Hollywood: Sad Last Days

Hollywood put their eggs in one basket with crazy budget superhero / fantasy universe franchises and reboots and now people are sick of them.

And they cast aside smaller movies and now smaller movies are now for the small screen.

A Julia Roberts / Sandra Bullock rom com or an Adam Sandler movie that would have made 8x its budget back in theaters are now reserved for streaming services.

And movie theaters are expensive.

They should have capitalized on the Barbenheimer idea and make a “creature double feature” type of thing where you can see 2 movies for the price of one or something.

And movies today are so long. I was watching a review where they were talking about movies now having a second third act. It’s way too long.

I was really disappointed by “The Batman”. As a long time Batman fan (since I was 4), it was the first boring Batman movie. Dark and depressing and 4 days long.

Go back to 1 hour 45 minute movies. Even 90 minutes.

Seriously R2. I won't sit in a theatre for 3-4 hours without having to go pee. At home I can pause and take a pee break.

Last film I saw at the theater was "First Omen" and it was surprisingly good. Cinematography, music, acting, script... It reminded me of the good ol' days.

The only movie I'm even thinking of seeing in a theater that's coming up is Deadpool.

There just aren't many moves that will motivate me to go out in public into a crowded theater and deal with other people and pay through the nose for the privilege.

I agree about The Batman, r2. They could have cut a solid 30 minutes from that movie. I think the length is a director vanity thing that isn't being reigned in by studios, directors feeling like every frame of their movie is precious and it NEEDS to be 3 hours long or it's not "art". I blame Christopher Nolan for popularizing obnoxiously long movies.

I remember “The Dark Knight” being an exciting event because it was a long movie. I remember it being a conversation when it first came out.

That movie is short compared to today’s movies.

R6 Zack Snyder’s Justice League Cut was ridiculous and over the top pretentious. It was 4 hours long!

I think it took me 2 days to watch it. He had music video breaks in the movie. Full length songs.

It was crazy.

R2 is correct. Today's attention spans can't handle these three-hour movies; they're a turnoff at the box office.

And R6 is also right. For example: I loved "Poor Things," but dear god, that could have lost 30 minutes of screen time and absolutely nothing in terms of story or artistic impact.

In every medium, storytellers need editors.

[quote]”Everyone’s just in panic mode and they don’t know what to do,” Mariscal said.

Hollywood (i.e. California) needs to ditch the 'woke' and far-left politics.

Obviously, being anti-white, anti-men, anti-beauty, anti-traditional in general has not been doing them any favors in recent years..

Go back toward the center and let moderates be in charge again.

Wokes are anti-capitalists who have no head for business and care more about promoting their extremist agendas than creating art or making profits.

Broadway (i.e. New York) is in the same boat -- lack of successful art and floundering, because leftist radicals currently running things don't know what the hell they're doing.

It's show BUSINES S, for God's sake!

…the article has nothing to do with the quality or length of movies.

The article is about film and television production contracting so much that many crew in Los Angeles can no longer earn a living. Those that can still find jobs must deal with reduced episode counts, drastically understaffed departments, increased workloads and grueling hours. It is about an industry about to collapse.

I’m sorry your ass fell asleep watching The Hobbit but try to have a little empathy.

And with Marvel movies now, you have to watch the TV shows to understand the new movies.

Like if you didn’t watch “Wandavision” on Disney, you won’t understand “Doctor Strange 2”, which was in theaters.

It’s ridiculous.

Too bad we never had a three hour Ernest Saves America reboot.

[quote]Wokes are anti-capitalists who have no head for business and care more about promoting their extremist agendas than creating art or making profits.

R10 The article is literally about capitalists crushing their workers to save themselves.

You are terrified about cultural Marxism but appear to have almost no understanding of Marxism Marxism, as in, economics. The article is about economics.

Your stupidity is astounding even for this site.

And Hollywood overestimated the movie theater experience. The host for the Oscars opening monologues always describes going to the movies as this magical movie experience.

We went to the movies to see the movie because it would be like 6 months before it would hit the video stores.

Shit, sometimes me and my Dad’s broke ass would go to the movies on my weekend visit with him because he had no AC in his house and we wanted to be in a cool climate.

Aside from the fact that it was something to do before cell phones, the reasons why people go to the movies have drastically changed.

