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Movie Industry Blames Texting for Bad Box Office
cybercuzco writes "The movie industry is blaming poor sales of such movies as Gigli, The Hulk and Charlies Angels not on the fact that they were poor quality, but because people text message other people telling them that the movie stinks. Industry executives say that this undermines a carefully crafted marketing image. Expect texting to be banned by the MPAA in the near future."
obviously reviews and the fact that a new 200 million dollar movie opened each weekend had nothing to do with it?
Mike
So they are saying that communication is the reason for movie's failure? They should get rid of free speech.
http://threetechguys.info Come, discuss Technology. Got a technology question? Come ask!
Surely if the movie wasn't crap, people wouldn't send text messages saying it was.
The solution is to create good movies.
Hmm
.sigs are for losers
Remember when companies were complaining about benchmarks, and their image?
I could be like the MPAA, blame everyone but myself when something bad happens. I'll start by blaming communists, woman, minorities, foreigners, my parents, teachers, politicians... and everyone else, but me. It's a good thing I'm perfect!
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
So, text-messaging allows people to spread the word about a bad movie too fast?
As opposed to, oh, checking the Tomatometer at or before the day of release? Or reading reviews you trust? Or just making a _phone call_ to your friends instead of texting them?
Text messaging is an incremental improvement in our communications ability, not a revolution.
But those days are over, because the technology of hand-held text-message devices has drastically cut down the time it takes for movie-goers to tell their friends that a heavily promoted summer action movie is a waste of time and money.
.co.uk site so I assume they are talking about Europe?) I guess that instant messenger (a massive communication medium for most people under the age of 26) is having something to do with it (and I guess the ability of AOL's AIM to forward those messages straight to your cell phone (thank the lord for free inbound SMS)). So while mass communication is FASTER these days (24/7 Internet connections, AIM, etc), I doubt that it has any bearing on the movie industry. Would it account for GOOD MOVIES doing better as well? "HEY THIS movE ROX"
.02
I suppose this has SOME bearing on the spread of word of mouth, but I can certainly guarantee that here in the US that text messaging is not as prevelant is the cell phone companies would like (this article is from a
The movies this summer sucked, bad. Gigli, the Hulk (which wasn't terrible), Terminator 3 (again, not terrible), American Wedding, etc, are all going to be dwarfed by such fine examples such as My Boss's Daughter, the Medallion, etc.
I suppose that they have to blame it on something. Mass marketing full of smoke and mirrors can't save bullshit. Let's cut out the teen-heart-throb actors/actresses (My Boss's Daughter) and get back to plot, script, and real entertainment.
Just my worthless
I'd bet that they have the market research to back this up, (if there's one thing that Hollywood doesn't fool around with, it's market research on their targeted demographics) so I would tend to believe the industry on this one.
Of course, this has nothing to do with texting, it's more about instant communication, which they can't do anything about. I suppose they could pressure theaters to disallow cell phones on some other grounds (people can't learn to turn them off during shows. That's a legitimate complaint - they really can't).
This reminds me of the music industry though. What they say in the article is that companies are used to being able to "buy their gross" and avoid negative word of mouth. That, in a way, is a business model. And just as the music industry will have to change their business model to succeed in the face of music sharing (REGARDLESS of whether or not they are able to contain it) so too will the movie industry have to make some changes.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
...set you free? Hardly!
With the guy who told the people that their privacy was in danger because of an unfixed bug in their email services, the "truth" did damage to the company and we can't have exposure for bugs, flaws and defects... oh no... that's just anti-american!
I wonder who will be the first person to be prosecuted for giving a movie a bad review? After all, they are responsible for the tremendous losses that the MPAA are suffering. It's not ONLY the digital piracy on the internet, but now people are spreading the truth (or opinions) around faster than can be controlled!!!
What ever happened to the idea of building a better mouse-trap?
Obviously, if they spent enough money on marketing, people should like it right? I mean, thats what marketing IS. If marketing doesnt work, they'd have to rely on *gasp* _content_?!! Burn those infernal networks of informed consumers.
"Sorry Im not more user-friendly."
