A Growing indifference to Cinema Going

[KGeo777]

The success of Star Wars certainly helped out Fox.

Supposedly they did not make that much money. The merchandise was where most of the money came and Lucas had the control over that.
I don't know what is really true with the financial situation--I feel that it's a ponzi scheme or something--they never really run out of money or go bankrupt so I don't know.
I see the trends and what they are not making--there are aggressively avoiding any kind of traditional image or story form.
There's a big budget Mad Max spin-off coming-Furiosa? You just KNOW what they are going to do with it. Same with the Obi Wan Kenobi show. I joked to someone--that it would be about failure and other themes--and sure enough, the first dialogue you hear in the trailer is "we fought a war--we lost."

They need to channel this kind of spirit a little more:

 

[BAYLOR]

Supposedly they did not make that much money. The merchandise was where most of the money came and Lucas had the control over that.
I don't know what is really true with the financial situation--I feel that it's a ponzi scheme or something--they never really run out of money or go bankrupt so I don't know.
I see the trends and what they are not making--there are aggressively avoiding any kind of traditional image or story form.
There's a big budget Mad Max spin-off coming-Furiosa? You just KNOW what they are going to do with it. Same with the Obi Wan Kenobi show. I joked to someone--that it would be about failure and other themes--and sure enough, the first dialogue you hear in the trailer is "we fought a war--we lost."

They need to channel this kind of spirit a little more:

I wonder what Lou Wasserman at Universal thought when Star Wars became a huge hit at the box office ? That could have been his , He also passed on Indiana Jones too.

 

[KGeo777]

I wonder what Lou Wasserman at Universal thought when Star Wars became a huge hit at the box office ? That could have been his , He also passed on Indiana Jones too.

Universal had done the disaster film and made money that way. Then Jaws of course.
Fox had done science fiction already--we were discussing this on another forum.
Charlton Heston was the first A list star to do a science fiction or horror film. Planet of the Apes.
Up to that time, it was not considered a good career movie for a star.
Rod Taylor did the Time Machine and the Birds but he wasn't at the top.
Likewise, Stephen Boyd did Fantastic Voyage at Fox but he wasn't A-list.
Gregory Peck avoided it until the Omen I assume.

Yul Brynner did Westworld but his career tanked after that. It may have harmed his career.

Clint Eastwood did it early--in the 1950s but after that he shunned it (except maybe for the supernatural ghost element).
And Eastwood is the last Hollywood star who sold a film entirely on his name and personality.
Without a reliance on special effects or stunts.
Firefox had that but otherwise no.
Every star after the 70s--from Harrison Ford to Schwarzenegger to Willis and onward--they either were sharing the selling point with stunts or FX or some name director.
Eastwood was the last star where he alone sold the movie.
His personality and performance were the main draw.

 

[BAYLOR]

Universal had done the disaster film and made money that way. Then Jaws of course.
Fox had done science fiction already--we were discussing this on another forum.
Charlton Heston was the first A list star to do a science fiction or horror film. Planet of the Apes.
Up to that time, it was not considered a good career movie for a star.
Rod Taylor did the Time Machine and the Birds but he wasn't at the top.
Likewise, Stephen Boyd did Fantastic Voyage at Fox but he wasn't A-list.
Gregory Peck avoided it until the Omen I assume.

Yul Brynner did Westworld but his career tanked after that. It may have harmed his career.

Clint Eastwood did it early--in the 1950s but after that he shunned it (except maybe for the supernatural ghost element).
And Eastwood is the last Hollywood star who sold a film entirely on his name and personality.
Without a reliance on special effects or stunts.
Firefox had that but otherwise no.
Every star after the 70s--from Harrison Ford to Schwarzenegger to Willis and onward--they either were sharing the selling point with stunts or FX or some name director.
Eastwood was the last star where he alone sold the movie.
His personality and performance were the main draw.

Lucas and Spielberg working with Universal would have been a boon for that Studio . They would gained two marque franchise and made millions more. Given how successful they were , it must have bothered Wasserman that he passed on these two lucrative franchises. He could have two go the greatest producer director working for him and with him.

