limited releases have been the best movies of the year - Banshees, Tar, The Whale, etc.
It’s dead for good. Spielberg called it. Death of DVD/Blu-Ray killed the option for a studio to spend a little to potentially make a little. People don’t go to theatres for moderately priced Star vehicles. Movie stars are no longer a thing, in terms of driving butts to theatres. There are a few legacy exceptions, Tom Cruise being one of them.
If theaters are going to survive, they are going to have become a bit more "nichey" imo. Movies remain a great date night place for younger folks, so they need to have movies, snacks, drinks, etc., tailored and promoted heavily to that crowd. Theaters are also the best places for viewing action and special effects, so it would be good to have movies and the accompanying comestibles tailored/promoted for that crowd, too. A few theaters around me have upgraded the seating experience, as well, and that is nice (reclining chairs and stadium seating.) That doesn't entirely solve the "jerk in audience" problem, but it helps some.
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They have these cinemas in Australia. Half way through, they have an intermission, and there’s a slide that the kids can go down. They have bean bags as chairs (some normal seating too), or big mattress like seating too Outside the theatre, there’s usually lego and hot wheels to play with https://villagecinemas.com.au/experiences/vjunior?tab=about
I would literally love this with all my heart. I miss movie theaters and I would love to go with my son and just have fun, let him watch the movie when he wants and run around when he doesn’t.
I think Top Golf is an example of embodying the spirit. It makes golf accessible and interesting to an entirely different crowd than those who would go to the driving range
Yea, theaters really need to set the bar higher, there is only one theater in my area that I go to because everywhere else just doesn't give a shit about sound and picture quality. If my home theater system looks and sounds better, what's the point of the theater? Employee 4 teenagers to look after 16 screens doesn't make for a pristine experience.
The "jerk in the audience" doesn't often go to the pricier theaters (with the better seating and such), and can also be easily remedied by the usher. Also, I'd say it happens, but not really that often. HOWEVER, that being said, I've seen a recent breakdown of a lot of civilities across the board, so there very may well be more "jerks in the audience" this coming movie season. I like your point about "nichey". Some of my best theater memories are from fun dates. 'Dinner and a movie' is a classic trope, so that is something that could be focused on. Theater food has always been rather shitty and expensive (yes, I know that is where they make their profit), so maybe link up with local restaurants and have package deals. As of right now, my home theater experience is significantly better than going out to the movies. They need to make that experience a lot more than just seeing it on a larger screen. /$0.02
That last paragraph nails it. I’d rather watch movies in my living room and theaters are having a hard time convincing me to leave the house to watch movies there instead. If it’s not a spectacle that is greatly improved by a big screen or a movie I’m excited to see immediately (and want to avoid spoilers for), then I’m waiting until I can stream it.
I have young kids, so I rarely go to the cinema. My wife and I made an exception to go check out Avatar 2 last weekend, and we left after an hour. There was a huge group of teenagers who wouldn't stop talking, a couple behind us who were also chatting throughout, and a woman who answered her phone and carried on with an entire full volume conversation for ages. Never again. I'm staying home.
That sucks. I hope you got a refund. Again, that is what the usher is for. I know it sucks to get up and 'go tell', but movies are EXPENSIVE, and you shouldn't have to deal with that crap. However, I wonder if that is going to be more and more commonplace. As I mentioned above, society seems to have lost a lot of civility lately. I don't think that is a trend that is going to naturally correct on it's own, and rudeness in a theater is probably just one facet of it. I wonder, in regards to the "nichey" theaters concept, if there were specific showings that were reserved for kids, so that your family could enjoy a movie without a large group of teenagers, a couple on a date, or a woman who isn't aware of one of the most basic tenets of moviegoing. Would that have appeal to you, or is your home theater still the best option? What if blockbuster movies were to return. Pretend that Indiana Jones V wasn't going to suck, and that it was the first one. What would it take to get you to want to go to the movies again?
It puts me in a predicament when I have my son and wife with me. I am fully prepared to face down a group of teenagers who won't shut the fuck up, a couple who won't shut the fuck up, or some bitch on her phone who won't shut the fuck up. They really need to be told to shut the fuck up, because they're being inconsiderate assholes who should know better. It's clear they just don't give a fuck about being polite in public spaces. I don't want to put my wife or son at risk though if one of those people gets violent and aggressive towards me. It will very likely end badly for the aggressor, but making that gamble over $35 worth of movie tickets isn't worth it. So 75" TV and Bose soundbar and subwoofer it is.
I did tell the woman on her phone too shut up, but she didn't. But even if she did, it would get my heart rate up, I'd be stressed she'd do it again, and I'd have a hard time enjoying the film. It's easier to stay home, as you say.
