How One Terrible Movie Ruined Hollywood
How One Terrible Movie Ruined Hollywood
By David Wong and Tom Reimann, Cracked.com, August 17, 2014
This Week in WTF Pop Culture History: Waterworld teaches Hollywood how to make money off of big-budget garbage.
We don't know if you've noticed, but all at once, audiences have gotten sick of Hollywood's shit -- this summer's box office is down almost 20 percent , which is a shocking number considering ticket prices are higher than ever (including the absurd premium they still charge for 3D). No movie this year made $300 million in the USA, whereas last year Iron Man 3 did over $400 million (hell, in 2012, The Avengers did an astonishing $623 million ). The conventional wisdom was that while audiences love to bitch about sequels, reboots, and CGI garbage, they'll still pay to go see it. But we're finally seeing the bubble burst.
In America, anyway. What does this have to do with Waterworld ? Allow us to explain.
See, while American audiences have finally gotten sick of superheroes and CGI-heavy reboots, audiences in China and elsewhere have not -- overall profits are going to be higher than ever thanks to foreign ticket sales. That's bad news for people who have grown to hate modern blockbusters, as we explained in detail here :
"Foreign audiences also aren't as picky about good writing (a lot of it will be lost in the translation to subtitles anyway) or clever comedy (which is highly culturally specific). So if you're a studio executive who is choosing between financing a poignant coming of age film about an orphan ranch hand in East Texas or a film about a giant radioactive thunderstorm that gives people superpowers, chances are you're not going to go with the poignancy."
Just to be clear, we're not trying to say that foreign audiences have shitty/simplistic taste in movies; it's just that only a certain type of movie works in every country: big, effects-heavy action spectacles (it's no coincidence that the most popular foreign-language film in American history was the kung fu extravaganza Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon ). But, more importantly, Hollywood realized a while ago that a terrible movie with a clunky script and weird performances could still make big cash overseas as long as they threw enough stunts and effects at the screen. It's led to a cultural low point in cinema (and is apparently driving all of the best talent to TV instead ). And it all goes back to one movie:
Click this link to read the rest of this article:
http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/how-one-terrible-movie-ruined-hollywood/#ixzz3Aieepf5A
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I'll stick with documentaries and some of the low budget films. Sundance and others provide some great movies.
Kind of thought you were going to go with Heaven's Gate. But I have to agree with the idea put forth in this article.
Excellent article, Buzz!
I went to see Waterworld, and the whole time I was sitting there, I was wondering, Why am I watching this? Even worse, why did I pay good money to watch this?
Have you noticed that many films these days seem to cater to the lowest denominator? There are few movies out there that appeal to me, in all honesty. I'm not at all interested in Bruce Willis' Sin City-- everyone looks like an over drawn comic book character. Or they are produced for teenagers. Or they are all gloom and doom. Or the feature people with VERY questionable moral values. Or they are just plain stupid.
Someday, we can only hope that Hollywood will go back to making something a bit more intelligent, appealing to all age groups, and heart-warming.
I can't help but think this article is right.
Well, everyone knows you're a sucker for anything with WATER in the title, DOWSER.
My favorite movie for a while now has been 'For Love of the Game'. No big stunts, no CGI, no crazy graphics and so on, just the very personal story of a man facing the end of his baseball career and also facing his life for the first time. Simple, touching, exciting (if the baseball parts of this movie don't get your heart beating a little faster, youare not a baseball fan). It also proves that Costner can make a good movie too.
American Cinema is not dead, just has to re-discover itself. Bollywood is rapidly catching and passing Hollywood for their own culture. Thye get the humor far more than getting our humor.
Haha! I went with friends... Sometimes, when the girls want to go out, they don't all want to do the same things... (You've got to "Give a Little")
I read recently that Hollywood has mostly abandoned US audiences and is now focusing on Chinese ones .
I thought the golden age of Hollywood was the 40's through the 70's it's been all downhill since then.
You call it greed . I call it playing to one's target audience .