The studios once owned the theaters. That's why you see old "Warner" and "Paramount" theaters in some big cities. That monopoly was broken by an antitrust lawsuit by the Syufy chain, which, among other things, built the domed theaters seen around Silicon Valley.
With antitrust enforcement so weak today, Disney could probably buy theaters. They probably wouldn't. The margins are not very good.
The Marvel Overextended Universe looks tired. Star [Wars|Gate|Trek] has been done to death. Coming up from Disney: another Winnie the Pooh movie, another Wreck-It Ralph movie, another Mary Poppins movie, another Aladdin movie, another Toy Story Movie, another Avengers movie, another Lion King movie, another Frozen movie... Disney used to have an official Crap Sequels Division called Disneytoons, which cranked out Cinderella 2, Lion King 2, Mulan 2, and other direct to the DVD bargain bin products. Disneytoons was supposedly shut down after the Pixar acquisition, but the Disneytoons sequel mania seems to have taken over the company.
The Marvel Overextended Universe movies are as sterile as still packaged surgeon gloves. But that's what people want. Not even infinite repetition of the same scenes, a grape colored CGI villain with a ludicrous motivation and inconsequential, pointless battles where no one loses or wins can kill audience interest. They are like those quick time event games, without the quicktime events.
I actually liked Infinity War for breaking the formula. In the end, the antagonist won and half the universe died. They didn't pull out a last ditch win using the power of friendship or childhood promises from flashbacks or other such cliches.
Of course, this will all be subverted when the sequel comes out, but I can at least enjoy it for now.
It seems like they've taken the usual formula and just stretched it out over two movies. Most superhero movies have a moment where our hero is down, and all hope looks lost... only to bring it all back from the brink. So, part two it is.
I've come to accept the Marvel movies on the basis that they're a giant subsidy program for the industry at large. Talented actors and directors can phone it in and make huge salaries, which enables them to choose an interesting, low budget project next. I'd still rather those low budget movies got even a tenth of the budget that the average Marvel movie does, but oh well.
The hero's journey is the reason I find it so hard to care about anything that happens in Marvel and most fantasy films.
Knowing what comes next (Oh look, here is the part where Thor/Black Panther/Spiderman/etc loses his power) really kills my interest in the plot.
That was the first Marvel movie that I actually liked in a long long time - it felt like it had some weight to its scenes, it wasn't peppered with idiotic, unnecessary jokes every 30 seconds(looking at you Thor&Gotg2), and the antagonist had an understandable and well thought out goal, not just "I want to kill everyone because I'm evil lol". The only other Marvel movie that had a decent antagonist was Spider Man: Homecoming - it wasn't some evil being from outer space, but a normal dude who lost his income and wanted to provide for his family, that was actually relatable, even if his methods weren't.
Like you said, the sequel to Infinity War will probably undo this and be disappointing in comparison, but I'm enjoying what we got.
The Joss Whedon inspired comedy is great for many of us. I loved Taika Waititi's take on Thor, especially compared to the first one, as did most other people. And it's sitting on 7.9 on IMDB, which is pretty much a resounding "Wow". If you loved Thor Ragnarok, watch Hunt for the Wilderpeople, it's a real indie gem and you can play spot the Ragnarok actors.
Also Chris Hemsworth's comic timing is great, he was a real highlight in Ghostbusters too. It reminds me of Ryan Gosling in the Nice Guys, a rare surprise that an actor can do comedy too that you weren't expecting.
As for Marvel baddies, yes, I generally agree with you. Their best baddies have been in the TV shows, namely Wilson Fisk's Kingpin and David Tennant's Kilgrave.
I thought the first Thor movie was the better one of the Marvel movies, perhaps it was because of Kenneth Branagh's influence, and his experience with Shakespeare; he did the family conflict in Asgard quite well.
