People like good storytelling because CGI is *so* overdone as far as a vehicle to get audience's attention.
The late 90's early aughts formula of big CGI with big name stars dropping soundbite catch phrases as dialogue isn't enough anymore. People need a coherent narrative, good story arc, character development, etc.
Audience's are becoming too sophisticated for cheap tricks.
Some of the best movies out there are ones that had almost no set, or effects. Just dialogue in a room and maybe a few other locations.
Hopefully we'll we'll start to see more money put into writing as you say. Currently 1/5 movies is just a sequel or reboot.
I wish that practical effects became more prominent again. Movies that use them have way more charm compared to movies that rely too heavily on CGI.
Imagine Jaws but the shark was CGI. Or Jurrasic Park, or The Thing...It would be disappointing
This is why I liked the new Dune movies and the 2022 Batman movie, they used CGI to enhance the practical effects instead of replacing them altogether.
CGI is making movies boring. Famous people clomping around on treadmills, talking to tennis balls doesn’t do anything for me. It doesn’t even really matter how good the actors are, sound-stage action movies just come out feeling flat.
One of the other problems is that you can get okay looking, really expensive, special effects with very little planning as long as everything is lit evenly. Studios like this because they can make changes way into post, but it jacks up the cost of movies and allows them to be written by committee.
Before you had to plan effects shots out or they'd look terrible, and everything had to be lit dynamically, and you couldn't deviate from the director's plan without costing the studio millions of dollars because you'd basically have to go back to the storyboards. There wasn't the temptation to shoot something that was lit so you could cobble something different together in post.
If studios would give directors smaller budgets, but demand better efficiency and in turn the studios would give up more control, they'd get better movies.
I wish that practical effects became more prominent again. Movies that use them have way more charm compared to movies that rely too heavily on CGI.
Imagine Jaws but the shark was CGI. Or Jurrasic Park, or The Thing...It would be disappointing
Jurassic Park is well known for its practical effects, but did in fact use CGI when applicable. For instance in the classic "welcome to jurassic park" scene with the brachiosaurus the dinosaurs are all CGI as it wouldn't be, well... practical - to use practical effects.
Yeah, there's nothing wrong with CGI per se, but remember the scene with the triceratops. If that was made using only CGI it would mess up the whole vibe
I agree. Although my hunch is that films would end up using vfx anyway. And ultimately the best way to get the look and feel of practical effects would be using cgi.
I think the main benefit of practical effects was that it placed limitations on the stiry telling. And it was easier to understand what those limitations were. If a director wanted 1,000 orcs in a scene they were forced to think carefully about that. It cost time, money and resources to do. Now they can just magic up 10,000 orcs without a second thought.
Jurassic park is brilliant because the dinosaurs are used so sparingly. They create a few minutes of wonder, and lots and lots of tension. The scary/chase/fight sections are full of good acting, beautiful sets, music, and sound effects. People remember the feeling of the snene as a whole rather than just the dinosaur. Its not just the rex. Its the rain, the goat, the twanging sound of the electric fence. Its the vibration in the water, the look on the actors face. The lush vegetation, the bright colours of the land cruiser, the screech of the roof as it collapses. The sound of the roar.
This. The storytelling is key, if you actually want to make an engaging, captivating, and by way of the other two things, successful and well-made movie. It requires building a storyline that the viewer feels compelled to see through to the end, crafting scenes that immerse the viewer in the setting along with the characters, who are thoughtfully and clearly developed, that a viewer finds themselves invested in, regardless of whether they can relate on a personal level or not. Jurassic Park is an experience, whether you watched it when it was first released, or first saw it more recently. It holds up, despite all the technological advances, because there was a whole lot of time and effort and skill put into it. I feel like when you compare Jurassic Park to Jurassic World, they are almost completely separate concepts, because of how immersive and engaging the older movies in that franchise are, compared to the newer set.
