Hollywood's Fear of Failure
Filed under: Steven Spielberg, Movie Marketing, Remakes and Sequels
In Hollywood, it's damned if you do, damned if you don't. Pointing to Steven Spielberg (remaking Harvey), Rob Marshall (considering Pirates of the Caribbean 4), Ridley Scott (prepping an Alien prequel), and others, Anne Thompson suggests: "It's about fear of failure. In today's Hollywood, it takes guts to be original."
A longtime industry observer whose essential Thompson on Hollywood blog is now hosted by indieWIRE, Thompson acknowledges that "books, plays, tv shows, videogames, theme park rides, comics and graphic novels are easier to make than anything original ... But these are Hollywood's best and brightest, the directors who can usually get anything made. But not if the studios don't give them the money. These are what the studios consider to be the most commercial projects ... Every studio is desperately seeking franchises, tentpoles, remakes, reboots, prequels and sequels. Original is a dirty word. It means having to start something from scratch with no safety zone."
Yet even when a studio does make an original or two, it still must have the "clout to wrangle filmmakers into submission" when needed, as she writes in a separate post, analyzing recent troubles at Universal Pictures. She feels that if the execs had exercised greater control over Michael Mann (Public Enemies) and Judd Apatow (Funny People), their films would have been better. So we have a fear of financial failure, coupled with an inability to "wrangle filmmakers into submission." I say the biggest problem is that too few studio executives know what they're doing. Is there any way to "fix" Hollywood? Or are we stuck with what they give us?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-03-2009 @ 2:04PM
Jameson said...
The problem steams from audiences afraid to go out and try something new. In the age of laziness and people stealing movies, they would be less likely to risk there own money on something that was not what they are used too. So they Download it skipping revenue that would prove to execs that people are actually interested. People flock to what they know and are cautious about change. Hence why movies like transformers rules the day and 500 days of summer gets the short end of the release stick(even if it was wide release it wouldnt make enough and would be seen as a failure). Catch 22. Blame the audiences, until they g to see more quirky films, they wont make them.
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8-03-2009 @ 2:32PM
vegimorph said...
well said. Somebody really needs to stir things up again with an original idea or the studios need to have people who are both savy in artisitic and business ways so they're willing to take some risks.
8-03-2009 @ 2:34PM
H. Wings said...
Hollywood suits don't know what they're doing- period.
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8-03-2009 @ 3:32PM
Dash said...
It's like Jameson said, people are not going to the original movies, but instead help Transformers 2 being a record breaker.
And exec keeps getting more and more dependent on "safe" movies. They would rather have a bad movie with a licence stamped to it then a great original script. Because like it or not, the bad licence usually brings more money (enphasis on the usually).
But I don't understand the part where it says that execs should "wrangle filmakers into submission". Does she really says an Apatow movie would be better with more exec control? Don't that counters her own point, of letting originality (and thus, creative freedom) enter the business?
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8-03-2009 @ 5:35PM
Jeffrey VC said...
This is very true. I've been noticing the fear of failure in the huge embrace of 3D technology. 3D, to me, is a gimmick. It doesn't make a movie better, arguably, but nor does it make it worse.
The scariest thing I'm noticing is that even Pixar, perhaps the one studio that's been fairly immune and prospered greatest by making original movies, is working on sequels to Toy Story, The Incredibles, Cars, and Wall-E. There are rumors of a Monsters Inc. sequel as well. When did these rumors start? When Disney bought Pixar. Sad.
8-03-2009 @ 11:39PM
Jen said...
To some extent filmmakers have always hedged their bets by churning out sequels and remaking older films. And even "original" material often means adaptations of plays or books or news articles that nobody else has gotten around to yet. But you're right that it feels like recently there's been self-cannibalization to a much greater degree with the mainstream moneymakers. (Which are sucking up all the money that might be better invested in riskier projects).
But the studios have never been able to predict exactly what the audiences will go for, no matter how hard they try to turn the movie business into a pablum conveyer belt. And from time to time, the audiences will reward originality. And Slumdog and Benjamin Button and Gran Torino make money. Not as much money as CGI robots, but enough so that people will always have alternatives to turn to when they inevitably get bored with the two-hour toy commercials.
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8-28-2009 @ 1:42AM
Holly said...
I'm not opposed to a sequel, prequel or remake if they're done well. I dont actually subscribe to the notion that they are innately inferior. But If they suck, they'll be universally mocked and eventually fade into obscurity.
The problem is, the Hollywood powers that be give us a movie what they think we want, we reward it will huge box office and then THATS ALL THEY THINK WE WANT! Why is is hard to explain to studios that different types of films need to be available, and available all year round. It just as possible to watch a cerebral drama or dark comedy over July 4th weekend as it would be to watch Iron Man 2 smack dab in the middle of Oscar season. And I may not be the teenage boy that is reported to be marketed to (still doubting that: like they care about a shirtless Hugh Jackman, like they grew up with transformers and GI Joe?!) but I really think I spend more money at the theatre than they do.
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10-08-2009 @ 11:34AM
unkown said...
if hollywood want people to go to cinema's to see new movie they should make them worth seeing tickets for cinema are pretty high as it is (they should stop saudimizing games,comics,novels and animes an make dark mature original well written story's for movie's aimed at adults teens an kids to their own preferences.
all the movies released recently have been mostly garbage.
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