The Infinity Gauntlet sounds like the start of an ancient writing unraveling under weight of continuity and past easy fixes to writing oneself into the corner since it not only allows retcons but in character which makes nothing really matter. A literal plot device. Captain America is dead and/or a nazi? Someone go punch Red Skull. Okay you reversed it without ending world hunger, disease or preventing the Holocaust? Our hero sure is an asshole.
Fundamentally if all major conflicts don't revolve around it they are either completely out of its reach or being stupid.
I watched the Karate Kid the other night. My 10 YO boy fell asleep. The movie is really slow by today’s standards; it has character development. People don’t have the attention span anymore, hence the marvel crap.
Whoa! I get that for more sophisticated individuals the Marvel Universe is an absolute total joke! However, altogether the franchise has grossed over $30B!!! To say people are tired of these films with these numbers is a vast oversite.
These are basic variations of the hero’s journey, and that story line while done to death will never get old as long as people enjoy stories themselves. In addition as someone who lived vicariously through high-concept films in my youth and subsequently let down by the mid-90s trend of crap hook endings as well as having experienced total meltdown to stress... I can absolutely appreciate mindless entertainment that is fully predictable.
I would like to see a comparison between Thor: Ragnarok, Black Panther and Avenger: Infinity War that supports your hypothesis (the three most recent films besides the very recently released Ant Man and the Wasp).
I'm not arguing the Marvel movies are the perfect movies or that they should displace and divert funding from other movies like say Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Dunkirk, or The Big Sick, and maybe 3 of them per year is a bit too much, but c'mon, "sterile as still packaged surgeon gloves"? Marvel's Overhyperbolic Universe?
I'm honestly surprised at the reactions here about the MCU. Are they pop movies that mostly adhere to a formula and tend to go for mass appeal over daring auteurship? Absolutely. These are big-budget tentpole films from Disney, they serve a corporate purpose, too.
But where they are not necessarily daring, they are at least challenging the genres they take on. Kevin Feige and co. have found a way in the 2010's to make blockbuster movies that have real heart, story, and messages. They don't hire the Michael Bays of the industry, but the James Gunns, Ryan Cooglers, and Taikas (and whoever is directing Captain Marvel, they're so under the radar that I don't remember their names). Infinity War was truly a spectacle; a roller coaster from beginning to end that gave its fans a new experience and a real punch to the gut. That takes guts. There has never been a movie of that scope & scale, with such a collection of actors, with such an enormous budget -- and it almost entirely focused on the story and character development, and let the big action grow from those two things.
Marvel's made the biggest movie franchise ever, and it's not from tricking audiences. This is what puts people in theater seats. Those of us who like "film" are staying at home to watch, more and more. What they've done sounds really hard to me. It's not apples-to-apples, but would anyone argue that, although strictly pop and mass appeal, the likes of Elvis, MJ, Madonna, and even Lady Gaga don't have their moments of real musicianship?
>Disney could probably buy theaters. They probably wouldn't. The margins are not very good.
yesterday's vertical of studio+theaters today is studio+streaming, and thus studios are trying to get streaming while streaming/cable rushing to get studios/content.
What you see as sequelitis, others see as brand new stories, using the guise of existing characters and settings to bring in an audience. Or in other words, what artists have been doing for centuries. Shakespeare was notorious for it...and yet is regarded as the best playwright in history.
What matters is what's underneath the surface. Winter Solder, examined the role of covert operations, the military-industrial complex, and nationalism. Civil War was about the motivations for regulation, patriotism, and even terrorism. Black Panther examined the role of fathers and environment on the black community. Antman satirized the situation of released convicts and the drives of divorced fathers. Spiderman Homecoming took a dive into the lives and drives of teenagers, showing how teenage conflicts were just as meaningful (to teenagers) as the Avengers and Captain America stuff was to adults. Infinity War examined the extremes of authoritarianism and conservationism and the costs of all-out conflict. Wreck-It Ralph was about chasing the American Dream. Each Toy Story movie has examined a different phase of its characters lives over the course of decades, and has explored the topics of inclusion, purpose, death, family, and commercialism.
