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Hollywood's Love of Analytics Couldn't Prevent Six Massive Blockbuster Flops
Nerval's Lobster writes "In June, Steven Spielberg predicted that Hollywood was on the verge of an 'implosion' in which 'three or four or maybe even a half-dozen megabudget movies are going to go crashing to the ground.' The resulting destruction, he added, could change the film industry in radical and possibly unwelcome ways. And sooner than he may have thought, the implosion has arrived: in the past couple weeks, six wannabe blockbusters have cratered at the North American box office: 'R.I.P.D.,' 'After Earth,' 'White House Down,' 'Pacific Rim,' and 'The Lone Ranger.' These films featured big stars, bigger explosions, and top-notch special effects—exactly the sort of summer spectacle that ordinarily assures a solid run at the box office. Yet all of them failed to draw in the massive audiences needed to earn back their gargantuan budgets. Hollywood's more reliant than ever on analytics to predict how movies will do, and even Google has taken some baby-steps into that arena with a white paper describing how search-query patterns and paid clicks can estimate how well a movie will do on its opening weekend, but none of that data seems to be helping Hollywood avoid shooting itself in the foot with a 'Pacific Rim'-sized plasma cannon. In other words, analytics can help studios refine their rollout strategy for new films—but the bulk of box-office success ultimately comes down to the most elusive and unquantifiable of things: knowing what the audience wants before it does, and a whole lot of luck."
Don't do the following: 1) make shitty movies (overbroad but use the smell test) 2) Make sequels to shitty movies that might have barely made a profit 3) Make 18 superhero movies, reboot them, and complain when they flop 4) Don't let a fucking formula from a has-been screenwriter dictate the structure of every movie (http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/film/8947871/The-origin-of-the-latest-Hollywood-formula) You can pay me now or later. I just want a 1% cut of all new movies.
I heard that the plots and scripts are being dumbed-down so that they translate better into foreign markets, especially China. So instead of one culture enjoying a movie, none of them do.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
I came up with the exact same summation; too much Indiana Jones. Some parts were great. Bilbo and Gollum under the mountain were truly excellent; it really did the book justice. The trolls weren't bad. The dwarf backstory was ok, going far beyond the book and doing it well.
But damn... Radagast the rabbit sledding superhero? The interminable goblin chase sequence....? wow. The whole mountain giant sequence was an exercise in excessive CGI combined with some unexplainable contempt for continuity. At some point during production someone had to think "wtf is this?"
There are two more. It is conceivable they didn't promulgate these mistakes to the remainder, but given that they've undertaken to stretch this relatively simple story over, what, 7.5 to 8 hours of movie... we could be in for a lot more fail.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
Maybe they'll start making... (gasp)... actual plots to accompany those stars/explosions/special effects?
General: Mr. Bay, can you think of any idea how to outwit these terrorists?
Michael Bay: I believe I can. We start... by making a big CG building and then we have a meteor go CROSSHH! and it, and it's all like CRAAWWW a-and motorcycles burst into flame while they jump over these helicopters, right?
General: No no! We need ideas how to stop the terrorists!
Michael Bay: An eighteen-wheeler spins out of control and it's all like BROSSHH! And then this huuuge tanker full of dyna-
General: Those aren't ideas, those are special effects!
Michael Bay: I... don't understand the difference.
General: I know you don't. Get him out of here!
(South Park, "Imaginationland")
"The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."
Exactly, this desire for international release is a big part of the problem.
Of course without international release budgets need to come down.
Inception. (Heck, this one so intricate, is prompted multiple viewings, group viewings, and discussions that didn't reach agreement.)
The Matrix. (Not surprisingly, the sequels were useless.)
Storytelling was recognized as formulaic as far back as Ancient Greece by Aristotle in his book Poetics. He knew then that most people like their stories to end up with the suffering hero redeemed, the villain punished for his misdeeds, forbidden love triumphant, etc. Therefore, that's what the moviegoers have paid for year after year, and that's what Hollywood continues to deliver today. It sells.
I think the problem is pretty simply a glut. Thanks to modern media and communications, and extra thanks to cheap filmmaking gear, everyone is constantly exposed to endless variations and combinations of these stories. Flip on the TV and there are dozens of movies waiting to stream into your brain. Even if a few are decent, most don't even rise to the level of Sharknado or Snakes on a Plane. And with so many choices, we lack the editorial reviews and critics we might otherwise use to keep out the dross.
When you see a movie that's truly new and novel, it sticks with you. Sometimes its a good story or came from a good book, sometimes it's a great actor, sometimes it's a new special effect or cinematography trick, or sometimes it plays on our childhood memories. Of course success quickly breeds imitation, and within months there are 58 variations on the theme, adding to the glut. And when the producers tire of the imitators, they release an official sequel or three, and eventually add a "reboot" or "remake" of the originals that captured our imaginations so long ago. They snazz it up, apply extra-modern graphics, bring in Daft Punk to record the soundtrack, hire sexy-fresh new kids to be tomorrow's stars, and retell the same old stories.
Spielberg knows his problem is not that his next movie will have trouble competing with the current releases. It's that he's really competing against our fondest memories of classics such as Raiders of the Lost Ark, Shindler's List, Star Wars, Jaws, Casablanca, Snow White, and Toy Story, all of which are still busily crowding themselves onto our cable channels and Netflix queues. So other than the fact that he's got a billion dollars in the bank already, he's completely screwed.
John
I haven't see all of last year's or this year's "big" films, but the five minute answer covering '82 to '11:
1982 Blade Runner (Ridley Scott)
1983 Scarface (Brian De Palma)
1984 The Terminator (James Cameron)
1985 Brazil (Terry Gilliam)
1986 Ferris Bueller's Day Off (John Hughes)
1987 The Princess Bride (Rob Reiner)
1988 Akira (Katsuhiro Otomo)
1989 A Grand Day Out (Nick Park)
1990 Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese)
1991 Boyz n the Hood (John Singleton)
1992 Reservoir Dogs (Quentin Tarantino)
1993 Schindler's List (Steven Spielberg)
1994 The Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont)
1995 Crying Freeman (Christophe Gans)
1996 Trainspotting (Danny Boyle)
1997 Gattaca (Andrew Niccol)
1998 Run Lola Run (Tom Tykwer)
1999 Fight Club (David Fincher)
2000 Requiem for a Dream (Darren Aronofsky)
2001 Amelie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet)
2002 The Pianist (Roman Polanski)
2003 Dogville (Lars Von Trier)
2004 Shaun of the Dead (Edgar Wright)
2005 Hard Candy (David Slade)
2006 This Is England (Shane Meadows)
2007 Juno (Jason Reitman)
2008 Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman)
2009 The Scouting Book for Boys (Tom Harper)
2010 Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky)
2011 We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsay)
No remakes (that I'm aware of), no sequels, and no easy formulaic films here.
Shit, cutting down to a single film from some of those years was raw pain. '94 and '05 in particular.