George Lucas declares death of the blockbuster
Filed under: Action, Celebrities and Controversy, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels
George Lucas, who only a year ago spent $115 million on a flick that
nearly tripled that total in domestic box office gross alone, has declared the death of the Hollywood blockbuster.
Perhaps he was feeling the sting of his fantastically overpowered flick receiving almost no Oscar attention, despite
its clear crown as king of the 2005 Box Office Wars. In an year where we've lamented the sagging B.O. numbers, Mr.
Lucas almost singlehandedly lifted the slump for a few weeks with Revenge of the Sith, and yet the awards all went to much
smaller movies. Lucas claimed that he was pleased by the Oscars - "I think it's great that the major Oscar
nominations have gone to independent films" - but also pointed to the obvious problems with such. "Is that
good for the business? No - it's bad for the business. But movie making isn't about business. It's about art!" (We
can almost feel the sarcasm dripping off of that one, George.) He went on to declare that in the future, almost
everything in theaters will be "indie" movies, predicting that by 2025, the average movie will cost only $15
million to make. So what do we make of this idea? The truth of the matter is, most of the big hits this year were big budget films - Star Wars, Harry Potter, Narnia, War of the Worlds, and King Kong (despite its less than hoped for final total) were the top five grossing movies of the year. If you continue down the list, the closest thing you'll find to a non-big budget movie in the top 15 films is probably Wedding Crashers,* which still cost a solid $40 million. However, it is hard to ignore the impact of smaller films, particularly given the awards handed down by the Academy this year.
*Oh, and that Penguin documentary, I suppose. Sucker brought in some real numbers for a documentary.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-07-2006 @ 8:12AM
Tom said...
I think most of his comments are sour grapes, pure and simple. He has released three Star Wars films of inferior quality, has seen them become national jokes, and has seen another trilogy made by some nobody from New Zealand get all the respect and Oscar attention that Lucas never got. Kind of makes a man bitter, don't it?
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3-07-2006 @ 11:36AM
cyberphin said...
Maybe he more bitter about being an director who got caught up in a blockbuster he couldn't handle. He's always talked about being a hollywood outsider and plans to make really avante garde from now on except for Indy 4. I imagine he has a love hate relationship with star wars, it gives him independence finacially but he is always going to be George "Star Wars" Lucas.
Also he may have a point in that smaller films like wedding crashers and march of the penguins make a larger return on their investment.
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3-07-2006 @ 6:28PM
uno said...
Forgive me, but after Mark Beall called the film *Return* of the Sith, instead of *Revenge* of the Sith, all I heard after that was *blah blah blah*.
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3-07-2006 @ 6:50PM
Mark Beall said...
You know, that's the SECOND time I've made a really boneheaded SW typo, despite being an avowed fan of the franchise. Last time I screwed up spelling wookiee. I'm beginning to suspect that I have a serious defect...
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