I’ve always been of the belief that as a creator, you make your intentions well-known through the soul of your work. It just so happens that the soul from Hollywood’s been rotten for a while, and now it’s to the point that more and more people are beginning to recognize the rot
I predict that Hollywood will learn absolutely nothing from this summer's box-office, or, more likely, they'll learn all the wrong lessons as they so often do. Tinseltown needs a complete enema.
}}} Tinseltown needs a complete ểṅếṃấ. I don't think you know the meaning of "lined up against a wall and 'ahemed' ". It's not the same as getting an ểṅếṃấ. 😛 One's a solution, the other one involves receiving a solution. 😀 The sad/hilarious part is that Marvel said, "Oh, Yeah, DC? Here, hold my beer!!" It looks like Disney is trying to hack up its own Xmas furball. BTW, _"... or maybe it's just the economy, everyone's broke..."_ ?? Actually, this, historically, is a *_good_* time for movies. People look to escape their problems. So that seems unlikely to be the case.
I called it a few years ago. I was watching the Oscars (the last time I watched it, inf act), and towards the end, Laura Dern gave a presentation for the Academy Museum that was in the works. As I watched that, my mind recalled the days of Ancient Egypt, where the Pharaoh would have his workers build glorious tombs to hold all of his worldly treasures when he finally kicked the bucket. Suddenly, it all made sense, and I knew in that moment that Hollywood was not long for this world. I think it's happening now. Cinema as an art form will survive, I have no doubt of that, but Hollywood is doomed.
I’m pretty glad to see it, honestly. Hollywood is a good concept in that it concentrates all the industry people, but it has recently resulted in them being the arbiters of what we get to see and if it doesn’t conform the their social standard, it dies. I’ll be happy to see movie making get decentralized
barbenheimer meme is literally the only thing that keeps Hollywood from completely sinking into Mariana Trench. Oh and don’t forget Blue Beatle a 200+ superhero movie with estimations of making like 12 million dollars on the opening weekend.
Blue Beetle I almost feel bad for. It’s going to flop so hard and it looks like it could be passable. What’s going to be funny is watching Hollywood try to manufacture another barbenheimer meme. How do you do, fellow memers?
@@drewo.127 wow. that sounds absolutely horrible. their audience with the barbenheimer stuff will not be watching a paw patrol movie, at this point they are just grasping for straws
@@gregowen2022 I like the lead actor Xolo Maridueña kid, he is very good in Cobra Kai (if you haven’t seen I highly recommend its super good) and yeah at least it looks like the movie is trying to be entertaining but the director had to open his mouth on Twitter. Remember I talked to you about how the people in the industry actively push audiences away this is prime example of that.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is an example of forced retconning a character into a franchise and making the whole movie about them. Like I could understand Basil being a new character we haven't heard of(even if stretches the tolerance of timeline continuity) but Helena? Forcing her importance down the throats of audiences makes a bad movie in general. Helena shouldn't have been Indy's goddaughter. It's arguably too personal for someone who hasn't come up at all for the 5th movie. Helena should have just been Indy's friend's daughter he may have helped take care of in her younger years. A little distance makes a lot of sense.
@@gregowen2022 For MI: Dead Reckoning, they at least try to downplay the new villain's established backstory we're only hearing about now. We'll learn more about him in the next movie. But Indy and the dial of destiny, from what I've heard, makes it sound like Helena "was there all along" and that's just insulting to fans. What is has been kept from us in general? I understand there's supplementary media to the Indiana Jones franchise like maybe comics? Or a tv show? Helena still isn't there either. So what gives(other than her being a massive forced recon).
@@Frenzyshark ""was there all along"" Welcome to woke writing. They seem to have no writing chops whatsoever. I mean, they write like 14-year-olds, and I know because I was a writer at 14 and they make EVERY SINGLE MISTAKE I made when I was an utter novice. They don't just pick SJWs, they pick SJWs who also cannot write. Then again, Marvel has had plenty of writers in their comics who have written phenomenal stories, and childishly immature and technically awful stories full of intersectional tripe. It's like, as soon as someone starts inserting intersectionalism into their work, all of their previous skill is immediately defenestrated.
I'm ashamed of how cynical I'm being but I think no changes come of this. I think the big studios will only double down on safe picks. Also I think this is finally happening because Hollywood has done real damage to it's brand as a whole.
Well I disagree there’s good movies in other countries it could be Hollywood movies flop and foreign films make bank and force studios to rethink their strategy
I don't bank on Hollywood changing anytime soon. I think overseas movies rarely make dent at the box office because they are not widely shown unfortunately. I see Hollywood fling down this path of reboots etc and playing it safe for the foreseeable future sigh....
This problem comes down to two words: target audience. Movies, music, books, videogames - they all used to focus on a single target audience and then hope to scoop up some outliers along the way. But now they're trying to have a target audience of EVERYONE. It will never work.
I think it's due to a growing overseas market. So now they are trying to appeal to China and India, markets that until say 30 years ago were largely closed to them. But like you said its not working. Besides china and India have a huge film business. They make their own, like Korea and Japan. Their own movies do better at the box office in their countries than hollywood films. Hollywood news to go back to making original contnet. They have milked the cow dry with IP's. Time to move on and take some risks Also they need to get people back to the cinema em mass. Fewer people are going to the cinema and that's a worry for filmmaking in general. Streaming triumphs at the moment. Barbie and oppenheimer did well but they are the exception.
I heard a rumor that Blackrock, one of Disney's biggest investors, actually insures Disney productions against losses...literally hedging their own bets so even if they lose, they'll get made whole. Do you think there is any validity to this?
Pretty sad that Rise of The Beasts didn't make a whole lot in the box office. I liked that movie. I don't blame a lot of people who saw the trailer and thought "They're STILL making Transformers movies?" after 15 years of them. I think we're gonna see a bigger indie scene soon. People want HUMAN movies made by HUMANS and with the advent of AI being used in the movie-making process, the indie scene deserves a lot more attention.
They had a lot working against them, unfortunately. I was one of the people who skipped. June was packed, Spiderverse was a sure thing, and the transformers franchise gave me doubts. I am excited to rent it, though!
Rise of the Beasts was my favorite too, and I’m absolutely buying it on Blu-Ray! But other than that and a few others, I’m very eagerly awaiting the potential explosion of the independent decentralized movie scene! Creators are here to make worlds and tell all types of stories in those worlds, and yes, money is important 100%! But money should be used to help create and empower creators, young, old, veteran and rookie! I’m especially hyped for indie animation, and I’m absolutely following that aspect of indie entertainment! But entertainment as a whole should be allowed to thrive or at least have a CHANCE regardless of where they are or want to work! And I don’t just mean stay at home jobs. I mean new, indie creators and collectives building their own indie studio wherever they want, whether it’s a physical studio or purely online, or online/in person meet ups, or whatever! I’m keeping my eyeholes peeled for any and all new indie projects, animation or otherwise! (I know I’ve been saying this a lot, but I really REALLY BELIEVE IN INDIE ENTERTAINMENT!
@drewo.127 I respect indie creators because they feel more authentic. Unless the company has a good track record (I recently bought Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition) most of the games I have are indie titles. Indie animation I've been following since the Newgrounds days.(Not back when it was first created, but maybe late 2000s/early 2010s) Stuff like Lackadaisy gave me hope that indie animation is still thriving. While I do believe money IS an important factor, you immediately fail when you think "How can I make as much money as possible?' Instead of "What would be the game/movie/show I want to watch/play?"
@@ryanleatigaga7596 you speak my language! I’m currently working on an experimental animated short film and I’m approaching it with a similar lens! What is the story and message I want to tell, or more accurately, what idea or concept do I want to explore? But I also am approaching it like: how do I translate all of these ideas, themes, and my own personal expression, and expressions of others that’ll be working on it into a digestible and thoughtful story? And what do I want to show the audience, and how do I want to make them feel during and after watching? And how do I do it without alienating myself, my team, and/or the audience?
My son is almost 19. He (& his friends) are burned out on the hand-me-down stories from a generation before. Since they left kiddie movies, they've only had opportunity to see unoriginal content. Some of which he liked in his early teens. But, at almost 19, he is jaded. He refused to consider Mission Impossible because "It's just Mission Impossible. They're all alike." His age group has traditionally been a major movie audience. Technically, Disney should be catering to his demographic. But, they keep putting out handmedown content from their parent's & grandparents generations. I'm glad for him this year -- Mario Brothers, Spiderverse, Barbie, Oppenheimer. He's had 4 original movies in one summer.
The idea that Disney had to blackmail Harrison Ford to do Indy is hilarious. The man never cared about quality, he only ever cared about getting the bag. He spent years rolling his eyes at Star Wars, yet when Disney pulled up with a truck of money to his front lawn he showed up for Force Awakens AND The Rise of Skywalker. The man was in Morning Glory, he's the opposite of Tom Cruise in regards to caring about delivering a good product to the audience.
Great video. But you seem to assume at the end that these Hollywood narcissists are capable of self reflection and learning from their mistakes. But no, they will continue to blame the audiences instead.
@@mallorycarpinski1160 Not saying you're wrong, but I think the money isn't as important as the ideology for many of them. Disney for instance is still creating a bomb in the form of Snow White, when they've lost 1 billion using the woke template. For many this is their religion, a cult that says the world will end in a few years from climate change, that DEI prevents genocide, that worldwide oppression will occur unless they spread the message. They're saving the world, who cares about profit?
They might not have to do the self-reflecting. When 3rd parties stop working with them, like refusing to do work without getting paid up front, or refusing to insure this stuff, that will send the message. I hope. But it will take a bit. They’ll keep blaming us for a while longer, hoping beyond hope that it’s all just a bump in the road and we’ll come back.
this year better be a DAMN wake up call for all film and tv hacks who are underserving of their careers. also for all studios execs who have ZERO ambition, vision, and awareness.
Looking at the financial losses hurt for a moment, but the wokescolds are a festering blister that is stabbed over and over again. They are far too used to getting validation from leftists even as leftists get more and more extreme. This has happened before and Hollywood was able to pull back from the brink with movies like Dirty Harry and Death Wish. I don't think they have the will any more, too afraid of the ESG devaluation will push them over the edge.
I think what you touched on is "wearing the skinsuit" Where something may look like the thing you like, but it is missing the core underneath. "Do you like Star Wars? Well here's more Star Wars! What, you don't like it? It must be because you're a bad person!"
I really don't think Asteroid City should be lumped in with the rest, though. Whether you liked it or not, and I did, it wasn't safe and it was imaginative.
