11 ms·

I am shocked he has to put his own money into this movie. It must be really off the wall for a studio to not invest in that. Studios are generally willing to ra

by avl999 5y ago

I am shocked he has to put his own money into this movie. It must be really off the wall for a studio to not invest in that. Studios are generally willing to raise money for movies by big name directors even if they haven't had a hit recently (see how Terrence Malick keeps getting to make big expensive movies, most with a-list stars despite not having had a commercial or widespread critical hit since the late-90s).

AmVess 5y ago
Spielberg has said a few times that it is hard for him to raise money for projects. Other big names have said the same thing. Studios want superhero movies or reboots and nothing else.
- echelon 5y ago
  Superhero movies are the current optima in (audience appetite, profit, time to delivery, box office saturation / crowding out competition). It makes business sense, it just sucks for those trying to do something different, as it sucks the money out of the system. Opportunity cost favors capes. Hollywood is going to change dramatically over the next few decades as more projects move to post production rendering pipelines and the entire film process gets upended. Maybe this will provide much needed air to those seeking to do new and unusual things.
  - ipaddr 5y ago
    The international market is the main reason. These type of movies play well globally and are easily understood compared to dialogue heavy / complex story / local knowledge required stories.
    - cycomanic 5y ago
      I'd like to see some statistics for that. IIRC most of the big marvel/dc comic movies did significantly better in the US than outside. It sort of makes sense as well, those comic books were not as big for the generation that is 30+ now in those other countries. The too complex dialogue argument also doesn't really make sense considering that movies get translated in the biggest overseas markets.
      - jibe 5y ago
        Stats: https://www.boxofficepro.com/box-office-rewind-a-history-of-the-marvel-cinematic-universe-so-far/ https://www.boxofficepro.com/box-office-rewind-a-history-of-... Marvel films make most of their money internationally, the bigger the film, the bigger the foreign share. E.g. Infinity War $357.1 million domestically and $1.2 billion worldwide.
      - kevinmchugh 5y ago
        Comic books have little to do with it. Guardians of the Galaxy never sold many books, and only to pretty hardcore fans.
      - InitialLastName 5y ago
        > The too complex dialogue argument also doesn't really make sense considering that movies get translated in the biggest overseas markets. The argument is that it's much easier to get plot, jokes, and moderate character development across in translation (and more convincing to dub!) with a base script that uses simpler English.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    > as more projects move to post production rendering pipelines I don't understand - what are they currently doing if not rendering in post-production?
    - e4e78a06 5y ago
      Not so sure about post-production rendering, if anything movies are moving to real-time rendered CGI environments [1]. Unreal/Epic have been a big player in this space. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUnxzVOs3rk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUnxzVOs3rk
      - germinalphrase 5y ago
        It’s unclear to me why that transition would mean that writers/directors/storytellers would win. Lower costs make creative risks more viable?
        echelon 5y ago
        Eventually teenage kids will be making Star Wars at home. Or Star Wars meets Scarface. GPUs will surpass 2010's Pixar. This, coupled with real time motion capture and photogrammetry, will enable more creativity than ever before from more people than have ever been involved. A democratization that even Disney won't be able to counter. But to directly answer your question, the process of writing moves off the text editor and directly into the production fold. Changes can be made dynamically or even in post. We'll see tools for graphical story arcs, character development radar charts, backstories, and more as these things all morph into real time activities.
        germinalphrase 5y ago
        I believe it. That’s wonderful. Though I’m teaching now - in a previous life, I was a Local 600 2nd AC. The storytelling industry fascinates me, but I would love to see user generated, interactive fiction become prominent. All the better if talent can be the central stakeholder. Unreal/Epic got a shout out above. Can you point out anyone else who is working seriously in the space? That’s exciting.
  - MomoXenosaga 5y ago
    Movie theatres in the Netflix era need spectacular and bombastic films in order to draw a crowd. The kind of stuff that doesn't translate well on a 55 inch TV.
    - thirdsun 5y ago
      Dune is such a movie and yet Villeneuve basically had to beg and wait for the studio to greenlight Part II. This should have been shot back to back as it's simply an unfinished film in its current form.
      - approxim8ion 5y ago
        > had to beg and wait It was renewed within a month of release. This is a franchise where individual movies cost $150m+ to make. I can see why a studio wouldn't be willing to greenlight all of it at one go, especially given how the previous adaptation attempt at the same franchise was not received well.
- mhh__ 5y ago
  Superhero movies aren't even cheap, is the sad thing. Dune cost less than Black Widow to make, and that's a fairly wide-scope space opera with lots of practical effects making up large amounts of the movie.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - SyzygistSix 5y ago
    Or they were waiting for a hero with power to fix things. Superhero films have confused the ideas of what heroes and power are.
  - scarface74 5y ago
