Has Hollywood lost its creativity?

[Atomic Age]

Well the real problem is that films are so expensive to make these days. When a movie costs $150 million to make, you have to have some kind of guaranty of a return on your money. Its totally understandable that Hollywood would gravitate to properties that are a sure thing. After all they aren't in business for their health, they are in it to make money.

Doug

 

[Lady Day]

Movies cost $150M because they are over produced. A lot of that is spent on marketing because studios dont just want to make back 3 times their cost but 6-10 times if they can.

They are in it to make money, not art, so I guess thats fine, but I dont buy that 'unoriginal because they cost too much' stuff. Its because they want a safe bet on their return.

LD

 

[Atomic Age]

In reality the reason movies cost $150 million (actually the average budget is about $75 million) is because the lead actor is getting 8 to 12 million, per movie. Lead actress is getting 3 to 10 million. The director is getting 1.5 to 3 million. Honestly there is no reason that a movie couldn't cost much less. In fact Robert Rodriguez makes his films completely out of the Hollywood system in Texas. His most expensive movie to date (not counting Grindhouse which wasn't totally his movie) has been Sin City. It cost about $40 million.

Typically the advertising budget of a movie is not included in its production budget. So when you see that Iron Man cost $140 million, the advertising budget would be any where from half to in some cases more than the production costs. So for a movie to start making money, typically it has to more than double its production cost.

In my opinion movies are not art. They some times rise to the level of art, often unintentionally by the film makers, but they for the most part aren't intended as such.

Doug

 

[jamespowers]

Well the real problem is that films are so expensive to make these days. When a movie costs $150 million to make, you have to have some kind of guaranty of a return on your money. Its totally understandable that Hollywood would gravitate to properties that are a sure thing. After all they aren't in business for their health, they are in it to make money.

Doug

Ah and you just proved the title of this thread. Hollywood is a business. They aren't an art studio so creativity isn't exactly their goal or aim. They just want to catch the next big thing and make money off of it.
Creativity may be a real and necessary thing int he computer industry but in Hollywood, you just run down a previous incarnation and redo it as a movie and you have gold. You don't have to write it as it is already written. You don't have to develop characters as they are already developed by someone else and you don't have to develop an audience as they have done that for you as well. You just advertise the fact that it is now a movie with a big name actor and Bang!---you're in like Flynn.

 

[Lady Day]

So when you see that Iron Man cost $140 million, the advertising budget would be any where from half to in some cases more than the production costs. So for a movie to start making money, typically it has to more than double its production cost.

You are talking about blockbusters.

LD

 

[Atomic Age]

You are talking about blockbusters.

LD

True but as I said...the Average budget is $75 million. Which means a moderately budgeted film is $45 or $50.

Right now in Hollywood about the only movies that don't cost that kind of money are horror movies, and even they are between $15 and $30 million. Even then advertising is probably costing half to 3/4 of the budget of the movie.

Doug

 

[Atomic Age]

Ah and you just proved the title of this thread. Hollywood is a business. They aren't an art studio so creativity isn't exactly their goal or aim. They just want to catch the next big thing and make money off of it.
Creativity may be a real and necessary thing int he computer industry but in Hollywood, you just run down a previous incarnation and redo it as a movie and you have gold. You don't have to write it as it is already written. You don't have to develop characters as they are already developed by someone else and you don't have to develop an audience as they have done that for you as well. You just advertise the fact that it is now a movie with a big name actor and Bang!---you're in like Flynn.

Yes but this has been true of Hollywood from the start. Look at the golden age from the 30's through the 50's and see how many movies were based on best selling books. After all the biggest grossing movie of all time (adjusted for inflation) is Gone With the Wind, based on a best seller.

Even Douglas Fairbank's silent films were mostly based on other material, ie Robin Hood etc.

Doug

 

[jamespowers]

Yes but this has been true of Hollywood from the start. Look at the golden age from the 30's through the 50's and see how many movies were based on best selling books. After all the biggest grossing movie of all time (adjusted for inflation) is Gone With the Wind, based on a best seller.

