Are Hollywood Movies Dead?

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ShogunRua
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Are Hollywood Movies Dead?

Post by ShogunRua »

I pose this as a question, since I certainly haven't seen every noteworthy picture of the past few years.

Still, based on my rankings and desire to see new pictures, I think Hollywood movies were already dying circa 2015, and then the coronavirus and ensuing end of movie theaters put them out of their misery last year. That's not to say that the occasional watchable flick won't come out every now and then, but as a serious cinematic force producing a slew of good and even some great pictures every year, or even as a major cultural and aesthetic touchstone, Hollywood is dead.

I'm not interested in debating the reasons for this, but do others agree with my general statement? Interestingly, my two favorite Hollywood movies of the past 5 years were from 2016, The Founder (76) and Hail Caesar! (74), both of which I consider very good but certainly not great.

djross
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Re: Are Hollywood Movies Dead?

Post by djross »

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CosmicMonkey
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Re: Are Hollywood Movies Dead?

Post by CosmicMonkey »

When Television came out a lot of people were predicting the death of films. That obviously didn't happen, but the revenues from cinemas roughly halved between 1950-1960 and as a result, so did the expenditures of Hollywood film studios. Streaming and the pandemic will likely have the same effect, as lower box office takes might make it harder for studios to justify their costs, especially large-budget tentpoles. It's harder to justify $200 million for a film when a majority of the viewers will just be seeing it on a streaming service they've already bought a subscription for.

One unexpected benefit of the streaming wars has that it has actually made indy films more valuable, as companies compete to find low-budget content to fill their libraries. The average cost to purchase the distribution rights to a film at Sundance has tripled since 2014 (from $2.5M to $7.5M), thanks mostly to bidding wars between Netflix, Amazon etc. This has also allowed many of these films to find wider audiences than they would have otherwise, (like how many hundreds of thousands of people have seen Uncut Gems just because it's on Netflix?). I think independent films might be in the financially healthiest place they've been in decades, perhaps ever.

I think we'll see the number of large-budget franchises slowly taper off, with newer entries more likely to be smaller, more modestly-costed films like Joker or Deadpool. However, Disney will keep milking that MCU and live-action remake money until the heat death of the Universe.

Also another factor: as China continues to grow into an economic superpower and will eventually overtake the US, it's natural that we will see Chinese film companies becoming larger & larger global players. It's hard to predict if they will position themselves to compete directly with Hollywood, or if Hollywood and Chinese companies settle into a mutually-beneficial relationship of co-funding and partnerships. If the latter ends up being the case, we could see large-budget films return, albeit with obvious Chinese influence.

CosmicMonkey
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Re: Are Hollywood Movies Dead?

Post by CosmicMonkey »

Also, I don't agree with the assertion that Hollywood is dead as a cultural or artistic force. Personally, 2018 was one of my favourite years for films ever. We're just in the middle of a generational shift where younger directors are becoming the new voices and sources of creativity and the status quo of the medium is changing as a result. This is a process that is always happening; in 70s it was Lucas, Spielberg, Scorsese & Coppola. In the 90s it was Tarantino, Linklater, Fincher & PTA. Currently it's Jenkins, Peele, Villeneuve & Gerwig. Every decade has seen critics decry the "death of cinema" or the "death of Hollywood", yet great films have always continued to be made.

Hollywood is dead, long live Hollywood.

ShogunRua
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Re: Are Hollywood Movies Dead?

Post by ShogunRua »

djross wrote:
Fri Aug 13, 2021 7:22 am
Highest scoring American films of the last five years: if we discount the documentary Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World (score 74; percentile 83), my two highest scores are (like you) Hail, Caesar! (score 72; percentile 80) and Paterson (score 70; percentile 76). The former of these two I consider somewhat underrated, and my fondness for the latter was somewhat of a surprise, considering my general feeling that Jarmusch is overrated. In any case, neither are anything more than good films, certainly not great ones. Have not seen The Founder.