    Two thoughts. 1. If we know what a government can do when it’s not on “your side” whichever your side is, then why do most people on HN always want the “government to pass a law to do $x to private businesses” giving the government more power? 2. Exactly what does “being American mean”? I bet you dollars to donuts when you talk to your parents about the good old days, the story is different than talking to my parents who grew up in the segregated south.
    - JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
      For me being American means getting away from the culture that caused injustices in the South and moving towards a kinder future for everyone. And then the villain tried to take us back there. But democracy prevailed and for that I am hopeful. The point of my comment was that all we had were superhero movies talking about right and wrong but it was so silly and childish and on the surface that it didn't do the real work that great movies do of making people examine what is really good and what is evil.
      - scarface74 5y ago
        You mean the same culture where statistically to this day minorities get harsher sentences for the same crime than non minorities and that the “War on Drugs” became the “War on Black People” and when drugs started affecting rural America it became a “disease” that needs “treatment” and not “caused by moral failings” like it was in the “inner city”. Even the idea that the crack got harsher punishment than the same amount of cocaine is evidence that not much has changed. It’s not a Republican vs Democratic thing. The Clintons and Biden were big proponents of the “War on Crime” and it was disproportionately aimed at minorities. I have no idea why criminal justice reform didn’t gain more traction. The mainstream Republicans on the national level supported it as well as Democrats - even up to Trump before.
- ayngg 5y ago
  Streaming has hollowed out the non-blockbuster market, so studios need to quite literally go big or go home. Going big means the movie needs to have spectacle that brings people to the theater, which generally means huge cgi budgets that tv series could never replicate on a per frame basis. Superhero movies (and remakes) are exploiting preexisting social capital of franchises to be as successful as they are, otherwise it is really difficult to justify dropping hundreds of millions of dollars on producing and marketing a blockbuster spectacle nobody has ever heard of when marvel and other studios are dropping movies with familiar and popular IP constantly.
- BurningFrog 5y ago
  Studios want profit. When only superheroes or reboots are profitable, that's what they'll finance. Not sure if Netflix and the other streamers work differently.
  - rhino369 5y ago
    >Not sure if Netflix and the other streamers work differently. Right now they work differently. They are throwing around big money for the middle tier budget movie--not blockbusters and not small indies. But all it takes is for the data to suggest that its better to make 5 Red Notices than 10 middle budge adult movies and they'll just stop making them.
scop 5y ago
I recently watched The Godfather 1 and 2 for the first time as an adult and was floored by the two movies (really a single movie, broken into two parts). A complete tragedy executed to perfection. The full arc of the tragic downfall of a man, like something out of the Greek tragedies or Shakespeare. I then made the horrible mistake of watching Godfather 3, which basically seemed to have 90s romantic comedy vibe with Al Pacino not playing Michael Coreleone but simply playing Al Pacino. What then surprised me even more was that the film received pretty favorable reviews at the time. Wow how we can be blinded in the moment! I would very much hope that Mr. Coppola achieves something grand, especially in the current era of horrible movies, but color me skeptical based upon his later work. I could understand if executives are wary as well. On a side note, since you mentioned him, Mallick’s recent A Hidden Life is an absolute masterpiece. It may be my favorite movie (need time for it to sink in). But what a powerful depiction of conscience & struggle. One thing I often wonder about: who is the main character, the man or his wife? Whose Hidden Life is really the subject of the movie?
- bigmattystyles 5y ago
  People always say that about Godfather 3, I always wonder if it’s just a thing to say because he put his own daughter in a lead role. Like the critics, I liked it. Not nearly as much as II or I but still. It is a nineties movie though, it’s even different media wise, less grainy. Casting his own daughter when I think, Winona Ryder, dropped out was very nepotistic; and she’s a better director than actress. For me Garcia steals the show though, channeling Sonny and the ‘they pull me back in scene’ is amazing. I don’t know what my point is..
  - rg111 5y ago
    I also liked Godfather III, but not as much as I or II. I see the third part as a portrayal of changing of times. Gone are the days of past, the time has changed, and so has characters and the story.
    - pyuser583 5y ago
      It’s a good movie if you don’t hold it up to part I and II.
thr0wawayf00 5y ago
> It must be really off the wall for a studio to not invest in that. Not necessarily, it's gotten much harder to produce projects that aren't commercially marketable IP like Marvel. I listened to a Matt Damon interview recently and he basically wondered aloud if he could get a studio to make Good Will Hunting today, which made me sad to hear. Many of his early movies were low to mid-budget one-off dramas, which aren't really getting made anymore. If you can't license your film's characters for games/toys/food/whatever, your project is a lot harder to pitch to execs in 2022.
- Gunnerhead 5y ago
  > Matt Damon interview Would you happen to know where to find that interview?
  - agumonkey 5y ago
    potential mirror https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/ozlv98/matt_damon_explains_modern_movie_budgets_and_how/ https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/ozlv98/matt_damon_e... it seems it was in the 'hot ones' show