If that doesn't say it all, I don't know what will. Pretty much, Sands is saying that enough people will buy his product before the general public realizes his product is useless to break even.
What a *great* business plan.
"Don't mind me cutting myself on Occam's Razor"
Hollywood studios don't make movies hoping that people will like them and tell all their friends and then their friends will see it and tell their friends and so on anymore. It used to be that a movie was successful when it stayed in theatres forever and built up a good box office take that way.
,the movie can fade into oblivion and the hollywood execs are too busy counting their money to care.
These days, Hollywood puts out pure garbage, and hypes the hell out of it, hoping everyone will be so hyped up about it they'll want to see it immediately after it's released. They count on the fact that people who go and see it won't be able to tell that many people it sucks until the opening weekend is already past, and they've raked in their millions, generated purely from marketing. After the multi-million dollar opening weekend
Here's an idea: maybe Hollywood could start making movies people actually want to see more than once, and make their movie that way.
I'm not going to go to watch a stupid movie when it costs $20 without food/drinks for me and my woman ($35 if you get 2 tickets, 2 drinks, and a box of popcorn in NYC)
I'm not going to buy a cd when it costs $15+ for a cd of 8 tracks, 6 of which suck
I'm not going to listen to the radio since all of the radio stations I get are the same 30 songs in rotation, some at the same time
You know what I'm going to do? Pick up a book and go to the park. At least the view is nice (still warm enough for women in skimpy clothes) and there are still decent books to be read
The studios are relying on the fact that they'll get at least good sales on opening night even for a bad movie, as long as the marketing campaign makes it look good. Instead, the first viewers are warning their friends on Thursday and Friday nights "naw, go see something else, Gigli stinks." The Thursday/Friday night opening night crowds used to be a captive market.
It seems never to have occurred to them that some people might be texting to say "you have to see this movie!" for movies that didn't get the full court marketing press? And that the whole thing just cancels out (well, it would if there were as many surprise good movies as there are expensive bad movies).
Grassroots word of mouth is without a doubt the best marketing tool any product can have. If the word of mouth is against you, it's because you don't have good product.
Word of mouth spreads a LOT faster than it used to. It means that the movie has to actually be good and/or at least properly entertaining to make it up to the $200-250 million range, which is how it *should* be.
Basically, if you properly market a good movie then it's not going to tank... and good riddence to the practice of pumping up mediocrity with a ton of marketing to get first weekend gross w/o legs.
Make better movies. Your movies suck. Face it.
Get better actors, they all suck too.
You try to cover up the fact that the plot sucks ass and the actors are retard droolers by overloading the senses with loud ass music, shit blowing up and other gee-whiz special effects.
You are hoping that no one will notice the fact that the entire movie sucks.
I DARE you to make a movie without loud music and ANY special effects of any kind, CGI or old school. You won't because you can't.
You can't produce a movie that will stand on the fact that the plot is good and the actors are good because those days are gone.
Hollywood is washed up. Fold up and go home, we don't want your crappy movies any more.
...rapid communication in general that has been improved/enabled by our new fangled networks.
:P) They will have links to dozens of reviews before a movie is even released.
Like, an example is http://www.rottentomatoes.com. (No, not affiliated,
When 40 out of 40 reviewers all say 'Gigli' is an abhorrent, unoriginal, poorly written, disastrous mess, I'm sure not shelling out moolah for a theatre ticket.
In "the old days" you'd maybe read a single review in a newspaper, which wasn't nearly as disuading as a whole battalion of naysayers all lined up.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
Naw. Expect a counter attack. Hire spammers, to pimp movies via text messaging. If they can manage to make it appear as if it came from someone in your address book, so to speak, so much the better.
If I was evil, and wanted to sell crap that no one wanted to people, that's what I would do.
What they're really missing is, how this means they don't have to pay for advertising.
Look at successes like My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Whale Rider (by far the best acting in a movie ever). They can just make something good, do minimal promotion, and let the people advertise for them.
Although, the entire article itself seems to lend itself as a troll, would you not agree Slashdot?
