(no subject)

[somedaybitch]

Is Hollywood its own worst enemy?

i *highly* recommend reading all the links in these as well. one bit, from an opinion piece at townhall.com is particularly relevant:

It is apparently no longer enough for audiences 'merely' to enjoy a film. Enjoyed Star Wars or Harry Potter this year? Too bad. Together those films made $1.7 billion worldwide, but they didn't indict the global right-wing conspiracy of oil-homophobia-pharmaceuticals so together they received only 2 Oscar nominations.

Meredith Blake of Participant Productions recently stated that her company had repeatedly turned down films that were "creatively fantastic but found to be socially falling short."

"Socially falling short"?

Comments

[raincitygirl.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, I'm of two minds about this article. On the one hand, it does raise good points, and yes, there's most definitely a place for Movies rather than Films. But I think it overlooks some very important points:

1. Hollywood is not a charity. Maybe some directors and actors will get all politically idealistic and not care about the money, but they're going to have a hard time getting funding for future projects if their socially relevant, non-entertaining movie doesn't make money. And the people ultimately in charge of what films get made in Hollywood aren't the high profile actors and directors but the studio execs, and for them it's all about the money. They have shareholders and boards of directors to whom they're accountable, and "artistic integrity" doesn't help when the company's in the red.

2. Studios like it when films they released are nominated for awards because that increases ticket sales and DVD sales. Not necessarily by a huge amount, but nominations and award wins are free publicity which put films in the public's mind. Oscar buzz does apparently lead to higher revenues, in general. Yeah, there's the prestige thing too, but that's not all there is. See #1 re: money. Prestige means nothing if your studio is going bankrupt.

3. None of the films nominated for Best Picture this year were big budget, big audience films. They're mostly independent films. The closest nominee to a "studio movie" is Munich, which probably only got a wide release because of Spielberg's prestige and name recognition. I don't know how well Munich did in theatres, but I'm betting that if it goes down as a financial failure, Spielberg will have a harder time getting funding for his next project unless he can show that this next movie is likely to make a lot of money. Will George Clooney keep making movies like Syriana if it doesn't make back its investment? Well, he can try, but unless he's willing to bankroll the whole movie himself, eventually the money people will quit returning his phone calls.

Does the fact that these are all obscure movies make the Oscars and the other awards less relevant to the average moviegoer? Yup. If all the movies nominated are obscure art-house independent movies that the average person didn't see, then they're less likely to tune into the Oscar broadcast (or maybe they'll tune in, then switch channels after the "What are they Wearing?" pre-show is over). Yeah, the movies which are nominated will get a ticket or DVD sales bump, but if they're not mass appeal movies, we're not talking about huge numbers of extra people seeing them.

But if the awards shows become less relevant to the average moviegoer, then that's something that will eventually swing around. Either the TV networks which host the awards broadcasts will start putting pressure on the societies to nominate more mainstream movies (and thus increase the ratings), or eventually the big studios will start releasing mainstream movies which appeal to the artistic sensibilities of the nominators. Maybe a bit of both.

And if neither happens, well, so what? It's just the Oscars. It's not like figure-skating at the Olympics, where what the judges say really, really matters in terms of the outcome (i.e. the whole point of skating in the Olympics is to try and win a medal, which you can only get if the judges award you points), or like the Nobel Prize where there's a large cash endowment to go along with the pretty statue. By the time a movie's been nominated for awards, it's already been made, already been released, already made most of the money it will make. Besides, there are plenty of examples of obscure art-house movies winning awards in the past, and somehow Hollywood soldiered on making mainstream movies that appeal to a mass audience. If studios try to turn themselves into a propaganda machine, and forget to make movies people want to see, they'll be in big trouble.

a few more thoughts

[raincitygirl.livejournal.com]

How much a movie cost to make is actually much more predictive of its profitability than how much it grossed. I don't know how much "Crash" cost, but let's say $15 million. That means that if it grossed $53 million, then it's made $38 million of pure profit for its backers. A big movie that costs $80 million to make would be a disastrous flop if it only took in $53 million.

So the fact that lower-budget films with lower grosses are getting awards doesn't necessarily mean that Hollywood is going against its financial interests to pimp movies it finds politically pleasing. It may mean that the backers of these projects are looking at the numbers and going, "Hey, the fact that it can't compete with Titanic or Lord of the Rings in terms of ticket sales isn't relevant to the fact that it just made us a bunch of profit, and is now making another couple of million bucks thanks to Oscar buzz."