You say rut? I say that we are in a glorious age of movies...as long as you can look beneath the surface to what the movies are really about.
Thank you. The Marvel movies aren't deep philosophical treatises, but they are fun, enjoyable movies that do have some substance. And that's the most important thing here: They are fun and exciting. They precisely capture what made the Marvel comic books so great in their golden age of the 60s, 70s and into the 80s. Gaudy colors, over the top action, boldly drawn characters. This is pulp entertainment at its best. If I want to be challenged I can (and do) read a book. If I want escapism, I'll watch a Marvel movie.
Yes, they are on the surface summer popcorn fluff movies, but there's plenty of room for that in a society that relentlessly wants to deconstruct and subvert everything good and wholesome about our society.
>The Marvel Overextended Universe looks tired. Star [Wars|Gate|Trek] has been done to death. Coming up from Disney: another... [long list of upcoming remakes/sequels] ...the Disneytoons sequel mania seems to have taken over the company.
Yes, but look at the financial results: this strategy is working very well for them. You may bemoan the current state of the movie industry with all the sequels and remakes, but apparently, this is what moviegoers want. They're happy to spend their hard-earned cash on it.
I don't like it either, which is why I haven't seen a movie in theaters in years, but apparently I'm not representative of the general population.
As someone who doesn't like the Marvel movies and is losing interest in Star Wars it feels like the are fewer movies for me to enjoy in the cinema than there was even just a year ago. There were times my wife and I went to the cinema twice on one weekend because there was so much stuff we wanted to see. This year we've watched Isle of Dogs. Before that was Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri which was in December. Last summer we had Dunkirk, Babydriver and shortly after the new Blade Runner. This year everything seems dominated by Marvel and SatWars. Even upcoming movies on IMDb look bleak to me.
Spare a thought for those of us in developing countries. I can now watch the latest Marvel or Star Wars blockbuster in 3D as soon as it is available in western markets, but little else. Many of the films you mention never saw the light of day in my neck of the woods and the Disney et al titles seem to stay forever, where I live Infinity War is still being screened.
This is why we have cheap big-screen TVs now: you can just watch this stuff in the comfort of your own home, and not have to deal with: sticky floors, overpriced and unhealthy concessions, screaming children, conversing or texting viewers, inability to pause to go to the bathroom, etc.
A lot of that could have to do with film quotas that require cinemas to screen a certain percentage of ‘local’ films, regardless of demand and thus leaves only the most profit-generating American films available. Film quotas, while they sound good, result in essentially the subsidization of sub-par national films since they don’t have to worry about competing with the rest of the world; it essentially lowers the bar because these films don’t have to compete for screen time against so many, often better, foreign films.
Note, I am not saying American films are the best, I am just saying that film quotas make it easier for mediocre films to be exhibited because they aren’t competing against a full slate of imports. Look at the current French film industry as an example — pretty much crap except for the occasional standout. Although to be fair, the quota system in Korea actually resulted in a pretty vibrant cinema industry, but that seems to be an exception.
Do you have any insights in to why the Korean film industry is so vibrant? The local films in Australia are pretty sorry, and I'm curious about the local/political decisions that have gone into making it so good. Including K-Pop, South Korea seems to hit above its weight culturally.
Asian movies in general stand out (to people that don't live in Asia) because the motivations for all of the characters are very different. It can be very refreshing to not see the same retarded tropes that you see every day, which are generally really hard to relate to (for me). Why Korea in specific, I have no idea. Although it is important to note that there are also plenty of good Chinese movies.
Korean industry is far more horizontally integrated than western industries. The Korean entertainment production industry is far more tied with their consumer product verticals.
They don't need a given series to be a smash investment if they control the actors/actresses/clothing choices/product placements, etc.
It seems like you like good films from auteurs - Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan), Isle of Dogs (Wes Anderson).
The great thing about films like that is that if they do age, they age very well, and there are hundreds of films by auteurs you'd probably enjoy.
