Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

"Hollywood only makes superhero movies"

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • "Hollywood only makes superhero movies"

    In an interview with Quentin Tarantino comedian Bill Maher claimed that Hollywood only makes two types of movies now: vehicles for virtue signaling and superhero movies.

    This conversation took place in 2019 and there were 9 feature length superhero films in theaters that year. The total amount of films released to theaters and streaming in that same calendar year was 786. I honestly don't know what he means with the virtue signaling comment but he's dead wrong in his latter assumption. 9 out of 786.

    When a genre makes up under 2% of the total amount of movies available to watch how does it generate that level of false number spewing? Maher isn't alone in his distaste for the genre or in his spinning of the facts - when The Last Duel tanked Ben Affleck blamed superhero movies (in spite of the fact the no superhero movies were released in the same month as Last Duel. Halloween Kills outperformed the Ridley Scott film yet somehow horror films weren't called out). I'm often hearing people on movie podcasts bitching about the quantity of superhero content (I'm focusing on feature films here but even with the animated straight to video stuff and TV shows it's still a drop in the bucket)

    There are regular statements from various filmmakers decrying comic book flicks and it's beyond tiresome because it shows a lack of understanding of the trajectory the film industry has taken in the last two decades and implies that the general state of cinema is shaped by the genre rather than the genre being a byproduct of a major shift in pop culture that began in the late 90's. What we're seeing can be traced back to a specific period, in particular the years between 1999 and 2002.

    Here's what was happening in the world of entertainment at the time that got us where we are now:

    - the broad accessibility of high-end home theater equipment. Bigger TV's and surround sound systems began to be priced at a level the average family could afford. In addition to this the advent of DVD players changed the nature of owning films for home viewing. It was easier and cheaper to amass a collection of films on discs and studios started to put back catalogs and new releases out hot and heavy at the turn of the century. I had a massive credit card debt that proves that. People were more inclined to stay at home to watch a movie than drive to a theater.

    - high tech video game systems like the Playstation and XBox kept kids at home and out of the theaters. Final Fantasy, Grand Theft Auto and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater were sapping peoples' time, money and attention.

    - cable programming advanced tremendously with HBO leading the way. Why would people go see a movie like Donnie Brasco when they can watch The Soprano's every Sunday? Six Feet Under, Sex and the City, The Wire, Oz...all these shows made long form, episodic story telling much more enticing than similarly themed features. This then prompted networks to follow suit with shows like Lost and 24. Again, why would you pay to see a Wolfgang Petersen action flick when you can get 24 every week for free?

    - reality television took off in this period too. Survivor and American Idol debuted around that time and kept people home in the evenings. WWF/WWE really hit its stride at that point as well with RAW being a 3-hour program and Smackdown being added in 1999.

    So, what happened in Hollywood then? Big budget, CGI heavy trilogies like Lord of the Rings and the Star Wars prequels proved that you can use the internet to make audiences feel like they HAVE to see every entry, and even when the films themselves are arguably garbage you can lock people in for a multi-year commitment. The Harry Potter movies cemented this practice. The template for the MCU was set by those films, along with The Matrix Trilogy and the Mission: Impossible films. Again, superhero film producing studios like Sony, Marvel and Warner Brothers did not invent this way of making and marketing films, they simply followed suit.

    Sometime around 2002 I remember reading an article detailing how movie theater chains were being pressured by the studios to invest in stadium seating, THX certified sound systems, digital projection and IMAX screens. Hollywood had already sunk billions of dollars into CGI technology and the combined investment and efforts meant that in order to recoup those costs and bring back dwindling crowds they had to scramble for appropriate content that would fit well into this new, high-tech paradigm. Superhero comics, in particular those produced by Marvel, contained all the perfect ingredients for big screen, high energy blockbusters. They're marketed to death and the interlocking nature of the combined universe lends to the sense that they're omnipresent but that just is not the case. Oversaturated in terms of advertising and cross promotion, for sure, but they haven't taken over in terms of quantity. This is especially true when you compare it to other genres. For example, from 1935 to 1955 Hollywood produced over 2500 Westerns. Compare that to the quantity of superhero movies released since Raimi's Spider-Man in 2002. Dozens compared to thousands. There are under 100 superhero features in the last 20 years. That flies in the face of all these bellyachers. It's just not true to say Hollywood only makes superhero movies now.