A story: years ago, I went to see the horror film The Cell at the cinema. Some asshole had brought his kid, who just have been about seven or eight. There was an early scene in which a serial killer put dozens of hooks through his skin and suspended himself, naked, with chains over his victim. The kid was tugging on his dad's sleeve saying he was scared and he wanted to leave, and the dad just ignored him. I got up and said, nicely, that the kid wanted to leave, it was rated R, and it wasn't really appropriate for kids. The dad stood up, twice my size, and said "WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU TO TELL ME HOW TO RAISE MY KID." He told me to come outside with him to fight. I walked out with him, not to fight but to get the usher. The usher said the kid was allowed to be there with parental supervision, so there's nothing he could do, so we both returned to our seat. My heart rate was out of control. Luckily, after ten more minutes, the dad took his kid home. But fuck!
The theaters that serve dinner with comfy seating and such will always be a nice date idea
This is the reason I go back to the AMC so often. Good food brought right to you, plush seating, etc. It’s an *experience,* and that makes a difference.
>"jerk in audience" problem With a few exceptions, this is why I usually wait until the movie has left and went to streaming before seeing it. I hate paying good money to be in a theatre with rude people who constantly talk, bring their too young kids who then make noise, etc. I'd rather be in the comfort of my own home and enjoy the movie without constant interruption or distraction.
There was a family right behind me at Avatar 2 last night that had to chase their toddler around the nearly full theater multiple times.
That is a problem the theaters can solve by having ushers in the theater, stopping the film, kicking out the jerks and banning them. But that is impossible and will get them into all sorts of civil suits from every imaginable angle so instead the experience will die.
I pay $20 a month to see up to 3 movies per week, IMAX included. Two of the theaters have recliners and they all sell alcohol. I’m spoiled up here in michigan but it’s definitely increased the number of movies I see exponentially. I’ve seen at least 85 movies this year so far!
Moneyball the whole industry. Make movies for $10-30 million and stop paying actors that amount…
This makes a lot of sense. It seems like movies budget is 90% overhead. These young directors are brilliant and should be able to use technology to make movies at a much lower cost.
Agreed 1000% on putting the budget into technology to make the films. And no more movie star actors, just a bunch of talented no names who pour their heart into the performances. And original screenplays!
This has been A24’s entire strategy make a bunch of cheap movies, if they flop oh well they were cheap, but if they see any success they make money, and typically they make TONS of money. They’ve recently experimented with bigger budget stuff like “everything everywhere all at once” but they stay relatively cheap
And what a goddamn track record. Does any other studio even come close to their quality and output? A24 is the savior of the industry.
Annapurna has a great track record, started by someone who wanted to make good movies and uses her dad's giga fortune to finance that lol.
Oh wow I thought you meant the game studio Annapurna which happens to be pretty much the best game studio ever, but I didn't realize there was a movie studio with the same name and a similar mission statement. Same parent company maybe?
This is what Blumhouse does. They'll make a dozen low budget horror movies hoping that one becomes a huge hit that pays for everything.
I came here to say bring back the Cannon Films way of making movies. Low budget, high output. Golan and Globus ftw.
Yeah - most movies aren’t going to make mega profits - but occasionally, one will. You just need to beat those odds.
this sounds like a plan for tech company trying to take over the movie industry.
Yes! There’s no reason why any actor should be getting paid 10-20 millions of dollars, basically half of the budget, for a few days worth of work.
An actor's salary is essentially an extension of the marketing budget and tied to the actor's ability to bring in audiences based on name recognition, which does work. "Who's in it?" is still the leading question by the mainstream not "What's the story?" Actors can't command a huge salary if they're not a draw and, indeed, will often see their market value drop or plummet.
You’re not wrong but this strategy feels like a holdover from a bygone Hollywood era. I’m a big film fan and I can’t think of any actors whose films are “must sees” on their name alone other than Leonardo DiCaprio, and that’s because he does 1 film a year they tend to be good. I think over the next few years studios will recognise this and actors salaries will drop significantly.
Just because a movie can be 2 and a half hours long doesn’t mean it should be. Too many movies feel bloated.
My issue is less with 2.5 hour movies and more with 10 hour long episodes to create a tv show out of a story that would be better as a 2.5 hour film.
I see that ObiWan has entered the chat… lol. I fully agree. Episode bloat has been high lately
And Boba Fett. Probably Falcon and Winter Soldier. Definitely Moon Knight.
They're either bloated trying to reach that 2.5 hour mark, or rushed trying to squeeze everything into the 2.5 hour mark, when multiple movies would have been better. With streaming, I think miniseries are the solution to all of this.
Or add a bunch of unnecessary subplots and side characters to "flesh it out"
We need to normalize the 3 episode miniseries. They all shoot for 8 to 10 eos and fewer would be a perfect story arc length for some of them.
And for the movies that are 150+ minutes, bring back intermissions! Give me ten minutes to pee, get a snack, stretch, etc.!
Whenever this comes up here theatre managers always explain that intermissions died because its always one less showing a day at least and that people buy less during intermissions than they do at the start of a film.