AFI Top 100 movies, the Criterion collection, or just going through a director's previous films.
If you liked Dunkirk, have you seen the Band of Brothers TV series?
I highly recommend checking out a film festival if you like seeing original films. Most film festivals only show movies that have yet to be public. There are hundreds of movies a year that are shown at film festivals and never seen again.
Yep, that's all you true. I loved Band of Brothers and The Pacific. These days we watch a lot of old movies on films truck/criterion collection and mubi which sometimes even partners with festivals to bring their movies to steaming. I do miss going to the cinema more often though, especially during summer days that are too hot to do anything outside.
Via streaming, I can watch most of the best films made at any time in almost any country. At the theater, I can watch the best film, almost always domestic, that happens to be showing at the local theater. The screen is bigger and the sound is better, but the local theater can't compete; almost everything I watch now is streaming.
If someone would provide a streaming service that cared about video quality, even basic things like compression artifacts, I'd pay more for it.
That does look really interesting. I'm watching a lot on filmstruck through which also has the criterion collection. Kanopy looks very similar to that but seems to have more new movies. When my annual filmstruck subscription expiries I might switch.
What I'm really missing is more cinema options though. On streaming I have more than I can watch. Especially with mubi that always seems to have something interesting that will expire soon.
I don't mean to be glib, but is there a positive side? I mean, I know it is positive to the share holders, but what benefit does Mega-Disney have for the regular person? Regular-Disney got us the 95 year copyright, so the public doesn't need any more Disney power.
Yeah, I think the title is badly phrased and they just didn't want to write "it sucks". There hardly seems to be any other movie corporation so hellbent on domination (whereas the other studios seem to be happy enough to make money and cuddle with the MPAA...).
There's a personal positive side for me. I used to watch a lot of movies from more genres, but I haven't enjoyed a lot in the last years besides Marvel and Star Wars, so that's all I watched at the cinema as well. Would prefer they didn't dominate the market and act like assholes, but at least I have some movies I like...
This is not really accurate. The vast majority of movie/media conglomerates are massive and certainly "hellbent on domination" to borrow your phrasing. Some examples:
- Time Warner owns Warner Bros Pictures, DC Films, New Line Cinema, CNN, etc, etc.
- Comcast owns Universal Pictures, DreamWorks, Working Title Films, NBC, etc, etc.
Disney is actually behind Comcast in revenue. And of course Disney also got in on the whole 'buy a news company' agenda - they own ABC. This practice of these mega corporations merging and acquiring ever larger shares of the entire media (and news) industry is a large part of the reason that they are in the state that they are.
Sure, but at the same time I think you have to distinguish between entertainment and information. It doesn't really matter who's putting out the latest in Hollywood blockbusters, sitcoms, or whatever. It might mean a bit less diversity in what's offered, but it's junkfood any way you look at it.
By contrast, the fact that the news is in large part quite literally just a branch of these huge corporate conglomerates is certainly something that I think does matter. In many cases the interests of these corporate conglomerates and the average person can come into conflict, yet the average person then goes and consumes their information from the conglomerate. That's not really a great system.
I'd be interested in an answer from someone who knows better, but I suspect it's a shareholder thing - all corporate companies everywhere all seem to have to be seen to be growing.
Why, exactly I'm not sure ... because they're worried they'll themselves be taken over, if not?
If you’re not first, you’re last. Unless you have a natural moat like patents or very specific specialized skills, someone bigger is going to come along and undercut and kill you.
You are right of course, but I think I meant something else with domination. The other studios (per the original article) have those 2-week timespans and kind of agreed on some "major player industry standard" - and Disney is on the rise now (my reading) and enforcing these 4-week timespans and are trying to dominate the entertainment market in an unprecedented way.
I was not trying to say Time Warner etc are less focused on hypercapitalism, market share and so on. It feels less winner-takes-it-all.
