Are Hollywood Movies Dead?

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ShogunRua
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Re: Are Hollywood Movies Dead?

Post by ShogunRua »

rosenritter wrote:
Sun Aug 15, 2021 2:53 pm

I haven't seen half as many films as you have and based on a cursory glance at your profile my tastes are considerably more low-brow than yours, but I feel nothing but optimism about the future of cinema because the year 2019 saw many new films that just about moved me to tears. For obvious reasons there's been a lull in the past couple years but I imagine there are many great ideas gestating out there that we'll see realized in the next few years. I would put at least the following "under sixty" directors on the watchlist for masterpieces, in several cases because they've already directed at least one in my estimation; Lynne Ramsay, Yorgos Lanthimos, Kenneth Lonergan, Craig Zahler, Safdie bros, Bong Joon-ho, Harmony Korine, Tomas Alfredson, Andrew Dominik, Mike Flanagan, Robert Eggers.
Let me stress that the title of this topic is "Are Hollywood Movies Dead", not simply "Are Movies Dead?". In fact, I don't believe the latter statement at all. Notably too, a great many of the directors you've listed above either don't work in Hollywood at all, or do so sparingly.

rosenritter
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Re: Are Hollywood Movies Dead?

Post by rosenritter »

ShogunRua wrote:
Sun Aug 15, 2021 11:51 pm
rosenritter wrote:
Sun Aug 15, 2021 2:53 pm

I haven't seen half as many films as you have and based on a cursory glance at your profile my tastes are considerably more low-brow than yours, but I feel nothing but optimism about the future of cinema because the year 2019 saw many new films that just about moved me to tears. For obvious reasons there's been a lull in the past couple years but I imagine there are many great ideas gestating out there that we'll see realized in the next few years. I would put at least the following "under sixty" directors on the watchlist for masterpieces, in several cases because they've already directed at least one in my estimation; Lynne Ramsay, Yorgos Lanthimos, Kenneth Lonergan, Craig Zahler, Safdie bros, Bong Joon-ho, Harmony Korine, Tomas Alfredson, Andrew Dominik, Mike Flanagan, Robert Eggers.
Let me stress that the title of this topic is "Are Hollywood Movies Dead", not simply "Are Movies Dead?". In fact, I don't believe the latter statement at all. Notably too, a great many of the directors you've listed above either don't work in Hollywood at all, or do so sparingly.
I know, I was responding to djross in particular, who was asking if there were masterful directors active in any part of the world. I don't really have any input on the topic question itself.

edward
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Re: Are Hollywood Movies Dead?

Post by edward »

Good question.

I don't think so. I think the demand for films like Fast and the Furious (part infinity) will always be there. F&F Part NINE has been out for less than 2 months and it's already grossed $700 million. I don't think this market is going anywhere soon.

Despite whatever superficial trends are going around, people are mostly the same. Generation Z is into the same shit that previous generations were into. According to a recent survey of zoomers and millennials, The Avengers came out on top. Titanic, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Forest Gump, and The Notebook finished out the top 7. These are my parents' favorite movies and they're in their 70s. My nieces and nephews, who are 60 years younger, also like most of those.

Younger generations like watching movies just as much as previous generations.

I think the only reason we're seeing so many good non-Hollywood films is simply due to how easy it is to make a film these days. To the same point, the advancement of technology is only going to make films more immersive with time. Until that plateaus, which is probably hundreds of years from now, I think Hollywood will only grow exponentially, minus a few bumps in the road.


https://www.ypulse.com/article/2019/10/ ... -all-time/

https://variety.com/2021/digital/news/g ... 234954207/

ShogunRua
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Re: Are Hollywood Movies Dead?

Post by ShogunRua »

edw wrote:
Mon Aug 16, 2021 2:57 pm
Good question.