If I'm honest, I'm really hoping that we'll eventually see motion pictures de-centralize from Hollywood. I don't necessarily want Hollywood as we know it to vanish, but it would gladden my heart to see them actually have to compete with creators who are hungry for audiences they've been taking for granted as "the only game in town", rather than the pseudo-competition of old studios with bloated budgets, the same ideas, a terror of trying anything new, a bullying distribution model, and a list of unnecessary things that "have" to be in every movie as long as my arm. Who knows- it might even save the traditional movie theater.
"Slap Indi's name on it, show Harrison Ford the dirty pictures they obviously have to coerce him into this garbage and voila - the money would just pour in!" Classic!
"They weren't TRYING to make a GOOD GAME, they were TRYING to make GOOD MONEY." Sounds like what happened with Dumbo and Bambi (1941 and 1942). Dumbo was made JUST for quick money, despite being a really good film. Bambi, on the other hand. . . All Walt wanted to do with that, was MAKE A GOOD STORY; and he did. Buuuuut. . . all audience wanted to see was fantasy instead of realism, and that's what they got with Dumbo. And also because of the fact that Dumbo was such a short film, that it made money. But that's also why Bambi didn't do so well the first time: because it was longer and didn't focus on fantasy, which is what audiences ACTUALLY GOT FROM DUMBO, Bambi's movie didn't make money.
Proper advertizing is important. Can't believe studios still don't realize that if trailer-making companies manage to pull off an amazing trailer, or tv/yt ad commercial or whatever, and it pulls a bunch of people in at first... but the audience's expectations are far away from the actual product because they have been deliberately mislead... the word of mouth is gonna get around faster than the investors can yank the dollars out of potential future audiences' hands. Especially nowadays with near-instant access to audience and/or critic reviews.
I honestly don’t think it’s an economy thing, or at least not primarily. I think with the overall serious and rather stressful time of the whole country people still desperately want an escape and to be entertained, but it’s like being starving and only getting fed condiment packets from McDonalds, corporations just aren’t making what we want and they aren’t learning from their failures at all
That’s a very good point. If they were providing escape, they’d make money. But they think it’s cute to continue to remind everyone about real world issues in the most ham-fisted way possible
@@gregowen2022 I mostly agree with you there! I kinda like it when films at least try to help us through tough topical times, (alliteration, baby!) by acknowledging they exist, and helping to express the feelings of people affected, while helping people who may not understand or are aware of certain issues to understand them, or at least give them something to think about and research if they want to! HOWEVER… NOT EVERY MOVIE NEEDS TO BE LIKE THAT! And even if they are, they DON’T NEED TO TRY AND USE A SLEDGEHAMMER TO NAIL IT INTO OUR SKULLS! My current AI related short film (Its about AI, not really MADE with AI, but will have AI elements, and have AI tools to help with certain aspects, BUT NONE OF THEM WILL BE USED TO REPLACE ANYONE!) anyway, that project I’m working on is going to have a few messages and themes, but I’m going to try and convey those themes in a way that is digestible, and isn’t just me screaming at the audience that “THIS IS WHAT YOU NEED TO DO!” UNLESS it’s ironic or done for comedy! But above all, I want the audience to have a fun time! Even if the messaging is somewhat obvious, I don’t want it to distract from any fun comedy and enjoyment!
The biggest problem in my opinion, is that they don't have good stories. This is happening in movies and TV. It makes it hard to watch and a distraction for the audience. I think you said it best, people are just punching the clock and don't have passion for what they are creating.
they have good stories. The Witcher for instance. Sold millions of books and is recognized as one of the best games out there. They have the stories, but they don't want to use the good stories. They want to write their own fan fiction, their own propaganda.
@@willdegra317Or if they use good stories, the writers want to change all of it to best suit them and their worldview, not their audience. And even if they have a good premise, they do not have enough talent to create cool or good scenes and dialogue, nor do they have any real life experiences to draw upon that would be cool or good.
@willdegra317 -- Funnily enough, we see the same problem in fanfiction, where authors slap the canon name and skinsuit of an established franchise and popular character, respectively, on their original character (self-insert Mary Sue/Gary Stu) and call it "a different interpretation" of canon. . But it's not, it's bait and switch for their lousy or unrelated-to-fandom original fiction. Because a reinterpretation would be keeping the core characteristics of the characters and the primary themes (be it self-discovery and growth, trauma and healing, interpersonal relationships, whatever) of the original but putting them in a new or alternate "for want of a nail" universe setting. Same personality, but now different choices available. Same types of challenges at their heart, but manifesting differently in a different material setting / modern universe / etc. . I'm tired of 'official' retcon, remake whatev fanfiction and original bait-switch 'fanfiction'. We've seen 'em both for years and people still don't understand that 'your' (as a generalized 'you' not any specific person) self-indulgent wish-fulfillment fiction is rarely anyone else's satisfying fullfilled wish and most people don't want to shell out money (or time and reviews, for fanfic) for someone else's self-insert to find their fake HEA with badly written and ooc'ified (because those are two separate issues) characters. . Especially if the creator can't even bother to put in any effort to even pretend, poorly, that they're doing anything else. And *especially* especially if they're gonna spit on the audience all story long.
Once they started referring to their art as “content” it was all over. I reminds me of Boogie Nights; they start as filmmakers working on films that will be shown in theaters and end up producing content on video for video rental stores and mail order catalogs.
I’m excited to see both. I missed out on everything in July, sadly. Hopefully I can get to them while they are theaters. They seem like they’d be better on the big screen
@@gregowen2022 If you live somewhere close to an IMAX theatre, see Oppenheimer in IMAX! I've seen it on Saturday with my mom and it was amazing! It was originally going to stop its IMAX run this week but they're extending it by two extra weeks because it was so damn popular.
I second Dead Reckoning. Best action movie I've seen in a long time. All the MI movies were on Paramount+, so we ended up binging them before seeing MI7. It's funny to see how OLD the first Mission Impossible was. Clearly before the real internet came along.
Movie buff and Gamer here. You hit the nail on the head with your Gaming Industry example. In the gaming space, Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Elden Ring, and the newly released Baldur's Gate 3, are the standouts that gamers have sung the praises of from the top of the mountain. And Devs/Publishers are pushing back on the quality of those games saying that those games, specifically Baldur's Gate 3, should not be expected.
Thank you for touching on the video game industry. Some of the best games I have played the past few months have been low budget indie games that I had no idea existed. I have stumbled on a few scrolling through my game pass. They are refreshing to play and you are correct the people who put these games out have passion and care about their game.
I need to make a video about Game Pass and PSplus because I’ve had the exact same experience. Sometimes I see a game but don’t want to gamble on a purchase, but if it’s already in a catalog I’m paying for? Why not? And you find some really incredible games that way! I especially like a short but great game. Gris comes to mind right away.
Elemental is actually rebounding at the box office. It went from a film that looked like it wouldn't make 200 mill total to now making nearly 430 mill. If it can past 500 or 600 million. It can get to profit territory.
I think a lot of society finally had a moment of clarity when it comes to Hollywood. Everything that we kind of dismissed and tolerated a few years ago has now become too much to stomach. The Ouroboros snake eating itself is the best analogy for Hollywood Right now.
As someone who loves the new, potentially rebooted, Transformers movie-verse, I will say that while I loved Rise of the Beasts, and even Bumblebee that came out a few years earlier, I do not blame ANYONE for skipping on this years Transformers because while Bumblebee may have been good to a lot of people besides me, it wasn’t enough to wash away the bad taste people have from hearing “Transformers movie” after the FIVE MICHEAL BAY MOVIES WHICH AFTER THE FIRST ONE THEY STARTED GETTING BLOATED AN CONFUSING AND ALL THE BAD STUFF! Even if I liked some of it, it’s not enough to get people’s opinion changed on the whole thing!
Yeah, I’ve heard good things about Rise of the Beasts, but with the franchise history and how crowded June was, I was one of the people that skipped it in favor of something else like Spiderverse. I’m excited to rent it, though
Personally didn't like rotb The humans were actually good for the first time in the series, but only for the first half of the movie. The robots, designs especially, could have been better, and the 2 smaller terrorcons could have gotten a bit more screen time. Also whoever decided to replace wheeljack's bumblebee movie design with the new one, deserves to be shot. Same goes for whoever replaced the cool soundtracks in the final battles with some half decent pop music
@@gregowen2022 same here! I think I’ll watch it with my brother sometime, because I think we have it on digital! Also, just like how I got Bumblebee on Blu-Ray for Christmas, I’m getting ROTB for Christmas! It’s not quite as great as Bumblebee, but I still love the new designs for the most part! Again, I think if they at least changed “Wheeljack’s” head design, or at least showed him with his battle mask on more during the fight scene, I think I would’ve been more forgiving. But despite all that, I still like the movie! It’s one of my all time favorites this year!
Want to see an example of soul-less? Watch those promos for The Little Mermaid where the actresses react to scenes of their own characters and desperately _pretend_ to be overwhelmed or awed by the imagery or nostalgia of the moment. It was Oscar-announcer-lame-joke-delivery bad, but played off as serious. I'm shaking my head at the memory of it. Are people seriously fooled by this $hit?
Sound of Freedom should be a clue to what Hollywood should do. Make a Good movie that doesn't cost a stupid amount of money. Sound of Freedom $10 Million budget over $100 Million in Profits.
Good video! One correction, though: Elemental is actually on track to make a profit. It is a rare box office comeback story. (I expect this has less to do with quality than with how few children’s movies there are this summer, but that’s beside the point.)
The weird thing is that usually the solution to declining profits is consolidation; but that's what got them into this trouble in the first place. Disney controls way too much of wholly-weird, and is one of the biggest offenders when it comes to serving up bland remakes and sequels. There's far too little competition between rival studios to keep things fresh and interesting. And if they go by the typical big business playbook, they will consolidate further to shore up sagging profits. This could be a long, dark decade for wholly-weird if they don't figure things out quickly!
Honestly, Elemental didn't deserve to fail. It was actually a pretty good film overall. Not fantastic or anything, but not terrible either. I enjoyed it every bit as much as something like Inside Out. Gillman on the other hand.. yeah, that wasn't great. It felt like a low budget animated knockoff that was just cashing in on the mermaid theme along with Disney's release of a live action Little Mermaid that nobody wanted to see anyway.
Another awesome video! I really appreciate the time and effort you put into making these, Greg. Top notch editing, writing, and well thought-out subject matter....
