Steven Spielberg Predicts 'Implosion' of Film Industry

Inprogress said:
Or maybe I'm just getting old and going into your 30's changes your needs. Who knows.
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Movies all the time have had the ability of standing with one foot in the world of arts with the other on a fairground. The for me better ones could do both and keep some balance. Being a rollercoaster-ride and telling a worthwhile story at the same time. I prefer this middle ground.

One problem with getting older & the cinema is that you've seen too much. Another Alien vs. Predator-flic? If it's not really different story wise: Snore. One reason for me to have emigrated to shows like Deadwood, The Wire, Newsroom or House of Cards where story rules and effects are reigned in and reduced to the function they haye for bringing the story further. And not the other way round so story becomes a mere function for transporting as much effects as possible. Yes, at times I may like that too and Roland Emmerich is a great and really nice man ..... But..... After a lot of popcorn I want a well done duck-soup.... :-)

So maybe the story- and character driven films will more often indeed have to seek different ways of distribution. I would miss it though if - to give an European perspective - movies like "Amelie", "Pans Labyrinth" or "Il Divo" would find it harder to find a cinema screen because those screens would be occupied by the tent-pole movies, the Behemoths or teenage-rampage stuff.
 
Let us not forget that many times the very same filmmakers responsible for smart, story-driven movies like Pan's Labyrinth also make movies like Pacific Rim once they have the resources to do so. Michael Gondry made the Green Hornet, Robert Rodriguez does the Spy Kids franchise, Soderbergh did the Oceans franchise, etc. Did you know that Jean-Pierre Jeunet did Alien Resurrection right before he did Amelie? How many people would have watched Edward Scissorhands and predicted that Tim Burton would be responsible for the noisy and stupid Alice in Wonderland reboot?
 
That's not my point. I understand any director who gets the chance to make a "biggie" that then he or she takes it. Jeunet's Alien was for me astonishingly different and strange.... and quite good.

The problem is the logic of budget size and distribution... but maybe that is because I live in a different market. We have about 4.600 screens in all of the country. If a - most often American - big-foot comes out with 1.000 copies, very probably in a time when other tent-pole-movies come out too (in Germany that's late autumn to early spring), screens are getting occupied, other product gets suffocated.
 
Rolf Silber said:
That's not my point. I understand any director who gets the chance to make a "biggie" that then he or she takes it. Jeunet's Alien was for me astonishingly different and strange.... and quite good.

The problem is the logic of budget size and distribution... but maybe that is because I live in a different market. We have about 4.600 screens in all of the country. If a - most often American - big-foot comes out with 1.000 copies, very probably in a time when other tent-pole-movies come out too (in Germany that's late autumn to early spring), screens are getting occupied, other product gets suffocated.
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It seems you are lamenting the fact that people would rather watch Transformers or Spiderman than a smaller art film. Who's to blame for that? The audience, or Hollywood? The market does nothing but try and give people what they want. If more people want more small art films then they'd get the lions share of the theaters, wouldn't they?

I think more than ever now that we have smart phones that play movies, large flat screen TVs, home projectors, and so on lots of people want to see a "big" movie on teh big screen.

I know that often I'll see a comedy and think, yea it looks ok, but I don't really need to see that in the theater. Pacific Rim? Giant robots need to be seen on a big screen for sure. Adam Sandler? Yea, I'm fine watching him in a small screen.
 
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Gillvane said:
It seems you are lamenting .....
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Not really part of my character structure.... ;-)

From a pure business point of view, you are right in a lot of senses, but I have some caveats to make: Bigger structures tend to overrun markets by pure force of their marketing power. So the choice for an audience/customer may become smaller because smaller or different product (and sometimes the better one) is suffocated.

And I think it's dangerous to make an assumption that the more successful product always is the better one: When Kodak won the S8 war against other manufacturers of much better systems by sheer marketing power, the definitely lesser product made the day. When VHS won against Betamax and other systems, the worse product won by sheer marketing and company power and strategic alliances.