Well, Disney power did get us not-unequivocably-bad Star Wars sequels, though I think there's an argument to be made there that a megacorporation was only needed for that because megacorporations had pushed the extension of copyright terms so far in the first place.
Disney kills the possibility of companies and individuals creating stories of the cultural content of their own youth.
Do you like "Monkey Island"? Copyright doesn't allow you to create your own content. (And I know that it is also owned by Disney)
Children grow with 100-year-old stories not because they are better or more relevant, but because it is the only legacy that they receive.
The people that got Pinocchio, Alice in Wonderland, The Wizzard of Oz, and other stories for free are the ones that allowed the next generation to be stolen of that privilege.
Copyright is designed so anyone that cares and will pay for content, is long dead before making anything public domain.
My opinion is that Disney got us rather simplistic and formulaic fan fiction sequels with overblown visual effects, while treading all over the real thing (the SW Expanded Universe).
While the stories from the EU were of varying quality, at least they were interesting. These Disney sequels are so predictable and uninteresting it's not even funny.
Fortunately, each of us gets to pick their own canon. For me, it will always be books by Timothy Zahn, and Disney can't do anything at all to the physical copies that I have on my shelf.
Maybe not in the individual plot elements, but the entire movie felt like they were checking off items from a list, and that they were fully aware that the movie is merely a fuel for the merchandise money machine . It was more or less just as naive and fairytale-y as the old Episode 4, and had exactly the right elements to make children go "ooooh" and "aaaaah" (and to pester their parents to buy them toys), and adults cringe.
Which by itself is fine, I guess, but there wasn't any depth in it beyond the effects' wow factor.
The positive side is that all this Hollywood abomination with rubber suit superheroes and space swords made of petrified light may drive itself to terminal absurdity. The medium of "feature films" as a whole is disgusting and deserves at least "disruption".
I deeply hate all this shitty culture: cinema theatres in shopping malls, popcorn, DVDs, bluerays, MPAAs, bearded actors' snouts all looking the same, posters all looking the same, obsession with rotten 50s scifi setting ad nauseam, sequels, prequels, triquels.
Of course I can’t back this up with any proof, but it might lead to some good content. I have a hard time seeing something like the Marvel Cinematic Universe happening if it wasn’t for Disney being as big as it is. It’s possible that Disney is the only reason Star Wars is back too. If they ever get around to making their own streaming service, having all the Disney properties in one would be amazing. Of course you could argue that these don’t outweigh the downsides of Disney having so much control but I think there some good aspects too it.
"Not only do we have to play it for four weeks straight, we have to play it four times a day," said Roper, adding that with only one screen available, it would be "very difficult" to play a single movie for a month without losing money due to lack of audience.
Sounds to me like the kind of business practices that is getting Google sued by the EU, and despite their necessarily being different rules for monopoly, the above is a case of applying blanket rules for a 50-screen cinema complex as for a single-screen independent cinema because Disney doesn't need to zoom in to that level of detail. Fine lines. The law is an ass.
Similar situation for a Disney-exclusive streaming service. That'd be similar to Disney buying up a chain of cinemas and only showing their <s>films</s> movies in those cinemas.
The flipside is that independent cinema's should make these sorts of anti-competitive behaviours known to their customers: "Sorry, we can't show Star Wars: The Last Jedi because Disney has enforced conditions that we, as a small, independent cinema, can't comply with whilst remaining profitable. We do, however, recommend the following great movies that we have the freedom to screen at our discretion..."
That last counter offensive approach won’t work in an industry where neutral third parties, aggregators in tech parlance, such as newspapers and movie phone In days of yore, and sites like IMDB these days, drive the majority of customers to a business.
The aggregator doesn’t care, it’s not their problem, in fact the only way it becomes the aggregator’s problem is when the companies who use the aggregator as part of their sales funnel, that means big movie studios pulling advertising revenue from aggregators that don’t do what they like.
If the cinema can get enough “organic traffic” then the rules are different but the majority of cinemas these days other than specialists, like Arthouse or foreign film focused theatres, seem increasingly beholden to the aggregator driven customers. But I’m not an industry expert so I could be wrong.