Blair Witch project
Strike "Word of Mouth Ruled Illegal", I have another suggestion:
Slander/Libel law broadened to include "negative and harmful" speech towards economic activity.
I personally know a guy who was successfully sued for posting a negative opinion of one company's products in a forum devoted to discussion of products in a particular hobby area. (In his case, outdoor water gardens)
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
One would expect a successfull high-payed movie producer would be able to make the link between "bad movies" and "no audience", yet they didn't. They made ever possible link between something random and "no audience".
My guess they're still in the "denial"-phase and one day they might see the link and change jobs.
Sadly for the movie industry word of mouth works both ways. The reason movies like The Hulk crash and burn in their second week is that people tell their friends its shit. So word of mouth works or doesn't work based on the whether a movie is any good or not.
The problem is that in the movie industry the question of the quality of a movie never arises (until Oscar time that is). I've heard all sorts of excuses out of Hollywood as to why movies don't do well. For example, for Pearl Harbor it was: "Too long", "Not big enough star power", and most humorously: "Bad reviews". The fact that a movie does poorly because it's crap doesn't even seem to enter the minds of these people (i.e. quoting not the movie was bad, but rather got "bad reviews", as if that somehow has nothing to do with the movie itself). "Texting" is just another excuse to give the big boss as to why your studio is losing money. Kudos to people like Ben Affleck who actually had the guts to say that Gigli failed because it sucked
I don't see a lot of controversy or conspiracy theory in this article. The industry expert quoted all but says that the slowness of word-of-mouth was factored into past releases so that even bombs could recover their costs in the first weekend if they were hyped enough.
All this article says to me is that the movie industry was slightly blindsided by how text messaging changed the speed of the "word of mouth" effect. Doesn't seem like there's much conspiracy about this.
I find this fascinating, however, in that it shows that social systems tend toward democracy. Just as physical systems tend toward chaos and energy must be supplied to impose order, so it goes with social systems. The movie industry has imposed order by inserting money, thus maintaining control. With the democratization of the marketing message, however, they will have to change and learn how to harness the chaos... or insert MORE money per film (perhaps by giving away movie-related merchandise to all viewers or by further engaging viewers during the filming) to impose order on this more democratic system.
Or they could just make good movies.
Nah. Stupid idea.
He looked at me and said, "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send your fingerprints off to Washington."
If you read between the lines, they're saying that they are lying about the movies ("carefully crafted marketing image") and that the customers are catching on faster than they used to ("You could buy your gross for the weekend and overcome bad word of mouth, because it took time to filter out into the general audience.").
The old trick of shoveling out crap but still making money isn't working anymore. And instead of trying to fix the problems (make better movies and stop lying about the product), they're blaming the faster communication methods.
Eventually, of course, it's going to result in better movies; the companies will have to adapt to the new reality or die. Unlike with our friends at the RIAA, they won't be able to buy legislation to prop up their failing business model.
That may be true where you are, such as the technological backwater that is the US [fx: ducks]; here in Europe mobile phones have all supported texting pretty much since they started becoming popular something like 4 years ago. And lots of folk use it; even my mum knows how. It's certainly become popular enough not to need quotes every time you mention it!
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
Its the same creative accounting they use to make sure they dont have to pay taxes, or royalties on net income.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Yes, they are, and they're probably right.
They should get rid of free speech.
I know that the **AA is just below SCO and M$ on the list of most hated groups around here, but they never advocated anything of the time - it was simply a guy making an observation that their marketing schemes aren't as effective as they used to be. Nothing more. So perhaps we can wait to let loose with our anti-**AA tirades until they do something ro really deserve it. At their rate, that should require approximately three /. stories from now.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
So I've been doing a lot of thinking about this over the past few days,
not a lot but you know it's been in my mind. The MPAA is a large group of
movie studios - Walt Disney, Sony, MGM, Paramount, Universal, you get the
idea - basically, if there's been a movie released recently, and it's
gotten good press coverage, they're behind it.