- paganel 5y ago
  The middle-ground movies like "Good Will Hunting" are, unfortunately, pretty much dead in the water right now, they have been since before the pandemic (I'd say since the early 2010s). Some directors and producers in France (because the same thing has been happening there, at another level) tried to do something about it by staging some protests around 2012-2013 if I'm not mistaken, this interview [1] (in French) from 2013 with Pascale Ferran, one of the main persons behind the movement, will add more details. Of course that nothing came out of the whole protest movement. There is some (I think) temporary help from streaming and especially from Netflix when it comes to this type of movies ("The Irishman" is just one example), but, again and imo, I think this is just temporary and that in the long term Netflix and its kin will also give up on this type of movies. And, of course, you could say (like Scorsese himself sort of did) that watching movies on a TV screen is not really "watching movies", and I'm with Scorsese on that. [1] https://www.afcinema.com/Pascale-Ferran-Je-m-inquiete-pour-les-films-du-milieu.html?lang=fr https://www.afcinema.com/Pascale-Ferran-Je-m-inquiete-pour-l...
simplicio 5y ago
Coppola's 82, so aside from the usual troubles directors have getting projects, you gotta figure studios are also gonna be kind of nervous funding a guy with a non-trivial chance of dying or being otherwise incapacitated during the course of making the film, leaving them with a half finished project.
goto11 5y ago
Coppola is a big name but in no way a safe bet. His output is inconsistent and his biggest hits are 40 years ago. And based on the interview, it seems he has a hard time explaining what the movie is even about, which is no-go for Hollywood. If you cant pitch a movie in a sentence you can't market it.
slg 5y ago
What are the big expensive movies that Terrence Malick is making? His budgets have consistently shrunk over the years and his last film didn't even cost $10m. Coppola could easily get that. He just can't get $120m without giving up some creative control and he doesn't want to do that.
justin66 5y ago
> I am shocked he has to put his own money into this movie. It must be really off the wall for a studio to not invest in that. Coppola had to mortgage everything to do Apocalypse Now, and that was following the very successful Godfather II. This is probably why he's so confident about making a big bet on himself again while doing an "off the wall" film. It worked out well previously. (Megalopolis honestly sounds like a much lower risk thing than sending late seventies Dennis Hopper and Marlon Brando into the jungle...)
- achairapart 5y ago
  This. There is a great documentary about the troubled production of Apocalypse Now: Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse[0] After watching this, that 100M bet will look like a trifle. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearts_of_Darkness:_A_Filmmaker%27s_Apocalypse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearts_of_Darkness:_A_Filmmake...
alexilliamson 5y ago
OT but Tree of Life was definitely a critical hit in 2010.
squintychino 5y ago
I've noticed that for the past decade or so, Hollywood has really only been interested in doing either sequels or remakes. Ever since streaming and, more recently, the pandemic, has affected box office numbers, they seem to be playing it very safe in terms of getting a decent ROI. One of the last few directors that makes original films (Christopher Nolan) has only had success, I believe, because he's made recent hits. Studios are more willing to take a chance on him. Francis, on the other hand, hasn't had a successful hit since the 1970's. While no one doubts his greatness, one could argue he has peaked and his name doesn't carry the cache that directors like Steven Spielberg or Quentin Tarantino have.
caycep 5y ago
Maybe something to do with creative control/strings attached/freedom from studio accounting practices?
billydenim 5y ago
Malick isn't the best example here. Tree of Life was made for around $30 mil and his most recent, A Hidden Life was made for in the vicinity of $8 mil. In the context of our current blockbuster climate where the latest Bond movie costs upwards of $300 mil to make, I wouldn't call Malick's films "big expensive movies," and I certainly wouldn't compare it to Coppola's $120 mil+ price tag. Hollywood has shown that it will only give that kind of money to films that fit a strict, suffocatingly rigorous formula (i.e. existing IP, car chases, explosions, world-saving heroes, etc). It most certainly will not fund a project to the tune of seven figures based on an original idea that has been described as “a love story that is also a philosophical investigation of the nature of man.” If you don't have a remake or reboot of an existing IP, you're not getting funded, period. Also Malick is a consistent awards contender in years where he releases a movie. Tree of Life is one of the most critically acclaimed films this century and studios like to invest in critical prestige when they can, given a reasonable budget. His movies also generally make their money back. This is also why networks will let TV shows like Crazy Ex Girlfriend and The Americans go on towards a natural conclusion, instead of canceling immediately, even if viewership is low. Coppola simply does not have that reputation anymore. In fact, I think he lost it all the way back in the early 80s. After Apocalypse Now, he failed to make a movie that captured unanimous critical favor like his string of hits in the 70s. Four of his last five movies have been largely panned. His 1996 flop, "Jack," is one of the worst movies I've ever seen and a lot of other critics agreed. A movie like that typically ends careers. He does not have the cachet to warrant an investment of $120 mill on an idea that appears at first glance to have dubious mainstream popular appeal. With that said, I would certainly see it.

