Rebooting Hollywood: What’s Broken?
Reports of Hollywood’s implosion have been greatly exaggerated. Hollywood is not dying or imploding. It’s thriving despite it all.
I’m sorry to break it to you all, but just because Steven Spielberg almost didn’t get Lincoln on the big screen and Disney is trying to dig Bruckheimer and Depp a grave to hide The Lone Ranger in does not mean Hollywood is imploding.
Despite all the doom and gloom about recent blockbusters, June 2013 was the best June in box office history! And despite Lone Ranger being DOA, this Fourth of July weekend was also the best on record.
Does that mean Hollywood should keep going at the status quo? Not a chance in hell!
Disney should have learned 2 things with their flops, “John Carter” and “The Lone Ranger”. Andrew Stanton is a great director, but he should probably be kept away from marketing. And Jerry Bruckheimer and Johnny Depp aren’t instant money every time they work together.
Unfortunately, I don’t think they’ve learned that yet. Disney’s Head of Distribution, Dave Hollis, told TheWrap, “The frustrating part for us, is that we had all the ingredients here. You take a classic franchise, team the world’s most successful producer, an award-winning director and the biggest movie star in the world and you think your chances of success are pretty good. But we just didn’t make it work.”
That’s not how it works, Dave. In the filmmaking world, you need to tell a story worth sharing, and in Hollywood you need to find a way to market that to your audience so they’ll give it a chance. All I gathered from the trailers was Jack Sparrow thought he was a Native American and there is a classic western train sequence at some point. Not really selling me on what was supposed to be the birth of a new franchise.
So despite Disney going from batting a thousand to having 2 quarter-of-a-billion dollar films absolutely bomb, Hollywood is doing pretty good. Here’s the thing, the theater experience is still a selling point in itself. I credit the experience for why Hollywood hasn’t faltered. 3D is still a minor factor but I haven’t been upsold on that technology still.
Watching shit explode and feeling that body melting subwoofer is like riding a 100 minute roller coaster nowadays. “Man of Steel”, “Fast and Furious 6″, “World War Z”, and lots of other recent films I would probably never watch at home, but they kick ass in the theater because you feel like at any moment Vin Diesel might drive a car into your face. This isn’t why your parents went to the theater, but it’s why people go nowadays.
I’m not happy with the current state of Hollywood at all, but I don’t think it’s going to implode on its own. Nothing has come to replace the theater for those date nights, family outings, and just avoiding the heat on a summer day. The world is changing around Hollywood and it’s having trouble keeping up. It’s now possible to make these epic explosive films on a relative budget compared to yesteryear, making directors like Michael Bay the new hotshots, not Steven Spielberg. That’s where the money is.
It’s about taking the least risk for the most reward. Disney bet big twice and got stung, while everyone else pumped out films with half the budget and made off like bandits even when they flopped. “A Good Day to Die Hard” and “Oblivion” both turned a profit during their theatrical runs, taking in healthy international sales, despite being declared “duds”.
Welcome to Hollywood of the 21st Century: big explosions, nudity, death, insane stunts, and we don’t say “fuck” more than once (gotta work with the MPAA to get that PG-13 rating!). What’s broken about that? Nothing, we just need to adjust our expectations. It’s always about the money. Safe bets are what Hollywood wants.
This is the first in my “Rebooting Hollywood” series. Stay tuned for my upcoming posts, on topics like budgets, sequels, indie films, distribution, and more.
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