So, as with other products, I sometimes sit and wait for the existing structures to at least stumble because often that is the moment new things may be made possible. But, right, if we would look at cinema in mostly or purely economic terms you are right in a lot of aspects.

Now I happen to have a different take on cinema and movies and especially about their function besides bringing in money and assume that you may have that too. You can call that In my case old fashioned or romantic or European or else .... but it's one of the reasons why I skipped banking and went to a film-academy. And, yes, that's just my take on it and I don't make it a dogma for others to follow.

With the films I mentioned - besides "Beasts" which is in a lot of senses a "White Elephant" exception from the rule all though it has earned my affection - like "Il Divo", I wrote about movies that definitely are not "Little Miss Sunshine" which plays in another league and maybe doesn't need the really big screen.

I tried to mention rather "biggish" movies that indeed work well on such a screen. And those are not pure arthouse movies (all though some may play better in those realms). I talk about what I see as "the middle ground". And I see that for this "middle ground" times may be getting harder also over here. And that's a shame because we could probably lose a lot of diversity in story-telling as in aesthetics of cinema. Will it happen? I don't know. But the signs are not that good for the moment and so I wait indeed for the next crisis, because crisis are the starting points for re-structuring.

And: Cinema for me has all the time been a place where such a diversity could be found - both a cultural diversity as one in entertainment. In the "old days" Fellini & Bertolucci, Bergmann & Kubrick, later the new Hollywood - entertaining films that really have something to tell us as a culture and as individuals. If that would die I would not start lamenting but really being upset - even if there is nothing that could be done against it.

And trying to save cinema of becoming primarily a cash-cow for major companies - run my managers who have different to the old movie-moguls no great interest in the art - may be a futile act too in the end. But its worth trying. So, yes, I do hope that audiences are getting a bit bored by the next bigger battle of material and hope that once again in the history of cinema, the sinking of some big ships may make room for diverse and more intelligent products. But, right, maybe it won't happen. Then we have to see where time takes us.

Already in the rather rigid structures of TV-production over here I see cracks in the walls appearing and honestly I like that. So maybe that's the way to go. Ti panta rei - all things move. Old European saying.... ;-)

Less diversity will make us a bit poorer for sure. So the more "diverse fishes" may have to find other waters to survive. True.
 
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Rolf Silber said:
Not really part of my character structure.... ;-)

From a pure business point of view, you are right in a lot of senses, but I have some caveats to make: Bigger structures tend to overrun markets by pure force of their marketing power. So the choice for an audience/customer may become smaller because smaller or different product (and sometimes the better one) is suffocated.
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Generally, we're on the same page. I like diversity in film making and want to see lots of different kinds of films being made. One of my pet peeves is the ratings system that puts film makers in handcuffs. You can say the F word once, and only once, or else you are R instead of PG13. It's such a goofy rigid formula. Who writes a script with one F word in it if not to meet a ratings board standard?

But I don't really buy the marketing thing. People use this excuse for a lot of things, including politics. You see we're right, the other side is OBVIOUSLY wrong, we just didn't get our message out, they just were better at marketing, if only our marketing were better people would agree with us and not them....or maybe people just liked their message better and no amount of marketing will change that?

You can't market a crappy movie into a success. Lone Ranger, John Carter are dogs no matter how much the studios spent on ads and they spent a lot. You can't market people into the theater to see your movie. You really do have to have a product they want to see.

And the tiny films that strike a chord with the audience do break through, like Birdemic. It didn't have a big marketing campaign budget, but made it into theaters anyway and made a profit.

I don't think you can suffocate anything today. There's twitter, facebook, youtube, blogs, and forums like this one that don't cost anything and word spreads if something is good, trailers go viral. I think it's more of a wish that people like the same thing we do and often when they don't instead of just accepting that, we blame it on something like "marketing".