Are there lots of rich liberals in Hollywood? Yup. And maybe some of them are passionate enough about their politics to go against their best financial interests. But they're highly unlikely to be the final decision-maker on whether a movie gets bankrolled or not, and if they are, they'll be looking for new jobs pretty quickly if they put ideology above profit. Yeah, there are probably execs who dream of being the guy behind the next movie to sweep the Oscars and get critical acclaim, but if they're smart, they'll also be the guy behind the sequel to last year's big hit, the remake to the old hit, the big comic-book adaptation movie, the epic drama with big stars, the cheesy horror movie, and the latest Jennifer Aniston or Sandra Bullock rom com, to cover all the bases.

Moviegoers want to be entertained. Some people are entertained by political movies, but a lot more aren't, or only are some of the time. Heck, some people go to Brokeback Mountain one weekend and The Pink Panther the next. So I think it's more about the economics of the movie business than prejudice against people who aren't interested in some types of movies. Moviegoers vote with their wallets, and moviemakers who don't pay attention to that fact find themselves unemployed. Hollywood is all about capitalism. Ballet, classical music, a lot of live theatre, none of these types of entertainment can support themselves without grants and corporate sponsors. Movies, however, are a multi-million dollar business, and most definitely self-supporting.

[somedaybitch.livejournal.com]

i don't think that the focus is the Oscars, but they were used merely as the starting point for the article. i personally could care less if a film is Oscar-nominated or Oscar-winning. unless it's at least 25 years old, that status will in no way influence my decision to view it or not...and that's what the author is saying, what all those link authors are saying.

and don't get me wrong, i'm a HUGE fan of films like "All The Presidents Men", BUT, i'm a fan because the storytelling was what mattered to the filmmakers. if you focus on telling a good story, the "message", that is, whatever influences your subconscious in the first place, will inevitably infuse your storytelling, but tell a good story. don't beat me over the head with your opinion, i don't give a flying fuck. i want to see a good film. if i want a lecture, i'll go find one. and that goes for so-called conservative films as well. the best example i can give in that genre is "The Green Berets". i loathe that film, and that's from someone who totally supported the actions depicted therein. but the film wasn't about them, the film was about propaganda, which is obnoxious no matter who's propaganda it is.

storytellers should only care about storytelling. i can make up my own mind about what to think, filmmakers, thankyouverymuch.

[raincitygirl.livejournal.com]

Oh, no argument here re: films which put a political message, whatever it is, ahead of storytelling. I mean, if I'm at the theatre to see a movie, as opposed to a documentary, I'd like it to be entertaining, thanks. Yes, movies which make social commentary can also be entertaining, but only if the social commentary doesn't drown out the actual story.

But I do think that Hollywood is pretty self-correcting in that it's a profit-geared business, and people who approach it as something other than a business find their careers curtailed. Because if you don't manage to make a film people actually want to see (and again, that doesn't necessarily mean it has to be a #1 hit. Depending on how much it cost to make, it can be a success even without being in wide release), you won't make a profit, or indeed even make back the initial investment. Which, if it's other people putting up that investment, means they're unlikely to do it again.

[somedaybitch.livejournal.com]

totally. and i was amused by the implication that the 70's were the last highlight of so-called activist filmmaking, as if society stopped caring about it in the intervening 30 years, versus what is more likely, that people that study the bottom line got smart and realized that you have to make films people are willing to pay to see. shock.

[lvp3.livejournal.com]

Wow, I read a few of the articles there, the one you linked and some other and then I got a little lost on the internet and had to find my way back...but anyway, very interesting. I had heard that the highest grossing best picture nominee was ranked 48th in overall grossing movies this year and was both surprised and not surprised, if that makes sense.

"Socially falling short"? Whose society? The elitists in Hollywood or the nation? I really found these articles/responses to be interesting and forwarded the link to a few people.

[somedaybitch.livejournal.com]

and they're solid questions that should be examined from a business standpoint. and it isn't even that storytellers shouldn't be telling the stories that matter personally to them, but they need to telling good stories first and foremost. and as the point was made so well in, i think, the townhall.com story, if they want to start a dialogue then they should care enough to present both sides of the discussion. and they aren't doing that because, well, thinkers might actually, you know, think, and then possibly disagree. heaven forbid.