Idk if economics was the right flair but I don’t know how it’s economically feasible for big studios to lose money on a lot of films with huge budgets and to make them so bad.
In: Economics
So, a chef can become a good chef by becoming more consistent in what they cook. An amateur might have great variation in meals, some a success and some with errors, but chefs can make the same meal over and over with little to no variation in quality.
The thing is, there’s no value in making the same movie over and over, the way a chef makes the same meal over and over.
You make the movie once, without any prior knowledge on whether it will be a success or contain errors, and then you go on to make a **different** movie, again with no prior knowledge on how it will go.
Imagine if we told chefs that they can only make every dish once and they will be judged on that first attempt. Afterwards, they can only make a new dish. It must always be an original recipe.
When originality is key to success, it’s not as clear cut whether your project will be a big success or not before you deliver it.
Constant pressure to stay relevant. If you are not moving forward, you are moving backward.
They’re out of touch with what the audience they’re selling the movie to wants. They’re fucking media executives 😂 most corporations do things that nobody wants because they think they can squeeze more money out of whatever it is they’re making.
Whenever you ask “who asked for this?” The answer is, no one. Money.
If you look at the history of cinema, they came up with novel concepts, and new genres were created until the 1970s. After the release of Steven Spielberg’s 1975 Jaws, the term “*blockbuster*” was used to describe high return movies.
From the 1980s to the 2000s movies became very formulaic.
Here are three main things that have changed in the meantime:
**Big fish and small fish**. Peter Jackson’s trilogy of The Lord of the Rings and The Marvel movies showed that it was possible to have a colossal return on investment on a big budget movie.
Where in the past a studio would split $200 million across 4 movies of $50 million each, they now want to put all their chips on a single movie that has big earning potential.
**Risk aversion**. With higher stakes come higher risks, so in an attempt to minimise risk, the studios go for two things that are counterintuitive:
They avoid venturing off the beaten path. Instead of taking risk with something novel, they see it as a safer road to capitalise on material that has already proven successful. This is why we get remakes, sequels or prequels.
**Post #metoo and #blacklivesmatter**. There is a double prong incentive to challenge with a new recipe the way movies have usually been written. Straight white men should no longer be the main protagonists, women should be shown as boss girls (bonus points if you make them gay) and people of colour (British spelling) should be swapped in for white characters. Especially for redheads.
There is also an illusory incentive to win diversity, equity and inclusion points. The more perceived forms of oppression your character seems to have, the more points. And higher DEI rating is supposed to make your studio a better company to invest in.
So studios are losing sight of earning money from the box office and focusing on getting investors money. But as your premise outlines it: what is the point of getting funding if you are going to spend it on movies that bomb?
___
Studios should do the opposite of everything they have been doing for the last 5 years:
1. Hire writers based on merit, not based on whether they tick DEI boxes.
2. Try novel ideas. You should be willing to push the envelope, and if you want some kind of proof of concept, adapting books or theatre plays to the silver screen has worked for most of cinema’s History. Don’t change a winning team.
3. Have character development and story arch. “*Show, don’t tell*” also means that your characters depiction should go way deeper than their *identity*. You should always be able to answer the following questions:
* Who is the character?
* What is their background?
* What are their motivations and goals?
* What are their strengths and weaknesses?
* How do they interact with the world around them?
* What is their internal conflict?
* How do they change over the course of the story?
4. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. The Lord of the Rings and the first Marvel movies had an alignment of start that you cannot automatically repeat. Put your chips on different movies to spread the risk.
5. Be budget conscious. Hire people who can produce a movie on a shoestring budget. The 2023 *Godzilla Minus One* reaped $116 million on a $12 million budget. The 2023 Creator didn’t give good returns, but it exceeded Marvel movies in special effects for three times less budget, because they managed to avoid reshoots.
Part of the development of a movie are regular package deals from agencies. You get the superstar, the writer director maybe, and three lesser actors. The whole set isn’t handpicked you have to take what you get. Maybe its an external director but he doesn’t like the camera guy or the screenwriter. Something is odd with the whole production but they are professionals. You get in the can, but the first cut is rough and the final cut is a hodgepodge of “lets get this done” scenes that convey nothing, are dull, paint by the number movie making and not worth the admission. The result is what I call “meh”, the 6.0 on imdb where nobody wanted to land on but you knew when the director was willing to throw the towel on the lead actor in pre production that that thing won’t get awards. Or many viewers.
Here’s the formula: studio makes 10 movies. 5 of them are probably gonna lose money. 2-3 break even. The others make enough to cover the loss on the former. Hopefully. But it’s a gamble and that’s why you see studios get nuked
there is also the mass market…where they profit out on the presence of a popular star…usually makes money but critically subjected
umm think about it like this…what u think is an amazing story having decent visuals with great acting would just seem the opposite to someone else….
there is also the mass market…where they profit out on the presence of a popular star…usually makes money but critically subjected
I think a big part of the problem is formula based productions rather that a process that’s from the heart. Many great writings can quickly be overtaken by individuals involved with a streamlined process that believe that their “certain way” is the best way.
From what I have witnessed behind the scenes, this is definately the case with art directors involved in CGI, lighting, and rendering. These people host workshops that preach how it should be done and the result has been homogenized results in aesthetics and stylisation. This leads to boredom and results seem repetitive and fail to wow audiences.
I’m actually very curious as to how well the new “The Wild Robot” movie will do as the lighting is much more how I would have chosen rather than the art director dictating that everything in each scene must have perfect individual lighting at the right angle.
Latest Answers