Plummeting 2005 box office sparks Hollywood crisis

  • Thread starter Thread starter WanderAimlessly
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Lady Cygnus:
Finally, maybe with this new “crisis” they’ll actually think about making a good movie 😛
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I doubt it-the front runners for Best Picture this year is an historical fiction by George Clooney that attacks a cardboard caricature of Joe McCarthy and ignores the cold war and the Verona Papers and a move about two homosexual cowboys.
 
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davy39:
We have had a gift certificate for a free movie for two, for almost a year. We haven’t seen anything we would like to see. Ah, maybe someday.
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Now is the time! There are two must see movies out now. “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” and King Kong". I also highly recommend the new Harry Potter movie (but only if you have seen the previous three).
 
**I think Hollywood needs to go to business school if they really want to “save” the industry. Come on, it’s basic business.

CGI is really great, for some things. But does the industry need to spend over half of their budgets to get a few cool looking explosions? Great for science fiction movies, where reality is already altered.

Over paying of actors. Please, 20 million just to sign actors who then get a percentage of the movie as well? Sports also has this problem.

How many people does it take to make a movie? Have you seen the credits lately? Over 200 people per film. Geez. How many assitant assitants does one need?

The indie films have the right idea. People wanting to do good movies for the sake of making good movies. Sets are like families because of the short time frames and low budgets. Foreign movies are the same. Not hundred millions of dollars spent in preproduction.

How can movies make money when the production costs alone are over 100 milllion dollars? And the lack of imagination. Friday the 13th part 20? The Brady Bunch?

Good movies I have seen lately:
Pride and Prejudice( the new and A&E versions)
Bride and Prejudice
Sense and Sensibility
(OK, Jane Austen fan here)
Run, Lola, Run
Any Jackie Chan movie
Hero
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Lagaan
The Shower
Monsoon Wedding
Love Actually
March of the Penguins

If you don’t like the Hollywood from this year, what movies are your favorites?**
 
Joe Kelley:
At some point even Hollywood will figure out they need paying customers more than Golden Globes or Oscars or whatever.

In accounting the bottom line is the bottom line.
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A few weeks back the Chicago Sun-Times ran a piece on dwindling Hollywood ticket sales. The author argued that there are two separate motivations in Hollywood: profit and peer recognition. Profit is what motivates most blockbuster moviemaking, and oddly enough it’s the G and PG-rated stuff like “The Incredibles”, “Harry Potter”, and “Finding Nemo” that make the largest profits. PG-13 does well generally if it limits the amount of sex, and presents classic American values of hard work, good triumphing over evil, etc. like “Lord of the Rings” and “Spiderman 2”.

Then there are those other movies that make you wonder “who would actually go see this?” The answer is “so long as the people who hand out awards see this, I don’t care how well this does or does not do in the box office.” I don’t know how much money was spent on making “Brokeback Mountain”, but so long as the Hollywood elite see the film, consider the filmmakers to be enlightened, cutting edge, and having “something important to say”, and thereby reward the film with an Oscar nomination or two, the film will be deemed a success–a “critical success”–even if it never tops $10 million at the box office.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure George Clooney wants to turn a profit on “Good Night, and Good Luck”. Just remember, though, that those of us out here in “fly-over country” are not the intended audience for a film like “Transamerica”. Anytime a film spends its first few weeks in “limited release”, which means playing at a grand total of 8 trendy theaters in New York and Los Angeles, then the filmmaker is primarily interested in establishing his artistic reputation with critics and other filmmakers.

IMHO.
 
sea oat:
Maybe bootlegs on the internet have something to do with their cut in profits, too…or maybe not.

The thing that gets me, though, is how the number of pre-movie advertisements keeps increasing, even though the ticket prices keep increasing as well. I heard on the news a couple of days ago that it’s going to get worse. It’s just not worth it to me.
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The answer to this comment, IMO, is that Hollywood is PRESSING. They may be in the panic to where they have to step up to the hype. So, I believe the MORE hype turns into boredom by use because the commercial on tv wear out their welcome.
(just like Bad Christmas songs)! 😛

I also heard on the radio this morning that the movie "King Kong, the new one, cost $203Million! And this is for a movie in it’s SECOND remake! Get it in gear Hollywood.
ONLY the original King Kong is the Best!
 
