The Day the Movies Died

Da_O · Feb 24, 2011

http://www.gq.com/entertainment/movies-and-tv/201102/the-day-the-movies-died-mark-harris?_r=true

You want to understand how bad things are in Hollywood right now—how stifling and airless and cautious the atmosphere is, how little nourishment or encouragement a good new idea receives, and how devoid of ambition the horizon currently appears—it helps to start with a success story.

Consider: Years ago, an ace filmmaker, the man who happened to direct the third-highest-grossing movie in U.S. history, The Dark Knight, came up with an idea for a big summer movie. It's a story he loved—in fact, he wrote it himself—and it belonged to a genre, the sci-fi action thriller, that zipped right down the center lane of American popular taste. He cast as his leading man a handsome actor, Leonardo DiCaprio, who happened to star in the second-highest-grossing movie in history. Finally, to cover his bet even more, he hired half a dozen Oscar nominees and winners for supporting roles.

Sounds like a sure thing, right? Exactly the kind of movie that a studio would die to have and an audience would kill to see? Well, it was. That film, Christopher Nolan's Inception, received admiring reviews, became last summer's most discussed movie, and has grossed, as of this writing, more than three-quarters of a billion dollars worldwide.

And now the twist: The studios are trying very hard not to notice its success, or to care. Before anybody saw the movie, the buzz within the industry was: It's just a favor Warner Bros. is doing for Nolan because the studio needs him to make Batman 3. After it started to screen, the party line changed: It's too smart for the room, too smart for the summer, too smart for the audience. Just before it opened, it shifted again: Nolan is only a brand-name director to Web geeks, and his drawing power is being wildly overestimated. After it grossed $62 million on its first weekend, the word was: Yeah, that's pretty good, but it just means all the Nolan groupies came out early—now watch it drop like a stone.

And here was the buzz three months later, after Inception became the only release of 2010 to log eleven consecutive weeks in the top ten: Huh. Well, you never know.

"Huh. Well, you never know" is an admission that, put simply, things have never been worse.

It has always been disheartening when good movies flop; it gives endless comfort to those who would rather not have to try to make them and can happily take cover behind a shield labeled "The people have spoken." But it's really bad news when the industry essentially rejects a success, when a movie that should have spawned two dozen taste-based gambles on passion projects is instead greeted as an unanswerable anomaly. That kind of thinking is why Hollywood studio filmmaking, as 2010 came to its end, was at an all-time low—by which I don't mean that there are fewer really good movies than ever before (last year had its share, and so will 2011) but that it has never been harder for an intelligent, moderately budgeted, original movie aimed at adults to get onto movie screens nationwide. "It's true at every studio," says producer Dan Jinks, whose credits include the Oscar winners American Beauty and Milk. "Everyone has cut back on not just 'Oscar-worthy' movies, but on dramas, period. Caution has made them pull away. It's infected the entire business."

For the studios, a good new idea has become just too scary a road to travel. Inception, they will tell you, is an exceptional movie. And movies that need to be exceptional to succeed are bad business. "The scab you're picking at is called execution," says legendary producer Scott Rudin (The Social Network, True Grit). "Studios are hardwired not to bet on execution, and the terrible thing is, they're right. Because in terms of execution, most movies disappoint."

With that in mind, let's look ahead to what's on the menu for this year: four adaptations of comic books. One prequel to an adaptation of a comic book. One sequel to a sequel to a movie based on a toy. One sequel to a sequel to a sequel to a movie based on an amusement-park ride. One prequel to a remake. Two sequels to cartoons. One sequel to a comedy. An adaptation of a children's book. An adaptation of a Saturday-morning cartoon. One sequel with a 4 in the title. Two sequels with a 5 in the title. One sequel that, if it were inclined to use numbers, would have to have a 7 1/2 in the title.1

And no Inception. Now, to be fair, in modern Hollywood, it usually takes two years, not one, for an idea to make its way through the alimentary canal of the system and onto multiplex screens, so we should really be looking at summer 2012 to see the fruit of Nolan's success. So here's what's on tap two summers from now: an adaptation of a comic book. A reboot of an adaptation of a comic book. A sequel to a sequel to an adaptation of a comic book. A sequel to a reboot of an adaptation of a TV show. A sequel to a sequel to a reboot of an adaptation of a comic book. A sequel to a cartoon. A sequel to a sequel to a cartoon. A sequel to a sequel to a sequel to a cartoon. A sequel to a sequel to a sequel to a sequel to a movie based on a young-adult novel.2 And soon after: Stretch Armstrong. You remember Stretch Armstrong, right? That rubberized doll you could stretch and then stretch again, at least until the sludge inside the doll would dry up and he would become Osteoporosis Armstrong? A toy that offered less narrative interest than bingo?

