In Hollywood, 2003 is rapidly becoming known as the year of the failed blockbuster, and the industry now thinks it knows why.
No, the executives are not blaming such bombs as The Hulk, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle or Gigli on poor quality, lack of originality, or general failure to entertain. There’s absolutely nothing new about that.
The problem, they say, is teenagers who instant message their friends with their verdict on new films – sometimes while they are still in the cinema watching – and so scuppering carefully crafted marketing campaigns designed to lure audiences.
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That’s typical of Hollywood. Movies that suck isn’t the problem but people finding out they suck early on is the problem. They will now long for the days when people had to endure it first to find out it was bad.
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Head over to TheMovieSpoiler.com. I just saved you eight bucks per. You’re welcome.
Once the price of admission rose over $6, my presumption switched from “might as well, if I don’t like, no big loss” to “convince me that this is really a good use of my time and money.” I think a lot of other people went this way, too, so much so that ticket sales slumped.
The genius response of the cinema industry? Shrink the screens and charge even more! That’s the ticket! Make the movie experience itself closer to the ever-expanding home theaters, except with noisy teenagers with backwards caps, sticky goo on the floor and seats, the smell of fake butter, and a hippy sneaking hits of his stinky marijuana pipe throughout! Oh, yeah! And delay the movies even longer, add more previews (a perfectly good term – why did everyone start calling them “trailers” ten years ago?) and, oh yes, ADVERTISEMENTS! That is what the cinema experience needed. And that does not even get into the stupid still ads that flash repeatedly on the screen before the moving ads: of course those are completely ineffective so all they are is temp service recruiting ads, public service announcements, and ads for beauty school correspondence courses.
The last time I went to a movie (Lord of the Rings, part 2, what was it called? The Twin Towers or something), I was “treated” to a bunch of anti-alcohol ads put out by some dubious group of bluenoses. We were given such “alarming” tidbits as:
“There are as many places to buy alcohol in San Francisco as there are drinking aged members of the population. That’s Messed Up!” [never mind that the number one industry is tourism, and the tremendous commuter population likes to quaff after a day of tiresome paper pushing]
“The price of alcohol is lower than the price of bottled water. That’s Messed Up!” [which is precisely why water was shunned in the Mediterranean, a region known for low alcoholism rates – potable water is difficult to come by, expensive to preserve, and has no health benefits beyond hydration]
I was so insensed by this balderdash that I remember it more than the movie, which was about elves and dwarves and other such silliness.
The long and short (mostly long, however, sorry) of it is that a movie better present a compelling case to me before I spend my time and money. This is a sad thing, because I am both a film buff and someone who loves the public sphere. I used to go to movies three times a week, minimum (as there were three screens at the local art house, and I did not miss a single film there from 1987 to 1990). I love going out to a good film, but mainstream films are so universally bad, and the attitude of the cinema companies so atrocious, that I get out maybe once a year.