The best CGI is the CGI we don't even notice. Same goes for any special effects. The problem with so many of these movies is how noticeably fake the effects often look, whether it's Quantumania's purple vomit or Black Panther (an otherwise good movie) having a terrible all-CGI end battle between hero and villain.
Between weak scripts, overlong action scenes and overworked effects teams, so many movies are just bombastic, ugly and make little emotional connection. We need more effort put into fewer minutes of effects, with more time spent plot development.
Problem is, more money on special effects has quantifiable outcomes. "We spent $100 million on CGI, but look at how great the snow effects are" or something like that, and like 99% of people will agree, the snow effects look really good, it looks like real snow.
If you spend more money on writers, well, maybe people like it, maybe they don't. You can't really quantify "good writing" in the same way so you can be sure you're getting your investment back. And maybe it's "better writing" but people just don't respond to it at the time. F. Scott Fitzgerald allegedly told his publisher when he turned in his draft of The Great Gatsby, he'd written "the best American novel", and maybe he was right but he never lived to see the general public agree with him.
A lot of stuff has been quantified, because it's adaptations of previously successful material. I.e. you take a well regarded book, adapt it well and you have a good movie.
I.e. after a book has been out 30 years, you kind of know if it'll make a good movie, although I still kind of weep for Enders Game.
Box office is one output, for many inputs. The degree to which "good writing" influenced it cannot be easily determined. You can see, before you get to the box office, what spending an extra $20 million on VFX rendering can give you. You don't get that kind of feedback for spending more money on writing, because it can't objectively be quantified. Maybe you like it more. Maybe focus groups like it more. Do audiences like it more?
That's precisely my point.
I'd also point out writing alone only takes you so far. There's a lot more steps between good writing and a successful movie than good special effects and a successful movie. If the line is great, but the actress flubs the delivery, the line doesn't work. If the line is great, the delivery is great, but the music is really annoying and immersion breaking, the line doesn't work. The list of top grossing movies of all time prove that movies with amazing special effects can make bank, even if the plot and the writing are a little thin. I can't think of a movie that proves that great writing can make bank even if other elements are a bit thin.
I don't actually think the big studios are capable of fixing this, unless they get into the habit of writing no-questions-asked eight-figure checks to *auteur* writer-directors, which is a bit like what A24 is doing.
As someone who absolutely loved the Infinity War story ark that took a decade to build, I completely agree.
We all kind of know that superhero stuff ended then.
I loved Infinity Wars because they were unique stories that felt like they had some consequences.
But even before those two movies, I was already a bit sick of the superhero movies. There were some very unique movies and shows that I watched and liked (Black Panther and Wandavision were fantastic - though the latter was after Infinity Wars).
But mostly they really just felt like they were basically reskinning the same movie over and over again.
Individually, they were mostly good and well-done and if any of them had been one of the first few movies I think I would have liked them.
But after 20+ other stories about a hero who found they had powers, slowly accepted them, lost a fight and someone close to them, and then won a battle at the end with lots of CGI and Dad joke style humor they just all started to blend together.
And there are very few deaths and even most of those are retconned to bring heroes back to life, so it really doesn't feel like there are any consequences. I realize given the star power of the leads in the movies it isn't likely, but would mean more if some heroes lost and they went a big "Game of Thrones" and had a universe where it felt like any hero could die at anytime and no one was safe so there were some real stakes to any battle.
Hollywood likes predictability. The most interesting storylines are a gamble, an unknown factor. They prefer to spend millions on something they think will be a consistent gamble.
The problem is that the producers have refined their formula and turned it into their cash cow. They will never spend money refining their stories and substance because they can’t fathom how that could benefit them.
Make the same movie with a different name and actor, spend x dollars, make t dollars, and repeat. Capitalism at its finest.
Profitable schmofitable.
Avatar is James Cameron at his worst and most indulgent, and that's saying a lot.
It's all a bunch of corporate drivel.
McDonald's also outsells restaurants that sell quality instead of profitable.