    I can understand someone not having a taste for the subject matter. If it's not your bag that's fine, but when people like Eric Reynolds from Fantagraphics Books say "Superheroes have hijacked cinema the way they're hijacked comic books" it's a falsehood created out of spite. People get upset because there's a new Batman movie. That makes 11 live action feature length movies if you count his appearance in Justice League. Compare that to 17 Philo Vance movies, over 40 Zorro movies, 45 Tarzan movies and 50 Sherlock Holmes flicks, not to mention Dracula, Charlie Chan, Fu Manchu, Zatoichi and Bulldog Drummond. These are just another form of source material and you can be uninterested in them or dislike the ones you've bothered to see but they're not to blame for the perceived decline of cinema and they certainly haven't over taken all other categories. Sick of the MCU? Blame Tony Soprano and Hironobu Sakaguchi, not the movies themselves.
    Toyboy
    like a hole in the head
    Last edited by Toyboy; 06-01-2022, 08:31 PM.
    Now everyone can have a complete KRULL lifestyle.

  • #2
    Is it possible that they were using superhero movie as a shorthand for huge, big budget, mindless entertainment? Take a look at the box office in that year. Only 4 of the top 12 films were superhero movies but not one of those 12 was an original property. All remakes and adaptations.

    There may have been 786 films released that year but how many of those were available at most people's local multiplex? I currently only have one cinema in striking distance of me and the only original film they are advertising right now is the Elvis. Everything else is a massive adaptation/remake of something I don't care about.

    Its a dead medium.

    "Never let the fact that they are doing it wrong stop you from doing it right." Hyman Mandell.

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by Dom D View Post
      Is it possible that they were using superhero movie as a shorthand for huge, big budget, mindless entertainment?
      That's what I'm getting at, that people are misusing language in their assessment of the supposed death of cinema and pointing to superhero films as the cause rather than the byproduct. Home video, network and cable TV, video games and the internet almost killed cinema and the "huge, big budget, mindless entertainment" took over as a way of combatting that. One came before the other but if you listen to Bill Maher, Martin Scorsese or Ben Affleck you'd think superhero films just suddenly appeared on screens and laid waste to more thoughtful and artistic entertainment. If you look at the top 20 movies at the box office for the last 50+ years though, big budget junk has always dominated.

      This is specifically about language and it's not appropriate or at all correct to say "Hollywood only makes superhero movies" because it puts the blame on the genre and you cannot pin the demise of an artform on a type of movie. There are many more factors at play than just the fact that those movies, however we want to label them, do well and theaters choose to put them on more screens at the expense of other types of films.

      If I walked into a Starbucks to get a green tea with lemon and they told me they took it off the menu and then I see a large poster saying PUMPKIN SPICE LATTE IS BACK! it would be wrong for me to say "Starbucks only makes pumpkin spice lattes" because I'm sore that the thing I like is gone. They make all kinds of drinks. That just happens to be their most popular item and if my green tea got pushed off the menu to allocate more funds to the drink that sells the most that's green tea's problem, not the latte. If people didn't go see The Last Duel in the theater that's Ridley Scott's fault for not making a feature film that is more engaging than watching Game of Thrones or playing Assassin's Creed or going to see Thor:Ragnarok.

      Regarding that Tarantino interview I have to note that QT didn't comment on Maher's proclamation. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood did relatively well that year all things considered. Why? Because it's a really good movie that got lots of buzz and had big stars in it. Tarantino and a few others have figured out a way to continue making green tea.
      Now everyone can have a complete KRULL lifestyle.