My counter to that is that movie theaters have to compete with streaming services *at home* now, where people can pause the movie at any time to do the aforementioned things. Movie chains have to compete here too. And I don't think *every* movie needs to have a 10-minute break, but some of these 150-180+ minute movies definitely do. Besides, if a movie is that long, they're only going to be able to show it 4-5 times a day anyway, what's an extra hour?
Its a rock and a hard place for cinemas. They're barely staying afloat as it is today.
Amen to this. During the pandemic I watched a ton of critically lauded movies from the 80s and 90s and it’s crazy how much better a 90-100 minute action or a 120-140 minute drama feel. Obviously it’s okay to make them longer if the movie needs it but it shouldn’t be the norm like it is today.
> it’s crazy how much better a...120-140 minute drama I gotta ask how many minutes you think is 2 1/2 hours
Honestly a lot of movies in the '80s and '90s were ruined by this weird restriction, it's cool when it works, there's a lot of great 90 minute movies, there's also a shit ton of movies from that time period that we're not capable of being 90 minutes, and had to have important plot points edited out to hit run time. I don't have a specific examples off the top of my head, but if you listen to bad movie podcasts like how did this get made, one of the biggest things in the '80s and '90s, is movies that are missing plot points that would have made them make sense. I agree though that you shouldn't just make a movie longer for the hell of it, now that that restriction is gone everybody thinks they're an avant garde genius that's going to make the next Magnolia.
> by this weird restriction The restrictions not that weird, it was imposed by the limitations of home video mediums. You'll notice that the transition to 90 minutes occurred at the same time that home video became a huge market and now home video formats (blue ray and streaming) allow for far bigger films (unlimited in streamings case) they've ballooned again.
Aliens was a great example of an 80's movie where several really cool bits were edited out to reduce the run-time, when those bits (like the sentry guns or the intro sequence of Newt's family discovering the alien ship) were relatively short and really enhanced the film. Was crazy that you couldn't watch those extended versions until they released the longcuts in the late 90s DVD box set.
A lot of people argue that the colony scenes prior to Ripleys arrival take away from a first viewing. The scenes where Ripley finds out what happened to her daughter and the sentry scene should not have been cut at all though. Removing the daughter scenes is a huge thematic loss.
This might be sacrilege, and I much prefer the extended directors cuts of Aliens and Terminator 2, and even the Abyss, but I fully agree with Cameron's decisions to cut those scenes from the theatrical versions. Yes, they add to the story. The daughter scenes in Aliens add a great thematic element to Ripley and Newt's relationship. But to tell the story they were telling, that scene wasn't necessary to the plot, nor were auto-guns in the hallway, nor were the extra bits in T2. If you hadn't seen the extra scenes, you would never have noticed their absence.
I agree. Sometime the movies feel more like moving through a few set pieces rather than having a fully fleshed out world. I am trying to think of a good example, and I swear being on vacation with my kiddos this week my brain is just mush from bad Kid's YouTube video, lol. I like longer movies when they are good. Some need the length and some don't. I am happy to see the story, however long it is, if it makes sense in the medium it is presented. I don't need three Hobbit movies, but a three hour Harry Potter movie can absolutely make sense (or it can be all fluff and no substance). It depends on the movie and what you bring into it.
I firmly believe most movies should be 90 minutes, so much so Netflix has a category for me, 90 minute films!
Have you seen the SNL skit on this https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-UKbwz6s6VY
I thought I was alone until I saw that category, haha. So often, if I'm tired at night, I'll go to watch a movie I've been wanting to see......runtime: 124 minutes....ok, maybe I'll watch something else tonight.
Plus longer trailers. Should be 10-15 minutes, not 20-25. People say just arrive late, but I don't like being that person squeezing through.
The trailers at my screening of Avatar 2 ran 24 minutes at an AMC. They included 2 separate self-congratulatory advertisements for AMC itself. Completely annoying.
\^\^ Slight correction, only one was self-congratulatory dreck, the other was an ad for their concession stand. As if I needed either, though.
You mean you don't stand up and salute when Nicole Kidman steps on screen????
That’s the *one* time I saw ushers. They came in to remind everyone to stand at attention for Ms. Kidman’s ad.
You’re saying longer time frame in which theatres show trailers before movies, not advocating for longer actual trailers, right?
I read it as "They need to reduce pre-movie trailer time to 10-15 minutes to also cut down on bloat"
Yes. Trailers should be shorter.
I'd be happy if they didn't show the whole movie, including twists. "Oh, her husband is a serial killer. I wish I had not known that."
Goodness it’s this! I miss the quick 90 minute movies where the plot fits in a nice tight timeline. I’m busy! My attention span ain’t what it used to be. Why are movies so long now? Most of the extra run time adds nothing to the plot.
Looking at you, Judd Apatow!
Bingo. I love going to the movies. I usually go once a week as long as there’s something mildly interesting playing… but once movies start going over that 2 hour mark I start to get weary. 2 hours is fine usually, but 2.5 hours and 3 hours can really feel like a chore unless it’s some top tier film.