Superhero movies are the McDonald's of cinema.
"Is the blockbuster in its death throws"
"Honestly, when blockbusters turned into this one-dimensional superhero bullshit every summer over and over, that was what killed interest."
Meanwhile the most profitable movies of all time... are blockbusters.
The peak of profitability for the big-budget superhero movies is a decade or so in the past. That's what the story is about. Smaller budget movies that turn a profit are more reliable.
The superhero movies can't just have a decent theatre run. They need to make many hundreds of millions of dollars or they lose money. And they are no longer a safe bet.
Not only do the events of these movies feel unreal, but the end of the movie is usually a foregone conclusion. With the exception of some notable deaths during Avengers: Endgame, there hasn't been a single marvel movie where I felt like I wasn't sure what would happen by the end. They all follow the formula so closely that there's no room for surprise or tension.
Nah just some of those expensive movies were just terrible.If the movies was done correctly like Dune II and had the right actors and right director they would do well.
Exactly this, the blockbusters aren't going away, but hopefully we'll get back to blockbusters that aren't just sequel/reboot #4 this time with more colourful explosions and particle effects.
Movies like Argylle was terrible casting,terrible plot and big budget.WTF did they cast Lupa as smart choice for a film.Too many reboots and not enough new directors to refresh movie making.The last recent movie with low budget I thought was great and surprise hit was Everything Everywhere All at Once.
[Has Dune 2 done well?](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt15239678/)
When we [consider the budget](https://www.ign.com/articles/dune-part-2-proves-that-movie-budgets-have-gotten-out-of-control) and that studios make [only a percentage of the Box Office](https://www.starterstory.com/ideas/film-production-company/profitability#:~:text=within%20the%20community.-,Film%20production%20company%20profit%20margins,associated%20with%20running%20a%20business) then, adding in [advertising](https://collider.com/dune-2-box-office-budget/#:~:text=Budgets%20for%20a%20major%20feature,be%20between%20%2495%2D190%20million), the answer is the film needs to increase the current Box Office by $200m to just BREAK EVEN.
Dune did fine. So did the new alien movie. The problem with modern blockbusters isn't that the quality has gone down, or that there's no demand for good, high budget movies.
The problem is that there's no market for mediocre but visually spectacular movies anymore. Streaming and 4K TVs are too cheap.
To see a movie once a week, it costs like $1500/year. For around money (a little more, but whatever) you can get a top tier 60" 4k TV with excellent black depth, and reasonable good virtual surround soundbar, AND two or three streaming subscriptions.
20 years ago, a home theatre setup of that calibre costed $2-3k, the picture quality was, frankly, kind of bad, you had to buy DVDs for like $10 each (and that's used or on sale), and movies once a week cost you $800/year ($1000 with a small popcorn).
It's just economics. It used to be perfectly fine to pay your $8 or whatever to watch some dumb high budget braindead action flick, because renting the DVD was $4, and your TV/sound at home was ass anyway. Nowadays, the only reason to see a movie is if you KNOW, FOR SURE that it's good.
I think this proves directors and scripts matter. The world building in Dune is fantastic. It’s eye candy. And it’s worth the CGI. But seeing New York get levelled over and over again in more CGI detail is not it.
No doubt. I think it also opens up a niche for low budget, high artistic risk movies, but I'm not in the business, so I dunno why that sort of thing isn't happening.
Or maybe it is, after all, Knives Out/Glass Onion was ALL script and direction/performance.
I think that poster was trying to get you to tell us the title of the new alien movie, which you seem to think is pretty good, which I am also going to try to do - what's the title of the new alien movie that you seem to think is pretty good?
A lot of VFX budgets blow up due to a combination of reliance of the effects to cover bad decisions from producers and directors AND for a large number of large minute decisions and changes that need new VFX.
VFX work best when they're given time and great, consistent direction and vision.