      Comment


      • #4
        The saddest thing about the current state of Hollywood is that they won't fund anything unless it's a sure thing. The medium-budget film is all but dead. If an auteur wants to try something different they won't cough up enough money anymore. It's either 5 million or 150 million, nothing in-between.
        Why would anybody watch a scum show like Videodrome? Why did you watch it, Max?

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Matt H. View Post
          The saddest thing about the current state of Hollywood is that they won't fund anything unless it's a sure thing. The medium-budget film is all but dead. If an auteur wants to try something different they won't cough up enough money anymore. It's either 5 million or 150 million, nothing in-between.
          That's fair, but in the case of Marvel Studios, which I know is owned by Disney, what they produce is right there in the name. They make movies and TV shows based on Marvel properties and they're incredibly successful at it not just because of the content but because it fits in perfectly with the current state of pop culture and entertainment distribution. It would go against their interests to allocate money to someone who had riskier, personal project in mind, as cynical as that sounds.

          I will say though that I don't know if smaller budgeted films not making it to suburban multiplexes is problematic. Showing a movie like Palm Springs, Windfall or Kajillionaire at a THX equipped IMAX screen wouldn't make much sense as they play perfectly well on a TV. I enjoyed each of those films but at no point did I think "man, I'd love to pay $15 and be sitting in a half empty theater watching this". By the same token I went to a screening of Inland Empire recently and it was packed. That what is arguably Lynch's worst film played to a sold out crowd says something. Granted, it was a single screening and I doubt the longer run that followed was equally well-attended but people are still getting out and seeing non-superhero stuff.
          Now everyone can have a complete KRULL lifestyle.

          Comment


          • #6
            I think Hollywood is very similar now to the way it was in the '60s before the bad boys came along and changed everything in the '70s. I'd love to see something radical like that happen again, but now those very bad boys are the ones who've been pushed out to make way for these (mostly) sellout filmmakers who don't care about anything but being able to helm the next MCU property.

            I don't know when it went from rooting for the little guys to rooting for the big, faceless corporations. It's so depressing to see young people cheering when a superhero movie surpasses the 1 billion mark in B.O. revenue (as if it was ever going to be a struggle to make that money). To me, it's like cheering for McDonald's or Coca-Cola.
            Why would anybody watch a scum show like Videodrome? Why did you watch it, Max?

            Comment


            • #7
              According to Toyboy's calculation 2% of films released in 2019 were superhero films. But how much of the market $hare$ did they account for? 9 superhero movies, assuming they're all major releases is approx one every 5-6 weeks. It was the year Avengers Endgame was released. Superhero branding was also blanketing the cultural landscape. Yes, it's an abuse of language and hyperbole by bitter movie normies and sour grapes by legendary filmmakers. But that's their perception and that goes something like me hearing "Hey, this NEW Godzilla movie has got to be better than the LAST one with with Matthew Broderick" circa 2014.

              Everything else about the death of cinema is spot on. I wondered what happened to action movies, then played FarCry 4, Sniper Elite, Battlefield 4 and Doom. Question answered.

              The death, or downsizing, of cinema hurts. A lot. But things change and pumpkin spice latte sells.



              Comment


              • #8
                Bill Maher is a comedian crossed with a political pundit, so his thing is more about being provocative than accurate. Virtue signaling is advancing socially progressive themes while fully expecting everyone to see how enlightened you are and throw you awards for it. Or, in other words, all the self-important Oscar bait that hits theaters as fall transitions into winter.

                Overall, I'd say his comment hit the target. It may not literally be true, but a lot of times you need to depart from the truth to effectively illustrate it.

                Comment


                • #9
                  The headline is backwards. It should read:

                  AUDIENCES only watch Superhero Movies (and other lite fantasy fare)

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    I'm giving the Crackpot Cinema podcast a re-listen and in their John Ritter episode they're discussing THEY ALL LAUGHED and Bogdanovich, tying in Cassavetes and Wes Anderson. It essentially revolves around the idea that you're not going to see a movie like THEY ALL LAUGHED in theaters these days, or most of what Bogdanovich and his ilk were making in the 70's into the 80's, and co-host Aaron Lee casually says, "There's only superhero movies now."