I look at it as bottom up, not top down. Studios don 't try to stifle small art films because they want to push their big blockbuster films. Studios try to make whatever it is people want to see and they really don't care what that is. Studios will make documentaries about ants if they think people will pay to go to the theater to see it.
 
Got me with the viral thing ..... :-)

Thats obviously true that there is more communication and quicker response among audiences now. We hope to find out with a no-budgt web comedy series we just realized if there is something like a market for a quirky set of shorts we shot. We deliberately did everything "wrong" according to what professional web'sters told us we should do. Maybe it even works ... Should have included ants though...... :-)

I rest my case.
 
David G. Smith said:
Well, it looks like it has started. From Business Insider:

"Steven Spielberg's Nightmare Scenario For Hollywood Is Already Coming True"

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/world-war-z-tickets-cost-50-dollars-2013-6#ixzz2WEXwIdla
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I can see Disney doing this for star wars when it comes out.

Movie exhibiting will go through a huge change in the near further with the advent of the Red projector and ODEMAX content management systems. I think it will empower small theatres again, and create a real alternative to the megaplex. The interesting thing is they can book the movie they want, create festivals etc, and source a lot of top indie films. It will take a while to catch on, but perhaps there will be a new 2-teir system, where the megaplexs show blockbusters for 25$ and filmmakers return to the independent theatre operators to show the good films.

I for one am bored by the world getting destroyed each week in a bigger more dramatic way.
 
Michael Dalton said:
I can see Disney doing this for star wars when it comes out.

Movie exhibiting will go through a huge change in the near further with the advent of the Red projector and ODEMAX content management systems. I think it will empower small theatres again, and create a real alternative to the megaplex. The interesting thing is they can book the movie they want, create festivals etc, and source a lot of top indie films. It will take a while to catch on, but perhaps there will be a new 2-teir system, where the megaplexs show blockbusters for 25$ and filmmakers return to the independent theatre operators to show the good films.

I for one am bored by the world getting destroyed each week in a bigger more dramatic way.
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Who needs a Red projector or a small theater? Have you seen Chrome Cast?

Put this in your big flat screen in the living room, fire up netflix, youtube, vimeo, hulu, etc., invite some friends and pop some popcorn and you're all set.
 
As for the Lone Ranger, the theme of losing a brother in an ambush attack, just does not set the table for a comedy with Johnny Depp. It would have been a totally different blockbuster if they had taken a darker turn and resorted to a Batman style reboot with some of the mystical aspects touched upon by Disney movie. It was also hard to rationalize funny quips in the dialog after the Indians were wiped out in the attack at the gold mine. The opening with the recall of the events of the elderly Tonto was not bad, but Disney had no clue as to whether they wanted a comedy, drama, or adventure. They lost the movie by making a poor strategic choice. The Lone Ranger was never inept until this iteration of the character. It was sickening in comparison to all of the orginal serials that were done with Clayton Moore. The Lone Ranger should have been "the guy". The Ranger nobody wanted to mess with. Imagine the Lone Ranger done by Christopher Nolan. The cast was not bad, just the screenplay, script, and outcome. Strangely, I doubt it would cost 225 million to have made a really good western. Unfortunately, it may take years for someone to attempt to fix the great Lone Ranger franchise.
 
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Efexone said:
Pacific Rim was one of the worst movies I've seen in a theater.
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Couldn't disagree more. I'm not normally a big explosions kind of guy, but this was one of my favorite theater experiences in recent memory. Every so often there's a film that manages to not take itself seriously while at the same time handling a ridiculous premise with reverence, and for me Pacific Rim was one of those films.
 
stefancolson said:
Couldn't disagree more. I'm not normally a big explosions kind of guy, but this was one of my favorite theater experiences in recent memory. Every so often there's a film that manages to not take itself seriously while at the same time handling a ridiculous premise with reverence, and for me Pacific Rim was one of those films.
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It was as terrible as Idris Elbas accent.
 
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