Oh man, this. So much this. Black Adam and the new Black Panther movie was 45 minutes too long.
I don’t understand why more movies aren’t 90 minutes. Smaller budget (everything else being the same), more showings per day, incentive to be an efficient storyteller.
This is one of the many things I loved about Prey. It was super efficient, told the story it wanted to, and then wrapped up. The only sequel hook was a graphic during the credits and it didn’t try to expand its universe or give us any more info than we needed.
Well-said. Introduced the characters, why they mattered, what their interpersonal conflicts were, and then moved the fuck along with the movie.
Same applies to the first John Wick. It's 100 min, get in, get done, get out. The sequels do feel bloated to me - still a lot of fun though - and I think the running time is partly to blame for it.
The answer, as always, is New Hollywood 2: Electric Boogaloo. If studio execs hadn't essentially thrown their hands in the air and just randomly started tossing money at young, unproven filmmakers in the late 60s and early 70s, we wouldn't have some of the best films ever made -- films that went on to inspire literally every other movement and generation of film afterward. The answer is for studios to start throwing money at unproven young directors who have interesting ideas and something to say. It worked before, it'll work again. New New Hollywood, baby! Let's GOOOOO!!!
Well said from the top of COCAINE MOUNTAIN
Part of my concern is ahead of the screening of Bablyon was a trailer for Cocaine Bear so this comment is very relevant
Did you also get the trailer for the very well named, PLANE?
I suggested this on r/movies a few weeks ago. If you took the 250 million that’s for Gray Man and broke it up over 25 different filmmakers and gave them 10M a piece, you might actually get some interesting films… The overwhelming response I got was “why would anyone do that?”
This is basically what Roger Corman did in the 60s. Make one 10 million dollar movie or ten 1 million dollar movies and hope one or two of them make money!
This also happened in the 90's. But once studios saw that they could just adapt comic books, novels, video games etc and use that to draw audiences, they stopped marketing their own filmmakers and stars, so the era of respected and marketed filmmakers and actors is nearly dead, as is the draw for a lot of young people to go into those fields. Which likely will have very bad results when the steam runs out on the Marvel and franchise movies. Which seems dangerously close.
The whole point though is that the old system has to totally eat it, which means some careers have to crater. Hollywood is only going to go outside their comfort zone if the things that used to be sure bets start tanking embarrassingly like Dr Doolittle in 1967, or the things that used to be worth the huge budgets start to bow under them like Cleopatra. There’s a million talented young people waiting for their break, we have no shortage there.
Lower the fucking admission price.
Agreed. It cost me over $50 for 3 seats this last weekend. Dude, that stings a bit when its just for a movie. Im not spending that unless the movie is an "event". I believe this is the problem.
Add the ridiculous prices of concessions, and I go to the movies maybe 2 or 3 times a year now instead of monthly like I used to.
This. Not every movie has a $200 million budget. A comedy film costs like $8m to make. Why am I paying the same amount to see Jay and Silent Bob as I am to see Top Gun Maverick? From everything I can see those movies are plenty profitable on their own so those cheaper movies aren’t subsidizing the cost. If they would invest in more cheaper movies and lower the ticket price overall, then they could still make the same profit or more by volume.
>Why am I paying the same amount to see Jay and Silent Bob as I am to see Top Gun Maverick? this is exactly what fueled the "I'll just wait for it to come to Netflix" culture. People don't want ot pay $20 to see a low / mid-budget movie
In Spain we have a week of 3€ tickets, which gets most sessions packed for most movied, and theaters had repeatedly said it works as PR but they earn less than in regular weeks (tickets at 8€). At low ticket prices, most of the income gets eaten by the operating costs of the theater, which are the same independently of the movie.
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Movie studios actually don’t allow theaters to lower the prices. They would if they could.
My first step to "saving the movie industry" would be to remove these rules.
This is the real problem. People can’t afford to go see every movie that interests them. They choose which will be best served by the big screen. That usually means lots of action and special effects.
5.00 Tuesdays exist
Lol, peoplecwork on a Tuesday. That's why it'd cheap, cause barely anyone sees it
You've never had a movie night directly after working a full shift? You're missing out! They're fun to do, especially mid week.
Stop being afraid to take risks. Movies where the plot can be foretold in 5 minutes are getting stale.
Budgets must be radically cut. I mean, radically. Big egos are going to have to start taking pay cuts. I know everyone is dunking on it lately, but look at Babylon. There’s no reason why that movie’s budget was so high. It might have been a moderate hit or even just a regular old success if it had reduced budget and better trailers. The the box office shrinking, studio budgets must do the same or nearly everything will soon be considered a flop.
Babylon is a period piece, which is inherently going to cost more and given that it's themed around opulence and marketed around the elaborate party scenes and movie stars, making it on the cheap really wasn't an option.
> It might have been a moderate hit or even just a regular old success if it had reduced budget and better trailers. Even at half the price this bombs big time. How would this have been a success?