I don't understand why they still think name recognition and playing it safe is the best option when that clearly isn't the case any more. Like, are none of them paying attention to the financials?
They really aren’t, or they’re telling themselves that it’s our fault to make themselves feel better. That still won’t pay the bills, but have fun I guess.
I think a large factor is we just don't want to give money to companies that hate us, the potential quality does not matter any more. It helps our decision making that they make predictably crappy products.
I'm mainly disappointed in "The Marvels" because I'd heard that Rogue was going to be the villain in the next one. If you know comics, then you know that this is a fight that Captain Marvel doesn't win and that we'll be getting a comic accurate Rogue for "X-Men"! But I guess we'll have to wait a bit longer before we get to see that. (I don't know if it'll be any good in the MCU, but it's a moment I've wanted on the big screen since the very first "X-Men". They will *definitely* get my money if they actually go through with it!)
That story would never fly today. How can Carol be defeated? She is the bestest evar in every way, lol. It’s sad though, because I would love to see X-men start getting teased into the universe. Honestly, I want them to just hit the reset button and start over with an X-men universe that doesn’t have any avengers or anything in it
Show business needs to shrink, but it's a tragedy of commons, nobody wants to back down first. The MCU was a pop culture phenomenon that just can't be repeated, but everybody is convinced that kind of money is still on table. There's just nothing out there that is going to create the kind of demand where you can keep opening one $200+ million dollar movie on the heels of another. Cheaper, and fewer movies that give each more room to breathe and grow legs would be a sustainable business model. But at this point, it almost feels like they're just driving themselves into the ground to get a bailout and then start making the same mistakes all over again.
I totally thought the drax arm was RUclips memes too. I thought there’s no way. There was a way. Mcu didn’t just crap the bed, they crapped the apartment building
I’m so glad I’m not alone, I thought I was crazy, like how can that be real? I had to check multiple sources before the horror of the truth really sank in
@@gregowen2022 I stopped watching mcu after endgame. I heard secret invasion was terrible. When I heard Emilia Clark had everyone’s powers, that’s jumping the shark. That arm is so cringe. I would rather watch the greatest American hero than phase 4 onward
On the topic of movies not having vision. I think thats what ruined doctor strange. You could tell Rami was fighting to take it in a more horror direction and set it apart but couldnt actually do it in any meaningful capacity due to it being an MCU movie and needing to be safe. I bet his conversations with the studio heads had a lot of use of the word no and you have to do it this way.
It's a combination of several factors that are tanking Hollywood and creative industries in general. You brought up the Minimum Viable Product and Political Signalling trends, but forgot to mention the absolute creative bankruptcy going on. Are there any movies that aren't sequels, remakes, or licensed tie-ins to another existing IP? I sure can't think of any!
This is a really well measure take and I appreciate that. You acknowledged why these movies failed or succeeded based on their own merits rather than blaming it on wokeness or whatever. And you even acknowledged The Sound of Freedom’s success, something that most channels avoid like the plague or downplay it as right-wing propaganda. So, props to you for that. It’s rare to come across a critics who keeps it real despite their biases. But, honestly, I agree. At the heart of it all, these movies failed for being soulless. Even the Barbie movie, despite it’s strong messaging could still succeed for the passion that went into it. 👌🏻
One thing I noticed with why I dislike "woke message" movies/games. If they care about "the message", that usually means that they care about the quota hiring instead of merit hiring practices, which hurts the quality of the project. Look at the Witcher staff torturing poor Henry Cavill.
Hollywood needs to fix their business model. these awful movies cost way too much money and when you have to make a half a billion dollars to break even you know it's a bad model.
Right? I’d be interested to see a dive into where the money goes. Just a few years ago, a movie costing $200M was news worthy, now it’s pretty standard. How?!
I'm sure Hollywood will just stay the course and call everyone racist and sexist for not showing up for all the films that bombed and keep doing the same thing.
They definitely will. I think the real push is going to come from the 3rd party services. VFX studios and insurers will start refusing to work for them or demand more money up front because they can see that the ticket sales won’t be there after the movie comes out
9:23 YES exactly the same! likewise a couple of clips from She-Hulk, i thought someone had stitched something together as a meme, but nope, the CGI... it's real!
I had to check multiple sources to confirm. I refused to believe they actually did that. Imagine how many people saw that and agreed that it was fit for screen.
The difference with the Game industry is that it is a flourishing Indi Game market, wile Hollywood has no Indi market, which is why the Game industry will not be hurting nearly much, plus they also have Nintendo which always cares about their games.
Very true. Everyone keeps talking about Baldur’s Gate 3, which is a great example. Larian Studios employs 450 people, so it’s probably not exactly Indie, but it’s embarrassing a huge company like Blizzard. BG3 players on steam are almost DOUBLE Diablo 4. Plus you’ve got cool stories like Stardew Valley, made by ONE guy. Or Shovel Knight, made by three guys I think. The movie industry needs to decentralize
Great analogy with GTA - personally the humor mattered so much as GTA was written mostly by a bunch of Scotish peole trying to make fun of the US. GTA 1 was essentially what British people thought the USA was like in 1995. Fortunatly now the USA is a peace loving society with no crime or gun violence
Just an interesting observation my mom had about John Wick; she thinks it is a modern version of ballet. A loose plot structure just meant to tie together the various dances. A ballet of death, essentially.
I was reading a bit of Oscar Wilde the other day, specifically The Art of Lying. In it, one of the critisims he throws out there was his generation's authors were not very good, because they forgot how to tell stories with heightened realism or even unrealistic stories, and instead wrote everything as realistic as possible. The added problem with as realistic as possible is that the writers only draw upon what they've experienced in real life, which was boring af. This got me thinking that the same issue Wilde was referring to is the same as what is going on in Hollywood. Old writers used to have interesting things happen to them. New writers do not. They haven't gone to war, or been outside the country, or even been on a whirlwind romance. They stayed in their safe spaces talking to ideological clones of each other parroting the same things they heard in their college writing classes. So what do they write about? The same boring trite things that happened in their life. Which to an egotistical maniac might sound interesting, but its boring af.
There will be no changes from this summer's failures. I'm not sure if the amount of money available to Hollywood is even calculable, but it's certainly vast enough to keep the normal laws of capitalism from affecting them.
I remember a football coach back in the '90s criticizing the Prevent Defense by saying that "all it does is prevent you from winning." Playing it 'safe' never seems to work out well in anything. If you don't believe me, just ask Hillary Clinton.
I think the us economy might also be having an impact. Food, rent, and electricity costs are so high, I didn't go see a single movie this summer. Not because I don't want to, but I don't have the extra money in the budget to go see a bunch of 10-20 dollar movies. that money needs to go to groceries.
10:03 "we need to coin a term that describes how certain segments of our culture have become so extreme that even though they are genuine they look like parody or satire" 🤔 A Babylon Bee Article?
I have a rather large group of friends that all goes to the movies fairly frequently, and none of them will go see a woke movie, not a single one. This is happening for us for 2 reasons, 1. Woke movies have all been atrociously written 2. We don't want to see modern day America and it's politics reflected and commented on in every single story. The world isn't America, we are from the EU, it's tiering to listen to for the 100000th time, and we also don't want Paris in the 1600s to look like modern day New York, nor do we want fantasy to reflect exactly American demographics, make it make sense! Want to represent medieval Europe on screen? make it look like medieval Europe, want to represent modern day America? Go right ahead and make it look like that? Want it to look like the future? anything goes! Want more asians, but you want to make the story about the past? Set it in ancient China or ancient Japan, tell those amazing stories instead of the same thing over and over and over.
Noo, it's too much sense, we can't have that. Black elves is most retarded ideas in fantasy movies i've seen for a long time. How more stupid can those movies get?
I'm not sure what Top Gun: Maverick and MI:7 brought in, but I think those are two shining examples of simply giving the audience what they want in abundance. Aside from maybe GOTG3, those were the only movies where are entire family came out of it thinking 'that was awesome'. Tom Cruise even opens his movies with a thank you to the audience for coming out and seeing the movies - which were made to be viewed on the big screen. In doing so, he completely differentiates himself from all the other studios just belching out content at us (not for us).
They put all their eggs in one genre basket of very expensively-budgeted movies. Need lower-budgeted movies of diff genres that will find their own audience that LIKE westerns or romance. Instead, the studios place ALL their money on 21 Red and one spin of the wheel.
Very true, and the funny thing is that a lot of the money is going to CGI which is looking horrible. Imagine buying an expensive suit and one sleeve is noticeably longer than the other, but you keep buying that brand of suit. Insane.
2 things will come out of this year. 1.) The PR teams will try to spin it that the movies are great and people love them it was just an economy problem. 2.) The handful of successful movies will have dozens and dozens of soulless cash grabs trying to copy them.
Talking bad about fans is indeed bad business. Hollywood forgets that they’re in the entertainment business and the suspension of disbelief is the illusion of film and TV. Bad actors and bad writers ruin it and don’t get invested.
Now is the time for us fans and independent creators to get together and create our own fan films. We can make Star Wars movies like Darth, Revan, and the old republic much better than Disney ever could. We could make comic book movies that are more faithful to the original and more appealing the fans, then Marvels’ ridiculous fourth phase. We could even make our own video games. I say we start our own studio, our own studio that is actually democratic, in which the FANS have the final say in what gets past and not a silly executive committee concerned with the Twitter mob or ESG scores. Who’s with me?
I remember watching a DVD commentary I think it was the "Wind and the Lion" and John Milius the director said when making the film at the time the Hollywood executives told him here is the budget for your film, you should look at that money as a bucket. Once that bucket is empty it goes to the theaters whether the movie is finished or not. That mentality seems to be missing these days in Hollywood.
It would be good to bring back. The cost creep is unreal for these things, especially when you see the final product. I’m sorry but The Flash and Little Mermaid looked like absolute garbage, where did the money go?!