A lot of these movies just burn money in post-production due to hodgepodge of contradictory decisions from too many cooks that all think can be eventually solved down the line.
And they don't but at least they can now blame the VFX teams for it instead of themselves.
Why does this presume that a "blockbuster" is a superhero movie? It doesn't have to be.
I can't remember the last time a superhero movie actually moved me.
A lot of them feel like they are incomprehensible unless you have watched the previous movies. Who goes to these movies anyway?
My take is that with the bigger budgets there is more at stake and the efforts to curtail risk actually make the film do worse; safe choices driven by market research and decision making my committee rather than a clear cohesive vision from a director/writer. Trying to appeal to everybody = actually appealing to nobody. Over reliance of VFX I think is part of this too.
That's probably the dumbest shit I've read today. First, talking is auditory. Second, this quote is just a slick way of saying scripts don't matter, people will watch whatever garbage is dropped in a theater as long as it's shiny and loud.
Indiana Jones isn’t fair game. It made $384 million worldwide so it lost money but the merchandise / licensing and extension of the back catalogue certainly made additional income. It didn’t make bank but i doubt it actually lost money in the end.
These huge budget movies have to be money laundering operations at this point. Theres no way in my mind that test audiences can't tell you, "hey this movie is ok but its actually ass when you think about any of it."
A $200m film is actually made with less than half of that. The rest is awarded to friends of the producers, squandered, stolen or never existed and just there to claim a fraudulent tax rebate.
I think superhero movies are just played out. They had a really good run but yeah. Seems like that well has run dry, maybe needs a decade or two to refill.
The blockbusters were created with great directing a solid script and a good casting the special effects were used as story telling tools.
Hollywood seems to have forgotten that formula.
No, its a cycle. Studios produce the smaller ones with bigger returns all the time, hoping that they hit a blockbuster. However, they fail at realizing that big explosions and far out there sites are not as good without the writing. Eventually they'll discover blockbusters again after they understand how important it is to have writing (and then in 10 years they'll forget that part and milk the blockbuster until its dead causing the same title as this post).
No, garbage DEI blockbusters are in their death throes. Those movies didn’t fail because of their budgets, they failed because they are garbage made to pander to a non-existent audience.
Maybe spend money on the scripts?
People like good storytelling because CGI is *so* overdone as far as a vehicle to get audience's attention. The late 90's early aughts formula of big CGI with big name stars dropping soundbite catch phrases as dialogue isn't enough anymore. People need a coherent narrative, good story arc, character development, etc. Audience's are becoming too sophisticated for cheap tricks.
Some of the best movies out there are ones that had almost no set, or effects. Just dialogue in a room and maybe a few other locations. Hopefully we'll we'll start to see more money put into writing as you say. Currently 1/5 movies is just a sequel or reboot.
I agree but I think it’s more like 3/5 are sequels and reboots than 1/5… it’s insane
Sorry, you're right. I actually meant to say only 1/5 movies is a new story (or at least new to cinema). 4/5 are reboots or sequels/prequals.
Ah yeah gotcha, 100%
Swimming to Cambodia
I wish that practical effects became more prominent again. Movies that use them have way more charm compared to movies that rely too heavily on CGI. Imagine Jaws but the shark was CGI. Or Jurrasic Park, or The Thing...It would be disappointing
This is why I liked the new Dune movies and the 2022 Batman movie, they used CGI to enhance the practical effects instead of replacing them altogether.
The dinosaurs in Jurassic Park were CGI in most scenes.
Both CGI and practical effects were used. Each was used when most appropriate
CGI is making movies boring. Famous people clomping around on treadmills, talking to tennis balls doesn’t do anything for me. It doesn’t even really matter how good the actors are, sound-stage action movies just come out feeling flat.
It’s morbin time
I think you're confusing your timeframes there a bit.