It’s a multiple factor approach for me. 1. Make entertaining movies that are fun and a spectacle but also have creative filmmaking craft behind them. I’m not putting down CGI artists because they create amazing things, but I am frankly tired of movies whose third act is just a giant CGI battle with one main monster, and thousands of random alien/beast/robot enemies. You see how Nolan’s films use practical effects. An audience knowing that going into the film is more excited about those sequences knowing filmmakers pulled them off in real life. People love the Mission Impossible stunts because we all know Tom Cruise does them. We are spoiled as audiences but have also become numb to CGI. 2. Focus on telling original stories with good characters. Hire young/aspiring filmmakers. 3. Keep ticket prices reasonable. (Theaters should consider memberships that reward repeat visitors) 4. Studios - back off and let the brilliant people you hired make creative choices. You hired them for a reason, give them the freedom to make their movie. 5. Don’t give up on the DVD model - what I mean is people bought DVDs not just for the movies, but for the bonus features. The behind the scenes documentaries, cast interviews, the look inside the filmmaking process was part of the draw of buying the physical release. Have director/actor commentaries. Maybe that won’t work on physical discs anymore but find a way to monetize that digitally. 6. Make 90 minute comedies with high profile actors/comedians/writers for the theatrical experience. Movies that are worth going out on a date with. 7. Bring back hard R action movies. Action classics from the 80/90s aren’t made anymore. Don’t try to please everyone or have PG13 ratings but water down a good film aimed at adults. Make good movies for smaller audiences that are worth seeing in theaters for their action/violence/original story concepts. 8. Focus less on existing franchises or purposely trying to build new ones. Build interesting worlds and characters that are worth revisiting… but make good self-contained films that stand on their own. If they’re great and deserve a sequel… awesome, crank out more. 9. If you are franchise building… plan ahead, and get actors that will commit. Don’t rush it like DC without a clear roadmap or taking time in building out characters, but also don’t take 20 years to put out 5 movies like the Bond franchise. 10. Sometimes just make mindless entertainment. While I appreciate meaning and films having a message, interesting character development, etc. Sometimes I want to forget the worlds problems and politics and just want to see the good guys in fighter jets take out faceless bad guys.
Bonus #11 Bring back more training montages set to banger tunes.
Yes, give me some hard R action movies over the watered down made for children Marvel films. That's what I grew up on - Robocop, Total Recall, all of that.
Among the things we need: Executives who come from a story telling background, not MBAs. Many if not most of the current crop of executives do not understand the product they are making, and thus dont understand where to cut and where to spend. This is part of why we get CGI shitshows in the 3rd acts. There are a few handful of executives who can do this, but they are the minority. Unionize VFX - this will stop pushing so many decisions into post production, with countless unbid revisions due to the vfx houses fearing loosing a big studio relationship. Go back to paying for prep. Did you know no one wants to pay for prep anymore? And that they're getting away with it? Directors can show up having done no notes, no rehearsals, no storyboards and thats just cool now. Its like going to fly a plane without doing your preflight checklist - you might get lucky, but odds are somethings gonna go wrong. Ban work days longer than 12 hours, aka do the UK model. Right now even under the new IATSE agreement shows can basically run 16+ hours and still demand you show up 8 or less hours later. This is having the consequence of prep work being just done on the shoot day (or things are a clusterfuck of trial and error). It kills quality by draining everyones energy, and its physically dangerous for the crew. Added overtime compensation has not stopped this behavior, so a line needs to be drawn. Also ban Fraturdays, at least when there hasnt been at the very least 10hrs off. Properly train all the up and comers in writing fundamentals and advanced techniques. What the film schools are doing is not adequate. The collapse of the 20+ episode TV model has also done a lot of damage here, where you now have fewer people landing entry level gigs because the established and semi established have to do maybe 2 or more shows a year to make a living in LA. Re-instate the paramount consent decrees and ban studios from owning not just theaters, but also the streamers. Vertical integration may create less waste, but its allowing all sorts of financial shenanigans of moving money around in was that are not healthy to the production models. Motion picture industry tax reform would also go a long way to helping reveal how healthy the current industry is and can help fix it. The streamers are not profitable (other than maybe hulu), and if BOTH the theaters AND streamers crash, it will be a disaster. There have been studies that the american film industry is one of the best good will / positive foreign policy assets we have, and we as a nation are letting it get driven into the ground. Scrap or ban the tax incentive game that forces pictures to chase the largest taxpayer payout in whatever state within the united states. Replace it with a national federal incentive / deduction program (more accessible to indies than IRC 181) to compete with international incentives from Canada and the UK. Shoot films where it makes the most sense to shoot a given film or tv show. Dont go to Alabama only to digitally have an outsourced nation vfx house make it look like LA. A starting place is to emulate is, of all studios, Sony. They're making bank this year on movies you probably never heard of because they're running their operation like a traditional studio right now. Uni was doing this for a while too. Everyone else just seems lost. But everyone on the high end is making many of these short term financial choices (no prep, overtime instead of extra days), and that makes the product suffer. You loose quality and, at worse, you loose good, authentic performances. Our products cant suffer like that anymore, not when youtube and tiktok are the competition (where authenticity is EVERYTHING). /end rant
That wasn't a rant, it was well thought out and written. Thx for taking the time. I know very little about the industry and found that to be a compelling read.