I don't think so. I think the demand for films like Fast and the Furious (part infinity) will always be there. F&F Part NINE has been out for less than 2 months and it's already grossed $700 million. I don't think this market is going anywhere soon.
I'm not talking about the market for Hollywood movies, although that too has declined and will continue doing so. I'm talking about the quality of the movies and the loss of their cultural and intellectual influence.
Despite whatever superficial trends are going around, people are mostly the same. Generation Z is into the same shit that previous generations were into.
Certainly not. There are massive differences between each generation immediately discernable from their beliefs, associations, and even language, despite the stultifying singularity of most Internet discourse. I hate the bullshit "Boomers suck and are responsible for everything wrong nowadays" narrative, but differences certainly exist.
Younger generations like watching movies just as much as previous generations.
Maybe. They just can't be bothered to spend $15 to watch one in a crowded movie theater with a ton of idiot trailers beforehand. Even an older millennial like me thinks it's trite and out-dated, and I loved going to the movie theaters when I was younger, have a lot of romantic associations with them, etc. that Zoomers don't.
To the same point, the advancement of technology is only going to make films more immersive with time.
You're either ignoring or underestimating the law of diminishing returns. Outside of CGI (a new field), a movie from 2020 looks moderately better than one from 1990. By contrast, a movie from 1960 looks phenomenally better than one from 1930.

Even CGI has largely been tapped out. So unless you're going to add a new element to films in the way CGI was, (possibly virtual reality, a new sensation/stimulation for audience members, like feel or smell), don't expect to see much tangible improvement.
Until that plateaus, which is probably hundreds of years from now, I think Hollywood will only grow exponentially, minus a few bumps in the road.
Grow exponentially in terms of revenue? How is that even possible? I'm an economist and I'm struggling to think of a single market in history where that happened. Is the world population going to increase expotentially despite its current looming death spiral? Are ticket prices going to increase exponentially relative to inflation, to the point where soon, watching a movie in theaters will be as expensive as buying a car?

In terms of reality, Hollywood profitability (ROI) has been declining for a while now.

CosmicMonkey
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Re: Are Hollywood Movies Dead?

Post by CosmicMonkey »

ShogunRua wrote:
Sun Aug 15, 2021 7:12 pm
paulofilmo wrote:
Sun Aug 15, 2021 1:41 pm
haven't heard of most of these Ds. get off my lawn; no, it is the children who are wrong; etc,.
Ironically, it's young people, especially Zoomers, who have zero interest in movies, especially compared to past generations. It's millennials like myself who are still watching movies, with a surprisingly large number of Boomers, too.

https://www.movieguide.org/news-article ... ies-4.html

I'm not sure if this indicative of interest in film. People tend have more disposable income as they get older, and therefore more opportunity to go to movie theatres. I go to movie theatres more now in my late 20s than I ever did in my early 20s, simply because I can actually afford it more often.

ShogunRua
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Re: Are Hollywood Movies Dead?

Post by ShogunRua »

CosmicMonkey wrote:
Tue Aug 17, 2021 6:21 pm
ShogunRua wrote:
Sun Aug 15, 2021 7:12 pm
paulofilmo wrote:
Sun Aug 15, 2021 1:41 pm
haven't heard of most of these Ds. get off my lawn; no, it is the children who are wrong; etc,.
Ironically, it's young people, especially Zoomers, who have zero interest in movies, especially compared to past generations. It's millennials like myself who are still watching movies, with a surprisingly large number of Boomers, too.

https://www.movieguide.org/news-article ... ies-4.html

I'm not sure if this indicative of interest in film. People tend have more disposable income as they get older, and therefore more opportunity to go to movie theatres. I go to movie theatres more now in my late 20s than I ever did in my early 20s, simply because I can actually afford it more often.
Direct anecdotal experience means little. I was going to movie theaters twice a month in my early 20s. By my late 20s, I wasn't going to the theater at all.

What's more relevant is what I observed of others. When I went to theaters in the late 90s and early 2000s, it was littered with 12-24 year olds. At times, there were more of them than all other age groups combined. I would constantly see friends or classmates at the movies, whether high school or college, and going there was a frequent topic of discussion. So much so that we were all experts on smuggling in alcohol.