And the vast majority of people have stopped reading.
As a matter of fact, they didn't even begin reading. Because they looked up showtimes for what they wanted to see elsewhere and went to a theater that is showing what they want to see.
Here's the deep, dark secret you are ignoring: No one cares. And that's why the studios can pull these tactics. They have the product that people want. If a theater doesn't show it, the customer will just go to a theater that does. They don't want to see "a movie", they want to see "The Last Jedi".
John Roper is general manager of the Phoenix Theatre in Fort Nelson, which is home to about 4,000 people.
The 4,000 residents may not have other options, and small towns don't tend to like 'the big guys' stepping on the locals. It's really only a fringe of the fringe that may care enough to change their opinions (not even necessarily their behaviours), but that's still better than just rolling / bending over with no resistance at all.
In other words: Blah blah unrealistic idealistic blah blah. But it makes me feel better.
He's in an uncommon situation as he's a couple of hours away from anything. And still, "fans... have been taking an eight-hour round trip to Fort St. John".
I mean, Disney does have the power in this regard. They're the ones with the product. Theaters are just technically middle-men in this regard.
> I have a hard time seeing something like the Marvel Cinematic Universe happening if it wasn’t for Disney being as big as it is.
I have read the comics. The stories are better. But to maintain a big corporation, stories need to be dumbed down to appeal to as many people as possible.
Everybody gets to see a good movie, but nobody gets to see the movie they would like the best.
> It’s possible that Disney is the only reason Star Wars is back too.
Disney and extended copyright is the reason you don't see more Star Wars content. If Star Wars copyright had expired, you will see a lot more content about that fictional universe.
Star Wars is part of a lot of people youth. If Star Wars was free to use it will have one hundred times more content than an old book, even a very famous one, like "Alice in Wonderland".
> Disney and extended copyright is the reason you don't see more Star Wars content. If Star Wars copyright had expired, you will see a lot more content about that fictional universe.
When Disney acquired LucasFilms my first thought was that they will probably kill the Star Wars Extended Universe and in a sense they did. There was a tremendous amount of Star Wars comics from Dark Horse during the 90s and 00s that built upon the whole Star Wars mythology. The "Old Republic" series (including the games) is probably the most enjoyable Star Wars story I've ever encountered but alas everything was rendered non-canon when Disney worked their magic. Now everything Star Wars revolves around the original chronology rehashing the same things over and over again in a "panem et circences" manner with no hope of seeing any new stories of any kind.
Star Wars's copyright would have only expired if we were still under copyright law from before 1909. And even then, that would technically be only for the first movie. So the characters from that movie could be used, but not any characters in the later movies. You could have Han Solo, but not Lando. Obi-Wan, but not Yoda, etc.
And you'd likely also have to deal with trademark issues, which are separate from copyright.
And there is still plenty of Star Wars content out there and being made.
Copyright is as anti-capitalism as it gets. Copyright in its actual expression is part of corporativism. "Corporatism is the organization of a society by corporate groups and agricultural, labour, military or scientific syndicates and guilds on the basis of their common interests."
Copyright was extended to benefit a special interest group. It has nothing to do with improving market efficiency. If any, it damages market efficiency introducing an artificial monopoly enforced by the state.
Disney pretty much killed the Star Wars franchise by making "best of" remixes and putting people in charge who seem to be tone deaf and/or actually despise the originals. Several fans I know have sworn off seeing another one after seeing The Last Jedi. It's gotten so bad that even Disney has noticed and they've paused production of future installments.
This is exactly the kind of movies you would expect to be created by a vast entertainment conglomerate that is too big to fail.
IMO anyone that was going to make a set of Star Wars sequels was doomed to fail. The originals hold such a specific place in people's childhood memories that any resurrection will always be considered sacrilege.