 

[KGeo777]

Lucas and Spielberg working with Universal would have been a boon for that Studio . They would gained two marque franchise and made millions more. Given how successful they were , it must have bothered Wasserman that he passed on these two lucrative franchises. He could have two go the greatest producer director working for him and with him.

Universal wasn't hurting financially. They did ET right.
All the big studios shared their successes. What did they do not do, is let new people come along.
And that's why it got stifled.
I mentioned before, one of the biggest box office hits of the 1970s was a film made entirely outside of Hollywood.
Bootleggers. It cost $200 000 and made somewhere around $5 million.
Hollywood was not interested in replicating that. It was a regional film with a very specific audience and yet it did very well in the US in certain areas.

 

[Valtharius]

Supposedly they did not make that much money. The merchandise was where most of the money came and Lucas had the control over that.
I don't know what is really true with the financial situation--I feel that it's a ponzi scheme or something--they never really run out of money or go bankrupt so I don't know.

I know most of the Star Wars money is in toys, but it sounded off to me that they didn't make a lot of money from the first movie. This is what I was able to find:

The $11 million spent on “Star Wars” in 1977 was the best film investment ever made

The movie, released 40 years ago, spawned an empire worth countless billions.

qz.com

 

[paranoid marvin]

Star Wars captured lightning in a bottle. It was a relatively low budget movie with relatively unknown lead actors and an - at best - average script (apparently Alec Guinness thought it was 'fairytale rubbish'). But against all the odds it worked. And perhaps because it wasn't expected to be a success the actors relaxed and gave a more natural performance. You could definitely see a chemistry between the various characters on screen. On another day with a different director, or perhaps with the same director under slightly different circumstances, the movie would have been a turkey like many, many Star Wars/2001 wannabes from the 70s and 80s.

Honestly if I was another director who turned down the movie? I'd probably be glad, because under them it probably would have flopped, and then the world would have missed out on one of the greatest sci-fi trilogies of all time.

 

[Vladd67]

Star Wars captured lightning in a bottle. It was a relatively low budget movie with relatively unknown lead actors and an - at best - average script (apparently Alec Guinness thought it was 'fairytale rubbish'). But against all the odds it worked. And perhaps because it wasn't expected to be a success the actors relaxed and gave a more natural performance. You could definitely see a chemistry between the various characters on screen. On another day with a different director, or perhaps with the same director under slightly different circumstances, the movie would have been a turkey like many, many Star Wars/2001 wannabes from the 70s and 80s.

Honestly if I was another director who turned down the movie? I'd probably be glad, because under them it probably would have flopped, and then the world would have missed out on one of the greatest sci-fi trilogies of all time.

Wasn't Damnation Alley with George Peppard expected to be that years blockbuster?

 

[KGeo777]

Supposedly, the Other Side of Midnight was expected to be the big box office champ of the year.
A novel-based romance film.
Damnation Alley was assumed to be Fox's sci-fi success but there's not much there to give it that prediction. Peppard was not a big box office magnet.

When you look at how people reacted--there's a 1977 Harrison Ford interview that brings it up--it was the novelty of the spfx. The Star Destroyer at the beginning.
No one had seen anything like that before. That is what got people into theaters.
The unique nature of the spfx and the production design etc.
The irony is, a director who cared more about acting would probably have not been interested in advancing the spfx side of it. Lucas was interested in the technology more than anything else and that allowed for the experimentation they did.

And none of the copycat films had the spfx equivalent. Battlestar Galactica did-but that was because two of the major Star Wars people (Dykstra and McQuarrie) worked on it. Battle Beyond the Stars had James Cameron which helped. But the story for that was better than Battlestar Galactica.
BG could have been a lot better. The cast was fine--it was the story and cheapness of the production design. Tv quality.

 

[BAYLOR]

Supposedly, the Other Side of Midnight was expected to be the big box office champ of the year.
A novel-based romance film.
Damnation Alley was assumed to be Fox's sci-fi success but there's not much there to give it that prediction. Peppard was not a big box office magnet.

When you look at how people reacted--there's a 1977 Harrison Ford interview that brings it up--it was the novelty of the spfx. The Star Destroyer at the beginning.
No one had seen anything like that before. That is what got people into theaters.
The unique nature of the spfx and the production design etc.
The irony is, a director who cared more about acting would probably have not been interested in advancing the spfx side of it. Lucas was interested in the technology more than anything else and that allowed for the experimentation they did.

