| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| From the "no shit" dept. - Summer movie slump blamed on dull movies |
| 2005-08-24 |
| EFL LOS ANGELES, Aug. 23 - With the last of the summer blockbusters fading from the multiplex, Hollywood's box office slump has hardened into a reality that is setting the movie industry on edge. The drop in ticket sales from last summer to this summer, the most important moviegoing season, is projected to be 9 percent by Labor Day, and the drop in attendance is expected to be even deeper, 11.5 percent, according to Exhibitor Relations, which tracks the box office. That is 'cus your films suck Multiples theories for the decline abound: a failure of studio marketing, the rising price of gas, the lure of alternate entertainment, even the prevalence of commercials and pesky cellphones inside once-sacrosanct theaters. But many movie executives and industry experts are beginning to conclude that something more fundamental is at work: Too many Hollywood movies these days, they say, just are not good enough. Sometimes, liberals DO get reality "Part of this is the fact that the movies may not have lived up to the expectations of the audience, not just in this year, but in years prior," said Michael Lynton, chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which had some flops this summer, including the science fiction action movie "Stealth" and the romantic comedy "Bewitched." "Audiences have gotten smart to the marketing, and they can smell the good ones from the bad ones at a distance." Actually, all I smell is hollywood bullshit, it covers almost all your movies too. Even Robert Shaye, the studio leader behind "The Wedding Crashers," one of the summer's runaway hits, shares the worry about the industry's ability to connect with audiences. "I believe it's a cumulative thing, a seismic evolution of people's habits," said Mr. Shaye, chairman of New Line Cinema. Yea, our habits not to go see movies that suck. In previous years, he said, "you could still count on enough people to come whether you failed at entertaining them or not, out of habit, or boredom, or a desire to get out of the house. You had a little bit of backstop." Thank God for cable With competition from video games, hundreds of television channels and DVD's, that's no longer the case, he said. The problem, these studio leaders and other industry experts seemed to say, was not only that a steady diet of formulaic plots, too-familiar special-effects vehicles and remakes of television shows has, over time, left the average moviegoer hungry for better entertainment. Marc Shmuger, vice chairman of Universal, said Hollywood has been too focused on short-term box office payoff and not focused enough on what he called "the most elemental factor of all" - the satisfaction of the moviegoing experience. "It wasn't like the last crop of summer movies were that much better than this summer," said Mr. Shmuger, whose studio's recent releases included the success "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" and several disappointments, including "Cinderella Man," "The Perfect Man" and "Kicking and Screaming." "This summer has been as deadening as it has been exciting, and there's a cumulative wearing down effect. We're beginning to witness the results of that. People are just beginning to wake up that what used to pass as summer excitement isn't that exciting, or that entertaining. This is vividly clear in terms of the other choices that consumers have." The blockbuster hits of last summer, including "Spider-Man 2," "Shrek 2" and "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," performed more or less on the same level as this year's hits, including "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith," "Batman Begins" and "War of the Worlds." But too many big-budget movies, including "The Island" and "Stealth," flopped entirely, while other films, from "Bad News Bears" to "Herbie: Fully Loaded" to "The Great Raid," were disappointing. snip With the task so large, and so very complex, Hollywood is still grappling with how to Mr. Lynton said he would focus on making "only movies we hope will be really good." Don't hope, asshole. Get better writers/directors. That means looking outside the box for you corporate dickheads. At Fox, executives said they are looking to limit marketing costs. At Universal, Mr. Shmuger said he intends to reassert "time and care and passion" in movie production. Some of his own summer movies, he conceded, should never have been made. He declined to name them. I will, how about ALL of them? |
| Posted by:mmurray821 |
| #20 I'd like to see a Blue State vs Red State breakdown of the slump by total # of tickets sold. That might be...informative. |
| Posted by: dushan 2005-08-24 20:29 |
| #19 Actually, Sean Penn could be identifiable if you dress him as Jeff Spicoli. I understand he hates being linked to that role. ;) |
| Posted by: BH 2005-08-24 18:01 |