Even Douglas Fairbank's silent films were mostly based on other material, ie Robin Hood etc.

Doug

Uh, I said that already in message #53: "My point was that, since inception, Hollywood has never been creative. It was always formulaic and an adaptation of a book, stage play or some other source that was successful before."
Oh and Gone With the Wind left out plenty of things that would have better explained the story as it was in the book.

 

[Atomic Age]

Uh, I said that already in message #53: "My point was that, since inception, Hollywood has never been creative. It was always formulaic and an adaptation of a book, stage play or some other source that was successful before."
Oh and Gone With the Wind left out plenty of things that would have better explained the story as it was in the book.

Agreed. This doesn't mean that some creativity doesn't sneak out of Hollywood now and then, but for the most part Hollywood is really pretty conservative business wise, and if they weren't, they would have gone out of business long ago.

Very true about Gone With the Wind, but they did have the problem of people only being willing to sit for a limited period of time.

Doug

 

[Lady Day]

True but as I said...the Average budget is $75 million. Which means a moderately budgeted film is $45 or $50.

Sure, I cant argue with statistics, and I still say those film budgets are bloated because they are over produced.
As you mentioned earlier, and what I mean to say is there are quite a few projects that can still be made with modest budgets.

Moon, $5M
The Hurt Locker $11M
Up in the Air $23M

These 3 were some of my favorites in the last year.

As far as film adaptations of books, I dont find anything wrong, or even lazy about that. A nuanced book will most likely always be better than a 2 hour version of a film adaptation, but the visual of seeing interpretations of those characters brought to the screen is a challenge, and a thrill.

What I get tired of are the *same* books being redone over and over. If I hear about one more version of Weathering Heights I think Im going to puke.

LD

 

[jamespowers]

Agreed. This doesn't mean that some creativity doesn't sneak out of Hollywood now and then, but for the most part Hollywood is really pretty conservative business wise, and if they weren't, they would have gone out of business long ago.

Very true about Gone With the Wind, but they did have the problem of people only being willing to sit for a limited period of time.

Doug

People sat for a long time asw it was but they might have been able to sit longer as there were intermissions back then as my father told me. He saw Gone With the Wind with my grandfather when it came out. I think he mentioned two or three intermissions as they changed reels etc.
Sneaks out is a good phrase. It usually involves someone who puts it all on the line with their own money at first.

 

[Atomic Age]

People sat for a long time asw it was but they might have been able to sit longer as there were intermissions back then as my father told me. He saw Gone With the Wind with my grandfather when it came out. I think he mentioned two or three intermissions as they changed reels etc.
Sneaks out is a good phrase. It usually involves someone who puts it all on the line with their own money at first.

Well truth be told, movies used to be an all day, or evening affair. You would show up, there would be a first feature, then a news reel, a short subject, a cartoon, a musical short, then the "b" feature. But as you say the audience had a break between.

Gone with the Wind was 3 hours and 48 min with a single intermission at around the 115 min mark. Reel changes would not require an intermission. With two projectors alternating the reels, you could actually run a film all day long with no breaks.

By the way a reel of film is about 11 min long. This wasn't because they couldn't put more film on a reel, but rather because 11 mins was about as long as the carbon in the arc lamp would reliably last. Every time the projectionist would change projectors for a reel change, he would replace the reel on the projector not running, and change the carbon in the lamp. Today a xenon lamp will last hundreds of hours.

Doug

 

[jamespowers]

Well truth be told, movies used to be an all day, or evening affair. You would show up, there would be a first feature, then a news reel, a short subject, a cartoon, a musical short, then the "b" feature. But as you say the audience had a break between.

Gone with the Wind was 3 hours and 48 min with a single intermission at around the 115 min mark. Reel changes would not require an intermission. With two projectors alternating the reels, you could actually run a film all day long with no breaks.

By the way a reel of film is about 11 min long. This wasn't because they couldn't put more film on a reel, but rather because 11 mins was about as long as the carbon in the arc lamp would reliably last. Every time the projectionist would change projectors for a reel change, he would replace the reel on the projector not running, and change the carbon in the lamp. Today a xenon lamp will last hundreds of hours.