This is why I don't like going to movies. Movie studios are only
interested in producing movies which will score gigantic First-Weekend
sales: this has been evident with nearly every movie produced since
Titanic, the last movie to make a dent in the number-of-weeks-on-top
category. Look at the movies we've had this summer that have been
moderately successful: X-Men 2, Matrix 2, Bruce Almighty, Finding Nemo,
The Hulk, Terminator 3, and Charlie's Angels 2. All of which offer
little-to-know value beyond flash; Matrix, according to a vast majority of
reviews not influenced by the neato-CGI effects, has lost much of its
philosophy in favor of lots more flashiness. X-Men 2 delivers nothing of
substance, along with the rest of the list. I haven't seen Finding Nemo
because I am currently not interested in seeing much Disney (due to their
involvement in the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act to protect
their works from going into public domain), however from what I hear it is
a good family movie, but it doesn't offer the emotion that Disney made so
well with the likes of Bambi, Lion King, and Snow White to name a few (a
side note here - if the Grimm Brothers had actively pursued an extension
of copyright to the point where it is now - 100 years - then Disney would
have been in copyright violation in their making of Snow White, and much
to all of the proceeds would go back to the Grimm Brothers, and Disney
would not have achieved their large following).
They're only interested in the first weekend ratings. All of the movies
this summer made a vast majority of their money during the first weekend.
This is due in two parts: 1. the tremendous hype machines surrounding the
movies did their job and created such a need to view (so they can talk to
the people who saw the movie, they don't want to be the only one at the
water cooler who didn't see it), and 2. After the group of people who saw
it came back to tell the story realized that the movie was nothing but
hype, word got back to regular people, and they no longer wanted to see
it.
It pisses me off. 20 years ago, MPAA were making movies that are still
being enjoyed. Star Wars, Indiana Jones. Jaws. The Exorcist. The
Godfather I & II. Das Boot. Raging Bull. Do you think that any of the
crap that Hollywood is pushing down our throats now stands a chance of
being cared about in 10 years? There may be a couple diamonds in the
rough: Lord of the Rings trilogy, the first Matrix, maybe Fight Club. But
they are few and far between, especially since the number of movies
created are increasing.
One thing I blame is a reliance on CGI - computer graphics in movies.
When Titanic came out 5 years ago or something, it was hailed as being
spectacular. It now looks ancient. Computer graphics age movies faster
that non-cgi graphics. I wish movie studios would pick up on this. I was
watching Das Boot a few nights ago, and it was amazing how much more
modern it looks than a computer aided one, say, Hunt for Red October
(granted, it had primitive computer systems, but still they had the
opportunity to not utilize current technology). Much better movie as
well, if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it for a not-so-glorious
look at war.
I was one of the few people who was not awestruck by the Amazing
Spider-Man's not-so-amazing computer graphics. I thought some scenes,
especially near the beginning of the movie, were almost to the point where
they looked like cartoons. I just watched it again, and it's even more
archaic than I remember it from a y
You win this one. RTFA. They're finally admitting what you scream and holler about every time theres some statement made about internet piracy:
They realize that they're earning less because their product is not worth 15 bucks a head to see, and the public is on to them.
Noone had to tell me Gigli was a terrible movie. I'm already sick to death of "Bennifer", neither have any talent, and it was obvious to me that a vehicle for two pretty airheads was not something I'd be interested in.
Now speaking of movies, who else saw "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen"? Geezus christ.
If you ever imagined that Captain Nemo, Jeckle/Hyde, the invisble man, one of the chicks from dracula, the guy from King Solomon's Mines and Dorian Gray got together in some sort of 19th century version of the X-Men to fight Dr Moriarty for some reason? If so, have you ever imagined that this story would be written by someone who'd NEVER READ ANY OF THE ORIGINAL BOOKS AND HAS A SATURDAY MORNING CARTOON IDEA OF THE CHARACTERS? Shit, Jeckle/Hyde was portrayed as an incredible hulk kind of guy. And yeah - that Dorian Gray - the one from the Wilde book "I will destroy you with the power of Sodomy!"