@@gregowen2022 In the flash case I'll hazard a guess. According to the Wiki page principal photography started in April 2021 and ended Oct 2021. Then you got a whole year of post-production reshoots, we know they reshot the ending at least and my guess is that more reshoots were done in other parts that didn't tested well with the audience, Plus the cost of paying for all those cameo's scenes like Nick Cage, Cavill (Who was reported to be paid 250K for his camoe) Gal Gadot, and the archived cameos like the 1960's batman these cost money due to copyright. That took over a year to do and WB was taken over by David Zaslav. Cost of shooting including all the cameos finished by early 2022, Zaslav takeover in April 2022, there is new management and new studio head like James Gunn being brought in. They see a massive sunk cost with several TV's and movies already in post production they have to decide which one to continue and which one to scrap. Batgirl, Aquaman 2, The Flash and I'm sure there is a whole lot more which were not aware of. You kill several projects, you rollover some of the killed projects cost into other projects and you've got a ballooned budget into the hundreds of millions while your actual filming and effects budget was actually lower that the total budget indicates. The reality is that the actual production budget might have been half of what was told to the public with an even smaller visual effects budget. There is 2500 visual effects shot in the film but it has similar visual effects budget as The Batman which had 1500 visual effects. Under these circumstance you'll start to see where some of the effects just weren't up to par. As for The Little Mermaid, you said it yourself in your review, they made the wrong choice in the special effects, they went too far into realistic animal portrayals which might have been too damn hard to anthropomorphize creating an uncanny valley effect. It wasn't bad graphics but bad overall production strategy.
I think money is tight with people right now. And also, people would rather wait for it to come to streaming since it doesn't take long to move there. If they increased the release window maybe more people would be inclined to go to theaters rather than wait.
That’s a good point. They are shooting themselves in the foot by sending them to streaming so soon. They are pretty much telling us to just wait a couple months
@@gregowen2022 I feel like that was a motivating factor back in the day of VHS or even DVD that if you didn't go see it in theaters, you'd have to wait a year for it to come out on video. Maybe it was shorter than that since I was younger, but it sure seemed like a year.
7:53 But they weren't thinking about the audience, except as mobile ATMs ... not to mention mobile ATMs who must be guilt-tripped or gaslit into seeing their garbage. You can see this every time somebody connected with one of these flops lashes out at the fans who express disappointment and/or anger at the sloppy production values.
This certainly is a very interesting time in entertainment! Indie projects aside, I’m painfully aware that a lot of these films are dragging in WAY LESS than they need, and the audience is hopefully making their voices heard! (Alongside everyone in the industry, on strike or otherwise!) I have only seen 3 movies this year, and yes I loved them to bits, but my taste is not everyone else’s! Transformers was a fine summer blockbuster! Not quite 1st Bayformers movie level of awesome, but CERTAINLY nowhere near as bad as the last 2! I may have loved it wayyyyy more than the general public because A. It continues after Bumblebee, my all time favorite TF film! And B. It’s just a fun movie with Autobots with Designs that I (mostly) really like! Wheeljack’s head is…ehhh, but it doesn’t ruin the film for me! That being said, it’s nothing truly groundbreaking; it’s your typical “save the world” story, but that’s not a bad thing. I loved it, and a lot of other people seem to like it too! But I understand that not everyone really wants to watch Transformers, and that’s totally fine! I do hope that the possible next film coming out either next year or whenever, could do something different to shake things up a bit more! I think it might be the first animated transformers theatrical movie since 1986, and whether it’s the rumored Cybertron prequel that might be connected to the current movie universe, or a brand new movie universe that is fully animated, unconnected from the live action story, I’m excited either way! Animated theatrical Transformers movie in the 21st century! And I think they said they’re doing a stylized approach to the animation! So I’m certainly curious! Asteroid City was my very very first Wes Anderson movie that I actively watched, and while I loved the experimental, 12th wall breaking storytelling and quirky visuals, I obviously need to rewatch it multiple times! And not everyone is really up for an overly experimental symbolic movie like that! I like it, but it is NOT for everyone! And finally, TMNT Mutant Mayhem! In my opinion, and my friend’s: Visuals: perfect! Animation: top notch! Voice acting: brilliant! Character and set design: awesome! VFX: stylized and creatively wonderful! Story: pretty good as an origin story! Somewhat predictable, but not in a bad way! It’s like Sonic movie 1 levels of good, or Bumblebee movie levels of good: Not anything groundbreaking, but nothing too bland either! Easy to follow, very interesting, and the theme, while a bit on the nose, didn’t feel too preachy or anything! In my opinion at least. It didn’t distract from the overall story, and despite not being a hardcore TMNT fan, I still felt that this film was made with love for the franchise and made by fans of TMNT, for fans of TMNT! It’s a really decent kid’s flick, with just the right amount of nuanced realism, and typical good guy, bad guy, exaggerated storytelling! So far, I have yet to see Spider-Verse 2, and Barbie! Since I think Spider-Verse 2 might be out On Demand and Digital, I can get on that soon! (Though if it’s still in theaters, I’m definitely gonna try to watch it there!) and I’m hopefully gonna be able to see Barbie with my mom and sister ASAP! (My sister says she’s not interested, but my mom says she’s gonna try to convince her to at least spend some time with us. I’m just waiting for them to say when and I’ll be in the car faster than you can say “married spud!”) And of course, two months from now…in October, I’ll be celebrating my birthday AND Halloween, by going to see the Five Nights at Freddy’s film! In the meantime though, I’m gonna keep sticking to watching movies and shows that I want to watch, and/or that I am interested in, whether or not they’re in theaters. But that being said, I’m also gonna try to support actually good storytelling and entertainment that doesn’t try to just make money without any reason beyond making money! As you said, there’s nothing wrong with making something and earning money from that something! But money shouldn’t be the ONLY reason for making something! Of course not everyone will always be happy working on something, passion project or not. But whether you’re making a big summer (or winter) blockbuster with big names and all the big IPs, a decent family film that has something for mostly everyone, an experimental exercise in filmmaking and storytelling that people will probably need to watch more than once alongside “explained” or “theory” videos on, or even an independent project that gives you and your team complete creative freedom, or even a combo of these, or something completely different, and I didn’t mention medium of filmmaking or storytelling, because whether it’s live action, animated, mixed media, movie, show, game, book, or even website, doesn’t matter what you’re making, what you use to make it, how you approach it, (as long as you don’t mistreat yourself or anyone else over it.) or whatever! If you care about the project, and the audience’s experience, and your vision or the overall vision of the project, even if the end result isn’t as financially successful or as close to the original vision as you’d like, or if people don’t fully understand it, as long as you and your team have fun making the project and the audience had fun watching it, or even came away with a slightly new feeling that might stick with them, whatever that feeling is, then that’s a win in my book! Sorry for the long ramble, it’s a habit I have and I’m trying to work on it and use it in more productive ways, without getting so long that even I become annoyed by it!😅 Anyway, just wanted to share my thoughts here! Love the video Owen! Thanks again!👍
How far have you got through them? His earlier work was amazing, but towards the end it took a hard turn into The Message (and not Eugene Peterson's Bible paraphrase). It still had the same form, but lost the spark.
I am not certain they will change because so often there are easy excuses, they can blame the economy or the audiences instead of being able to bare taking a truthful look at themselves and their own choices and actions. I love franchises, I have no problem with franchise movies they are fun, but I also love new original films with fresh ideas, and I have noticed that there is decided lack of willingness to make original movies, I mean indie movies are still doing original films but you'd be hard pressed to find many major studios doing original films and I agree it's just safer to chase franchise money. It's a shame too because there are not any less stories out there to be told and in these days of diversity and inclusion it seems to me that there would be more interest in telling stories from all around the world new to us mythologies and folklore that would be fascinating and fresh or just let the new storytellers get their feet in the door to bring their passion and ideas to light it wouldn't be a safe bet but if they toned down the amount of money they throw at these franchise properties and let some of these new storytellers make smaller budget films seems to me they wouldn't be losing any more money than they are already.
Hey, if Hollywood really wants to get rid of its money, then I'll happily take some of it off their hands. I'm certain all of us here could put said funds to better use.
I’ve always been of the belief that as a creator, you make your intentions well-known through the soul of your work. It just so happens that the soul from Hollywood’s been rotten for a while, and now it’s to the point that more and more people are beginning to recognize the rot
I’m glad they are recognizing it finally.
Thankfully there’s movies made in other countries
I predict that Hollywood will learn absolutely nothing from this summer's box-office, or, more likely, they'll learn all the wrong lessons as they so often do. Tinseltown needs a complete enema.
Precisely
}}} Tinseltown needs a complete ểṅếṃấ.
I don't think you know the meaning of "lined up against a wall and 'ahemed' ". It's not the same as getting an ểṅếṃấ. 😛
One's a solution, the other one involves receiving a solution. 😀
The sad/hilarious part is that Marvel said, "Oh, Yeah, DC? Here, hold my beer!!" It looks like Disney is trying to hack up its own Xmas furball.
BTW, _"... or maybe it's just the economy, everyone's broke..."_ ??
Actually, this, historically, is a *_good_* time for movies. People look to escape their problems. So that seems unlikely to be the case.
I'm praying for tidal waves...
I called it a few years ago. I was watching the Oscars (the last time I watched it, inf act), and towards the end, Laura Dern gave a presentation for the Academy Museum that was in the works. As I watched that, my mind recalled the days of Ancient Egypt, where the Pharaoh would have his workers build glorious tombs to hold all of his worldly treasures when he finally kicked the bucket. Suddenly, it all made sense, and I knew in that moment that Hollywood was not long for this world.
I think it's happening now. Cinema as an art form will survive, I have no doubt of that, but Hollywood is doomed.
I’m pretty glad to see it, honestly. Hollywood is a good concept in that it concentrates all the industry people, but it has recently resulted in them being the arbiters of what we get to see and if it doesn’t conform the their social standard, it dies. I’ll be happy to see movie making get decentralized
@@gregowen2022 decentralized movie making… no joke, that’s my dream right there!
barbenheimer meme is literally the only thing that keeps Hollywood from completely sinking into Mariana Trench. Oh and don’t forget Blue Beatle a 200+ superhero movie with estimations of making like 12 million dollars on the opening weekend.
Blue Beetle I almost feel bad for. It’s going to flop so hard and it looks like it could be passable.
What’s going to be funny is watching Hollywood try to manufacture another barbenheimer meme. How do you do, fellow memers?
@@gregowen2022 I think they’re already trying that!
Saw Patrol anyone?
(Yes! A Paw Patrol movie and Saw movie double feature!)
@@drewo.127 wow. that sounds absolutely horrible. their audience with the barbenheimer stuff will not be watching a paw patrol movie, at this point they are just grasping for straws
@@gregowen2022 I like the lead actor Xolo Maridueña kid, he is very good in Cobra Kai (if you haven’t seen I highly recommend its super good) and yeah at least it looks like the movie is trying to be entertaining but the director had to open his mouth on Twitter. Remember I talked to you about how the people in the industry actively push audiences away this is prime example of that.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is an example of forced retconning a character into a franchise and making the whole movie about them. Like I could understand Basil being a new character we haven't heard of(even if stretches the tolerance of timeline continuity) but Helena? Forcing her importance down the throats of audiences makes a bad movie in general.