I couldn’t believe when I check the news this morning and saw that the cowboy movie had received so many GG nominations… Hollywood tries to push things so far down our throats and if it doesn’t work then they throw a bunch of nominations at it so we’ll believe it is an amazing movie! I don’t think they’ll ever get it… My husband and I love to go to the movies and we go whenever we can, problem is, there isn’t ever anything to see, I couldn’t tell you what the last good movie we saw was… 😦
 
sea oat:
Maybe bootlegs on the internet have something to do with their cut in profits, too…or maybe not.

The thing that gets me, though, is how the number of pre-movie advertisements keeps increasing, even though the ticket prices keep increasing as well. I heard on the news a couple of days ago that it’s going to get worse. It’s just not worth it to me.
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I think the advertising costs nearly equal the production costs on some of the movies.
 
There are several reasons we don’t see many movies:

NOT MUCH WORTH SEEING:
I still want to see Harry Potter and Narnia, but there’s absolutely nothing else in the theaters I’m interested in. Much of what has been shown this year – especially the PG-13 films – are garbage.

TOO EXPENSIVE
It costs my family about $60 for tickets, popcorn and sodas. Thank goodness I don’t have to pay for a babysitter anymore.

NOISY, UNCOMFORTABLE THEATERS
Please folks, leave the kids at home if they’re too young to see the movie. Take them out of the theater if they begin crying or misbehaving. Also, Living in Texas, I don’t own a parka and have no desire to purchase one to wear during the summer in a theater that is so cold I can see my breath.

DISGUSTED WITH MOVIE STARS
Why would I want to watch a movie starring someone who thinks I’m a right-fanatic and idiot? I don’t mind that they disagree with me on politics, but they don’t have to insult me then expect me to pay money to see their “art”.
 
Stay Home! And don’t rent the DVD’s of stinkers or evil propagand films like Million Dollar Baby or Cider House Rules either.

Think about it. If you don’t like the way Hollywood celebs push certain agendas, but you continue to FUND their agendas, then you have no right to complain.

Let’s stop funding them people.

(Same goes for sports. Get involved in peewee and little league instead.)
 
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WanderAimlessly:
Have you seen the Narnia movie yet? It is worth it.

PF
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I have not been able to “get into” any of the fantasy stories such as Harry Potter, Narnia, or Lord of the Rings.

My idea of a good movie is too much like the Animal Planet shows featuring animals eating each other in real life.

The other day on the radio I have just about stopped watching TV], some guy was patting himself on the back for having made some film for “ONLY” $30 million.

EXCUSE ME???

It hit me after Katrina and some other natural disasters, that movies are totally pretend… grown ups simply doing what 5-year olds do … only they are older… playing make believe… just try watching a movie with the sound off… you can see the editing cuts and splices and the phoney scenery and sets… and after a couple of those, I found myself critiquing the editing instead of “getting into” the story.

AND for this, “Hollywood” spends “ONLY” $200 million. Or gets by for only $30 million.

And then the Hollywood leftists complain because the military has to buy planes that cost $100 million each, or $200 million or more… but they are real planes, while Hollywood spends astronomical amounts on stuff that isn’t even real. And the cost of the planes includes years of R&D (and years of bureaucracy).

But I digress.
 
No substance or depth or postive moral message and promotion of agendas and way too much noise for my ears coming throught the speakers. (I assume they are trying to make up for no substance) Also too expensive to take a family.

Big surprise!
 
What do they expect when they make too many remakes and movies based on TV shows?
 
There have been some good movies. I liked March of the Penguins, Cinderella Man and North Country. The other night we went to see Walk the Line, the story of Johnny Cash, which appealed to me as I am an old fan but may put some people off as his personal life wasn’t exactly blameless. The movie should not be viewed by minors.