Doug

Interesting. So we now get rooked when we get just a single feature for our admission price.
The cartoons and shorts were probably the most creative parts. lol lol lol

 

[Son_of_Atropos]

Are we sure that Hollywood had any creativity in the first place?

 

[jamespowers]

Are we sure that Hollywood had any creativity in the first place?

No. See message 68.

 

[Dated Guy]

Perhaps I just lost reality when I stopped going to the cinema, when 'Silence of the Lamikins' came out, herded like sheep past the chocolates and popcorn, deafening volume, and only seven people in the auditorium, including me and the wife. The cinema is now closed, and that was a state of the art multiplex. Now it's all whizz, bangs, general weird look, pneumatic broads and craggy jawed he men, all about twenty, being directed instead of acting. I stop now at films newer than 1970, no television at all, no newspapers, no hype anymore...great, I am now a happy man, with no worries...

 

[Chainsaw]

T.v. was meaningful when it took a year to save to buy one, instead of a pay check. Same with radio, you could have one cassette or record,and listen to it a thousand times. Because you earned the money to buy it, and you were proud to own it. :eusa_clap

Now we get music for free (most people have thousands of songs, instead of a dozen albums), as well as movies et-cetera, without earning it, and without appreciating it. [huh]

Movie style video games, like "Shadow of Rome" or "Resident Evil" are probably the future. They make you the star of the movie. Next of course will be virtual reality.

 

[Dated Guy]

fftopic: Well, don't get me wrong, I used to love the electric fishtank, but, way back in the pioneering days. I just question the content now, especially as I have got older, and frankly, it is so dumbed down nowadays, the youthful watchers do not question anything, such calm acceptance of the status quo, so it naturally becomes normal behaviour...a very sad indictment to modern society really......I will confess to getting the wifely woman to download old films, edit out the adverts, and burn to dvd, I have zillions now, at least a thousand years worth....

 

[Lone_Ranger]

I don't know, hasn't it always been like this?


I remember a few versions of High Sierra, one with Bogart, one with Palance. Colorado Territory, was the western version of High Sierra, too.

Rio Bravo & El Dorado?


Modern Hollywood has remade Casablanca, as Barb Wire. High Noon, was done as Connery's Outland.

I've seen various versions of the short story, "Who Goes There." Including the original The Thing from Another Planet, and Carpenter's The Thing, and many different TV series did an episode based on it.

 

[sportell]

I agree with the posts that Hollywood never had much creativity to begin with. I have have my MA in English Literature. I've read enough books, written over hundreds of years, to see writers have "lost" their creativity as well. As far as storylines go, there are only so many basic stories. How you tell them can vary, but they are still limited and can often be formulaic.

That said, I truly despise what we see in films today. It all seems to either be shock effect or special effect. Why create something when the computer can do it for you? Why write catchy lines when you can just cuss and swear your way through the movie?

I know this isn't film, but a perfect example is the Roasting of David Hasselhof my Fella watched the other day. I only found one or two lines amusing. Such as Pamela Anderson telling George Hamilton that as a proud member of PETA, she won't speak to leather. Harsh, but the writers were a little clever with that one. The rest of the "roast" was using the F word and making cracks about people's genitalia. Then I showed my Fella a few clips of the roast of George Burns from the 70s. That was pretty clean and so much more funny.

Look at the old TV shows they are turning into movies now. "Brady Bunch" or remakes of films such as "Pink Panther" and "Cheaper by the Dozen". Even when slapstick was involved in the originals, it wasn't over the top. The only way you can get a laugh now is having the characters in orgies or get bashed over the head or in the crotch. Yeah, that's comedy. And have you noticed, all the kids are incredibly rude and know better than the adults? At least in older films the kids usually showed respect to their elders. When they didn't, it was because they were street tough kids or something similar.

Maybe someday the audience will get tired of this stupidity and Hollywood will bring back clean humour, but I doubt it. So the only thing I can suggest is watching older films and shows. Yes, some of the older stuff may have been rather saccharine at times, but at least it wasn't all crude and rude.