When I went to a movie theater in 2010 and then even more prominently when I went to one in 2019, there were relatively few people in the 12-24 year old range. Instead, it was dominated by adults. Mostly older millennials like myself with some younger Gen X'ers.

This coincides with the link I posted, which states that a mere 21%, or about 1 in 5 theater-goers were 12-24 years old in 2017.

Not to mention that the argument about "disposable income" is a poor one. Movies have always been a very cheap form of entertainment. It's not expensive the way that a concert, sporting event, or dinner at a fancy restaurant is.

Even nowadays it's fairly cheap, especially if you go to a matinee or watch movies that have been out for a few months ($3 a ticket in LA County when I was in college in the mid to late 2000s), which also explains its popularity among lower-income minorities. Hell, I have friends who were on welfare growing up, and their parents would frequently take them to the movies, since it was the cheapest way to entertain the whole family on a weekend.

coffee
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Re: Are Hollywood Movies Dead?

Post by coffee »

Nope.
Hollywood dies with the USA.
It's a giant bussiness. Not just the artistic types or some obsessive auteurs... the brightest minds are working on movies, all the while they could've been working on curing cancer or a cold fusion device. Because there is money. A lot of money.

As long as Hollywood is a good place for genius-level people to work, Hollywood movies will not die. It's a great machine nurtured with the creativity.

Only if there is no more money.. then the world will be ruled by an iron-fist Chinese government of course and while working on a factory 14 hours a day, you won't be thinking about films.

90sCoffee
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Re: Are Hollywood Movies Dead?

Post by 90sCoffee »

What? Just looking since 2019 and there have been some fantastic films that are predominantly Hollywood productions:

Knives Out (best murder mystery made on film I've seen and it wasn't even a book adaptation), Marriage Story, Ford v Ferrari, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, Palm Springs, Avengers: Endgame, Judas and The Black Messiah, Little Women, Nomadland, Suicide Squad, Jojo Rabbit, Minari. I'm sure there's others, I haven't seen The Irishman for example.

Also the pandemic pushed back a bunch and we're gonna get some really good ones this year I'm sure like Green Knight, Dune, The French Dispatch, and Eternals.

Movies are definetely less popular now and not as much good stuff gets greenlit but we're not dead yet. It isn't like indie/alternative guitar rock where it's basically gone from the mainstream and you have to use the internet to find it.

ShogunRua
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Re: Are Hollywood Movies Dead?

Post by ShogunRua »

coffee wrote:
Thu Aug 19, 2021 6:59 am
Nope.
Hollywood dies with the USA.
It's a giant bussiness. Not just the artistic types or some obsessive auteurs... the brightest minds are working on movies, all the while they could've been working on curing cancer or a cold fusion device. Because there is money. A lot of money.
Movies are a relatively small industry. A mere $42 billion in box office revenue in 2019. Compare that to video games, which were estimated to have generated $135 billion worldwide in 2018. Or the automative industry, which is $2-$3 trillion.

As for Hollywood attracting the "brightest minds", I thought it was a silly statement when I first heard it circa 2005. Nowadays, it's uproariously funny.
As long as Hollywood is a good place for genius-level people to work, Hollywood movies will not die. It's a great machine nurtured with the creativity.
Do you honestly believe this yourself? I don't think your idyllic view of Hollywood was even true at the height of the studio system in the 50s, or the height of auteur-driven New Hollywood in the 1970's. But now? Are you just pulling our leg?

Anomaly
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Re: Are Hollywood Movies Dead?

Post by Anomaly »

I personally wouldn't underestimate people's ingenuity to slip greatness past the prying eyes of profit-obsessed producers, but yeah things don't look good. Homogeneous blockbusters seem to be the order of the day, even after the losses that occurred due to COVID, and directors providing a strong/unique touch on the material is being minimized, unless they already have an audience built in.

Still, as a cultural touchstone, I think Hollywood has some time left. The sheer number of eyeballs these films reach alone guarantees it, even if you or I finds these trends distasteful. That won't be gone until no one watches their films at all anymore, and that's not happening for a long time.

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