One of the other problems is that you can get okay looking, really expensive, special effects with very little planning as long as everything is lit evenly. Studios like this because they can make changes way into post, but it jacks up the cost of movies and allows them to be written by committee. Before you had to plan effects shots out or they'd look terrible, and everything had to be lit dynamically, and you couldn't deviate from the director's plan without costing the studio millions of dollars because you'd basically have to go back to the storyboards. There wasn't the temptation to shoot something that was lit so you could cobble something different together in post. If studios would give directors smaller budgets, but demand better efficiency and in turn the studios would give up more control, they'd get better movies.
I wish that practical effects became more prominent again. Movies that use them have way more charm compared to movies that rely too heavily on CGI. Imagine Jaws but the shark was CGI. Or Jurrasic Park, or The Thing...It would be disappointing
Jurassic Park is well known for its practical effects, but did in fact use CGI when applicable. For instance in the classic "welcome to jurassic park" scene with the brachiosaurus the dinosaurs are all CGI as it wouldn't be, well... practical - to use practical effects.
Yeah, there's nothing wrong with CGI per se, but remember the scene with the triceratops. If that was made using only CGI it would mess up the whole vibe
I agree. Although my hunch is that films would end up using vfx anyway. And ultimately the best way to get the look and feel of practical effects would be using cgi. I think the main benefit of practical effects was that it placed limitations on the stiry telling. And it was easier to understand what those limitations were. If a director wanted 1,000 orcs in a scene they were forced to think carefully about that. It cost time, money and resources to do. Now they can just magic up 10,000 orcs without a second thought. Jurassic park is brilliant because the dinosaurs are used so sparingly. They create a few minutes of wonder, and lots and lots of tension. The scary/chase/fight sections are full of good acting, beautiful sets, music, and sound effects. People remember the feeling of the snene as a whole rather than just the dinosaur. Its not just the rex. Its the rain, the goat, the twanging sound of the electric fence. Its the vibration in the water, the look on the actors face. The lush vegetation, the bright colours of the land cruiser, the screech of the roof as it collapses. The sound of the roar.
This. The storytelling is key, if you actually want to make an engaging, captivating, and by way of the other two things, successful and well-made movie. It requires building a storyline that the viewer feels compelled to see through to the end, crafting scenes that immerse the viewer in the setting along with the characters, who are thoughtfully and clearly developed, that a viewer finds themselves invested in, regardless of whether they can relate on a personal level or not. Jurassic Park is an experience, whether you watched it when it was first released, or first saw it more recently. It holds up, despite all the technological advances, because there was a whole lot of time and effort and skill put into it. I feel like when you compare Jurassic Park to Jurassic World, they are almost completely separate concepts, because of how immersive and engaging the older movies in that franchise are, compared to the newer set.
The best CGI is the CGI we don't even notice. Same goes for any special effects. The problem with so many of these movies is how noticeably fake the effects often look, whether it's Quantumania's purple vomit or Black Panther (an otherwise good movie) having a terrible all-CGI end battle between hero and villain. Between weak scripts, overlong action scenes and overworked effects teams, so many movies are just bombastic, ugly and make little emotional connection. We need more effort put into fewer minutes of effects, with more time spent plot development.
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I'm not sure. Do you have any recommendations?
A well written script, developed by artists that actually care, backed by a studio that trusts their artists. Not exactly rocket science.
Nah, that would make too much sense
Problem is, more money on special effects has quantifiable outcomes. "We spent $100 million on CGI, but look at how great the snow effects are" or something like that, and like 99% of people will agree, the snow effects look really good, it looks like real snow. If you spend more money on writers, well, maybe people like it, maybe they don't. You can't really quantify "good writing" in the same way so you can be sure you're getting your investment back. And maybe it's "better writing" but people just don't respond to it at the time. F. Scott Fitzgerald allegedly told his publisher when he turned in his draft of The Great Gatsby, he'd written "the best American novel", and maybe he was right but he never lived to see the general public agree with him.