                    Throwing that comment out there implies this hypothesis: because Hollywood only makes superhero movies, however you want to define them, they won't give whoever would be considered today's Bogdanovich or Cassavetes a chance to make personal films. In their discussion, however, they frequently point out that those movies were by and large box office failures, so isn't it the other way around? Small, personal films fail at the box office therefore Hollywood has shifted to this new paradigm. Also, while you're not going to get these smaller budgeted, personal comedies and dramas you now get, for better or worse, shows like Girls, Crashing, Better Call Saul, Barry, Succession, True Detective and Baskets to fill that void.

                    At the core of the lamentation is this: film buffs/cinefiles/movie nerds would like to be able to see a certain type of content on the big screen but the big screen has now been reserved almost exclusively for blockbuster popcorn flicks. I just watched RANCHO DELUXE, SMILE, and 92 IN THE SHADE and in each case I thought that in the 21st century those concepts would all go over very well as long form streaming programs. As feature length theatrical releases they'd tank, but the thing is they tanked when they came out. None of those movies played for long or to large audiences. Studios have just rejiggered where and how that brand of content is circulated. It's still out there - I would say something like Baskets very much fits into the mold of those three pictures I mentioned - and people clearly enjoy that but the expectation that someone would shell out $15 to see BASKETS:THE MOVIE or have a strong desire to see it with an audience on the big screen doesn't fit the current times and arguably wouldn't have worked back then either. Occasionally some oddball thing like M.A.S.H. or PAPER MOON would break out but most of that stuff played for a week and disappeared.

                    If anything, the superhero/popcorn flicks have allowed for some of that content to still make it onto the big screen. At most Alamo Draft House theaters you'll see the latest Marvel flick on multiple screens but you can also go to the Alamo and see some of that more artful, humanistic work get a bone as well.
                    Toyboy
                    like a hole in the head
                    Last edited by Toyboy; 06-08-2022, 02:23 PM.
                    Now everyone can have a complete KRULL lifestyle.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      I didn't know that Smile was a box office failure. That's a pretty funny movie. But honestly, who cares what some TV show host or podcast host thinks about current Hollywood movies? I never pay attention to Bill Maher. He doesn't like comic books. Okay, he has a right to his opinion. But I like them myself and once in a while a movie based on a comic interests me. I'm not watching the new theatrical stuff from Marvel, though, I prefer the old Superman movies with Christopher Reeve or the straight-to-DVD DC Comics animated movies. I also like other types of movies, primarily horror, sci-fi and fantasy. I haven't seen too many small, personal films as most of them don't interest me due to them mostly being dramas about single moms or something and romances. I'm probably not helping with the point you're making, though.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Toyboy View Post
                        If you look at the top 20 movies at the box office for the last 50+ years though, big budget junk has always dominated.
                        I don't know about that. For the last 50 years people have been complaining that big budget junk has been dominating but that doesn't mean that the problem hasn't gotten a hell of a lot worse over the last 50 years. Even if big films did dominate back then there was the possibility that they might be original! Box Office Mojos listing for the top 10 grossing fims for each year doesn't go back 50 years but lets start at it's first year in 1977. This is what audiences went to see that year:



                        Two sequels there in Exorcist 2 and The Spy Who Loved Me. Everything else is an original. Saturday Night Fever, Looking For Mr Goodbar and Oh God! are no ones idea of a big film. Obviously Star Wars at the top. In his very positive review of Star Wars Ebert said that while he liked the film he was concerned that Hollywood was going to be overexcited by it's success. He didn't know how right he was. 1987:



                        There's a Beverly Hills Cop sequel but every other film is original. Look at the variety! There's a war movie, a thriller, a gangster movie, crappy kids film, action films, a Nicholson vehicle and whatever the fuck The Secret Of My Success was. Have you rewatched that recently? Fucking bizarre... 1997:



                        There's a batman movie, a Jurrassic Park sequel and Men In Black is a comic book film. Everyhting else is original. There's still variety here though this is probably the weakest year of the 90s and not particularly representative. Still looking better than 2007 when we got this:



                        You have to go down to number 8 with Ratatouille to find aan original story here. At least I assume its original. Depressing. 2017:



                        Not one original movie here. Sequels and remakes. 5 Superhero movies. It's dead. That Spiderman film is, what, the 10th since the turn of the millenium? Ragnarok is volume 24 or something in the Marvel saga. The Fate of The fFurious is maybe the 9th film in that series?