Helena shouldn't have been Indy's goddaughter. It's arguably too personal for someone who hasn't come up at all for the 5th movie. Helena should have just been Indy's friend's daughter he may have helped take care of in her younger years. A little distance makes a lot of sense.
That movie was an insane mess. And there were reshoots! Can you imagine how bad it must have been before?!
@@gregowen2022 For MI: Dead Reckoning, they at least try to downplay the new villain's established backstory we're only hearing about now. We'll learn more about him in the next movie. But Indy and the dial of destiny, from what I've heard, makes it sound like Helena "was there all along" and that's just insulting to fans. What is has been kept from us in general? I understand there's supplementary media to the Indiana Jones franchise like maybe comics? Or a tv show? Helena still isn't there either. So what gives(other than her being a massive forced recon).
@@Frenzyshark ""was there all along""
Welcome to woke writing. They seem to have no writing chops whatsoever. I mean, they write like 14-year-olds, and I know because I was a writer at 14 and they make EVERY SINGLE MISTAKE I made when I was an utter novice.
They don't just pick SJWs, they pick SJWs who also cannot write.
Then again, Marvel has had plenty of writers in their comics who have written phenomenal stories, and childishly immature and technically awful stories full of intersectional tripe.
It's like, as soon as someone starts inserting intersectionalism into their work, all of their previous skill is immediately defenestrated.
@@Selrisitai Adding a 'like' and comment for the use of "defenestrated".
I'm ashamed of how cynical I'm being but I think no changes come of this. I think the big studios will only double down on safe picks. Also I think this is finally happening because Hollywood has done real damage to it's brand as a whole.
Well I disagree there’s good movies in other countries it could be Hollywood movies flop and foreign films make bank and force studios to rethink their strategy
I don't bank on Hollywood changing anytime soon. I think overseas movies rarely make dent at the box office because they are not widely shown unfortunately.
I see Hollywood fling down this path of reboots etc and playing it safe for the foreseeable future sigh....
It’s funny you mention the economy because the one industry that was booming during the great depression was the film industry.😂
This problem comes down to two words: target audience.
Movies, music, books, videogames - they all used to focus on a single target audience and then hope to scoop up some outliers along the way. But now they're trying to have a target audience of EVERYONE. It will never work.
I think it's due to a growing overseas market. So now they are trying to appeal to China and India, markets that until say 30 years ago were largely closed to them. But like you said its not working.
Besides china and India have a huge film business. They make their own, like Korea and Japan. Their own movies do better at the box office in their countries than hollywood films.
Hollywood news to go back to making original contnet. They have milked the cow dry with IP's. Time to move on and take some risks
Also they need to get people back to the cinema em mass. Fewer people are going to the cinema and that's a worry for filmmaking in general.
Streaming triumphs at the moment. Barbie and oppenheimer did well but they are the exception.
Every time someone mentions Terry Pratchett, my heart lights up, explodes and reassembles itself like an ant-hill under a child's foot. Thank you!
I heard a rumor that Blackrock, one of Disney's biggest investors, actually insures Disney productions against losses...literally hedging their own bets so even if they lose, they'll get made whole. Do you think there is any validity to this?
Haven't heard that...
BlackRock controls trillions so they can easily keep Disney stock propped up. Larry Fink’s ultimate goal is the Kalergi Plan.
Pretty sad that Rise of The Beasts didn't make a whole lot in the box office. I liked that movie.
I don't blame a lot of people who saw the trailer and thought "They're STILL making Transformers movies?" after 15 years of them.
I think we're gonna see a bigger indie scene soon. People want HUMAN movies made by HUMANS and with the advent of AI being used in the movie-making process, the indie scene deserves a lot more attention.
They had a lot working against them, unfortunately. I was one of the people who skipped. June was packed, Spiderverse was a sure thing, and the transformers franchise gave me doubts. I am excited to rent it, though!
Rise of the Beasts was my favorite too, and I’m absolutely buying it on Blu-Ray!
But other than that and a few others, I’m very eagerly awaiting the potential explosion of the independent decentralized movie scene!
Creators are here to make worlds and tell all types of stories in those worlds, and yes, money is important 100%! But money should be used to help create and empower creators, young, old, veteran and rookie! I’m especially hyped for indie animation, and I’m absolutely following that aspect of indie entertainment! But entertainment as a whole should be allowed to thrive or at least have a CHANCE regardless of where they are or want to work! And I don’t just mean stay at home jobs. I mean new, indie creators and collectives building their own indie studio wherever they want, whether it’s a physical studio or purely online, or online/in person meet ups, or whatever!
I’m keeping my eyeholes peeled for any and all new indie projects, animation or otherwise! (I know I’ve been saying this a lot, but I really REALLY BELIEVE IN INDIE ENTERTAINMENT!
@drewo.127 I respect indie creators because they feel more authentic. Unless the company has a good track record (I recently bought Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition) most of the games I have are indie titles.
Indie animation I've been following since the Newgrounds days.(Not back when it was first created, but maybe late 2000s/early 2010s) Stuff like Lackadaisy gave me hope that indie animation is still thriving.
While I do believe money IS an important factor, you immediately fail when you think "How can I make as much money as possible?' Instead of "What would be the game/movie/show I want to watch/play?"
@@ryanleatigaga7596 you speak my language!
I’m currently working on an experimental animated short film and I’m approaching it with a similar lens! What is the story and message I want to tell, or more accurately, what idea or concept do I want to explore? But I also am approaching it like: how do I translate all of these ideas, themes, and my own personal expression, and expressions of others that’ll be working on it into a digestible and thoughtful story? And what do I want to show the audience, and how do I want to make them feel during and after watching? And how do I do it without alienating myself, my team, and/or the audience?
My son is almost 19. He (& his friends) are burned out on the hand-me-down stories from a generation before. Since they left kiddie movies, they've only had opportunity to see unoriginal content. Some of which he liked in his early teens. But, at almost 19, he is jaded. He refused to consider Mission Impossible because "It's just Mission Impossible. They're all alike."
His age group has traditionally been a major movie audience. Technically, Disney should be catering to his demographic. But, they keep putting out handmedown content from their parent's & grandparents generations.
I'm glad for him this year -- Mario Brothers, Spiderverse, Barbie, Oppenheimer. He's had 4 original movies in one summer.
The idea that Disney had to blackmail Harrison Ford to do Indy is hilarious. The man never cared about quality, he only ever cared about getting the bag. He spent years rolling his eyes at Star Wars, yet when Disney pulled up with a truck of money to his front lawn he showed up for Force Awakens AND The Rise of Skywalker.
The man was in Morning Glory, he's the opposite of Tom Cruise in regards to caring about delivering a good product to the audience.
I believe he got paid something like 70$ million for Indy😮
Great video. But you seem to assume at the end that these Hollywood narcissists are capable of self reflection and learning from their mistakes. But no, they will continue to blame the audiences instead.
Not when it keeps losing them money. I'm not sure if you can call it self reflection but they'll change their ways when it stops being profitable.
@@mallorycarpinski1160 Not saying you're wrong, but I think the money isn't as important as the ideology for many of them. Disney for instance is still creating a bomb in the form of Snow White, when they've lost 1 billion using the woke template. For many this is their religion, a cult that says the world will end in a few years from climate change, that DEI prevents genocide, that worldwide oppression will occur unless they spread the message. They're saving the world, who cares about profit?
They might not have to do the self-reflecting. When 3rd parties stop working with them, like refusing to do work without getting paid up front, or refusing to insure this stuff, that will send the message. I hope.
But it will take a bit. They’ll keep blaming us for a while longer, hoping beyond hope that it’s all just a bump in the road and we’ll come back.
this year better be a DAMN wake up call for all film and tv hacks who are underserving of their careers. also for all studios execs who have ZERO ambition, vision, and awareness.
nah, let em perish. Hollywood shouldn't be the bottleneck between good creators and the viewers. There are other hubs taking the opportunity already.
I’m excited to see Hollywood knocked down. They shouldn’t get to be the sole arbiters of what gets made. I think this will be a win for the audience
Looking at the financial losses hurt for a moment, but the wokescolds are a festering blister that is stabbed over and over again. They are far too used to getting validation from leftists even as leftists get more and more extreme.
This has happened before and Hollywood was able to pull back from the brink with movies like Dirty Harry and Death Wish. I don't think they have the will any more, too afraid of the ESG devaluation will push them over the edge.
I think what you touched on is "wearing the skinsuit" Where something may look like the thing you like, but it is missing the core underneath. "Do you like Star Wars? Well here's more Star Wars! What, you don't like it? It must be because you're a bad person!"
It’s hilariously predictable, too. They slap on a sticker of the thing you like and then blame you immediately when you don’t worship them for it.
I really don't think Asteroid City should be lumped in with the rest, though. Whether you liked it or not, and I did, it wasn't safe and it was imaginative.
If I'm honest, I'm really hoping that we'll eventually see motion pictures de-centralize from Hollywood. I don't necessarily want Hollywood as we know it to vanish, but it would gladden my heart to see them actually have to compete with creators who are hungry for audiences they've been taking for granted as "the only game in town", rather than the pseudo-competition of old studios with bloated budgets, the same ideas, a terror of trying anything new, a bullying distribution model, and a list of unnecessary things that "have" to be in every movie as long as my arm. Who knows- it might even save the traditional movie theater.
"Slap Indi's name on it, show Harrison Ford the dirty pictures they obviously have to coerce him into this garbage and voila - the money would just pour in!" Classic!
"They weren't TRYING to make a GOOD GAME, they were TRYING to make GOOD MONEY."
Sounds like what happened with Dumbo and Bambi (1941 and 1942). Dumbo was made JUST for quick money, despite being a really good film.
Bambi, on the other hand. . . All Walt wanted to do with that, was MAKE A GOOD STORY; and he did. Buuuuut. . . all audience wanted to see was fantasy instead of realism, and that's what they got with Dumbo. And also because of the fact that Dumbo was such a short film, that it made money. But that's also why Bambi didn't do so well the first time: because it was longer and didn't focus on fantasy, which is what audiences ACTUALLY GOT FROM DUMBO, Bambi's movie didn't make money.