Sad thing is everyone else liked it. When Dorian Gray came onscreen I said "Uh oh Connery, you better watch your butt!", there was a sole fit of laughter from someone way in the back who'd no doubt read the book - or seen a decent movie adaptation of it.
Anyways.
The MPAA is realizing the era of "throw some big names and a pile of FX into any old shlocky script" blockbuster era is over. We've seen all the explosions and stunts we're gonna see. They know they have to either do better - or perhaps do it cheaper. I would have seen the hulk for 5 bucks - IF that included a soda (which is only worth like a dime to them for fuck sakes). Ok, I know the theatres and the movie producers are two seperate entities, but they could work it out.
People want value for their entertainment dollar, and they know they aren't going to get it from Gigli. My 8 and 6 year old kids know that. For the cost to take them to a movie, we can stop by Babbages and pick out a console title and be more entertained.
Ok, end of story. Now relax. And turn your fucking phones off in the theater, text mode or not, it's still annoying. If you dont like the movie, leave, and text/talk/bleep/bloop in the damn parking lot.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
First we have the RIAA making shit music and blaming p2p file sharing for its poor sales. Now we have the MPAA making shit movies and blaming the public for its poor sales. Hmmm...maybe Disney will have to bribe Congress and get text messaging banned.. Because after all there's NO WAY the PRODUCT could suck! Right?
Then again, what they are saying is basically "usually we managed to fool enough people to watch our crap, this doesn't work any more".
That's exactly what they're saying. Why is everyone getting all beligerent over this? There is nothing controversial about this statement.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
a) In Southern California, a movie costs $9.50 per person.
b) A DVD, which has the same + additional materials costs me around $20
c) Cannot bring in own food/bev, forced to spend $3.50 if you want to quench your thirst during a 2 hour movie
Also, there are quite a few disadvantages to being in the theatre such as:
a) Retarded people that think talking / cell phones / deep breaths of shock when the most obvious thing that has been foreshadowed all movie finally happens.
b) No pause button
c) Groping your girlfriend (for both you female-type slashdot readers, boyfriend) during the performance is frowned upon
d) Advertisements disguised as previews before the real previews
e) Most of the audience laughs about 2.5 seconds after I do at comedies and that makes me sad.
Basically, what I am trying to say is that the viewing experience is BETTER at my house, and if I take a date to a movie, I am paying just about the same if I buy the DVD which I can watch repeatedly. Long gone for me is the anticipation of watching something on the big screen with a couple hundred people.. I'll just wait 6-9 months for the DVD release.
It sure as hell isn't because a friend "saved" me from seeing something 'cause they caught an earlier showtime.
Ok, this post doesn't really reply well to your post, so here is an on topic response:
No it doesn't.This comment is guaranteed*
*not guaranteed
If you read the article (rather than just the blurb), nowhere do the movie people actually say that this is a bad thing, that they don't like this turn of events, or that they want to do anything to change it.
It could well be a good thing overall, such that they can release good movies with staying power rather than going for glitzy special effects that make good ads. The movie business, unlike the music business, actually likes to produce good stuff, but they haven't been able to do so successfully very often, because it was so much more effective to focus on advertizing than on good movies.
The old way was a case of a degenerate strategy which sucks for everyone but is successful; using a more pleasent strategy just isn't cost effective. If people ignore ads and hear whether movies are any good from their friends, there is a much better chance of good movies not flopping in the box office like they have before.
No its not. Beep Beep. Beep Beep.
Or then the assholes with the cutesy polyphonic alert tones, there was this one idiot in a restaurant who had Spongebob Squarepants laugh on the text feature. Wlalalalhahalalhal. (poke with single finger for 5 minutes). Wlahalhallahalala
BOOT TO THE HEAD
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
why would teenagers message their friends that a movie stinks?
maybe, just maybe, it's because the movie stinks.
"Mister Potato-head --MISTER POTATO-HEAD! Backdoors are not secrets!" (War Games, 1983)
Here's a wild-ass theory. Maybe Hollywood is making lousy movies so no one will bother to pirate them. I know of a certain card and collectible shop in Latonia, Kentucky, at the corner of Winston Ave. and W. Southern that has pirated DVDs, but no one is buying them. The dude who owns the place can't give them away. It doesn't help that most of his other merchandise is broken toys that no one is interested in collecting. I went in there once, looking for baseball cards. What a farce!