Let me stipulate that we will probably come out of three or four of the movies categorized above saying "That rocked!" (One of them is even being directed by Nolan.) And yes, it is technically possible that some years hence, a magazine article will begin with the sentence, "Stretch Armstrong's surprising journey to a Best Picture nomination began when..." But for now, let's just admit it: Hollywood has become an institution that is more interested in launching the next rubberized action figure than in making the next interesting movie.

At this moment of awards-giving and back-patting, however, we can all agree to love movies again, for a little while, because we're living within a mirage that exists for only about six or eight weeks around the end of each year. Right now, we can argue that any system that allows David Fincher to plumb the invention of Facebook and the Coen brothers to visit the old West, that lets us spend the holidays gorging on new work by Darren Aronofsky and David O. Russell, has got to mean that American filmmaking is in reasonably good health. But the truth is that we'll be back to summer—which seems to come sooner every year—in a heartbeat. And it's hard to hold out much hope when you hear the words that one studio executive, who could have been speaking for all her kin, is ready to chisel onto Hollywood's tombstone: "We don't tell stories anymore."

1. Captain America, Cowboys & Aliens, Green Lantern, and Thor; X-Men: First Class; Transformers 3; Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides; Rise of the Apes; Cars 2 and Kung Fu Panda 2; The Hangover Part II; Winnie the Pooh; The Smurfs in 3D; Spy Kids 4; Fast Five and Final Destination 5; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.

2. The Avengers; Spider-Man (3D); Men in Black 3 (3D); Star Trek untitled; Batman 3; Monsters, Inc. 2; Madagascar 3; Ice Age: Continental Drift in 3D; The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2
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Run BJM · Feb 25, 2011

Its more the peoples' fault for not going to see new movies IMO. Check this link for all the releases in 2010:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_in_film

Obviously there's plenty of sequels but its not like there were no other original movies released in 2010 except Inception. A lot of the drama type movies are based on books but that isn't a recent development and they don't have the following of a Girl With the Dragon Tattoo or Harry Potter series. Still a lot of the cheap shitty sequels on there probably earned as much or more then something like Book of Eli which was an original movie, not even a drama per se but had the kind of action and star power (Denzel and Mila Kunis) and advertising to get the attention of the masses. It earned a fraction of Sex and the City 2, Robin Hood, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, etc. Lets not even compare it to Iron Man 2, Shrek Forever After, etc. etc. Can't find the numbers for Black Swan (its still in theaters I think) but I would imagine its also a fraction of most of the aforementioned movies.

To me one of the most depressing things was after Inception the number of people who were furious that (SPOILER ALERTTTTTTTTTTTTT)

the top didn't fall. Obviously that ending does titillate and tease but the point of it was to force you to think. Which, I gather from their reactions, people don't want to do. They want a tidy ending and to go home and forget about it. But the movie really did make a lot of people reflect, look back, talk, discuss what is and isn't real, both in the movie and in real life. Had the top fallen or obviously kept spinning forever, the masses would have gone home and forgotten about it in 10 minutes. Comfortable and aesthetically pleased. But the fact that Nolan went with that ending really made people think like no other movie has in a while. Nolan almost forced people to look back and analyze, question, wonder, etc. Seems like the old practice of viewing art and interpreting what it may be trying to say is gone. And that sounds tremendously douchey of me but damn people are so pleased with these movies of zero depth and music that has no meaning (let alone artistic talent or skill). I'm 20 years old too its not like I'm an old fart complaining about the new generation. Its alright to get mindless entertainment too but isn't there any joy in art/entertainment that makes you think?

And IMO there really isn't for the most part in my generation. Maybe the mainstream has always been like that. I theorize that its cyclical. Just sucks to be young during a shallow period (lots of people who grew up in the 80s say similar things with the hair metal bands before grunge tore that scene down). I give props to Nolan for being able to please the masses and drop a little thematic knowledge. I've had a lot of good discussions about the themes from The Dark Knight but just as many people react with a "yeah....Heath Ledger was crazy in it though!". Most people just want to scream "shots! shots! shots shot shots!" or "getting some head I was getting some head. Getting some head I was getting some head" at the club. Which is fun. But its weird to see people bumping shit like that all day every day to me. I mean I don't think I even listen to anything deep or tremendously artistic but shits so shallow these days its pathetic.

[/End elitist rant.]

Run BJM · Feb 25, 2011

Last note, how fuckin funny would it be if Nolan made Batman 3's ending similarly ambiguous as Inceptions? I'd fucking LOVE it if he ended the series like that. Studio execs would never let him though lol.

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The Day the Movies Died

Da_O Abe Vigoda lives!

Run BJM Heavy lies the crown. Staff Member Global Moderator

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Da_O Abe Vigoda lives!

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