Proper advertizing is important. Can't believe studios still don't realize that if trailer-making companies manage to pull off an amazing trailer, or tv/yt ad commercial or whatever, and it pulls a bunch of people in at first... but the audience's expectations are far away from the actual product because they have been deliberately mislead... the word of mouth is gonna get around faster than the investors can yank the dollars out of potential future audiences' hands. Especially nowadays with near-instant access to audience and/or critic reviews.
I honestly don’t think it’s an economy thing, or at least not primarily. I think with the overall serious and rather stressful time of the whole country people still desperately want an escape and to be entertained, but it’s like being starving and only getting fed condiment packets from McDonalds, corporations just aren’t making what we want and they aren’t learning from their failures at all
That’s a very good point. If they were providing escape, they’d make money. But they think it’s cute to continue to remind everyone about real world issues in the most ham-fisted way possible
@@gregowen2022
I mostly agree with you there! I kinda like it when films at least try to help us through tough topical times, (alliteration, baby!) by acknowledging they exist, and helping to express the feelings of people affected, while helping people who may not understand or are aware of certain issues to understand them, or at least give them something to think about and research if they want to! HOWEVER…
NOT EVERY MOVIE NEEDS TO BE LIKE THAT! And even if they are, they DON’T NEED TO TRY AND USE A SLEDGEHAMMER TO NAIL IT INTO OUR SKULLS!
My current AI related short film (Its about AI, not really MADE with AI, but will have AI elements, and have AI tools to help with certain aspects, BUT NONE OF THEM WILL BE USED TO REPLACE ANYONE!) anyway, that project I’m working on is going to have a few messages and themes, but I’m going to try and convey those themes in a way that is digestible, and isn’t just me screaming at the audience that “THIS IS WHAT YOU NEED TO DO!” UNLESS it’s ironic or done for comedy! But above all, I want the audience to have a fun time! Even if the messaging is somewhat obvious, I don’t want it to distract from any fun comedy and enjoyment!
Very well put
The biggest problem in my opinion, is that they don't have good stories. This is happening in movies and TV. It makes it hard to watch and a distraction for the audience. I think you said it best, people are just punching the clock and don't have passion for what they are creating.
they have good stories. The Witcher for instance. Sold millions of books and is recognized as one of the best games out there. They have the stories, but they don't want to use the good stories. They want to write their own fan fiction, their own propaganda.
@@willdegra317Or if they use good stories, the writers want to change all of it to best suit them and their worldview, not their audience.
And even if they have a good premise, they do not have enough talent to create cool or good scenes and dialogue, nor do they have any real life experiences to draw upon that would be cool or good.
Agreed the stories are there but Hollywood is no longer taking risks and is changing alot of original content
@willdegra317 -- Funnily enough, we see the same problem in fanfiction, where authors slap the canon name and skinsuit of an established franchise and popular character, respectively, on their original character (self-insert Mary Sue/Gary Stu) and call it "a different interpretation" of canon.
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But it's not, it's bait and switch for their lousy or unrelated-to-fandom original fiction. Because a reinterpretation would be keeping the core characteristics of the characters and the primary themes (be it self-discovery and growth, trauma and healing, interpersonal relationships, whatever) of the original but putting them in a new or alternate "for want of a nail" universe setting. Same personality, but now different choices available. Same types of challenges at their heart, but manifesting differently in a different material setting / modern universe / etc.
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I'm tired of 'official' retcon, remake whatev fanfiction and original bait-switch 'fanfiction'. We've seen 'em both for years and people still don't understand that 'your' (as a generalized 'you' not any specific person) self-indulgent wish-fulfillment fiction is rarely anyone else's satisfying fullfilled wish and most people don't want to shell out money (or time and reviews, for fanfic) for someone else's self-insert to find their fake HEA with badly written and ooc'ified (because those are two separate issues) characters.
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Especially if the creator can't even bother to put in any effort to even pretend, poorly, that they're doing anything else. And *especially* especially if they're gonna spit on the audience all story long.
Once they started referring to their art as “content” it was all over. I reminds me of Boogie Nights; they start as filmmakers working on films that will be shown in theaters and end up producing content on video for video rental stores and mail order catalogs.
Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning is a pretty great action movie. Also, Oppenheimer is an absolute amazing movie.
Both of them are my favorites films this year. So different yet so amazing.
@@RangerMcFriendly Oppenheimer is one of my favorites, too. The other ones, so far, are John Wick 4 and Super Mario Bros.
I’m excited to see both. I missed out on everything in July, sadly. Hopefully I can get to them while they are theaters. They seem like they’d be better on the big screen
@@gregowen2022 If you live somewhere close to an IMAX theatre, see Oppenheimer in IMAX! I've seen it on Saturday with my mom and it was amazing! It was originally going to stop its IMAX run this week but they're extending it by two extra weeks because it was so damn popular.
I second Dead Reckoning. Best action movie I've seen in a long time. All the MI movies were on Paramount+, so we ended up binging them before seeing MI7. It's funny to see how OLD the first Mission Impossible was. Clearly before the real internet came along.
Movie buff and Gamer here.
You hit the nail on the head with your Gaming Industry example. In the gaming space, Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Elden Ring, and the newly released Baldur's Gate 3, are the standouts that gamers have sung the praises of from the top of the mountain. And Devs/Publishers are pushing back on the quality of those games saying that those games, specifically Baldur's Gate 3, should not be expected.
The AAA gaming industry is going through a hard time, but the AA industry is doing well, if not outright thriving.
Thank you for touching on the video game industry. Some of the best games I have played the past few months have been low budget indie games that I had no idea existed. I have stumbled on a few scrolling through my game pass. They are refreshing to play and you are correct the people who put these games out have passion and care about their game.
I need to make a video about Game Pass and PSplus because I’ve had the exact same experience. Sometimes I see a game but don’t want to gamble on a purchase, but if it’s already in a catalog I’m paying for? Why not? And you find some really incredible games that way! I especially like a short but great game. Gris comes to mind right away.
Elemental is actually rebounding at the box office. It went from a film that looked like it wouldn't make 200 mill total to now making nearly 430 mill. If it can past 500 or 600 million. It can get to profit territory.
Disney should sell off chunks to Intendo.
“Indy’s dirty pictures” 😂😂😂
Jokes on point, my man.
So quick and subtle that i had to rewind to make sure that i heard what i heard! 👏🏼
I think a lot of society finally had a moment of clarity when it comes to Hollywood. Everything that we kind of dismissed and tolerated a few years ago has now become too much to stomach. The Ouroboros snake eating itself is the best analogy for Hollywood Right now.
Accidental Racist Under-Tones
guys, I'm starting a band.
As someone who loves the new, potentially rebooted, Transformers movie-verse, I will say that while I loved Rise of the Beasts, and even Bumblebee that came out a few years earlier, I do not blame ANYONE for skipping on this years Transformers because while Bumblebee may have been good to a lot of people besides me, it wasn’t enough to wash away the bad taste people have from hearing “Transformers movie” after the FIVE MICHEAL BAY MOVIES WHICH AFTER THE FIRST ONE THEY STARTED GETTING BLOATED AN CONFUSING AND ALL THE BAD STUFF! Even if I liked some of it, it’s not enough to get people’s opinion changed on the whole thing!
Yeah, I’ve heard good things about Rise of the Beasts, but with the franchise history and how crowded June was, I was one of the people that skipped it in favor of something else like Spiderverse. I’m excited to rent it, though
Personally didn't like rotb
The humans were actually good for the first time in the series, but only for the first half of the movie.
The robots, designs especially, could have been better, and the 2 smaller terrorcons could have gotten a bit more screen time.
Also whoever decided to replace wheeljack's bumblebee movie design with the new one, deserves to be shot.
Same goes for whoever replaced the cool soundtracks in the final battles with some half decent pop music
They made Arcee trans! THE MOST WELL-KNOWN FEMALE CYBERTRONIAN, and they made her a former male! Hollywood hates women!
@@gregowen2022 same here!
I think I’ll watch it with my brother sometime, because I think we have it on digital!
Also, just like how I got Bumblebee on Blu-Ray for Christmas, I’m getting ROTB for Christmas! It’s not quite as great as Bumblebee, but I still love the new designs for the most part! Again, I think if they at least changed “Wheeljack’s” head design, or at least showed him with his battle mask on more during the fight scene, I think I would’ve been more forgiving. But despite all that, I still like the movie! It’s one of my all time favorites this year!
Just watched it and it’s pretty good and then gi joe showing up.
Good points. Tired of all these remakes and bland movies
Want to see an example of soul-less? Watch those promos for The Little Mermaid where the actresses react to scenes of their own characters and desperately _pretend_ to be overwhelmed or awed by the imagery or nostalgia of the moment. It was Oscar-announcer-lame-joke-delivery bad, but played off as serious. I'm shaking my head at the memory of it. Are people seriously fooled by this $hit?
Good for them. If I would loose 1.5b, I would be in serious trouble, but they seem to be able to afford it.
0:53
It’s also in the World Video Game Hall of Fame in Rochester, New York
Sound of Freedom should be a clue to what Hollywood should do. Make a Good movie that doesn't cost a stupid amount of money. Sound of Freedom $10 Million budget over $100 Million in Profits.
Good video! One correction, though: Elemental is actually on track to make a profit. It is a rare box office comeback story. (I expect this has less to do with quality than with how few children’s movies there are this summer, but that’s beside the point.)
The weird thing is that usually the solution to declining profits is consolidation; but that's what got them into this trouble in the first place. Disney controls way too much of wholly-weird, and is one of the biggest offenders when it comes to serving up bland remakes and sequels. There's far too little competition between rival studios to keep things fresh and interesting. And if they go by the typical big business playbook, they will consolidate further to shore up sagging profits. This could be a long, dark decade for wholly-weird if they don't figure things out quickly!
Honestly, Elemental didn't deserve to fail. It was actually a pretty good film overall. Not fantastic or anything, but not terrible either. I enjoyed it every bit as much as something like Inside Out. Gillman on the other hand.. yeah, that wasn't great. It felt like a low budget animated knockoff that was just cashing in on the mermaid theme along with Disney's release of a live action Little Mermaid that nobody wanted to see anyway.
Another awesome video! I really appreciate the time and effort you put into making these, Greg. Top notch editing, writing, and well thought-out subject matter....
Thank you so much, I really appreciate the kind words!
I saw the Emilia Clarke with Drax arm used as a thumbnail and I totally thought it was a Photoshop. It looked like a meme to make fun of the show.
I don't understand why they still think name recognition and playing it safe is the best option when that clearly isn't the case any more. Like, are none of them paying attention to the financials?