LOL
Get real if movies do well because Joe average can't see past the hype, movie studios will just come up with improved hype.
The internet may have made word of mouth travel faster, but I think three bigger reasons for bad ticket sales are:
1) The price of movies and condiments are just ludicrous. Prices have triped and quadrupled in the last 15 years.
2) Second run movie houses have become more popular. Why spend $15.00 to see a movie when you can wait 6 weeks and see the same flick for $6.00?
3) Home theatre systems have improved to the point where picture quality and sound are really, really good.
Ruby on Rails Screencast
Headline should have been: Acknowledges Texting Effects Bad Box Office Turnout. The article was short sort and what was said was even handed. Slashdot clip is totally off base and seems to be talking about a different article. Nothing sinister here, just a Slashdot spin on an innocent (and insightful) comment by a Miramax guy.
Quack, quack.
The movie industry has know for YEARS that even if a movie is crap, they can still pull in $$ with a big hype campaign. This is one of the reasons they pay so much attention to week-2-week falloff of ticket sales. It is based off of just how fast word-of-mouth is.
They admit the idea of "buying your gross", and aren't talking about banning anything. They're going to have to rethink the entire idea of "buying success" with a crap movie.
I think we're going to see a lot more direct-to-video and movies that only stay a couple of weeks before hitting the DVD market.
About time, too.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
I have a hypothetical situation here. What if hollywood made a good movie, then word of how good it was would spread faster and by the same logic sales would go up.
So maybe, just maybe faster communication isn't causing sales to decrease. Poor movie quality is.
It seems never to have occurred to them that some people might be texting to say "you have to see this movie!" for movies that didn't get the full court marketing press?
The big houses might be more afraid of this, actually. It seems to me that the better, sleeper movies lately have been either foreign films or from art houses, neither of which are spending a lot on marketing campaigns.
It's a fact of life that as communication continues to advance, we need corporate media less and less to tell us what to think. And this pisses them off to no end.
The cure for cancer is coming: Reovirus
The article basically argues that communication channels are now so fast that bad word of mouth spreads much quicker than ever before. But this is the "half empty" scenario. What these pricks don't understand is that the reverse logic applies too. Good movies, even small independent movies get a nice shot in the arm as people recommend them. Remember the Blair Witch project? Bowling for Columbine? These were movies that got big through the Internet, or based off of Internet hype, not massive advertising budgets. All Miramax, hmm...
This has GOT to be the worst case of corperate whining that I have ever seen!
Technoli
The rest of the world blames lame movies and high prices. SCO blames Linux.
http://www.tuxrocks.com/
Obviously, which I granted in my original post. But what we need to understand is 1) they could give two shits if the /. community is kind to them, and 2) the general geek lobby doesn't gain any credibility by turning any story about movies or music into a personal rights debate.
And that's what it comes down to. You have 20,000 flaming idiots on this site who don't read the actual article, reading instead the inflammatory titles posted by (invariably) michael. From this they garner that the industry is certainly attempting to steal their rights to text message someone, when this is preposterous and false.
The actual situation is that some poor exec is wishing for the good old days when they could make money of a shitty movie by promo'ing it. That's all. His job is to make money - his job is now harder. Allowing the poor bastard to be wistful for a moment without calling him a Nazi wouldn't kill us, would it?
Bottom line is I stand by my original point - save the flaming and foaming at the mouth for when something actually happens, stop crying "wolf"/"chicken little," and wait until something actually happens to bitch about the **AA. Or at least until the next SCO story.
And no, I don't need more **AA links. I read them when they come out. I'm no **AA fan (particularly Jack Valenti), but a little objectivity wouldn't kill us as a whole.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
People have opinions, people share opinions, and if they can do it quicker than before, they will. If new movies didn't blow then they wouldn't have this problem. The movie/entertainment industry needs to realize they are subject to the same rules as any other company that is selling something. If a product sucks then it won't sell.