by avl999 5y ago

AmVess 5y ago

Spielberg has said a few times that it is hard for him to raise money for projects. Other big names have said the same thing. Studios want superhero movies or reboots and nothing else.

echelon 5y ago
Superhero movies are the current optima in (audience appetite, profit, time to delivery, box office saturation / crowding out competition). It makes business sense, it just sucks for those trying to do something different, as it sucks the money out of the system. Opportunity cost favors capes. Hollywood is going to change dramatically over the next few decades as more projects move to post production rendering pipelines and the entire film process gets upended. Maybe this will provide much needed air to those seeking to do new and unusual things.
- ipaddr 5y ago
  The international market is the main reason. These type of movies play well globally and are easily understood compared to dialogue heavy / complex story / local knowledge required stories.
  - cycomanic 5y ago
    I'd like to see some statistics for that. IIRC most of the big marvel/dc comic movies did significantly better in the US than outside. It sort of makes sense as well, those comic books were not as big for the generation that is 30+ now in those other countries. The too complex dialogue argument also doesn't really make sense considering that movies get translated in the biggest overseas markets.
    - jibe 5y ago
      Stats: https://www.boxofficepro.com/box-office-rewind-a-history-of-the-marvel-cinematic-universe-so-far/ https://www.boxofficepro.com/box-office-rewind-a-history-of-... Marvel films make most of their money internationally, the bigger the film, the bigger the foreign share. E.g. Infinity War $357.1 million domestically and $1.2 billion worldwide.
    - kevinmchugh 5y ago
      Comic books have little to do with it. Guardians of the Galaxy never sold many books, and only to pretty hardcore fans.
    - InitialLastName 5y ago
      > The too complex dialogue argument also doesn't really make sense considering that movies get translated in the biggest overseas markets. The argument is that it's much easier to get plot, jokes, and moderate character development across in translation (and more convincing to dub!) with a base script that uses simpler English.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  > as more projects move to post production rendering pipelines I don't understand - what are they currently doing if not rendering in post-production?
  - e4e78a06 5y ago
    Not so sure about post-production rendering, if anything movies are moving to real-time rendered CGI environments [1]. Unreal/Epic have been a big player in this space. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUnxzVOs3rk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUnxzVOs3rk
    - germinalphrase 5y ago
      It’s unclear to me why that transition would mean that writers/directors/storytellers would win. Lower costs make creative risks more viable?
      - echelon 5y ago
        Eventually teenage kids will be making Star Wars at home. Or Star Wars meets Scarface. GPUs will surpass 2010's Pixar. This, coupled with real time motion capture and photogrammetry, will enable more creativity than ever before from more people than have ever been involved. A democratization that even Disney won't be able to counter. But to directly answer your question, the process of writing moves off the text editor and directly into the production fold. Changes can be made dynamically or even in post. We'll see tools for graphical story arcs, character development radar charts, backstories, and more as these things all morph into real time activities.
        germinalphrase 5y ago
        I believe it. That’s wonderful. Though I’m teaching now - in a previous life, I was a Local 600 2nd AC. The storytelling industry fascinates me, but I would love to see user generated, interactive fiction become prominent. All the better if talent can be the central stakeholder. Unreal/Epic got a shout out above. Can you point out anyone else who is working seriously in the space? That’s exciting.
- MomoXenosaga 5y ago