They really aren’t, or they’re telling themselves that it’s our fault to make themselves feel better. That still won’t pay the bills, but have fun I guess.
I think a large factor is we just don't want to give money to companies that hate us, the potential quality does not matter any more. It helps our decision making that they make predictably crappy products.
Very true. When the movie quality was high, we could overlook the condescension and messaging, but now that they aren’t even entertaining? Why bother.
Lol at the usage of Chris Rock in that In Living Color sketch.
Such a great show!
That's a drop in the bucket of the dark pool quadrillion. Volumes of new perspective for the playbook.
I'm mainly disappointed in "The Marvels" because I'd heard that Rogue was going to be the villain in the next one. If you know comics, then you know that this is a fight that Captain Marvel doesn't win and that we'll be getting a comic accurate Rogue for "X-Men"! But I guess we'll have to wait a bit longer before we get to see that. (I don't know if it'll be any good in the MCU, but it's a moment I've wanted on the big screen since the very first "X-Men". They will *definitely* get my money if they actually go through with it!)
That story would never fly today. How can Carol be defeated? She is the bestest evar in every way, lol.
It’s sad though, because I would love to see X-men start getting teased into the universe. Honestly, I want them to just hit the reset button and start over with an X-men universe that doesn’t have any avengers or anything in it
That’s true! Dial of Destiny felt longer partially because it just didn’t all fit together.
Using elements is the easiest fantasy world building thing honestly. Children could and definitely have come up with that idea.
"Losing Money" on the books can be pretty good for a laundering scheme...
Jus sayin.
These folks really started doing The Producers for real, haha
Nia daCosta part is putting Velcrorye at the movie, before travelling for they honeymoon "movie" in London.
This may be the reboot we need. Back to more low budget movies with good scripts.
2:44 asteroid city had a $25 budget and a $47 gross
Show business needs to shrink, but it's a tragedy of commons, nobody wants to back down first. The MCU was a pop culture phenomenon that just can't be repeated, but everybody is convinced that kind of money is still on table. There's just nothing out there that is going to create the kind of demand where you can keep opening one $200+ million dollar movie on the heels of another. Cheaper, and fewer movies that give each more room to breathe and grow legs would be a sustainable business model. But at this point, it almost feels like they're just driving themselves into the ground to get a bailout and then start making the same mistakes all over again.
I totally thought the drax arm was RUclips memes too. I thought there’s no way. There was a way. Mcu didn’t just crap the bed, they crapped the apartment building
I’m so glad I’m not alone, I thought I was crazy, like how can that be real? I had to check multiple sources before the horror of the truth really sank in
@@gregowen2022 I stopped watching mcu after endgame. I heard secret invasion was terrible. When I heard Emilia Clark had everyone’s powers, that’s jumping the shark. That arm is so cringe. I would rather watch the greatest American hero than phase 4 onward
the people from SOF was so passionated about it that they even practiced irl before making the movie
On the topic of movies not having vision. I think thats what ruined doctor strange.
You could tell Rami was fighting to take it in a more horror direction and set it apart but couldnt actually do it in any meaningful capacity due to it being an MCU movie and needing to be safe.
I bet his conversations with the studio heads had a lot of use of the word no and you have to do it this way.
It's a combination of several factors that are tanking Hollywood and creative industries in general. You brought up the Minimum Viable Product and Political Signalling trends, but forgot to mention the absolute creative bankruptcy going on. Are there any movies that aren't sequels, remakes, or licensed tie-ins to another existing IP? I sure can't think of any!
This is a really well measure take and I appreciate that. You acknowledged why these movies failed or succeeded based on their own merits rather than blaming it on wokeness or whatever. And you even acknowledged The Sound of Freedom’s success, something that most channels avoid like the plague or downplay it as right-wing propaganda. So, props to you for that. It’s rare to come across a critics who keeps it real despite their biases.
But, honestly, I agree. At the heart of it all, these movies failed for being soulless. Even the Barbie movie, despite it’s strong messaging could still succeed for the passion that went into it. 👌🏻
One thing I noticed with why I dislike "woke message" movies/games.
If they care about "the message", that usually means that they care about the quota hiring instead of merit hiring practices, which hurts the quality of the project.
Look at the Witcher staff torturing poor Henry Cavill.
Hollywood needs to fix their business model. these awful movies cost way too much money and when you have to make a half a billion dollars to break even you know it's a bad model.
Right? I’d be interested to see a dive into where the money goes. Just a few years ago, a movie costing $200M was news worthy, now it’s pretty standard. How?!
I'm sure Hollywood will just stay the course and call everyone racist and sexist for not showing up for all the films that bombed and keep doing the same thing.
They definitely will. I think the real push is going to come from the 3rd party services. VFX studios and insurers will start refusing to work for them or demand more money up front because they can see that the ticket sales won’t be there after the movie comes out
9:23 YES exactly the same! likewise a couple of clips from She-Hulk, i thought someone had stitched something together as a meme, but nope, the CGI... it's real!
Ditto thought it was fake
I had to check multiple sources to confirm. I refused to believe they actually did that. Imagine how many people saw that and agreed that it was fit for screen.
Staggering, just reapetidly shocking, thank you Disney, you still make us smile@@gregowen2022
Oppenheimer is also doing well at the box office
It really is and I’m shocked at the budget. For the scope it seems to cover and the people involved, $100M feels cheap. Good for them!
The chickens have definitely come home to roost!
The difference with the Game industry is that it is a flourishing Indi Game market, wile Hollywood has no Indi market, which is why the Game industry will not be hurting nearly much, plus they also have Nintendo which always cares about their games.
Very true. Everyone keeps talking about Baldur’s Gate 3, which is a great example. Larian Studios employs 450 people, so it’s probably not exactly Indie, but it’s embarrassing a huge company like Blizzard. BG3 players on steam are almost DOUBLE Diablo 4.
Plus you’ve got cool stories like Stardew Valley, made by ONE guy. Or Shovel Knight, made by three guys I think. The movie industry needs to decentralize
Great analogy with GTA - personally the humor mattered so much as GTA was written mostly by a bunch of Scotish peole trying to make fun of the US. GTA 1 was essentially what British people thought the USA was like in 1995. Fortunatly now the USA is a peace loving society with no crime or gun violence
Just an interesting observation my mom had about John Wick; she thinks it is a modern version of ballet. A loose plot structure just meant to tie together the various dances. A ballet of death, essentially.
I was reading a bit of Oscar Wilde the other day, specifically The Art of Lying. In it, one of the critisims he throws out there was his generation's authors were not very good, because they forgot how to tell stories with heightened realism or even unrealistic stories, and instead wrote everything as realistic as possible. The added problem with as realistic as possible is that the writers only draw upon what they've experienced in real life, which was boring af.
This got me thinking that the same issue Wilde was referring to is the same as what is going on in Hollywood. Old writers used to have interesting things happen to them. New writers do not. They haven't gone to war, or been outside the country, or even been on a whirlwind romance. They stayed in their safe spaces talking to ideological clones of each other parroting the same things they heard in their college writing classes. So what do they write about? The same boring trite things that happened in their life. Which to an egotistical maniac might sound interesting, but its boring af.
There will be no changes from this summer's failures. I'm not sure if the amount of money available to Hollywood is even calculable, but it's certainly vast enough to keep the normal laws of capitalism from affecting them.
I remember a football coach back in the '90s criticizing the Prevent Defense by saying that "all it does is prevent you from winning." Playing it 'safe' never seems to work out well in anything. If you don't believe me, just ask Hillary Clinton.
I don't know why I didn't know that Knights of the Zodiac was released in April, they seem to forget to advertise their movies all the time.
I think the us economy might also be having an impact. Food, rent, and electricity costs are so high, I didn't go see a single movie this summer. Not because I don't want to, but I don't have the extra money in the budget to go see a bunch of 10-20 dollar movies. that money needs to go to groceries.
10:03 "we need to coin a term that describes how certain segments of our culture have become so extreme that even though they are genuine they look like parody or satire"
🤔 A Babylon Bee Article?
The 2 biggest movies of the year were literally toy commercials (Mario & Barbie) people will consume what is most marketable.
I have a rather large group of friends that all goes to the movies fairly frequently, and none of them will go see a woke movie, not a single one.
This is happening for us for 2 reasons,
1. Woke movies have all been atrociously written
2. We don't want to see modern day America and it's politics reflected and commented on in every single story. The world isn't America, we are from the EU, it's tiering to listen to for the 100000th time, and we also don't want Paris in the 1600s to look like modern day New York, nor do we want fantasy to reflect exactly American demographics, make it make sense!
Want to represent medieval Europe on screen? make it look like medieval Europe, want to represent modern day America? Go right ahead and make it look like that? Want it to look like the future? anything goes!
Want more asians, but you want to make the story about the past? Set it in ancient China or ancient Japan, tell those amazing stories instead of the same thing over and over and over.
Noo, it's too much sense, we can't have that. Black elves is most retarded ideas in fantasy movies i've seen for a long time. How more stupid can those movies get?
I'm not sure what Top Gun: Maverick and MI:7 brought in, but I think those are two shining examples of simply giving the audience what they want in abundance. Aside from maybe GOTG3, those were the only movies where are entire family came out of it thinking 'that was awesome'. Tom Cruise even opens his movies with a thank you to the audience for coming out and seeing the movies - which were made to be viewed on the big screen. In doing so, he completely differentiates himself from all the other studios just belching out content at us (not for us).
They put all their eggs in one genre basket of very expensively-budgeted movies. Need lower-budgeted movies of diff genres that will find their own audience that LIKE westerns or romance. Instead, the studios place ALL their money on 21 Red and one spin of the wheel.
Very true, and the funny thing is that a lot of the money is going to CGI which is looking horrible. Imagine buying an expensive suit and one sleeve is noticeably longer than the other, but you keep buying that brand of suit. Insane.
2 things will come out of this year.
1.) The PR teams will try to spin it that the movies are great and people love them it was just an economy problem.
2.) The handful of successful movies will have dozens and dozens of soulless cash grabs trying to copy them.
Love your heading, it amused me and drew me in.
I appreciate that so much!
I'm trying to figure out the thumbnails, it's good to know this one is working
Talking bad about fans is indeed bad business. Hollywood forgets that they’re in the entertainment business and the suspension of disbelief is the illusion of film and TV. Bad actors and bad writers ruin it and don’t get invested.