I didn't see any of the Star Wars movies until I was in my twenties, and I think the new movies are absolutely fine. Nothing earth shattering, but neither were the originals.
The two arguments I've seen laid against the sequels are either vague rants about "SJW propaganda" or that they're disgracing the originals, especially the characters, by deconstructing and recontextualizing them.
And it's unfortunate because what they seem to object to is taking risks with the material. They only want the EU on screen, nothing else. I'm as old as the franchise and I want to see something new done with the universe. Don't pander to the old guard, challenge them and undermine their expectations.
It's a big problem with Star Trek. It uses up all the oxygen available for the genre and so we get more Star Trek, even to the point where Spock crosses universes on a regular basis.
I didn't mind the first season of Discovery, but I'm baffled as to why the movies and new show are set in the "past". At one point there was a pitch for a show set in Trek's future where the Federation is falling apart. That would have been fascinating. Instead we have a show that's using tech that belongs in the distant future, and a movie series that's rehashing old stories. Bah.
One studio (CBS) owns the rights to the televised Star Trek universe, and another (Paramount) to the movie Star Trek universe. But to make it even more complicated, the movie rights trump the TV rights, so elements that were in both (such as TOS and TNG) can't be in any new series without Paramount's permission.
Both studios used to be owned by the same company, but they split a few years ago, around the time Enterprise was ending its run on TV. A rumored merger of CBS and Paramount vis-a-vi the Viacom merger would have reunited the rights, but it looks like that is permanently off the table (see the Redstone litigation).
TLJ is not an "objectively bad movie". It's currently sitting at 91% on Rotten Tomatoes, which means that objectively speaking, 91% of people paid to watch movies for a living thought it was worth watching, compared to all the other movies that they have to sit through.
There are certainly plotting issues, like the entire detour to the gambling planet. But there aren't any major plot holes. (The hyperdrive kamikaze attack is brought up as a big one--but closer examination shows why it isn't a plot problem and why hyperdrive torpedoes aren't a thing in SW. The attack actually fails to destroy its target--it merely slices through it. It only succeeds in causing any sort of meaningful damage because the NR's ship is so massive, which rules it out as a weapon of general use.)
The originals are full of plot holes too, and I'd argue Return of the Jedi is still the worst of the non-prequel movies. But it gets a pass because everyone saw it in their youth.
Wouldn't it be so fantastic if the IP rights had expired/waned and multiple studios could create sequels? Some fan stuff is amazing, to have copyright/trademarks work such that fan produced/inspired movies could be legitimised regardless of the original producers notions ... that would stimulate creation of novel and interesting artistic works IMO.
The originals may not have been earth shattering when you first saw them, but when they were first released in '77-'83, they were earth shattering. They demolished box office records and made sci-fi/fantasy a mainstream cinematic success.
These days it seems movie making is about taking the least risk. Most if not all the big budget flicks are either fantasy/scifi or reboots of old franchises or superhero movies or a combination of them. There seems to be a lack of a tight script and good storytelling. The last movie which was not a marvel/dino/superhero genre and enticed me to watch in the theatre was "gone girl". I wish we see more of those movies again.
I agree with your point but I also want to point out that if you think about the ratio of money you spend on franchise movies vs. other movies, even the people that like to complain (not accusing you of complaining) are often at fault.
I know personally that I see just about every Marvel movie in theaters, but for any no-big-name movie, I wait until I can see it on Netflix or just never see it at all. I cannot complain without being a hypocrite.
I see your point (I myself have seen most the marvel movies in the theatre). But I think if the movie is good, people would be willing to go to the theatre to watch. "Get out" is a good recent example.
I just want to recommend people read the Alvin Toffler quadrilogy as he described decades ago the changes that would take place due to technology.
In The Third Wave he provides a historical context and background for the evolution of technology and it's impact on society; In Future Shock he talks about the growing pains as technology enables the individual to do things the group (government, education, business) could only do before; In Powershift he discusses the shift in power from those at the top to the individual; In Revolutionary Wealth he discusses the new producer-consumer business models.