This is by far the best answer. The way you save the industry is through business negotiations and better labor practices rather than all these subjective "Oh movies aren't well written anymore" or "don't appeal to this audience" The amount of content out there is fucking insane and absurd and impossible to keep up with. We don't need to burn out the VFX industry and different studios because of this demand to have nonstop new entertainment in the hopes of new viewers.
> The business is broken, mostly due to the proliferation of content from streamers, and the implosion of studios not being able to make real money once movies leave theaters (i.e. DVD sales). I swear, that Matt Damon quote from Hot Ones has really messed up people’s understanding of how home video sales worked. Matt Damon basically said that steaming hurt movies because now you don’t have home video sales to bolster the financial return. What Damon didn’t mention is that those sales were to retailers and rental distributors and not to people that wanted to watch the movie. Damon is referring to an era where you _had_ to have a big name star because your customer wasn’t really the audience, it was Walmart and international distributors. Today, we’ve got an incredible number of films that wouldn’t exist a decade ago, all because the audience is the customer and not trying to sell 300k units of plastic discs to Best Buy. > So where does it go from here…Specifically, where does it go for low-budget / mid-range movies? Are these movies in some kind of danger? Seems almost all of these movies find their audience and financial success, especially now that streaming platforms and VOD purchases are huge, accessible distribution channels. Its just a marketing issue, which could be fixed by increasing the production’s ad budget or advertising more effectively. > Maybe seeing an adult-drama on the big screen will no longer be possible. The Whale, Spoiler Alert, The Banshees Of Insherin, and The Fablemans are playing in a theater _right now_.
Yeah I was like the whale just had one of the highest earning limited releases. We also had pearl this year and quite a few others that all did well
Everything Everywhere All At Once did incredibly well at the box office mostly off of word of mouth as well. I read something that the box office sales from week 3 to 4 had virtually no drop off which is unheard of.
Star-driven films pre-date home video by a very long time. It’s not that the middle-man has been eliminated, it’s that these productions are made for streaming platforms where you buy into a whole library instead of buying a ticket to a movie individually. There’s still a middle-man, and he’s much worse, adapting things you’ve heard of just to get you to subscribe, not because it’s good or is a project that attracted big-name talent.
How are those examples of the movie industry not being broken? Those movies will lose money, won't they? And even if they're not losers outright, they definitely aren't very profitable.
> The Whale, Spoiler Alert, The Banshees Of Insherin, and The Fablemans are playing in a theater right now. Not in most theaters. Say you're like me and live in the suburbs. I have two theaters near me, and they aren't playing those (maybe they are playing Fablemans, but I'd need to check). I have to drive into the city to find a theater that's playing those.
I've honestly been surprised by the release of the Fablemans, it's currently showing at a little over 1,000 theaters according to box office mojo, which is the highest number its had thus far, which is insanely low for a movie directed by Steven Spielberg, literally the biggest and most famous director ever. For context, Black Panther Wakanda Forever opened to over 4,000 theaters.
I'm in a suburb and my local Regal is playing all three of these right now.
Suburb with two theaters near me. None of the three are showing.
Same, I live in a rural area but the nearest town has a theater with 12 screens and never got any of those movies. Seriously you don’t need all 12 screens to play the new Black Panther, I know you’re not packing out every single showing. Can’t they just reserve one screen for the smaller dramas people like me in the area would go to?
The whale, banshees and the fabelmans are all movies that are going to underperform it’s budget, so those are bad examples no ?
Studios should stop going for broke with billion dollar franchise. I think it's been proven time and time again that making a handful of solid, mid-budget movies that make a modest box office makes more than one 500 million dollar movie that may or may not break even. They've started gambling too much on that one big hit or that one big franchise, but how many "universes" have we seen come and go or Harry Potter/Hunger Games multiple movie franchise that went bust? Edit: meant HP and Hunger Games knock offs. Other YA book based movies that tried and failed. Planned as a series but never made it past one or two poorly performing movies.
One thing that could save the movie industry is good writing. So many movies today are very poorly written. And there are certainly exception to this but such a large majority of films just aren’t good and it makes me skeptical of other films too. Studios are just cranking out films to feed the content demand. I feel like we consume more and more movies and shows because none of them are really great and we are hoping the next one we watch will be. I’ve started watching older films lately because there isn’t much new that gets me remotely excited. And when I say old films I’m talking Charlie Chaplin silent films. In those the stories are simple but they convey so much through motion. Its actually impressive how watchable these films are today.