And none of the copycat films had the spfx equivalent. Battlestar Galactica did-but that was because two of the major Star Wars people (Dykstra and McQuarrie) worked on it. Battle Beyond the Stars had James Cameron which helped. But the story for that was better than Battlestar Galactica.
BG could have been a lot better. The cast was fine--it was the story and cheapness of the production design. Tv quality.

Battlestar Galactica should have gone the feature film route , Larson should have hired Irving Kirchner to direct it and have someone like David Drake to write the story and screenplay for the film .

 

[worldofmutes]

In reference to the overall topic,
Few years ago I used to go every week and drink a pint and watch, for onstance, Dunkirk and The Revenant. Obviously those are kind of old by now.

I would love to go to the theatre again when I start making more money, as I enjoy it. As it is it’s pretty expensive I guess.

One time I asked the guy at the liquor stall for a white russian and he MacGyver’d one together with coffee creamer. Was funny, I think he got a good tip. Wasn’t awful.

 

[KGeo777]

Battlestar Galactica should have gone the feature film route , Larson should have hired Irving Kirchner to direct it and have someone like David Drake to write the story and screenplay for the film .

Buck Rogers the feature films looked better than BG. But it is shame those shows had such cheap sets. They are so cheap--in BG they use bubblewrap as futuristic curtains.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Buck Rogers the feature films looked better than BG. But it is shame those shows had such cheap sets. They are so cheap--in BG they use bubblewrap as futuristic curtains.

One of the great things about the BBC , particularly from the 1960s-80s, was the special effects department. The director or scriptwriter (or whoever) would go along to the department, tell them what they wanted , and wait to see it created. The budgets were obviously miniscule, and computer technology almost non-existent, but what they did in creating effects and props was amazing (and certainly convincing to the mind of a child).

I think that we've lost a great deal these days with the easy and cheap access to CGI.

 

[BAYLOR]

One of the great things about the BBC , particularly from the 1960s-80s, was the special effects department. The director or scriptwriter (or whoever) would go along to the department, tell them what they wanted , and wait to see it created. The budgets were obviously miniscule, and computer technology almost non-existent, but what they did in creating effects and props was amazing (and certainly convincing to the mind of a child).

I think that we've lost a great deal these days with the easy and cheap access to CGI.

The Zygon Spaceship in Terror of the Zygons comes to mind , both the interiors and the the Model work was very impressive stuff .

 

[Matteo]

Ahh...Classic Dr Who special effects - "running down corridors with the walls wobbling".

Very unfair, though oft-spoken, criticism. The special effects were very impressive.

 

[KGeo777]

One of the great things about the BBC , particularly from the 1960s-80s, was the special effects department. The director or scriptwriter (or whoever) would go along to the department, tell them what they wanted , and wait to see it created. The budgets were obviously miniscule, and computer technology almost non-existent, but what they did in creating effects and props was amazing (and certainly convincing to the mind of a child).

I think that we've lost a great deal these days with the easy and cheap access to CGI.

It wouldn't matter so much if the story was engaging but Battlestar Galactica was not.
Your mind drifts to the set decorations.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Ahh...Classic Dr Who special effects - "running down corridors with the walls wobbling".

Very unfair, though oft-spoken, criticism. The special effects were very impressive.

Yes, considering the budgets, what they managed to do with shows like Doctor Who and Blakes 7 is very impressive. Even today the effects of the Tardis and the Liberator (internally and externally) are impressive. When you consider they had to do it all in a very short period of time with limited resources makes it doubly so.

 

[paranoid marvin]

It wouldn't matter so much if the story was engaging but Battlestar Galactica was not.
Your mind drifts to the set decorations.

I think that the original BSG along with the likes of Buck Rogers started well with some good ideas, but they kind of lost their way quite quickly.

 

[BAYLOR]

I think that the original BSG along with the likes of Buck Rogers started well with some good ideas, but they kind of lost their way quite quickly.

What would have been intriguing was to have Galactica and the fleet show up in Buck Rodgers. Ive seen a couple of fan fiction crossover idea where that happens.

 

[Rodders]

Urgghhh. I HATE crossovers.