Now is the time for us fans and independent creators to get together and create our own fan films. We can make Star Wars movies like Darth, Revan, and the old republic much better than Disney ever could. We could make comic book movies that are more faithful to the original and more appealing the fans, then Marvels’ ridiculous fourth phase. We could even make our own video games. I say we start our own studio, our own studio that is actually democratic, in which the FANS have the final say in what gets past and not a silly executive committee concerned with the Twitter mob or ESG scores. Who’s with me?
I completely support it. Especially with crowdfunding, it’s proven that the centralized powers of entertainment are losing their grip
I remember watching a DVD commentary I think it was the "Wind and the Lion" and John Milius the director said when making the film at the time the Hollywood executives told him here is the budget for your film, you should look at that money as a bucket. Once that bucket is empty it goes to the theaters whether the movie is finished or not. That mentality seems to be missing these days in Hollywood.
It would be good to bring back. The cost creep is unreal for these things, especially when you see the final product. I’m sorry but The Flash and Little Mermaid looked like absolute garbage, where did the money go?!
@@gregowen2022 In the flash case I'll hazard a guess. According to the Wiki page principal photography started in April 2021 and ended Oct 2021. Then you got a whole year of post-production reshoots, we know they reshot the ending at least and my guess is that more reshoots were done in other parts that didn't tested well with the audience, Plus the cost of paying for all those cameo's scenes like Nick Cage, Cavill (Who was reported to be paid 250K for his camoe) Gal Gadot, and the archived cameos like the 1960's batman these cost money due to copyright.
That took over a year to do and WB was taken over by David Zaslav. Cost of shooting including all the cameos finished by early 2022, Zaslav takeover in April 2022, there is new management and new studio head like James Gunn being brought in. They see a massive sunk cost with several TV's and movies already in post production they have to decide which one to continue and which one to scrap. Batgirl, Aquaman 2, The Flash and I'm sure there is a whole lot more which were not aware of. You kill several projects, you rollover some of the killed projects cost into other projects and you've got a ballooned budget into the hundreds of millions while your actual filming and effects budget was actually lower that the total budget indicates.
The reality is that the actual production budget might have been half of what was told to the public with an even smaller visual effects budget. There is 2500 visual effects shot in the film but it has similar visual effects budget as The Batman which had 1500 visual effects. Under these circumstance you'll start to see where some of the effects just weren't up to par.
As for The Little Mermaid, you said it yourself in your review, they made the wrong choice in the special effects, they went too far into realistic animal portrayals which might have been too damn hard to anthropomorphize creating an uncanny valley effect. It wasn't bad graphics but bad overall production strategy.
Baldur’s Gate 3 sets a new standard for gaming. You should try it. It’s so good it’s pissing Blizzard off 😂
I think money is tight with people right now. And also, people would rather wait for it to come to streaming since it doesn't take long to move there. If they increased the release window maybe more people would be inclined to go to theaters rather than wait.
That’s a good point. They are shooting themselves in the foot by sending them to streaming so soon. They are pretty much telling us to just wait a couple months
@@gregowen2022 I feel like that was a motivating factor back in the day of VHS or even DVD that if you didn't go see it in theaters, you'd have to wait a year for it to come out on video. Maybe it was shorter than that since I was younger, but it sure seemed like a year.
7:53 But they weren't thinking about the audience, except as mobile ATMs ... not to mention mobile ATMs who must be guilt-tripped or gaslit into seeing their garbage. You can see this every time somebody connected with one of these flops lashes out at the fans who express disappointment and/or anger at the sloppy production values.
Its been a good year for movie theaters though!!
This certainly is a very interesting time in entertainment! Indie projects aside, I’m painfully aware that a lot of these films are dragging in WAY LESS than they need, and the audience is hopefully making their voices heard! (Alongside everyone in the industry, on strike or otherwise!) I have only seen 3 movies this year, and yes I loved them to bits, but my taste is not everyone else’s!
Transformers was a fine summer blockbuster! Not quite 1st Bayformers movie level of awesome, but CERTAINLY nowhere near as bad as the last 2! I may have loved it wayyyyy more than the general public because A. It continues after Bumblebee, my all time favorite TF film! And B. It’s just a fun movie with Autobots with Designs that I (mostly) really like! Wheeljack’s head is…ehhh, but it doesn’t ruin the film for me!
That being said, it’s nothing truly groundbreaking; it’s your typical “save the world” story, but that’s not a bad thing. I loved it, and a lot of other people seem to like it too! But I understand that not everyone really wants to watch Transformers, and that’s totally fine! I do hope that the possible next film coming out either next year or whenever, could do something different to shake things up a bit more! I think it might be the first animated transformers theatrical movie since 1986, and whether it’s the rumored Cybertron prequel that might be connected to the current movie universe, or a brand new movie universe that is fully animated, unconnected from the live action story, I’m excited either way! Animated theatrical Transformers movie in the 21st century! And I think they said they’re doing a stylized approach to the animation! So I’m certainly curious!
Asteroid City was my very very first Wes Anderson movie that I actively watched, and while I loved the experimental, 12th wall breaking storytelling and quirky visuals, I obviously need to rewatch it multiple times! And not everyone is really up for an overly experimental symbolic movie like that! I like it, but it is NOT for everyone!
And finally, TMNT Mutant Mayhem! In my opinion, and my friend’s: Visuals: perfect! Animation: top notch! Voice acting: brilliant! Character and set design: awesome! VFX: stylized and creatively wonderful! Story: pretty good as an origin story! Somewhat predictable, but not in a bad way! It’s like Sonic movie 1 levels of good, or Bumblebee movie levels of good: Not anything groundbreaking, but nothing too bland either! Easy to follow, very interesting, and the theme, while a bit on the nose, didn’t feel too preachy or anything! In my opinion at least. It didn’t distract from the overall story, and despite not being a hardcore TMNT fan, I still felt that this film was made with love for the franchise and made by fans of TMNT, for fans of TMNT! It’s a really decent kid’s flick, with just the right amount of nuanced realism, and typical good guy, bad guy, exaggerated storytelling!
So far, I have yet to see Spider-Verse 2, and Barbie! Since I think Spider-Verse 2 might be out On Demand and Digital, I can get on that soon! (Though if it’s still in theaters, I’m definitely gonna try to watch it there!) and I’m hopefully gonna be able to see Barbie with my mom and sister ASAP! (My sister says she’s not interested, but my mom says she’s gonna try to convince her to at least spend some time with us. I’m just waiting for them to say when and I’ll be in the car faster than you can say “married spud!”)
And of course, two months from now…in October, I’ll be celebrating my birthday AND Halloween, by going to see the Five Nights at Freddy’s film!
In the meantime though, I’m gonna keep sticking to watching movies and shows that I want to watch, and/or that I am interested in, whether or not they’re in theaters. But that being said, I’m also gonna try to support actually good storytelling and entertainment that doesn’t try to just make money without any reason beyond making money!
As you said, there’s nothing wrong with making something and earning money from that something! But money shouldn’t be the ONLY reason for making something! Of course not everyone will always be happy working on something, passion project or not. But whether you’re making a big summer (or winter) blockbuster with big names and all the big IPs, a decent family film that has something for mostly everyone, an experimental exercise in filmmaking and storytelling that people will probably need to watch more than once alongside “explained” or “theory” videos on, or even an independent project that gives you and your team complete creative freedom, or even a combo of these, or something completely different, and I didn’t mention medium of filmmaking or storytelling, because whether it’s live action, animated, mixed media, movie, show, game, book, or even website, doesn’t matter what you’re making, what you use to make it, how you approach it, (as long as you don’t mistreat yourself or anyone else over it.) or whatever! If you care about the project, and the audience’s experience, and your vision or the overall vision of the project, even if the end result isn’t as financially successful or as close to the original vision as you’d like, or if people don’t fully understand it, as long as you and your team have fun making the project and the audience had fun watching it, or even came away with a slightly new feeling that might stick with them, whatever that feeling is, then that’s a win in my book!
Sorry for the long ramble, it’s a habit I have and I’m trying to work on it and use it in more productive ways, without getting so long that even I become annoyed by it!😅
Anyway, just wanted to share my thoughts here! Love the video Owen! Thanks again!👍
I thought the exact same thing about the drax arm
Love your channel anyways but today you give us a Sir Terry Prachett reference?! Ohhhhh snap- next level!!
I finally dove into disc world a couple months ago and I’m absolutely loving it
How far have you got through them?
His earlier work was amazing, but towards the end it took a hard turn into The Message (and not Eugene Peterson's Bible paraphrase).
It still had the same form, but lost the spark.
I think the most pure example of a passionate movie director who makes really entertaining movies with no budget is Isaac Nabwana.
Greg's set/house is haunted. Ghostly orbs at 8:53. =)
The BRBIE movie is only doing as well as it is because of deceitful marketing.
Hahaha, that one came through.
Well sadly, I have to go see it, but the upshot is that I can make a video about it. Greta is going to help me
@@gregowen2022
I suggest seeing Despot of Antrim's video on it after watching it yourself. It's another good one.
Small correction regarding Indy 5: They didn't have to "coerce" Harrison Ford "into this garbage". They just had to offer him money.
I am not certain they will change because so often there are easy excuses, they can blame the economy or the audiences instead of being able to bare taking a truthful look at themselves and their own choices and actions. I love franchises, I have no problem with franchise movies they are fun, but I also love new original films with fresh ideas, and I have noticed that there is decided lack of willingness to make original movies, I mean indie movies are still doing original films but you'd be hard pressed to find many major studios doing original films and I agree it's just safer to chase franchise money. It's a shame too because there are not any less stories out there to be told and in these days of diversity and inclusion it seems to me that there would be more interest in telling stories from all around the world new to us mythologies and folklore that would be fascinating and fresh or just let the new storytellers get their feet in the door to bring their passion and ideas to light it wouldn't be a safe bet but if they toned down the amount of money they throw at these franchise properties and let some of these new storytellers make smaller budget films seems to me they wouldn't be losing any more money than they are already.
7:18 Halo 4 & 5 in a nutshell. Star Wars sequels too. Halbaked products unrelated to their source material relying on a recognized name to sell.
The Blackening was the best movie I've seen in a long time.
Hey, if Hollywood really wants to get rid of its money, then I'll happily take some of it off their hands. I'm certain all of us here could put said funds to better use.
Right? I don’t even need much, I’m not greedy. A cool 100k would be just fine
I just want the movies to stop preaching to me.
Hi thanks for you video. Just a note at 8:54min or so you can see from there at least 3 ghost orbs that appeared. I would be concerned