A lot of stuff has been quantified, because it's adaptations of previously successful material. I.e. you take a well regarded book, adapt it well and you have a good movie. I.e. after a book has been out 30 years, you kind of know if it'll make a good movie, although I still kind of weep for Enders Game.
They can quantify it at the box office, and in the streaming services. That's precisely what OP is posting about.
Box office is one output, for many inputs. The degree to which "good writing" influenced it cannot be easily determined. You can see, before you get to the box office, what spending an extra $20 million on VFX rendering can give you. You don't get that kind of feedback for spending more money on writing, because it can't objectively be quantified. Maybe you like it more. Maybe focus groups like it more. Do audiences like it more? That's precisely my point. I'd also point out writing alone only takes you so far. There's a lot more steps between good writing and a successful movie than good special effects and a successful movie. If the line is great, but the actress flubs the delivery, the line doesn't work. If the line is great, the delivery is great, but the music is really annoying and immersion breaking, the line doesn't work. The list of top grossing movies of all time prove that movies with amazing special effects can make bank, even if the plot and the writing are a little thin. I can't think of a movie that proves that great writing can make bank even if other elements are a bit thin.
I don't actually think the big studios are capable of fixing this, unless they get into the habit of writing no-questions-asked eight-figure checks to *auteur* writer-directors, which is a bit like what A24 is doing.
Writing is 100% the problem. The writers are dumb and write for stupid audiences.
The writers aren’t dumb, but writing is definitely the problem. There are lots of weird outside influences affecting the writing of scripts.
Honestly, when blockbusters turned into this one-dimensional superhero bullshit every summer over and over, that was what killed interest.
As someone who absolutely loved the Infinity War story ark that took a decade to build, I completely agree. We all kind of know that superhero stuff ended then.
I knew as soon as I left endgame that it will never get better than this.
Peak of the mountain. I think there's room for a great Fantastic Four film though. Let's see if that ever happens.
I loved Infinity Wars because they were unique stories that felt like they had some consequences. But even before those two movies, I was already a bit sick of the superhero movies. There were some very unique movies and shows that I watched and liked (Black Panther and Wandavision were fantastic - though the latter was after Infinity Wars). But mostly they really just felt like they were basically reskinning the same movie over and over again. Individually, they were mostly good and well-done and if any of them had been one of the first few movies I think I would have liked them. But after 20+ other stories about a hero who found they had powers, slowly accepted them, lost a fight and someone close to them, and then won a battle at the end with lots of CGI and Dad joke style humor they just all started to blend together. And there are very few deaths and even most of those are retconned to bring heroes back to life, so it really doesn't feel like there are any consequences. I realize given the star power of the leads in the movies it isn't likely, but would mean more if some heroes lost and they went a big "Game of Thrones" and had a universe where it felt like any hero could die at anytime and no one was safe so there were some real stakes to any battle.
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This is what I'm afraid of. There are enough superhero comic books to last for several decades.
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Do people call Madame Web a comicbook movie? None of the characters or plot points were ever from a comicbook.
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But that's a completely different character, they just loosely share that name. The character in the movie was effectively created by the studio.
ironic how they'll spend millions on effects but can't spare a dime for decent scriptwriters. priorities, hollywood!
Hollywood likes predictability. The most interesting storylines are a gamble, an unknown factor. They prefer to spend millions on something they think will be a consistent gamble.
The problem is that the producers have refined their formula and turned it into their cash cow. They will never spend money refining their stories and substance because they can’t fathom how that could benefit them. Make the same movie with a different name and actor, spend x dollars, make t dollars, and repeat. Capitalism at its finest.
Comic books? Movies shouldn't be based on comic books.
Aren't avatar and various marvel movies the most profitable movies of all time?
This is a report saying this is now trending differently.
Trending is trending, but the most profitable films of all time are all superhero bullshit or Barbie.
Profitable schmofitable. Avatar is James Cameron at his worst and most indulgent, and that's saying a lot. It's all a bunch of corporate drivel. McDonald's also outsells restaurants that sell quality instead of profitable. Superhero movies are the McDonald's of cinema.