  Movie theatres in the Netflix era need spectacular and bombastic films in order to draw a crowd. The kind of stuff that doesn't translate well on a 55 inch TV.
  - thirdsun 5y ago
    Dune is such a movie and yet Villeneuve basically had to beg and wait for the studio to greenlight Part II. This should have been shot back to back as it's simply an unfinished film in its current form.
    - approxim8ion 5y ago
      > had to beg and wait It was renewed within a month of release. This is a franchise where individual movies cost $150m+ to make. I can see why a studio wouldn't be willing to greenlight all of it at one go, especially given how the previous adaptation attempt at the same franchise was not received well.
mhh__ 5y ago
Superhero movies aren't even cheap, is the sad thing. Dune cost less than Black Widow to make, and that's a fairly wide-scope space opera with lots of practical effects making up large amounts of the movie.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- SyzygistSix 5y ago
  Or they were waiting for a hero with power to fix things. Superhero films have confused the ideas of what heroes and power are.
- scarface74 5y ago
  Two thoughts. 1. If we know what a government can do when it’s not on “your side” whichever your side is, then why do most people on HN always want the “government to pass a law to do $x to private businesses” giving the government more power? 2. Exactly what does “being American mean”? I bet you dollars to donuts when you talk to your parents about the good old days, the story is different than talking to my parents who grew up in the segregated south.
  - JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
    For me being American means getting away from the culture that caused injustices in the South and moving towards a kinder future for everyone. And then the villain tried to take us back there. But democracy prevailed and for that I am hopeful. The point of my comment was that all we had were superhero movies talking about right and wrong but it was so silly and childish and on the surface that it didn't do the real work that great movies do of making people examine what is really good and what is evil.
    - scarface74 5y ago
      You mean the same culture where statistically to this day minorities get harsher sentences for the same crime than non minorities and that the “War on Drugs” became the “War on Black People” and when drugs started affecting rural America it became a “disease” that needs “treatment” and not “caused by moral failings” like it was in the “inner city”. Even the idea that the crack got harsher punishment than the same amount of cocaine is evidence that not much has changed. It’s not a Republican vs Democratic thing. The Clintons and Biden were big proponents of the “War on Crime” and it was disproportionately aimed at minorities. I have no idea why criminal justice reform didn’t gain more traction. The mainstream Republicans on the national level supported it as well as Democrats - even up to Trump before.
ayngg 5y ago
Streaming has hollowed out the non-blockbuster market, so studios need to quite literally go big or go home. Going big means the movie needs to have spectacle that brings people to the theater, which generally means huge cgi budgets that tv series could never replicate on a per frame basis. Superhero movies (and remakes) are exploiting preexisting social capital of franchises to be as successful as they are, otherwise it is really difficult to justify dropping hundreds of millions of dollars on producing and marketing a blockbuster spectacle nobody has ever heard of when marvel and other studios are dropping movies with familiar and popular IP constantly.
BurningFrog 5y ago
Studios want profit. When only superheroes or reboots are profitable, that's what they'll finance. Not sure if Netflix and the other streamers work differently.
- rhino369 5y ago
  >Not sure if Netflix and the other streamers work differently. Right now they work differently. They are throwing around big money for the middle tier budget movie--not blockbusters and not small indies. But all it takes is for the data to suggest that its better to make 5 Red Notices than 10 middle budge adult movies and they'll just stop making them.

