Entertainment Forum General Chat Thread [ARCHIVED] • Page 61

Hollywood fearing worst box office summer in a decade

 

I am not really the target audience, but it just seems like no one is really that excited for those big movies. Sure, people will go see them because going to the movies is part of the culture, but all it takes is a few people putting it off a week or not going a second time to create the kind of falling box office numbers that scares people.

This needs to crash sooner than later. We survived the Saw years, so we can survive anything, but let people have choices again.

 

Also, I promoted this series a while ago, but the first few episodes were really academic and might have been boring to people. This is when he begins to talk about the "language" of film, a lot of stuff you might not realize films do to convey their storytelling. Fascinating stuff, especially if you are looking toward branching out.

 

Yeah it seems monopolistic almost, like Disney and Warner Brothers or whoever own all the movies

 

Buena Vista/Disney totally owned the box office last year.

 

True and interesting. Major releases have a shelf life of what, a few weeks now? Go back and look at the box office reports of the 90's. Films like Jurassic Park would stay in the top 10 for 6+ months.

 

Hollywood fearing worst box office summer in a decade

 

Yeah, think that was posted already

 

Whoops! You're right. Mah b

 

Glad to hear, if I'm being honest.

 

I completely agree. Obviously even the worst box office summer is still bringing in a shit-ton of money, but it's possibly a sign of better things to come.

 

Like who's asking for another Pirates of the Caribbean?
Stop giving Johnny Depp money, he'll just blow it, plus he's trash

 

I don't think it will change anything just yet. A lot of these movies are just commercials for merchandise that will ultimately bring in more money than the ticket sales.

 

Also, boxoffice reports should let us know the number of tickets sold, similar to how we get with album sales. I think that would be more telling of how popular a movie is.

 

There were a good amount of sequels last year that bombed or under-performed. Still, the biggest movies were sequels/tent-poles. I think audiences have reached a point of oversaturation, so at the very least maybe we'll see fewer sequels in the future.

 

I really don't know where Hollywood is going to go, because these young directors and writers born in the 80s are showing up on the scene now, doing an original succesful indie film or two, and then being recruited to helm the next installment in a series. That's cool and all but what are we missing out on

 

It's really interesting to see what hits and what doesn't. You no longer can have a movie star like Johnny Depp and guarantee sales. Good reviews don't necessarily do much for the box office either.

 

I think Johnny Depp has become the absolute worst working actor who still garners acclaim. I know he's talented and he's done stuff I've liked but not only being in movies like Tusk, Yoga Hosers, Pirates 5, Fantastic Beasts, Black Mass, Mortdecai, and the Lone Ranger in the last five years, but also being horrible in all of them, is quite a feat.

 

He's just always ironic or kitschy now

 

The fact that the fucking twist in Fantastic Beasts was that the bad guy was Johnny Depp kind of says it all. He's a gimmick at this point. Nonetheless he's still getting these roles cause studio executives thing he'll put butts in seats but it just doesn't work like that anymore

 

It's largely anecdotal but I worry about the future of film in general because very few people I know my age or younger really watches movies anymore. Netflix dominates and they watch a ton of TV shows but so rarely do movies grab hold of the cultural conversation in my spheres. So while the models might be largely changing and I think in the general sense movies will still exist and be made, even if the distribution model/consuming experience shifts significantly, it's just worrisome when fuckin' people I know in film school aren't even watching movies.

And I know it's a really harsh reality of the way things are consumed nowadays but stealing and pirating movies really does hurt the industry, particularly on the small scale. I'm definitely interested to see who adapts and how and what forms it takes, but in 10-15 years I think things will look pretty different.

Semi-related, the closest Alamo Drafthouse to me is closing and that's a real bummer. An AMC has bought the space, but being somewhere where a love of film and the theater experience is genuinely part of the DNA was a really wonderful atmosphere.

 

Because I wasn't really alive when Johnny Depp was consistently doing good stuff, he's always seemed to me like a dude that stumbled into being a big name. I hear that Johnny Depp is in a movie and I'm like, "Wow, Johnny Depp, this movie must be serious," but then I think, "Wait, what has Johnny Depp even done?" He seems like a cool guy though, and admittedly has done some great stuff, but I feel like he's been resting on his laurels for a long time now

 

21 Jump Street was the last genuinely great movie he was in. The Rum Diary I remember thinking was decent. Fear & Loathing, Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, and the first Pirates movie I genuinely like and think are strong performances.

 

Wasn't his role in 21 Jump Street sort of dependent on the fact that he's Johnny Depp, though? I know he was in the show, so it was obviously dependent on that too, but wasn't it not much more than a cameo? Maybe I'm remembering his role as being smaller than it was