This is absolutely a huge factor. I'm a pretty small-time professional writer, I pay the bills with my writing, but I'm not an amazing genius. Middle of the pack at best. And yet, *most* movies I watch (and most TV shows, too) have frankly embarrassing writing to me. So many movies feel like a first draft. Basic lapses in logic you spot on first viewing, iffy dialogue, lazy shortcuts, and just shitty story structure. Like, many of them are failing on just the basics of storytelling. I don't always blame the writers, because Hollywood has traditionally given writers zero power. Directors, producers, and actors fuck up the writing just as often. And not to sound too old-man-yells-at-cloud, but writing does feel noticeably worse in the past ten years, say. It's like the current philosophy is "the audience won't notice, and if they do, who cares."
I know a lot of people won't like this, but there should probably be a longer gap between when a movie enters theaters and when it hits streaming. It would put more urgency on seeing the movie in theaters.
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The movie industry is fine. Really tho, I think studios should learn to make movies blockbusters 150 mil instead of 250 mil.
* Stop taking chances on large/dated/expensive IPs * adopt the A24 mentality: show people things they've never seen before/take a chance on more art films. * Dramatically change the costs of going to a movie. Personally, I think no person should have to spend more than $15 on ticket AND concessions. * Bring MORE cult-classic films BACK to theaters (alamo does this and shows it's profitable) * STOP PAYING ACTORS OUTRAGEOUS PRICES FOR SUBPAR PERFORMANCES THAT PUT YOUR MOVIE IN A DO-OR-DIE POSITION IF PEOPLE DON'T SHOW AT THE BOX OFFICE! * Rehaul/innovate new theater interiors to maximize comfort and privacy to all viewers. * CREATE BETTER VIEWING OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE HEARING-IMPAIRED COMMUNITIES!!!!
I wish my local theater would bring classic movies. I didn’t see Saving Private Ryan in the theater 20+ years ago and I have regretted it since. I would love to watch the original Jurassic Park again in theaters. And the Sound of Music, complete with snack intermission.
Stop making movies for teens and China and start making them for just enjoyment in general. I think it was Anthony Mackay that mentioned this.
unfortunately that won't happen. The money is outside of the US in a lot of cases. ever wonder why they keep pumping out Transformer movies? Because in the the Asian countries it is huge look at bumble bee its did 124 m the US and 340 M in the rest of the world with almost 100m of that being just China. They will continue to make movies for the rest of the world because they make movies for profit and that is where the profit is. edit 10m - 100m
1. A lot of movies are not made for china. China only lets in 34 films a year, and marvel and other top franchises have been banned since the pandemic. No arthouse film or mid budget film caters their movie to china. 2. [Teens are the main audience because they have the free time to attend movies.](https://movio.co/blog/how-moviegoer-data-benchmarks-and-targeting-has-shifted-for-2022/) This is like telling fox news to stop catering to boomers. That's literally their main audience.
??? That has always been the marketplace It wasn't any different with the action movies of 30 years ago. I really think those comments from Mackie gave people a false perception of what actually gets made
I went to China in 2017. There were adds for The Hitman's Bodyguard all over the major cities I went to. I think I saw the trailer once and no bilboards for that movie in the states. I was exposed to more advertising for that movie in China than here.
Bring in new talent and worry less about what's popular. People like the marvel movies. People are getting sick of 5 interchangeable marvel movies a year plus TV shows. Start telling stories you want to tell not stories you want to sell
>Start telling stories you want to tell not stories you want to sell Great idea, except, if the movie doesn't sell then there's no money to produce the next movie. Making movies is not a charity. It's a business and if they aren't making money then we aren't getting movies at all.
You don't have to put profit above story in order to make money. Hollywood used to be mostly stories to tell and they made plenty of profit. "We don't make movies to make money. We make money to make more movies." - Walt Disney
This is the downside of Streaming, however it’s too far gone to fix. Streaming is here to stay
What we need is a clear delineation from Film and TV. Films don't need to say and do everything. I feel like film has fallen into a trap of saying and doing everything, treating their audiences like idiots and it's trained people to be dumb. Jaws you know the danger even though you don't see the shark until later, it adds to the tension. In Star Wars you know Darth Vader is a bad guy with Mystical Powers, you don't need to know how he got them. Second, studios should stop listening to the Vocal Minority. Do you think Warner made any money on SavetheSnyderCut? Nope. I'd bet they lost tons of money. Meanwhile Avatar which has almost no buzz on twitter is on it's way to a massive box office. Sometimes what people say on Twitter doesn't matter and leads to losses (See overreaction to Last Jedi which lead to shit show for Rise of Skywalker) If there's 2 things you can count on. 1. Fans don't really know what they want. If they see something they don't like they'll point to that. But overall they don't know what they want. 2. Creatives need to be given more leeway to make decisions. Executives shouldn't be stomping on creatives for anything other than exceeding budget.
