How to save hollywood...

[billc]

Here is an article about the deplorable state of the entertainment business. There are 5 points which address the issue of actually entertaining the audience...

http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/j...lywood-can-win-its-audience-back/#more-559432

1. Hollywood Needs Movie Stars, Not Brands

We The People love Sandra, Will, and Denzel for a reason. She’s gorgeous, smart, womanly, classy and approachable, and the fellas are masculine, confident, classy, and non-neurotics who take charge. They also make films that deliver. Not all the time. But most of the time we the customers know that if they’re in it, there’s a better chance than not of bang for the buck.
What they are not and what no movie star has ever been is a child playing a grownup (the exception, of course, is comedians like Adam Sandler or Lou Costello). The Orlando Blooms will never be movie stars. Neither will the Michelle Williamses. And don’t get me started on Shia Le-what’s-his-name.
Look at your history, both recent and long past. Hollywood may have changed over the last few decades, but the people — the customers — have not. The human animal simply don’t evolve that quickly. Furthermore, stars shouldn’t represent who we are; we don’t want to see ourselves on the screen. Stars should represent who we want to be. Men want to be John Wayne and Robert Mitchum. Women want to Ava Gardner and Barbara Stanwyck.
Masculine men.
Womanly women.
Need I mention Sandra and Denzel again?

2. Stars Must Stop Insulting the Customers
Class. That’s what the customers are looking for in their stars, class. George Clooney could be a star and was on his way, but then he started insulting the 60-plus percent of customers who dared disagree with his obnoxious politics. Julia Roberts was the biggest star in the world until she did the same. Harrison Ford blew his image in too many ways to count, Russell Crowe can’t stop being a jerk, and Mel Gibson couldn’t control his ugly demons. Tom Hanks was universally beloved as a well-known Democrat by all of us. Not so much, though, after he called WWII a war of terror and racism

.

Your industry is packed with immature, ungrateful, moral illiterates, and I suggest you get them under control, because they tarnish the industry as a whole.
Oh, and while you’re at it, maybe you could stop championing and defending that hellbound fugitive who drugged and anally raped a thirteen year-old girl.
The good news is that there’s nothing at all wrong with making political films. Just don’t make partisan films. All your liberal films have failed over the past 15 years because they’ve been heavy-handed and preachy. So…

4. Keep Politics Out of Children’s Movies
You loaded up “The Muppets,” “Cars 2,” and “Happy Feet 2″ with political sucker punching and left a ton of money on the table as soon as word got out.
These are our children. Hands off.
5. Stop Marketing Exclusively to Teens

FD HIDDEN DIV

 

[Tez3]

Ah the joys of captialism eh.

 

[Big Don]

I read this article this morning. He left out something pretty damn important:
STOP MAKING REMAKES/Re imaginings and Reboots! Stop making movies out of toys, cartoon characters and 80's tv shows, GET AN ORIGINAL THOUGHT for Christsakes! Is that really too much to ask from a multibillion dollar industry?

 

[Sukerkin]

Absolutely, Don :tup:. Film is a wonderful story-telling medium but the aspect of it that Hollywood worships is the money. Of course, no industry can afford to just ignore the bottom line and projects need money but, as long as a tale will not 'wreck the company', artists need to be allowed to do their thing. After all, essential as they are, 'bean counters' are not renowned for their imagination and creativity (other than when it comes to tax evasion/avoidance of course ).

Great films are still being made, no doubt. I can think of the LOTR trilogy, the Harry Potter series, District Nine, Taken, Battle Los Angeles, Last Samurai, 28 Days Later, the Narnia series, Burke and Hare, Casino Royale and The Damned United off the top of my head as flicks that have impressed. But, whilst Hollywood money might be in the pot for some of these, Hollywood 'talent' was often supplanted by British (or South African or Kiwi) and, whilst I am hopelessly biased, they were the better for it.

 

[jks9199]

It doesn't have to be a truly original thought. There are literally TONS of books out there that could be made into movies. How about Steve Perry's Matador books? (Actually, there's a project on that in the works...)