In addition to the question of the likelihood of the accomplished or impending death of Hollywood could be added the question (that has occurred to my mind in recent times): is there any film director under the age of sixty, in any part of the world, about whom one could have reasonable expectations that they will produce future masterpieces?
At this point, I'll take a film director who can consistently produce decent films, let alone good, let alone great!
djross wrote:Reflections of this kind could then be extended to other art forms, from the novel to painting to theatre: in all of these fields a case can well be made that we're on the downslope. What's more, if this is a true phenomenon, the explanation for it doesn't seem to lie in any shift of the artistic geniuses to new, say, digital art forms: these new fields seem as barren as the old, if not more so.
Hard to say. I've seen a lot of tremendous work on Youtube recently, light-years ahead of when the platform first began, including genuine art.

There are a lot more independent creators nowadays, but while the barrier to entry for film is much lower now than it was in past decades, it's still significantly higher than for books, music, or comics, which is where most of that energy goes into.
CosmicMonkey wrote:This is a process that is always happening; in 70s it was Lucas, Spielberg, Scorsese & Coppola. In the 90s it was Tarantino, Linklater, Fincher & PTA. Currently it's Jenkins, Peele, Villeneuve & Gerwig.

I was going to write that even hardcore cinephiles won't know or care about Jenkins/Peele/Villeneuve/Gerwig in 20 or 40 years, but the reality is that with the partial exception of Peele, purely due to the sociopolitical state of Western society, hardly anyone knows or cares about them NOW.

If you were to ask the average person who Villenueve, Gerwig, and Jenkins are, you'd get confusion and shoulder-shrugs, whereas everyone knew who the hell Spielberg, Scorsese, Tarantino, etc. were in those respective decades, even among the most casual movie watchers.

I watch a lot more movies than the average person on this website, keep track of directors, and scroll through well-regarded modern movies, and I STILL had to look up Villenueve, Gerwig, and Jenkins, as I couldn't think of anything they actually made, with the lone exception of Villenueve's dogshit Bladerunner sequel.

Also, it's telling that in a list of "younger directors" who are "new voices", you include a 53 year-old and a 50 year-old.

CosmicMonkey
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Re: Are Hollywood Movies Dead?

Post by CosmicMonkey »

ShogunRua wrote:
Sat Aug 14, 2021 7:08 pm

Also, it's telling that in a list of "younger directors" who are "new voices", you include a 53 year-old and a 50 year-old.
It should be one 53-year old. (I'm talking about Barry Jenkins, not Patty.) The rest are all between 38-42 and all had either their debut or breakthrough film in the past 5-10 years. And yeah, I know Denis Villeneuve is older than the rest, but I'd still consider him a new voice in Hollywood, because he didn't actually make his first Hollywood film until 2013. True, none of these are household names like Spielberg or Scorsese are, but I don't think the dearth of celebrity directors mean that there's a lack of quality ones.

paulofilmo
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Re: Are Hollywood Movies Dead?

Post by paulofilmo »

no idea what hollywood is about anymore. still, i found this page.

https://screenrant.com/dune-big-budget- ... back-2021/

dune could be fun.
bond has phoebe waller bridge; dude who directed true detective (& beast of no nation, which i haven't seen); dp is new to me.
love wes anderson. idk if he counts as hollywood

apparently ridley scott has made a film

what happened to Nicolas Winding Refn? suppose he did indies but ayy

haven't heard of most of these Ds. get off my lawn; no, it is the children who are wrong; etc,.

rosenritter
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Re: Are Hollywood Movies Dead?

Post by rosenritter »

djross wrote:
Fri Aug 13, 2021 7:22 am
is there any film director under the age of sixty, in any part of the world, about whom one could have reasonable expectations that they will produce future masterpieces? Reflections of this kind could then be extended to other art forms, from the novel to painting to theatre: in all of these fields a case can well be made that we're on the downslope. What's more, if this is a true phenomenon, the explanation for it doesn't seem to lie in any shift of the artistic geniuses to new, say, digital art forms: these new fields seem as barren as the old, if not more so.
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. And I suspect there are younger names that belong in that list that I simply haven't learned yet. I share your pessimism when it comes to other artforms but I honestly think cinema is the odd one out that is doing just fine, and I attribute any current lull to the coronavirus outbreak alone.

ShogunRua
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Re: Are Hollywood Movies Dead?

Post by ShogunRua »

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

paulofilmo
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what the fuck are you doing in the dark?

Post by paulofilmo »

oh sure. i'm in it for stuff like under the skin


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