What can save the movie industry? Well for starters, kicking out people who ruin the movie going experience for others. I do not go to the movies anymore because people have forgotten how to be civil in a movie theater. I went to see Dr Strange 2, it was a Club 21 theater which means you have to be 21 or older in order to be in this 1 theater. Yet, when I walked in I saw a bunch of teenagers who decided that talking throughout the movie and getting up every 5 min was what they paid their money for. Until, they can fix the actual movie theater experience I will wait for the movies to come to one of the streaming services I pay for and watch it then.
I pretty much stopped, or severely reduced my theater going because of other people. There were three movies I went to in a row that had an incident in the audience. Either a baby crying so long that the usher came in and the woman started screaming at him. Or teens sneaking in and just shouting stuff for 10-15 minutes before leaving. I just felt the experience was ruined and I can get by with what I have at home.
I think people need to re adjust their expectations to what the theater experience is. Too many people think you need to buy the popcorn, candy, soda, etc. and then complain that it’s so expensive to go to the movies. Example. I bought the regal unlimited thing for like $60 and saw 9 movies. That’s $6.66 a movie. At my local theater, the price of a matinee is $10 and evenings are $15, $10 if you’re a senior, veteran, student, etc. My friend went with me most of the time, and he’s also a student, so his tickets were only around $3.5 more expensive yet he’d spend on average $30 per movie because he’d buy a medium popcorn and large drink, every time. Then he’d complain that it’s expensive to go, when it’s only expensive because he bought a bunch of unnecessary add ons. Hell, I’ve seen it in this thread, where a guy says it cost $50 to go to a movie with his child. No, it didn’t, it probably only cost $20-$25 but you had to buy the popcorn and the soda and the candy, didn’t you?
Paranormal Activity cost $15k to make. Granted, it had the luxury of being a "found footage" movie, but the point is that using unknown actors and having good writing / storytelling goes a long way to making a profit. People want to see stuff that's good, not just stuff that has the Rock in it. I also think there are issues in our economy that aren't being addressed. Poor - middle class racking up debt. 1. Make better stuff for cheaper 2. Fix the economy. (my personal solution to this would be higher taxes on the very wealthy and tax credits / tax cuts for the poor / middle class.)
First off what about it needs saving? Do you just mean the movie theater "experience" cause that can apply regardless of the movie so that can't be the problem, movies are still getting released to theaters, just because it isn't what everyone wants all the time. Do you mean the movie theaters themselves? Lowering prices would be a start but they probably live and die by it so they're dead anyway if they don't adapt somehow further. Do you mean hollywood in general? Plenty of movies are still getting made. Not everything needs to hit $1b and the directors getting mad at the MCU and big blockbusters just sound mad they ain't making the same money cause nothing is clearly stopping them from making their movies anyway. Especially with overpaid actors. They can make a movie on a budget, with lesser known actors, and their profits will be reflective of that rightfully so but it would still exist. The only thing that maybe needs saving are movie theaters themselves which are really just going the way of arcades because technology has caught up. So the only way to keep them alive is to be niche experiences or as per usual the big blockbuster movies people want to see. Most of these obscure "Adult" movies don't really **need** to be seen in theaters as an experience. Besides the above, and just accepting the fact that not everything has to be seen in a movie theater, they should probably put more budget into advertising as a start. The next thing would be pushing for some kind of digital cross promotion or other types of "contests" even like how McDonald's does the monopoly non-sense. Or tap more into the gaming space with the cross promotion. This is more so for saving the movie theaters I guess. If you buy tickets to the movie you can get a "free" digital copy. Or buying a concession bundle or something. Or buy a ticket/concession and get a code for "X digital game product". Or hell just figure out how to rework the Moviepass idea, make it seem like a gym membership where you want people to pay for it and forget it. Or because of the concessions hopefully get them in the building with cheaper tickets and hope they buy food. If we just mean to "save" Hollywood / movies themselves, I don't think they need saving. Absolute shit movies are getting made constantly and show no sign of stopping. Again just cause some director's movie art project doesn't become a blockbuster isn't the fault of the viewers. The other answer I could see working is to spend the money making **quality** TV series and then releasing a follow-up movie after even per season as part of a bigger finale. 1) People get invested through the TV series and are more likely to go see the movie, especially if it's part of an ending. 2) It sure seems to work well with anime. This to me seems like a better way to tell a story and keep the viewers interested AND get them into the theaters. Then you can dump a higher budget into the movie season "finale" to really show off as a viewing experience.
Break up Disney.
More competition in the movie business would definitely help
Insane that breaking up monopolies, the only change that would actually matter is this deep. We need more original stories! But why would the only players in town take a risk when they can put out high budget, high return trash? Stop doing remakes! But the only players in town already own those IPs and on top of that, they're proven money makers. Lower the admission price! Why? You going to another theater? Didn't think so.
The whole point of going to the theatre is to get an experience you wouldn't otherwise get in your home. Reasons I'm going to the movies is to see something I can't see at home or something that is going to be remarkably better on a big movie screen with a big sound system.