The article is primarily about television.

R15 nails it.

R10 you are the person who wrote this aren’t you

Sometimes I’m sad that COVID never lived up to it’s nickname Boomer Remover

Nails what? You don’t go to movie theaters to watch television.

People today have no concept of having to wait six months for a theatrically released movie to come out on VHS/DVD, and a full year to be viewable on TV via HBO. That's what kids of the '80s and '90s grew up with and created Hollywood's meal ticket until the streaming era.

That model was NOT better for the viewer. Who wants to have to be somewhere at a pre-determined time to sit with strangers and listen to/smell them chomping food and blabbing, to roll the dice on seeing a movie you might not even like? What a "theatrical experience."

Size of screen does not compensate for fundamental discomfort/inconvenience.

And r20 has no concept about reading an article before commenting on it.

The prime example of what has happened to movie theaters is exemplified by the charmless, badly run Look Cinema on West 57th Street in Manhattan. I don't go the movies to be served bad food by someone who'd never be hired in a real restaurant. I'm good with popcorn, thank you. The workers are fucking clueless.

The discussion has diverged, R21, as discussions often do.

But snap your mind shut, like your mother's cunt tried to do on your neck to prevent you from entering the world.

R23 …the discussion has diverged because you merely understand Hollywood as something made to amuse you personally, and not as something which exists because people dedicate their livelihoods to creating.

Let me posit this for you

Person A: “Thing in Hollywood have gotten so bad, there has been a noticeable increase in talk of suicide among film crew.”

Person B (You): “Those people should kill themselves for making me watch twenty minutes of trailers!”

I can't tell if you're serious or if you're doing an impression of someone who has never had an original thought in their life, r10. Hollywood is having problems and it's not because Ariel the mermaid was played by a black girl.

I love operas and I never feel bored during any of them. But something about the very standardized way of storytelling of most movies bores the shit out of me, especially around the central point where it's usually about the vey foreseeable inner plot and it gets slow and romantic. It seriously prevents any immersion or even engagement for me. The last movie I recently (re) watched I thoroughly enjoyed was Alien. Some TV series are closer to what I enjoy. Currently, the Chinese version of Three Body Problem.

Tl; dr: Modern movies are an overly standardized product. Many are only creative in a way a new dish at McDonald's is creative.

Oh I just remembered a recent small budget movie that was fabulous. "The Ordinaries".

Um, we just came out of a worldwide disease pandemic. Stand down and standby.

R24 They can get another job. If someone’s job makes them want to commit suicide, then they should quit and get another one. Problem solved.

It would be hard not to be sympathetic to the plight described in the article OP linked, the shrinkage of employment opportunities on the heels of a long strike.

The thread title and much of the discussion an issue apart though - not unrelated but, but the death of Hollywood discussion garners less sympathy. The entertainment executives removed from worry about having enough points for their healthcare benefits , the ones who narrowed, and narrowed, and narrowed more their product, there's not much sympathy. Nor for their failure to see a changing world in what and how people view entertainment.

I live in Europe and while US series are all over the daytime TV offerings, >85% of what I watch is on streaming services, produced, written, acted outside the US (even when sometimes tied to Netflix, Max, etc.) The distinction in quality between big budget films and films and short series created for streaming services is long gone - and if there's any doubt, streaming services won. They won out against broadcast TV networks as long ago as The Sopranos; then COVID sealed the win by triumphing over cinema films.

Films meant for cinemas are still popular where I live, but more than half the screens are for foreign language, films independently produced, titles that no one ever thought would show up in account books with nine zeros after a number. Hollywood still sees things in terms of massive blockbusters or nothing, or TV/streaming service hits that can run for umpteen seasons on the same formula.

That Hollywood is dead (even if it doesn't quite acknowledge the fact) isn't a bad thing at all for.me. I'm sorry for those writers and leaser actors and people at the lower end of the industry, but I'm glad that can watch things that are not a Barbie or a Batman or an Oppenheimer, and not a Kelsey Grammer reboot of the Frasier character, that I can discover things like the interesting style and tone of Polish detective short series, or enjoy films that had fuck all to do with Hollywood and that have great stories and exceptional acting and production. The entertainment world is not horrible, in fact it's possible to watch quality or at least solidly interesting things every night - it's just that almost none of it comes out if Hollywood.