Has Hollywood become too Dependent On Blockbuster films?

VR is hit and miss - I think we've entered an age where VR is now affordable and of good enough quality for commerical home marketing and will stick around. But at the same time it still induces headaches in many people; still changes the whole experience and also requires some significant changes to home design before its going to be mainstream. VR films will become a thing that is certain, but I don't think the old 2D market will ever go away fully if at all.
 
The trouble of Hollywood imho is the blockbuster type film dominance of the options you can see in the big cinemas.

I go much more often watching smaller, foreign films from Cannes,festival scene, action,SFF films from Asia etc in the smaller local cinema. I rather watch something else now and then like Sofia Coppola,Nicole Kidman Cannes winning film, serious drama by lesser known directors, great Korean directors than Fast & Furious, The Mummy type all the time it seems these days from Hollywood.

Also Streaming like Netflix, HBO Nordic (like HBO go in US) and co produce quality tv shows who are often better than Oscar winning film. Then i think why waste time, money on La La Land when you can watch Breaking Bad, The Americans, The Deuce, Next of, Daredevil, The Affair, The Crown, House of Cards etc. Martin Scorsese said it best US,Brit, other western quality tv shows has surpassed Hollywood.

I saw Wonder Woman because it was the first female lead superhero film after 30+ male superhero movies and Spidey is the first suphero i loved as a kid but i was dissapointed that i paid money to se Guardians of the Galaxy 2 because it was cliche superhero film, i avoided every other big film this summer.

The best, most fun i had at the cinema this year was watching Baby Driver, which was a gem, a great film that was fun and more films like that would make me go see more films in the cinema and i want to see much less of Disney using Pixar films to dominate BO, all the blockbusters meantioned in this thread. Im even tired of Superhero after so so many and i have tons, tons of superhero comics as superhero fan for decades....
 
Because of the outlandish salaries paid to actors and directors, low-budget films are becoming, more and more, a thing of the past.

A film like Citizen Kane could be made for a couple million - tops! But then the lead actor would want ten o twenty million, the director about the same. Not to beat out, the producers are going to want to make at least as much, so they'll add some explosions and special effects scenes, multiplying the movie's cost ten-fold... you get the picture.

So, we'll see fewer and fewer of the finest films, and soon, we'll see nothing but blockbusters! Until the cinema dies, that is.
 
Cathbad said:
Because of the outlandish salaries paid to actors and directors, low-budget films are becoming, more and more, a thing of the past.

A film like Citizen Kane could be made for a couple million - tops! But then the lead actor would want ten o twenty million, the director about the same. Not to beat out, the producers are going to want to make at least as much, so they'll add some explosions and special effects scenes, multiplying the movie's cost ten-fold... you get the picture.

So, we'll see fewer and fewer of the finest films, and soon, we'll see nothing but blockbusters! Until the cinema dies, that is.
Click to expand...

God i hope not even if i agree with the rest of your post. Its clear that the big movies are so expensive they have to make 100s of millions not to be a flop. I dont care how those movies fail or not as long as there is quality smaller films as there are out these days.

You can make big BO without making an expensive movie: Deadpool

Budget:$58 000 000
Gross: $363 070 709 (USA)
Ryan Reynolds made a fun, great superhero movie for almost no money in superhero, hollywood standards and that was possible only because the director had his own effects film studio that was creative with less money.
 
Honestly $58 million doesn't sound cheap to me.

That said yes actor fees can be utterly insane; but its a product of the market as well. When the film sells for hundreds of millions in the box-office suddenly the actors feel they should be getting a bigger slice of that pie. As a result when getting hired for a film they feel they should get a bigger slice of that pie before its baked. Also lets not forget some actors are so big that just having them alone nets you a audience. Get Will Smith or such in your film and without any marketing you've already got yourself a large loyal core force who will go watch it. Actors that manage to secure good film contracts all the time also act like a seal of approval - you know what you're getting or at least a minimum quality.
 
The outrageous sums of money spent on name actors is one thing, but it's the massive use of CGI that lets down most films for me. It seems Hollywood uses massive explosions to distract the audience from the lack of story. People kept telling me how great Wonder Woman was, but when I finally got to see it (for free) it was very ho-hum and bland. There was nothing very interesting going on and I don't know what all the fuss was about.

They would have been better off giving us a great story and fewer, over long set pieces that add little to nothing to the plot.
 
Overread said:
Honestly $58 million doesn't sound cheap to me.

That said yes actor fees can be utterly insane; but its a product of the market as well. When the film sells for hundreds of millions in the box-office suddenly the actors feel they should be getting a bigger slice of that pie. As a result when getting hired for a film they feel they should get a bigger slice of that pie before its baked. Also lets not forget some actors are so big that just having them alone nets you a audience. Get Will Smith or such in your film and without any marketing you've already got yourself a large loyal core force who will go watch it. Actors that manage to secure good film contracts all the time also act like a seal of approval - you know what you're getting or at least a minimum quality.
Click to expand...

58 million is crazy cheap by blockbuster, superhero dominated Hollywood era, Superman: Man of Steal spent double that money CCI alone according to the reports.

Man of Steal (2013)

Budget:
$225 000 000 (estimated)
Gross:
$291 045 518 (USA)

Superman vs Batman (2016)

Budget:
$250 000 000 (estimated)
Opening Weekend:
BRL 39 061 298 (Brazil) (27 March 2016)
Gross:
$330 360 194 (USA)

200-300 million dollars is the price it takes to make a big superhero film, so Deadpool other than being loved by the fans, critics its mostly famous of making Fox, Hollywood studios drool for the chance of making more BO profit on 58 million dollars than movies that cost 5-7 times that. Having the biggest BO record ever for R rated film. Its not indie film cheap but Hollywood films that this thread is about, its insanely cheap.
 
Cathbad said:
Because of the outlandish salaries paid to actors and directors, low-budget films are becoming, more and more, a thing of the past.

A film like Citizen Kane could be made for a couple million - tops! But then the lead actor would want ten o twenty million, the director about the same. Not to beat out, the producers are going to want to make at least as much, so they'll add some explosions and special effects scenes, multiplying the movie's cost ten-fold... you get the picture.

So, we'll see fewer and fewer of the finest films, and soon, we'll see nothing but blockbusters! Until the cinema dies, that is.
Click to expand...

Which why you look for actors who will work for less. Because actors , even good ones are a dime a dozen.
 
BAYLOR said:
Which why you look for actors who will work for less. Because actors , even good ones are a dime a dozen.
Click to expand...

Not really.

Not that they're not out there, but because how good an actor I no longer matters - as long as they're good-looking and popular, the studios want them - even for roles they're so obviously not fit for!
 
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