                        When I was getting into cinema films like Pulp Fiction and Basic Instinct ruled at the box Office. This was a format that people talked about. Now it's just whizz bang, boom, special effects. If people want to bad mouth cinema at the moment I think they have a fair argument.
                        Last edited by Dom D; 06-09-2022, 04:43 AM.
                        "Never let the fact that they are doing it wrong stop you from doing it right." Hyman Mandell.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Absolutely spot on. There was a time when a simple divorce drama like KRAMER VS. KRAMER could make the equal to $400M in adjusted gross and be the #1 movie at the box office FOR THE YEAR. It beat the first ALIEN and STAR TREK.

                          Does anybody here believe that could happen today? Heck, does anyone on this forum think a Kramer V Kramer type flick could gross even 1/4 of that? 1/8th?

                          [QUOTE=Dom D;n395047]

                          I don't know about that. For the last 50 years people have been complaining that big budget junk has been dominating but that doesn't mean that the problem hasn't gotten a hell of a lot worse over the last 50 years. Even if big films did dominate back then there was the possibility that they might be original! Box Office Mojos listing for the top 10 grossing fims for each year doesn't go back 50 years but lets start at it's first year in 1977. This is what audiences went to see that year:

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            I'm not sure if Hollywood is to blame or the audiences. Hollywood is really just giving the people (majority) what they want. If only people would stop lining up for the dumb shit..... and that's not going to happen.
                            Why would anybody watch a scum show like Videodrome? Why did you watch it, Max?

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by JoeS View Post
                              Absolutely spot on. There was a time when a simple divorce drama like KRAMER VS. KRAMER could make the equal to $400M in adjusted gross and be the #1 movie at the box office FOR THE YEAR. It beat the first ALIEN and STAR TREK.

                              Does anybody here believe that could happen today? Heck, does anyone on this forum think a Kramer V Kramer type flick could gross even 1/4 of that? 1/8th?
                              Here's my take on that - Noah Baumbach's A MARRIAGE STORY was announced to be streaming on Netflix at the same time Netflix gave it an incredibly meager theatrical release. I'd say that content wise it's in the same ballpark as KRAMER VS. KRAMER. It tanked in theaters. Now, the argument could be that was because it came out around Christmas and had to contend with whatever "superhero" flicks were out then but it's more likely, I think, that nobody bothered to see it in cinemas because A) it's the holiday season and who the fuck wants to sit through 2 hours or relationship turmoil then, and more importantly B) everyone with a Netflix subscription knew they'd be able to stream it soon after so why pay for it. When it did premier on Netflix it was in their Top 10 for a quite a while and the film got a lot of buzz. I'm guessing, although I can't find numbers, that a lot of people streamed that film. It was nominated for Oscars and Golden Globes and got tons of attention. While it didn't shatter box office records it was most definitely seen by many, many people. It existed and thrived in terms of response in spite of the times in which it was made.

                              The fact is that a movie very similar to KRAMER VS. KRAMER did get released at the height of superhero-mania and lots and lots of people saw it and it was very much an acclaimed release. Did it make $400M? No, but there's a good chance that if you simply count viewings there's a comparable audience there. If the point is that people aren't seeing or are not wanting to see adult dramas with zero CGI or explosions, A MARRIAGE STORY proves that isn't so. Those types of films are being made, talked about and seen.



                              Now everyone can have a complete KRULL lifestyle.

                              Comment

                              Working...
                              X