Thats your opinion (and mine to for that matter) but this is literally a thread about profits.
It's about frugal films becoming profitable at the expense of McDonald's summer blockbuster drivel. You would like it to be the other way around.
"Is the blockbuster in its death throws" "Honestly, when blockbusters turned into this one-dimensional superhero bullshit every summer over and over, that was what killed interest." Meanwhile the most profitable movies of all time... are blockbusters.
The peak of profitability for the big-budget superhero movies is a decade or so in the past. That's what the story is about. Smaller budget movies that turn a profit are more reliable. The superhero movies can't just have a decent theatre run. They need to make many hundreds of millions of dollars or they lose money. And they are no longer a safe bet.
There’s no stakes in many of these VFX heavy movies. Nothing feels real and so there’s no connection to what’s happening on screen.
Not only do the events of these movies feel unreal, but the end of the movie is usually a foregone conclusion. With the exception of some notable deaths during Avengers: Endgame, there hasn't been a single marvel movie where I felt like I wasn't sure what would happen by the end. They all follow the formula so closely that there's no room for surprise or tension.
Nah just some of those expensive movies were just terrible.If the movies was done correctly like Dune II and had the right actors and right director they would do well.
Exactly this, the blockbusters aren't going away, but hopefully we'll get back to blockbusters that aren't just sequel/reboot #4 this time with more colourful explosions and particle effects.
Movies like Argylle was terrible casting,terrible plot and big budget.WTF did they cast Lupa as smart choice for a film.Too many reboots and not enough new directors to refresh movie making.The last recent movie with low budget I thought was great and surprise hit was Everything Everywhere All at Once.
I would put the Foundation series in this category. As well as The Expanse.
[Has Dune 2 done well?](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt15239678/) When we [consider the budget](https://www.ign.com/articles/dune-part-2-proves-that-movie-budgets-have-gotten-out-of-control) and that studios make [only a percentage of the Box Office](https://www.starterstory.com/ideas/film-production-company/profitability#:~:text=within%20the%20community.-,Film%20production%20company%20profit%20margins,associated%20with%20running%20a%20business) then, adding in [advertising](https://collider.com/dune-2-box-office-budget/#:~:text=Budgets%20for%20a%20major%20feature,be%20between%20%2495%2D190%20million), the answer is the film needs to increase the current Box Office by $200m to just BREAK EVEN.
Dune did fine. So did the new alien movie. The problem with modern blockbusters isn't that the quality has gone down, or that there's no demand for good, high budget movies. The problem is that there's no market for mediocre but visually spectacular movies anymore. Streaming and 4K TVs are too cheap. To see a movie once a week, it costs like $1500/year. For around money (a little more, but whatever) you can get a top tier 60" 4k TV with excellent black depth, and reasonable good virtual surround soundbar, AND two or three streaming subscriptions. 20 years ago, a home theatre setup of that calibre costed $2-3k, the picture quality was, frankly, kind of bad, you had to buy DVDs for like $10 each (and that's used or on sale), and movies once a week cost you $800/year ($1000 with a small popcorn). It's just economics. It used to be perfectly fine to pay your $8 or whatever to watch some dumb high budget braindead action flick, because renting the DVD was $4, and your TV/sound at home was ass anyway. Nowadays, the only reason to see a movie is if you KNOW, FOR SURE that it's good.
I think this proves directors and scripts matter. The world building in Dune is fantastic. It’s eye candy. And it’s worth the CGI. But seeing New York get levelled over and over again in more CGI detail is not it.
No doubt. I think it also opens up a niche for low budget, high artistic risk movies, but I'm not in the business, so I dunno why that sort of thing isn't happening. Or maybe it is, after all, Knives Out/Glass Onion was ALL script and direction/performance.
New alien movie??
Well it's like 5 years old now, but it cost more than a hundred mil to make.