 

[MA-Caver]

It doesn't have to be a truly original thought. There are literally TONS of books out there that could be made into movies.

Agreed, all any good script writer needs to do is walk into ANY public library or Barnes & Noble bookstore and they'll have a WEALTH of original story ideas, romance to horror to sci-fi to thrillers and dramas and biographies of truly fascinating people.
The LOTR trilogy and the Potter films I can forgive because they're not true "sequels" but as in LOTR actual part of the same story just broken up into 3 separate films. The Potter films I can't rightly consider them sequels either since it's a continual story line ... Back to the Future films are likewise, same story line. Indiana Jones... yes definite sequels one and all. Star Wars... yes same story line. Star Trek films... no, with the exception of 2-4.
Still, bottom line or not... their bottom line is that if they want to even KEEP a bottom line at all, they're going to need to knock off the stupid **** and get back to making original films again. People are also hurting because of the monstrous ticket prices. It's infinitely cheaper to wait for the DVD to come out than it is to go out one night at the movies with the whole family. Never mind the over-inflated prices of the concessions (understandably the theater's main source of revenue). Likewise actors need to deflate their egos just a wee bit and knock off the 8 figure incomes and royalties so that studios won't have to charge so much rental to the theater owner per ticket. I'm sure that the great actors of the 30's and 40's would've fainted if they realized how much someone like Jim Carrey (20 mil per film) or Julia Roberts (15 mil per) makes per picture. Hell, I'd be happy to make 1 picture at that price and then work for free afterwards just to keep busy/working and to prevent being bored.

Ahh, yes but of course... guess who makes all those determinations? Unions. Actors' Guild, and the workers behind the camera all are unionized (except maybe for Indie productions).

I'm going to shut up now. It'd be in my best interest to.

 

[Tez3]

As Hollywood is making tons of money why does it need 'saving'? Whatever you think about the films it makes there's obviously enough people paying to see them to make it a very successful industry so there's no 'saving' it from anything.
The OP doesn't mean saving it from making remakes and unoriginal films he means saving it from left wing influences, he wants right wing films made instead.

 

[billc]

Actually Tez, hollywood is having a pretty bad time. Netflix, redbox and other streaming media are eating into their profits, stars aren't bringing in the theater goers as easily any more. No, left wing influences don't have to be stopped, but offending one side of the political spectrum, tends to make that side less likely to go and shell out 10 dollars a head to see a movie. I know I didn't watch the hbo show, The Pacific, because of the stupid things that Tom Hanks said about fighting the Japanese, and I didn't watch the show Homeland, because I knew that the actual bad guy wasn't the islamic radical terrorists, but the U.S. marine. It's not just about the money otherwise you wouldn't have movie after movie that shows the United States as the bad guy in this war against Islamic radical terrorists. the internet gets word out about movies very quickly. If there is a heavy slant to a movie, that is going to get out and more than a few people these days will either skip the movie entirely or they will pay a dollar and see it through redbox, or netflix.

I try to quarentine politcial talk to the study, but hollywoods problems have one component of offending a good part of the money paying audience.

I am not for censorship, they can make whatever movies they like. Just don't expect me to pay to see them, especially if I have advanced warning about stupid things the actors say about America or one side of the political spectrum.

Another problem, they are making remakes of movies that you can see in the original form on netflix. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo suffered from this and word got out about how vile some of the sexual assaults were in the movie.

About the actual box office take:

http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/j...erry-christmas-at-the-box-office/#more-560128

Between Dec. 16 and Dec. 25 of this year, the following films went into wide release:
Alvin and the Chipminks: Chipwrecked
Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows
Mission : Impossible – Ghost Protocol
The Adventures of Tintin
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
We Bought a Zoo
War Horse
The Darkest Hour
That’s a total of eight big-budget, high profile offerings. However, in 2010, only four high-profile, big-budget films went into wide release during that same time period:
Tron Legacy
Little Fockers
True Grit
Yogi Bear
In other words, in order to get that 10% bump in sales, Hollywood had to invest in twice the amount of product.
For argument’s sake, let’s assume that after production and marketing costs, a mainstream film averages out to a cost of $100 million. If that’s the case, the industry invested $400 million more than they did last year — twice as much — to make 10% more in gross sales. That doesn’t sound like much of a success to me.
From what I can see, only The Wrap deserves credit for not buying or pushing that spin:

Conversely, distribution executives might think twice about celebrating their Christmas-week performances, given that they’re comparing their 2011 Yule haul to a 2010 holiday period that featured only two new wide releases — “Little Fockers” and “True Grit” — doing any significant business.
In fact, even though nearly twice as many movies were released in the run-up before Christmas this year, the market only grew marginally.
​

FD HIDDEN DIV

 

[ballen0351]

I havent been to an actual movie in years. The only movie I plan on seeing anytime in the near future is the Lone Suvivior I just hope Hollywood dont screw it up because the book was really good.

 

[Tez3]

Actually Tez, hollywood is having a pretty bad time. Netflix, redbox and other streaming media are eating into their profits, stars aren't bringing in the theater goers as easily any more. No, left wing influences don't have to be stopped, but offending one side of the political spectrum, tends to make that side less likely to go and shell out 10 dollars a head to see a movie. I know I didn't watch the hbo show, The Pacific, because of the stupid things that Tom Hanks said about fighting the Japanese, and I didn't watch the show Homeland, because I knew that the actual bad guy wasn't the islamic radical terrorists, but the U.S. marine. It's not just about the money otherwise you wouldn't have movie after movie that shows the United States as the bad guy in this war against Islamic radical terrorists. the internet gets word out about movies very quickly. If there is a heavy slant to a movie, that is going to get out and more than a few people these days will either skip the movie entirely or they will pay a dollar and see it through redbox, or netflix.

I try to quarentine politcial talk to the study, but hollywoods problems have one component of offending a good part of the money paying audience.

I am not for censorship, they can make whatever movies they like. Just don't expect me to pay to see them, especially if I have advanced warning about stupid things the actors say about America or one side of the political spectrum.

Another problem, they are making remakes of movies that you can see in the original form on netflix. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo suffered from this and word got out about how vile some of the sexual assaults were in the movie.

About the actual box office take:

http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/j...erry-christmas-at-the-box-office/#more-560128

FD HIDDEN DIV

Have you read the book 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'? I suspect that the violence in the film is far less than the violence in the film.

Whether Hollywood is making money or not I doubt any of it is due to people being offended by the political bias you claim is in the films. If they aren't making money it's more to do with Don's suggestion that they aren't making original films. Political bias in the Muppets? I daresay that there's satanic messages in the clouds of the Lion King too.

I haven't been to see a film for years, can't be doing with all the noise you get in the cinemas now lol. I haven't watched any of the films listed, I have however been to see the play Warhorse, a very moving experience.

 

[billc]

Ballen0351, did you see the trailer for the movie Act of Valor, about navy seals? It looks like a lot of fun.

 

[Big Don]

Have you read the book 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'?.

I tried, I really did, several times but, the translation was killing me.

 

[Buka]

Hollywood (as we think of it as the movie business) is an odd place. Think of it this way - the people who make and sell a gi are interested in only selling gis. Whether or not a gi is made of the best quality, or made in the best interest of what it is intended for (practicing Martial Arts) is secondary to them. Selling the gi, lots of them, is their first, last and only concern. What accountants, dentists, physicists or plumbers think of the manufacturers gi is not important to the manufacturer, they are only interested in their target consumer - martial artists who buy gis.

Hollywood's target audience are 12 to 17 year olds, second are 17 to 24 year olds. These are the groups Hollywood caters to, these are the groups that buy the most tickets.These two groups do not care about originality, to them EVERYTHING is original. Also (sadly) they don't care about story, most of them haven't reached that point yet in their literary lives.

As for screenwriters - thousands of good screenplays are written each and every year (literally), always have been, probably always will be, but that does not matter. What the buyers of screenplays want is the same thing that sold tickets before, just change the names.

Indie films are starting to change this. Let's hope they continue.