A New New Thought for Random Thoughts About Movies

Once upon a time you could have scenes where a bunch of folks were merely talking around a table/desk for minutes in the middle of a mega-blockbuster.

What exactly has changed that these scenes are now near nonexistent in these films' modern day equivalents?

 

How often does this still happen in real life? I feel like an outlier in that I have some of that built into both my job and my church community. A few years back I did an exercise for a qualitative research class where I observed people at a neighborhood bar and compared the perceived rate of people at the bar looking at/using their phones compared to those sitting together at tables. The people at the tables spent far more time on their phones and not engaged in conversation.

I'm not sure why, but it seems to be the norm now whenever I go to a restaurant, see people gathered at a mall, etc. The phone has eliminated people just talking about stuff and I don't know how many script writers have enough experience with situations like those scenes in movies. Could a modern script writer pull off something like 12 Angry Men?

 

I think the real reason why we no longer have them in modern day blockbusters is a strange contempt for the audience, in that they (mostly the studios I guess) believe the viewers will be bored immediately with anything that isn't straight up action or comedic/sarcastic dialogue.

Whereas these moments that allowed these broad appeal blockbusters to breathe actually also deepened them.

 

Millie Bobby Brown’s Enola Holmes series looks destined to become a Netflix mainstay, but where does the franchise go from here?https://t.co/g9rmX3Mh3B

— Den Of Geek UK (@denofgeek) November 9, 2022

It's a merry little detective series. They can make as many as they like as long as Millie Bobby Brown remains interested in the role. All they need is a new mystery for her to solve in each new installment?

This is akin to asking "where to take Columbo next?" in 1973.

 

#BlackAdam is projected to lose $50-$100M in its theatrical run

A box office flop

(via @Variety) pic.twitter.com/5SQRrVIHRU

— ScreenTime (@screentime) December 6, 2022

I do find it funny that the same people who thought that Batgirl was too bad for us to ever see it thought that this dreck was somehow worthy of being released.

 

I believe the thought process was something like this:

1. Dwayne makes money at the box office.
2. Black Adam is related to the hit Shazam, and should ride that success to its own.
3. People are starting to come back to theaters and superhero movies are the safest bet.

Obviously, none of those held true here. I think it's funny that the movie is already available to rent on everything from Amazon and Apple to Vudu, Redbox, and DirecTV, but they've got the rental price listed at $19.99. It can also be purchased digitally for $24.99 and the 4k UHD disc is already slated to release on January 19 with a price of $49.98. I think that tells you just how desperate they are.

 

So the real lesson of this weekend at the box office (Barbie's success and to a slightly lesser extent also Oppenheimer's) should be that audiences are desperate for something new and/or original.
I fear the lesson that the studio execs actually will take away is that people want 50 more movies about popular toys.

 

Well, people want absurdly unhinged movies about toys that nobody thought we be turned into a movie (Lego, Barbie) instead of yet another Transformers movie that tries to be gritty and realistic.

 

Why oh why!

 

Madame Web with around a 60% drop from first to second weekend box office take. Damn.
This one might end up making the Marvels look like a hit.
At some point the business behind this no longer makes sense. Well, it hasn't in a while, but so far the studios keep on churning out these very expensive CBMs that no longer make back their inflated budgets.

 

I haven't watched Madame Web, and don't plan to until it's streaming for free, but one of my favorite things on YouTube is the Pitch Meeting channel. This has spoilers, but if you care as little as I do about having this one spoiled then this is worth a watch.

 

If the Moana movie is not the hit Disney expects it to be (afaik it has been consistently their most streamed show) they are in deep shit.

 

So many of them have inflated budgets due to Covid or last year's strikes but I concur.

 

So Anyone But You has now made over 200 million at the worldwide box office.

That is a tiny bit crazy. It's rare for a rom-com to get a theatrical release at all nowadays.
But this one is a bona fide hit, against a $25 million budget as well.
And I honestly thought it was pretty 'mid', as the kids would say.
I wonder if you just need to frame this in the whole "people want to watch something other than CBMs and long-running franchise films" idea.

 

BEWBS

Seriously, Glen Powell has a bit of name recognition after the Top Gun sequel and Sydney Sweeney seems to have no problems being the Tits McGee of her generation. $200 million is surprising, but currently it's still behind the Paw Patrol movie and The Marvels.

 

Yeah but it's a rom-com, a genre basically no longer deemed viable for theatrical release until recently. I think My Big Fat Greek Wedding is considered the gold standard in terms of box office success for that genre and that made 368 million dollars.
A more recent rom-com that was deemed to have done well at the box office was Crazy, Stupid Love and that only made 145 million dollars.

To me this is a "huh" moment. Less so than Oppy making close to a billion, so in a more modest category of unexpected. But still very much unexpected.

 

Sometimes Honest Trailers is just perfectly on point.

 

Still only 88 million domestically.

 

Anyone But You? Even if it was only released domestically that would be a hit on a $25 million budget.

 

I saw a video recently that made the argument that Ava had good reasons for doing what she did, and I thought it was pretty convincing.

But I think there is a larger problem - you can't use AI as a metaphor for people any more. They are their own thing, with their own issues and their own problems. The movie could be seen in the lens of human power dynamics and gender roles, or it could have been understood as an exploration of objective misalignment and instrumental goals and mesa-optimisers. I viewed the movie through the lens of AI as I knew it then, not as symbolically representative of human issues, and I really didn't like the movie and I don't think I can see it in any other way.

 

I was discussing this same general point with a colleague recently, and he went farther than films like 12 Angry Men.

Where are the next generation of raunchy/edgy teen and college age comedies going to come from? Who is writing the next Porky's, Eurotrip, or American Pie? Who is even going to write the next Fast Times at Ridgemont High or Superbad? A generation of kids who are getting bone spurs in their neck from staring at their phones all day aren't going to have the experience or the imagination to create things that are that heartfelt in the midst of being that absurd.

 

Do those sorta films even work in today's world?

 

One interesting trend I've found in reaction channels on YouTube recently is things like the American Pie movies and Tropic Thunder are finding favor with 20-something reactors and becoming some of their most successful videos. I think we're at the early stages of a reversal away from a lot of the social changes of the last 10-15 years, but the lack of a secondary earning option (DVD/Blu-Ray sales) might prevent those kinds of movies being made even with audiences wanting them.

 

We just watched the time travel/slasher film Totally Killer and one of the main themes was how horrified the teen from the future was about the 80s casual, regular misogyny, unwanted touching, accepted bullying, smoking, disregard for security, and the like.