I say that we blame TV/Radio/Internet for having to listed to the MPAA bitch. (Slashdot excluded of course)
I'd just walk through the doors and ignore the "agreement". I'd just add violating it to the list of everyday illegal things that I do. Everybody breaks the law in trivial ways.
then people wouldn't be texting each other to tell each other how bad Gigli blew.
Now only if we could get the MPAA and RIAA to realize what the rest of the planet understands.
Shitty product = no one buying it.
How hard is that to understand?
Now they're trying to blame texting/sms on poor Movie and CD sales. We'll the only solution there is to produce better products. And IMHO I think the press did more damage to GiGi than texting. It was all over the news on how bad it was, for days.
I suppose now the push for cell phone blockers in the theatres will be pushed to quiet the storm of "this movie sucks" to others in the hopes that those people are in line to see the next showing. Instead of quieting the barrage of ringers that have come about in recent months.
It's important to remember here that the studio execs are businessmen, not artists. Most of them wouldn't know a good movie if it bit them in the ass, repeatedly. If they can identify a target demographic, and then create a marketing hype around it, they have discovered that they can almost guarantee a profit, regardless of the movie's actual quality. Unfortunately (for them), they are discovering that their scheme relies on imperfect information, and as the Internet and other forms of communication freedom reduce their market to a perfect information system they are no longer going to be able to use tricks to compete. Without those tricks, there are only two ways to succeed -- laws and quality. The scary thing is that (as I already pointed out), they don't have the talent to compete on quality. So, expect to see them try to push through laws.
"If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for everyone else."
"Without stating any opinion regarding the content or artistic quality of , I recommend you to refrain from visiting any movie house at times the movie is shown there. I may have an irrational fear for your physical and/or mental health." Let's see them banning people from expressing their irrational fears! It will amount to abolishing religion.
Technology today empowers every person that has access to it. There was a time when the movie and recording industry used to create decent products, and their first goal was to please those that actually forked over the cash the industries depend on. Now, its about pleasing the stockholders, and hoodwinking the general public, that same general public they rely on to keep their industries successful. While the article in question isn't really anything but an observation, it remains to be seen what these industries will do to keep their revenue streams up in the face of an ever increasingly empowered and educated public.
I can see text messaging in Europe, where it's cheaper than a call, but why bother in the US, where it's frequently more expensive than a call, unless you're on a very minute limited plan? It also takes way long to text "dood that mov1e suck3d" than it does to say "dude that movie sucked."
Dude, I think I can see my house from here.
Even Ed Wood movies don't suck nearly as bad.
Actually, I'd say that Ed Wood movies suck even worse. That's why they're so cool. Plan Nine from Outer Space is one of my favorite movies ever, just because it is so profoundly awful. It hits rock bottom so hard that it bounces right back into awesomeness, y'know what I'm saying?
I think that one of Hollywood's major failings lately is that they don't even put forth the effort needed to make something shitty enough to be amusing. Ed Wood's movies were exceptionally crappy, but at least he believed that he was making works of art. He didn't think he was just going through the motions so he could milk the public for another eight bucks each. It was a labor of love for good ol' Ed, and it shows in his films, in the dizzying heights of crappiness that they achieved.
Oh, wait, I just read the article. I guess I was wrong. Charging exorbitant fees for two hours of bland mediocrity isn't what's hurting the MPAA's profits. It's those damned kids with their text messages! They ought to ban them. That'll bring back all those lost profits a lot quicker than actually producing a movie that isn't a complete waste of film, I'm sure.
Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.
The free market is much more subtle and intelligent than that (most of the time, the RIAA and MPAA often are exceptions).
Hollywood has money. Newspapers, magazines, television stations, and the like want some of that money. They generally get this by running ads for movies.
Banning criticism is a tool used by totalitarian states. In a free society, the easiest way to get the same effect is to simply make it impossible to hear critism.
