The summer
blockbuster has been a ‘thing’ since a little movie called Jaws hit the screens in June of 1975. The highest-grossing picture
at the time (not adjusted for inflation), it is credited with providing the
operational framework employed to this day: pitch audiences simple,
straightforward action-adventure, replete with visceral set-pieces, big
thrills, market the shit out of it, and follow it up with lots of sequels in
subsequent summers. It is a recipe that delivered big bucks and big (sometimes
classic) movies through the 80s and 90s.
Today, however, this
model is one of diminishing returns. Films and franchises that may have been
big hits ten or twelve years ago are tanking left and right. Disney, in
particular, has doubled down on the back-to-back failures of John Carter and The Lone Ranger, both of which performed spectacularly badly when
you consider their production and marketing budgets.
Staggeringly, rather
than observe market trends and draw the same conclusions that pretty much
everyone else has, the big production houses seem to be digging themselves deeper into the hole by going all-in on sequels and big franchises. That’s not
a strategy that I think is effective. The entertainment world is changing and
studios are trying to adapt, but they’re not adapting appropriately.
I think another
simple money-making formula is out there, but a lot of important people with a
lot of money are ignoring it. And let’s face it, when I actually put the bottle
down I do tend to have some good ideas. Here are some:
1. Start with an inventive script.
One of the big
mistakes Hollywood is making is underestimating the intelligence of their
audience. For a start, the first people are going to see the film (the critics)
are probably some of the smartest and the least tolerant of rote, unimaginative
filmmaking. And it’s not so easy to say ‘Whatever, fuck those guys, what do
they matter?’ anymore because that’s not the tale Bruckheimer and Depp are telling.
Chris Nolan is a shining example of how to get the job done by starting with a great idea. In 2000, having at that point made a single, low-budget, below-radar B&W indie feature, released Memento. He filmed this in 25 days on $5 mil using low-profile actors, locations, and basically no effects. The movie made back $40 mil at the box and more still in DVD sales with virtually no marketing budget. The festival circuit buzz, glowing reviews, and steady word-of-mouth were the wave that carried this movie.
This has been
Nolan’s (extremely successful business model) since. The budgets have gotten
bigger but Nolan has continued to challenge and innovate, never belittling his
audience. The fact that a picture as heady and meta as Inception not only got made but earned over three-quarters of a
billion dollars is a testament to the strength and profitability of
imagination.
Other recent examples
include Cloverfield, Chronicle, Looper, The Hangover, Saw, The
Sixth Sense, Before Sunset, District 9, and countess other movies that were
produced on a shoe-string budget by today’s standards and were runaway hits.
This business model carries two important implications: when one of these
projects fails, the financial losses are a pin-prick for the big studios and…
2. Actors need to
take a pay cut.
Most of us remember
the days when Tom Cruise or Arnold Schwarzenegger could easily command $30 mil
a picture. Well, those days are over. Bruce Willis recently got called out and fired for asking for $4 mil for four days work on Expendables 3, which is about as big-budget a movie as you’re going
to find. Even these guys are spending judiciously.
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| This headdress alone must have cost 50k. |
We need to remember
that movie stars didn’t always take home such big pay checks. At the height of
his fame’s ascent in the 1940s, Cary Grant made $300,000 for starring in a
studio picture, which is just shy of $4 mil adjusted for inflation. Elizabeth
Taylor famously made a cold million for Cleopatra,
which also famously came a hair’s breadth from bankrupting Fox Pictures. One
million bones in 1963 is the equivalent of $7.6 mil today. Here are two of the
biggest movie stars ever, at the
height of their fame, making a third of what studios are paying their leads a
generation later.
These inflated
salaries aren’t tenable anymore, nor are this generation’s big stars the
guarantors of big grosses they once were. Tom Cruise doesn’t get the draws he
used to, and Will Smith’s latest, After
Earth, underperformed earlier this year. Something that the above-mentioned
sleeper hits had in common was the absence of major stars, or having stars who
are willing to work for share or just a smaller paycheck. If you have a
production budget of $30 mil, like Looper
for instance, having JGL working for $1 mil as opposed to $5 (totally inventing
these numbers, btw, but not in an inconceivable way) – that’s a smart way to
get a great movie off the ground without breaking the bank. And, let’s face it,
even after a 500% pay cut JGL is still not hurting for cash.
This doesn’t even necessarily
matter because…
3. Star power is
scarcely correlated with a film’s financial success.
The only correlation
between star power and revenue is a loose one: star power is more likely to
impact a critical review positively, and positively-review films are likely to
perform better. That’s it.
Speaking of
non-deterministic qualities brings us along to my favourite point…
4. Fuck 3D movies.
Seeing 3D movies is
so far down on my list of preferred activities that most of the things beneath
it involve beastiality. Seeing 3D movies makes me hate my life, and my life
rules pretty fucking hard so this is a staggering feat. Most people I talk to
feel the same way (about 3D, not necessarily their lives).
And yet, because
some of the most profitable movies of all time have performed well in 3D,
studios continue to churn them out in overwhelming numbers. In most markets, 3D
movie revenues account for about 25% of a picture’s total gross. That number
has been on a downward trajectory since Avatar,
which is the same as saying it’s never really gone up.
More importantly,
movie tickets, like any consumer good, have a threshold price point beyond
which lost custom outweighs incremental gains. According to a recent Times article, 3D movies may have pushed the average ticket cost over the edge.
Many critics of the
technology cite its inconsistency from film to film as a deterrent, and a lot
of that has to do with the downfall of visual effects studios. It’s well
documented that CGI-heavy films have a tendency to bankrupt the visual effects
studios they contract. Notably, the Oscar-winning team at Rhythem & Hues
filed for bankruptcy before they could even enjoy the accolades. It is a known
fact in the industry that there’s no benefit in doing this job well, or at all,
really.
In a grand scheme,
all of this adds up to…
5. Studios need to use
their money more tactically (less is more).
I believe that you
have to spend money to make money; studios just need to look harder at where
they’re spending it and whether those expenses are necessary.
Let’s look at two action-adventure,
summer blockbuster success stories: Die
Hard and The Fugitive. By today’s
standards, these movies had incredibly modest budgets. These films were
high-risk, non-franchise pictures with leading men of questionable bankability.
(Before you say anything: Blade Runner,
Frantic, Regarding Henry, Mosquito Coast – QED, k?)
And look at where these
productions spent their money: the roof exploding and the train derailment,
respectively. These are the two big money shots in either movie and more than
two decades later they are still gripping cinematic moments. For the remainder
of their running times, these films relied on competent direction, suspenseful
pacing, and smart casting.
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| And Bruce Willis looking RMH. |
I guess for now we
will have to meet our entertainment needs by seeing Hollywood producers throw
ever-larger quantities of 90-proof spirit atop a conflagrating empire, because
the movies themselves are less entertaining year after year.
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