Recent and Upcoming movies

Tuffgong4

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The movie studios have seen at least the past 18 weeks have less sales this year compared to last year and I couldn't put my finger on why and then I figured it out. There have been almost 0 original ideas.

Batman Begins, Dukes of Hazard, War of the Worlds, Herbie the Love Bug, Fantastic Four, Bewitched, Bad News Bears, The Honeymooners, The Longest Yard, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Legend of Zorro...and these are just the ones I could think of...

As the media companies get less creative with rehashed movies and one song albums there is nobody to blame but themselves for the fall of income for these uncreative (though some of these movies may or may not be good) and assembly line movies and music :mad:
 
A lack of original ideas is exactly the problem... something I've been thinking about lately as well. I hope, but don't count on, that Hollywood will wake up and begin supporting good films like some smaller companies do -- Focus Features and Artisan for example.

During times like this when people are being more conservative with their money, the studios will have to present something more intriguing than Herbie: Fully Loaded.
 
It's not a Hollywood film, but Night Watch looks interesting. Especially considering that it's post-cold war Russia's first blockbuster that had been selling out for something like a year there, we shall see. From what I gathered, it has alreaqdy shown in the UK. Perhaps there are some figures on UK sales available. Anyhow, some reviews are in, and look promising

http://www.filmcritic.com/misc/empo...fcb3f223241f73f588256ff60002fa99?OpenDocument
 
dont forget King Kong :rolleyes: ......I agree..I;ll stick to watching IFC channel for a bit...
 
Allow me to say this: to make a profit, film studios have long since determined that they must make a minimum approximate number of 25 films per year. Anything less and they will likely post a loss. About two to three of those films are expected to be profitable enough to cover the losses of the other 22 flops they generate.

So pick a movie studio. Any movie studio. If you liked two of their films they created in any given year, then, as far as they're concerned, they've succeeded at their goal. Nothing more, nothing less.

Melon
 
muzikool said:
A lack of original ideas is exactly the problem... something I've been thinking about lately as well. I hope, but don't count on, that Hollywood will wake up and begin supporting good films like some smaller companies do -- Focus Features and Artisan for example.

During times like this when people are being more conservative with their money, the studios will have to present something more intriguing than Herbie: Fully Loaded.

Studios have recognized the value of independent features and are often viewed positively for their low cost and high profit potential. In fact, that's why the major studios gobbled them up in the early to mid-1990s. Every studio salivates over discovering the next "Pulp Fiction" or "The Blair Witch Project," where a $5 million investment can lead to $100 million in box office receipts. Most films, however, never reach that goal. Sufficient promotion expenses alone often top $20 million, if they are to expect $100 million in receipts. As such, the market for independent cinema is tricky. Sure, they're certain to bring in more revenue than what it cost to make them, but then it becomes an issue of recovering promotion expenses, which isn't always a done deal. In that respect, the best they can hope for is to break even with most independent films with wide cinema distribution.

Unfortunately, it's the mega blockbusters that make the money. People pay to see large, flashy films with recognizable A-list celebrities. These films justify the $20 million or more in promotion expenses when they can rake in $300 million in a year (not counting DVD and Pay-Per-View revenues, which makes them even more profitable).

What can I say? Hollywood's continuing success has always been the fact that they know their audiences, which often will accept image over substance anyday. Even foreign audiences will often choose to see a dubbed Hollywood film over a local production anyday. So why would the studios fix what they see as a success?

Melon
 
Son Goku said:
It's not a Hollywood film, but Night Watch looks interesting. Especially considering that it's post-cold war Russia's first blockbuster that had been selling out for something like a year there, we shall see. From what I gathered, it has alreaqdy shown in the UK. Perhaps there are some figures on UK sales available. Anyhow, some reviews are in, and look promising

http://www.filmcritic.com/misc/empo...fcb3f223241f73f588256ff60002fa99?OpenDocument

I've watched it - I can back the statement that there is a absolutely a level of professionalism there that was not present in Russian film-making previously. I don't know how to explain this, but for a part, I actually liked that they films weren't on par with Hollywood productions or something similar, it gave them a unqiue feel and appeal that was not found elsewhere.

Some of the stunts/special effects are a little gimmicky, but if you think about them on a scale of what was and wasn't there before NightWatch, they are very good. NightWatch actually comes in three sections, NightWatch, DayWatch, and TwilightWatch, or something similar. Only NightWatch is out as far as I know so far, I'm not sure when the two other movies are set to be finished and released, or if they are already. One downside to these movies for you all might be the language barrier - even with the subtitles it's difficult to translate some Russian into English, no matter how good of a linguist you are it is impossible to convey the feeling and emotions that the words hold. Russian is a hard language to learn - it's a bad analogy but if in English you have 10 pet names for Richard in Russian you can come up with 10 times as many. So things getting lost in translation is an issue :cool:
 
I'm seeing July 29, for a release date in the US. It's said to be on limited distribution (at least initially), so not sure how many theaters it will show in. Actually looking forward to seeing this one. And given that it is a low budget film, Russia's entrance into producing blockbusters, and the whole story from the previews sound interesting; I'm inclined to feel generous on the rating of it when it does come out.

As to the language barrier, can't comment much as I don't know Russian. It seems you do have knowledge of this however. I can somewhat imagine, given that I'm studying Japanese. Some things like what happens with the use of double gramatical particles...the sentences can be almost identical, but with a subtle nuance added... I had a conversational partner last semester who wasn't sure how to describe the difference with some example sentences we had. They basically felt different to him...

He had another, wondering what the difference is between saying "I'm will do X" vs. "I'm going to do x"... BTW, Japanese has no future tense.

Needless to say, there were some things I could readily pick up on, and others will probably take longer for me to sort out. Course I'll be learning kanjii (Chinese characters) for some time to come, but that's another matter altogether.
 
BTW, it was a coupla years ago (almost) that I took mass media studies at college. Anyhow, some of the mention here sounds familiar with facts and statistics we were presented. Both in terms of the increasing costs of movie making, and also that it's largely not expected that the cost of movie making will be made up in US box office sales.

DVD/VHS sales, once the "icing on the cake" has almost become essential in recovering costs. That and the continued showing of the movie in foreign markets/theaters...

Also, out of the price we pay, very little of it goes to the movie theaters themselves. The theaters are almost entirely funded through their concession sales...
 

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