If a movie's popularity is going to drop off quickly, and there's no way to stop that, the solution isn't to try and stop it, it's to try and modify the initial condition - the number of movie-goers hitting the theater the first weekend. They want teenagers to stop thinking "I'll wait until next week if I hear it's good," and to start thinking, "I have to see this movie right away."
How do you do that? One way might be to put some heat on those institutions that want your money - the newspapers. Wine and dine movie critics from the big papers and treat them to advanced screenings. Then, for the week before a movie's released, all anybody ever sees are nice, shiny, full-paged ads next to sneak-peak reviews that say they're fantastic. If the reviews turn up bad, put more heat on the paper, hopefully get the critic fired, or at least stop treating him or her to dinner in the Rainbow Room.
Money has more power than the law, particularly in a capitalist society. Always has, always will.
"Propaganda is bad, right?"
;)
Propaganda is only bad when you disagree with it.
But seriously -- propaganda is any kind of advertising intended to convince you of the merits of a certain point of view. It is not necessarily misleading. "Zest gets you cleaner than soap because it doesn't leave a filmy residue" is a true fact, and not misleading at all; the question is, do you want to be so clean that even the natural oils on your skin have been removed?
Both Zest's ad and my response to it are propaganda. My question is a very leading question, and I've posted it here in a public place.
There is advertising which is propaganda, and propaganda which is misleading, which comes from a political entity, that may or may not have control over the media, deliberately done to spread manipulative misinformation for the benefit of the political entity. I've seen it myself. But it's not the only kind of speech out there. And it very much is speech.
I'm a big First Amendment type here. I believe the best way to defeat a lie is by telling the truth, and keeping on telling the truth. I believe -- no offense -- that what you and the former poster said is misinformation, so I'm responding to it for that very reason. At the same time, what we're talking about here is far less important than the real lies out there -- such as that hackers are all basically criminals, that file-sharing will kill off the RIAA/MPAA, that we have to re-interpret liberties in the post-9/11/2001 world, and that God wants us to kill infidels wherever they may be.
A friend, who was a professional movie reviewer, told me to beware of any movie that doesn't offer advance screenings for movie reviewers. It's usually the sign of a expensive turkey when the marketing people try to keep the film away from the reviewers for as long as possible.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
How can this be linked to texting? If it were huge dropoff between the first and second screening, sure, but with a whole week in between perhaps some other technologies are implicated. Some of the likely culprits include: newspapers
telephones, television, email, web reviews, and snail mail. Hell, with a whole week to do it, you can pretty much warn the entire country off of a crap movie by face-to-face word of mouth.
If a movie is so bad that people are going to be sending SMS messages during it, it's probably bad enough for them to leave the movie. This sounds like a really weak attempt by studio asshats to blame poor performance on an aspect of youth culture they don't understand.
Why people are texting each other bad-mouthing the movies?
I think we're back to "Because the movies suck."
Better yet either confiscate everyone's phones before going into the movie or installing phone jammers in the cinema !!
/* Andrew Fong - rogue programmer */
Trailers!
Doesn't take a freaking genius to tell that a movie is gonna suck just by their trailers!
And with movie tickets prices rising every 5 months, the less we are likely to go and spend $30 to go and see it. Especially if we only need to wait 3-4 months to get / rent it on DVD.
But perhaps hulk might have sold better if they had used the green_skin texture instead of the green_plastic texture that was in the adverts. Look at the specular highlights on the magazine covers. What's the point of seeing a CGI movie with crap CGI?
No problem. I just carry a piece of paper on the front that says "By letting me enter the cinema, you agree to.......". Alternatively one can have one saying "By selling me a ticket....". One can attached it on the chest or simply vaguely waiving it in the hand while buying the ticket or entering the cinema.
Maybe because text messaging is relatively silent vs. calling someone up and "saying" HEY THIS MOVIE SUCKS!!!" instead of typing it out quickly with a thumb. Besides if the movie is that lame, taking the time to look down at your phone is a decent diversion for a few fleeting moments. If you're lucky your friend will message you back and you can have fun talking smack for a while. You can also decide where to meet up without disturing all the other people who are intently listening to the film hoping it makes sense.
Deltron 3030 - Virus (music video)