I didn’t like Prime, I don’t like Harry Potter because the series clearly has demonic overtones.

I won’t see the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe because I read the entire Chronicles of Narnia to my children twice over the years and I don’t want anything to change my mental image of the characters and actions in those books.

(I have also read much of what C.S. Lewis says about Christianity. He wasn’t Catholic, true, but he has been praised by many who are.)

To save money at the movies, avoid the concession stand and those outrageous prices. Have mom put some candy in her purse if the kids must have a treat. The big theaters we go to allow you to bring in “outside” food.

Also, check to see if your theater has lower prices for matinees or movie starting before a certain hour in the evening. My wife and I frequently go to late afternoon movies on weekdays, get out about 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. and then go out to dinner. By doing that we avoid many crowds at theaters and in restaurants and get home at a reasonable hour. (We both work but have flexible hours.)
 
Hollywood is it’s own little universe. They do not care what the general public thinks. They think we’re a bunch of middle-America, red state nuts who go to Church on Sundays and wouldn’t know a pair of Manolo Blahniks if we were hit in the head with them (and I wouldn’t ;)). The fact that all the movie award nominations go to their politically correct favs and not the movies that break records like the Passion proves that.
Plus they’ve run out of ideas and make mostly ****.
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OriginalJS:
There have been some good movies. I liked March of the Penguins, Cinderella Man and North Country. The other night we went to see Walk the Line, the story of Johnny Cash, which appealed to me as I am an old fan but may put some people off as his personal life wasn’t exactly blameless. The movie should not be viewed by minors.
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We rarely go to the movies, going maybe 2 or 3 times per year, but we did see Walk the Line and thought it was one of the best movies we’ve seen in a long time. I don’t think there would be anything wrong with a teen seeing this movie. It clearly shows that there are consequences for your actions and the toll drugs and drinking can take on your life.
 
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Edwin1961:
The answer to this comment, IMO, is that Hollywood is PRESSING. They may be in the panic to where they have to step up to the hype. So, I believe the MORE hype turns into boredom by use because the commercial on tv wear out their welcome.
(just like Bad Christmas songs)! 😛
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Yeah, it’s true they’re overhyping themselves, and you’re right…it does look like a sign of panic, but I’ve been so annoyed with going to see movies these days, because they show just as many commercials for products (soft drinks, tv shows, shoes, etc.) as they do movie trailers. You’d think that as much money as they should be making from ticket price increases, they wouldn’t have to flood us with extra third-party advertisements!
 
I’m kind of looking forward to the sequel to the Pirates of the Caribbean movie in 2006 :o :o

But you guys are right, my DH and I haven’t been to the movies in quite a while. There’s just not anything we feel like dropping 14 bucks on seeing.
 
I keep thinking of some of the “landmark” movies that Hollywood has made.

“Reds” in particular comes to mind. They spent a fortune on it figuring that the world would flock to it to worship at the paen to the CREATION of World Communism.

Well, there was an oops.

“Ishtar” had some secret meaning … and nobody saw it either.

How come the senior critics of decadent Western society never complain about the money spent making movies???
 
I love Hollywood. The movies are my escapisim!

I have been to the movies 9x so far this year…and I still have to see King Kong, Narnia, Fun w/Dick & Jane and a few others…this will be a high year for me…about 12 -14 flicks before the year is over…and thats not counting the stuff I seen on dvd! That alone is over 50! I love the movies!
 
Al Masetti:
I keep thinking of some of the “landmark” movies that Hollywood has made.

“Reds” in particular comes to mind. They spent a fortune on it figuring that the world would flock to it to worship at the paen to the CREATION of World Communism.

Well, there was an oops.

“Ishtar” had some secret meaning … and nobody saw it either.

How come the senior critics of decadent Western society never complain about the money spent making movies???
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I recall a Far Side cartoon of a video rental store in hell - it stocked only Ishtar. 😃
 
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