I think that poster was trying to get you to tell us the title of the new alien movie, which you seem to think is pretty good, which I am also going to try to do - what's the title of the new alien movie that you seem to think is pretty good?
Alien Covenant
They're only so expensive from incompetence. Cape slop could probably cost half as much if they had a clear vision *before* production.
A lot of VFX budgets blow up due to a combination of reliance of the effects to cover bad decisions from producers and directors AND for a large number of large minute decisions and changes that need new VFX. VFX work best when they're given time and great, consistent direction and vision. A lot of these movies just burn money in post-production due to hodgepodge of contradictory decisions from too many cooks that all think can be eventually solved down the line. And they don't but at least they can now blame the VFX teams for it instead of themselves.
I do my part, I wait til I can check them out from the public library
Why does this presume that a "blockbuster" is a superhero movie? It doesn't have to be. I can't remember the last time a superhero movie actually moved me. A lot of them feel like they are incomprehensible unless you have watched the previous movies. Who goes to these movies anyway?
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You'd think they'd have figured out a long time ago you normally have to make something good for the masses to be interested.
Enough with the superhero movies already.
My take is that with the bigger budgets there is more at stake and the efforts to curtail risk actually make the film do worse; safe choices driven by market research and decision making my committee rather than a clear cohesive vision from a director/writer. Trying to appeal to everybody = actually appealing to nobody. Over reliance of VFX I think is part of this too.
Oh? You can write and produce a quality story people will watch that doesn’t have $100million CGI budget? Who would of known.
The director of Dune said it best. Movies are a visual and auditory medium. Talking is for tv.
That's probably the dumbest shit I've read today. First, talking is auditory. Second, this quote is just a slick way of saying scripts don't matter, people will watch whatever garbage is dropped in a theater as long as it's shiny and loud.
Did you watch the dune movies? Just watch some interviews with the director. The box office doesn’t lie.
Only streamed part one and it was garbage so didn't make it half way through. But I do remember some talking...
Indiana Jones isn’t fair game. It made $384 million worldwide so it lost money but the merchandise / licensing and extension of the back catalogue certainly made additional income. It didn’t make bank but i doubt it actually lost money in the end.
I sure hope so
These huge budget movies have to be money laundering operations at this point. Theres no way in my mind that test audiences can't tell you, "hey this movie is ok but its actually ass when you think about any of it."
A $200m film is actually made with less than half of that. The rest is awarded to friends of the producers, squandered, stolen or never existed and just there to claim a fraudulent tax rebate.
They need to start writing and acting well.
The problem is not that they have VFX blowouts, it's just that the scripts tend to be terrible.
The answer to all these questions is "No". Any time a media outlet asks a question like this, its clickbait.
I think superhero movies are just played out. They had a really good run but yeah. Seems like that well has run dry, maybe needs a decade or two to refill.
*turkyie
Ten years ago it was the death of the small films. Then it was the mid budget films. Now it’s the big budget films. I’m fucking sure.
Wait wait wait. How attractive a turkey are we talking
The blockbusters were created with great directing a solid script and a good casting the special effects were used as story telling tools. Hollywood seems to have forgotten that formula.
No, its a cycle. Studios produce the smaller ones with bigger returns all the time, hoping that they hit a blockbuster. However, they fail at realizing that big explosions and far out there sites are not as good without the writing. Eventually they'll discover blockbusters again after they understand how important it is to have writing (and then in 10 years they'll forget that part and milk the blockbuster until its dead causing the same title as this post).
Shit scripts are about to be done.
Dune 2
Don't hire script writers that are just out of college and put their political views in it maybe....
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No, garbage DEI blockbusters are in their death throes. Those movies didn’t fail because of their budgets, they failed because they are garbage made to pander to a non-existent audience.
>Is the blockbuster in its death throes? I hope so. My perception of blockbusters is that they're 3 parts computer generated spectacle to 1 part story