If you look at social media and businesses such as YouTube, Kickstarter and Patreon they are the future, and traditional businesses can only survive by embracing and capitalizing on their value to these new models, or by clinging to the old models as they die off which means Disney buying up as much content as possible as distribution costs drop and channels approach infinity. They are trying to lock up as much popular content as they can for the built in audience and brand because they are a goliath that can't compete with an army of Davids.
This has all happened before, all you have to do is look at the history of print, live performances, radio, television, cable, even web portals. It's a predictable cycle of growth and consolidation with an existing system as it spawns new systems independent of but predicated upon the systems that came before it. Marshall McLuhan spoke a lot about such things as well as Neil Postman.
Movies have always been bad. Always. Look at how many movies are made in Hollywood each year. Hundreds and hundreds. Maybe 10 each year are worth the time to watch. Maybe 1 will end up having enduring value. The rest just disappear.
Tropes get recycled, new genres come and go, are rediscovered, and then fade. Formula has always been important in cranking out the volume of productions. The odds are stacked against any one movie being a success, either critically or financially. Who would have thought that Spielberg would follow up Jurassic Park with such a stinker?
The studio system was no ideal world; actors were stuck in their contracts and had horrible bargaining power. Censorship was the norm, writers were not given much leeway. Today's movie industry is far healthier, with more outlets, more customers, and more opportunities.
The problem today isn't on the distribution side, but on the production side. Creating a movie is just so expensive. Same problem facing the video game industry. Think you can create a movie for $4M? That's the inflation adjusted budget for American Graffiti. Or Star Wars at $47M. Not a chance. The FX alone would probably cost that. Rogue One was over $200M...
Maybe movie theatres will become extinct, and Disney will have to funnel their unoriginal, sterile, monotonous, CGI-based movies exclusively through their competitive streaming platform to Netflix, thus allowing people to choose to either watch an independent movie, or a blockbuster, or another type of movie, without forcing business owners to do anything.
Despite my love for movie theatres and the feel good sensation they used to provide me in the past, they have moved away from this and the experience has become less enjoyable than an actual home watch. The endless amount of brainwashing commercials prior to the actual movie when going to the theatre is only one of the problems. The lack of choice in movies is another.
One can hope that theatres will first become extinct because of streaming platforms coming up, then will get reborn as proper theatre with a renewed purpose of showing movies rather than brainwashing people with commercials, force-feeding them that Deutsche Bank is a great bank for their next mortgage, and having them waste their money on 10 EUR nachos/soda bundles, etc...
Utterly ignoring the content of disney/marvel movies for this post...what is the proper response to this problem?
Theatres that just elect to follow the requirements lose money if they are small markets. Theaters that refuse the requirements also lose money. Consumers dont get to make the choice, and suffer only variations of the consequences. (I may be annoyed that nothing else is showing, or I may be annoyed that I have to go to another theater to see what I want, but DISNEY isnt likely to be impacted by how my theaters decision impacts me.
What is the proper response here? And not just here...if Pepsi and Coke both incentivise exclusive contracts, they aren't the ones to suffer if my favorite restaurant goes with the one I prefer least. Etc.
With antitrust enforcement so weak today, Disney could probably buy theaters. They probably wouldn't. The margins are not very good.
The Marvel Overextended Universe looks tired. Star [Wars|Gate|Trek] has been done to death. Coming up from Disney: another Winnie the Pooh movie, another Wreck-It Ralph movie, another Mary Poppins movie, another Aladdin movie, another Toy Story Movie, another Avengers movie, another Lion King movie, another Frozen movie... Disney used to have an official Crap Sequels Division called Disneytoons, which cranked out Cinderella 2, Lion King 2, Mulan 2, and other direct to the DVD bargain bin products. Disneytoons was supposedly shut down after the Pixar acquisition, but the Disneytoons sequel mania seems to have taken over the company.
They're in a rut in beautiful downtown Burbank.