| #18 Just need a large bearded man with a wind breaker and a Detroit Tigers hat right? If someone like that shows up I'll zombify them right away. Send a PA out to get the jacket and hat if I have to. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2005-08-24 17:59 |
| #17 Michael Moore? He's got the appetite, and he likes to eat his own. |
| Posted by: BH 2005-08-24 17:55 |
| #16 Michael Jackson has the distinctive clothes. Sean Penn would be hard to recognize, but I like the way you're thinking. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2005-08-24 17:47 |
| #15 My favorite scene in Return of the Living Dead 2 was the Michael Jackson zombie. You should put Sean Penn in there somewhere. |
| Posted by: BH 2005-08-24 17:45 |
| #14 Orange County California, to be precise. Later shooting will be in San Diego (either at SDSU or hopefully the KGB FM studios). I had considered giving at least one zombie a Che t-shirt. You know, mindless and all. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2005-08-24 17:12 |
| #13 Any Rantburgers want to be a zombie shoot me an email. Whatcha? Going to be a Democrat? See yesterdays post. |
| Posted by: Elmemble Ulaitch5567 2005-08-24 16:40 |
| #12 Hey, hate on everything else, BUT NOT THE PUNISHER. Curt Simon, is it just me, or did Hollywood's overall crappiness actually drag down HERO with it?? rjschwarz, damn you for being in Orange County; otherwise I'd be there. |
| Posted by: Edward Yee 2005-08-24 16:30 |
| #11 Naturally you will all buy my DVD when it hits the shelves though, right? Drivetime of the Dead, a zombie comedy that should start shooting this weekend in Orange County. Any Rantburgers want to be a zombie shoot me an email. /end premature sales pitch |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2005-08-24 16:21 |
| #10 mojo, i have to ad one ! when you take your kid too a kids movie nad their is always at least 1 middleaged child molester looking type there |
| Posted by: Thraing Hupoluper1864 2005-08-24 15:55 |
| #9 Well, let's see: Lousy films with no imagination. 70's TV? (retch) $5.00 bag of popcorn with fake(!) butter $3.00 coke (12 oz.) sticky floors, covered with trash. pervert in the back row moaning too much. can't stand "Metroplex" theatres hour drive, followed by parking hell. I could go on. But I have a DVD player. |
| Posted by: mojo 2005-08-24 15:17 |
| #8 Let's see. I can pay through the nose, buy some overpriced food, and watch a mediocre movie usually featuring a bunch of moonbat "stars" I don't want to give any of my money to with a audience that usually consists of a lot of the mangiest yutes this side of Death Row? I haven't seen a movie in a theatre since Apollo 13... |
| Posted by: tu3031 2005-08-24 13:24 |
| #7 Two nights ago, Fox Movie Channel ran (no pun intended) Kurosawa's "Ran" -- subtitled! -- without commercial interruption. The movie, beautifully filmed and wonderfully acted, was riveting. Watching this film made me realize how poorly served fans of the genre have been served as of late -- not only by Hollywood, but by film studios across the world. |
| Posted by: Curt Simon 2005-08-24 13:24 |
| #6 If a movie is mediocre you can wait 6 months and see it on DVD. Naturally movie theaters are slumping. Now Hollywood is talking about cutting movie ads in papers and releasing DVDs on the same day. If cinemas weren't dead before that'll do it. Drive in movie theaters died, now big cinaplexes will probably die as well. I don't mourn their loss but then again I'm not in the dating scene anymore. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2005-08-24 13:15 |
| #5 Anything with Will Ferrell What's with the endless succession of mildly amusing rubbish from SNL alumni? |
| Posted by: john 2005-08-24 12:34 |
| #4 Anything with Will Ferrell What's with the endless succession of mildly amusing rubbish from SNL alumni? |
| Posted by: john 2005-08-24 12:30 |
| #3 In previous years, he said, "you could still count on enough people to come whether you failed at entertaining them or not, out of habit, or boredom, or a desire to get out of the house. You had a little bit of backstop." And you clowns used that backstop as an excuse to make whatever kind of trash you wanted. Lord of the Rings? Hollywierd wouldn't touch it. Dopes. But line up the anti-war, jihadi-hero flicks. Morons. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2005-08-24 12:19 |
| #2 Two suggestions to get my business back: 1. Shut up and act. And sing. And dance. I want my entertainers to ENTERTAIN me, not lecture me on foreign policy. And don't go to Ramallah and put on a keffiyeh. 2. Don't put the entire plot of the movie in the trailer. I have no reason to shell out $20 if I feel that I've already seen the dang thing in previews. |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2005-08-24 12:18 |
| #1 Anything with Will Ferrell. "Die Hard in a _______" Third-string Marvel comic book heroes NO. MORE. REMAKES. You have nothing to add to Hitchcock, or even Roger Corman. |
| Posted by: BH 2005-08-24 11:58 |