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Posted: |
Jun 14, 2013 - 11:09 AM
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By: |
Ado
(Member)
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It is hard to take them too seriously considering pundits have been predicting the end of the blockbuster because of cost for at least a decade now. Ten years ago the conventional wisdom was that blockbusters were finished because they had gotten just too darn expensive to film.
. Anyone remember the casual movie experience in the 90's? Were you sat at a table, had dinner and a few drinks and watch main stream movies on a relatively small projection screen? That didn't last long either.
This is called Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, and some other towns, and there are some others like IPIC, which are trying to upscale dining etc.
But yes, I never go there, because I really do not enjoy smelling other peoples food, or hearing them eat and drink during a film. It is distracting and kinda icky too. To me the film is the thing, if you are going to a movie to eat and drink, well, you are not really totally there with the film.
Alamo screens are somewhat okay in size. some small and some not.
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Posted: |
Jun 14, 2013 - 11:33 AM
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By: |
Ado
(Member)
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Well, that is nice to hear someone else ding Avengers.
I hear you. To me it was the weakest of the Marvel Avengers-verse films, until Iron Man 3 came out!
Yes, I miss the late Roger Ebert's 'bravery' to not bow down to elite criticism and just admit when he had a good time at the theater with a movie that isn't suppose to reinvent cinema but just entertain.
I also miss his consistency: I often disagreed with him, but he was consistent enough in what he didn't like that I could usually tell when I was going to disagree with him. Many critics, I find it's a crapshoot whether I'll agree with them.
yeah mast.
I disagreed with him on quite a few, and he was a Star Trek basher quite a lot, so I disagreed with there often, but Roger first loved movies, then he was a critic. I loved his review of Cars 2 for example, how he talked about how it made him feel like boy again, wow that was deep - talk about feelings. Other critics somewhat bashed Cars 2, and he made me reevaluate it to be less 'grown-up' now me and the kids like it a lot. I miss that guy.
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Posted: |
Jun 15, 2013 - 10:39 AM
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By: |
Solium
(Member)
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Say's, Lucas who made three of the biggest box office brain dead prequels in modern times. 
Not sure I follow. Even if you believe that, what does that have to do with the point he's making?
He is the one who started the modern franchise craze, and brainless SFX spectacles. Now he is complaining smaller personal films cannot be made? Pot calling the kettle black.
I don't know about that. It sure seems to me like there are plenty of small, non-blockbuster-type films made every year. More these days than ever before. There are also all the non-SFX-type films that usually sweep the Oscars every year. (The huge exceptions would be "Titanic" and "Return of the King" and perhaps a few others.)
And really? You fault Lucas for daring to be financially successful making the kinds of films he likes to make? Now *that* I really don't follow. Should he have purposely made "American Graffiti" and "Star Wars" into films that noone wanted to see (in other words, deliberate flops) to preserve his "independent filmmaker-street cred"? I thought one of the points of making movies was for people to want to see them. And *pay* to see them. Otherwise, they don't get made, no matter how big or small the film is....
Wow, you totally misread my comments. I never said he shouldn't make successful films.
He IS responsible for the large scale popcorn franchise business. Not only did he have 3 Star Wars films planned. He had 9 films planned! The success of the large blockbuster did push aside smaller personal films. (Ask the famous directors of the 60's and 70's.) Early 70's films were often based on social sensitivities and politics of the time. Good luck making such a film after Star Wars. Lucas started the franchise business, (With a few exceptions like Planet Of the Apes, Pink Panther & Bond) and is not one to complain for the current trend in the film business.
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Posted: |
Jun 15, 2013 - 1:51 PM
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By: |
Richard-W
(Member)
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Read more of Spielberg's and Lucas' remarks as reported in Variety:
Looking into their crystal ball, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg
predicted the imminent arrival of a radically different entertainment landscape,
including pricey movie tickets, a vast migration of content to video-on-demand
and even programmable dreams.
Speaking on a panel at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, Spielberg and Lucas
took a grim view of the future of the majors and predicted theatrical motion
pictures will become a niche market.
“They’re going for the gold,” said Lucas of the studios. “But that isn’t going to
work forever. And as a result they’re getting narrower and narrower in their
focus. People are going to get tired of it. They’re not going to know how to do
anything else.”
Spielberg noted that because so many forms of entertainment are competing
for attention, they would rather spend $250 million on a single film than make
several personal, quirky projects.
“There’s eventually going to be a big meltdown,” Spielberg said. “There’s going
to be an implosion where three or four or maybe even a half-dozen of these
mega-budgeted movies go crashing into the ground and that’s going to change
the paradigm again.”
Lucas predicted that after that meltdown, “You’re going to end up with fewer
theaters, bigger theaters with a lot of nice things. Going to the movies will cost
50 bucks or 100 or 150 bucks, like what Broadway costs today, or a football
game. It’ll be an expensive thing. … (The movies) will sit in the theaters for a
year, like a Broadway show does. That will be called the ‘movie’ business.”
There's that football analogy again.
The rest is here:
http://variety.com/2013/digital/news/lucas-spielberg-on-future-of-entertainment-1200496241/
a sidebar here:
http://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/george-lucas-steven-spielberg-were-143849113.html
That's all my prospective investors need to hear. By Monday they will have decided to stick with real estate.
Most movies are not made by the major studios. Most movies are made by independents. Some independent films are big expensive budgets, but most are small budgets. The higher the budget the harder it can be to earn the investment back and enter profits. Too small a budget, same problem. The industry needs to scale back and do the same BIG movie for less money. The film industry consists of hundreds of independents and only a handful of studios. Sometimes the studios distribute independent productions, but mostly smaller distributors who are not studios distribute the lion's share of films. How this prediction, or reality, will impact the movie industry remains to be seen, but I'll say this -- it ain't good.
Richard
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Posted: |
Jun 16, 2013 - 12:05 PM
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By: |
Solium
(Member)
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And just to get to both sides, Solium said "He IS responsible for the large scale popcorn franchise business."
Now that is carrying things just a bit far don't you think? There have been a number of factors that generated the relatively mindless blockbuster business in general, and the blockbuster sequels as well. Lucas was certainly one of the prime players in creating that, but just one of them.
No, he didn't do it all on his own. But many followed him. Lucas pretty much started the "Trilogy" phenomenon.
After the Star Wars trilogy we got, Indiana Jones Trilogy, Matrix Trilogy, Dark Knight Trilogy, Spider-Man Trilogy, Jurassic Park Trilogy, X-Men Trilogy, Men in Black Trilogy, LOTRs Trilogy, The Hobbit Trilogy, etc, etc, etc. (Usually a fourth film comes into the line up after some years when the stars of said trilogy's don't perform so well in other films.)
Many successful films received sequels. And films like The Three Musketeers and Superman were always planned as two consecutive films. But the trilogy is all Lucas's doing. 
Lucas was complaining that the "franchise" business is killing the small personal film business. Considering his 35 year contribution to the franchise business, he is not one to complain. Which was my original point.
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