scop 5y ago

I recently watched The Godfather 1 and 2 for the first time as an adult and was floored by the two movies (really a single movie, broken into two parts). A complete tragedy executed to perfection. The full arc of the tragic downfall of a man, like something out of the Greek tragedies or Shakespeare. I then made the horrible mistake of watching Godfather 3, which basically seemed to have 90s romantic comedy vibe with Al Pacino not playing Michael Coreleone but simply playing Al Pacino. What then surprised me even more was that the film received pretty favorable reviews at the time. Wow how we can be blinded in the moment! I would very much hope that Mr. Coppola achieves something grand, especially in the current era of horrible movies, but color me skeptical based upon his later work. I could understand if executives are wary as well. On a side note, since you mentioned him, Mallick’s recent A Hidden Life is an absolute masterpiece. It may be my favorite movie (need time for it to sink in). But what a powerful depiction of conscience & struggle. One thing I often wonder about: who is the main character, the man or his wife? Whose Hidden Life is really the subject of the movie?

bigmattystyles 5y ago
People always say that about Godfather 3, I always wonder if it’s just a thing to say because he put his own daughter in a lead role. Like the critics, I liked it. Not nearly as much as II or I but still. It is a nineties movie though, it’s even different media wise, less grainy. Casting his own daughter when I think, Winona Ryder, dropped out was very nepotistic; and she’s a better director than actress. For me Garcia steals the show though, channeling Sonny and the ‘they pull me back in scene’ is amazing. I don’t know what my point is..
- rg111 5y ago
  I also liked Godfather III, but not as much as I or II. I see the third part as a portrayal of changing of times. Gone are the days of past, the time has changed, and so has characters and the story.
  - pyuser583 5y ago
    It’s a good movie if you don’t hold it up to part I and II.

thr0wawayf00 5y ago

> It must be really off the wall for a studio to not invest in that. Not necessarily, it's gotten much harder to produce projects that aren't commercially marketable IP like Marvel. I listened to a Matt Damon interview recently and he basically wondered aloud if he could get a studio to make Good Will Hunting today, which made me sad to hear. Many of his early movies were low to mid-budget one-off dramas, which aren't really getting made anymore. If you can't license your film's characters for games/toys/food/whatever, your project is a lot harder to pitch to execs in 2022.

Gunnerhead 5y ago
> Matt Damon interview Would you happen to know where to find that interview?
- agumonkey 5y ago
  potential mirror https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/ozlv98/matt_damon_explains_modern_movie_budgets_and_how/ https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/ozlv98/matt_damon_e... it seems it was in the 'hot ones' show
paganel 5y ago
The middle-ground movies like "Good Will Hunting" are, unfortunately, pretty much dead in the water right now, they have been since before the pandemic (I'd say since the early 2010s). Some directors and producers in France (because the same thing has been happening there, at another level) tried to do something about it by staging some protests around 2012-2013 if I'm not mistaken, this interview [1] (in French) from 2013 with Pascale Ferran, one of the main persons behind the movement, will add more details. Of course that nothing came out of the whole protest movement. There is some (I think) temporary help from streaming and especially from Netflix when it comes to this type of movies ("The Irishman" is just one example), but, again and imo, I think this is just temporary and that in the long term Netflix and its kin will also give up on this type of movies. And, of course, you could say (like Scorsese himself sort of did) that watching movies on a TV screen is not really "watching movies", and I'm with Scorsese on that. [1] https://www.afcinema.com/Pascale-Ferran-Je-m-inquiete-pour-les-films-du-milieu.html?lang=fr https://www.afcinema.com/Pascale-Ferran-Je-m-inquiete-pour-l...

simplicio 5y ago

Coppola's 82, so aside from the usual troubles directors have getting projects, you gotta figure studios are also gonna be kind of nervous funding a guy with a non-trivial chance of dying or being otherwise incapacitated during the course of making the film, leaving them with a half finished project.

goto11 5y ago

Coppola is a big name but in no way a safe bet. His output is inconsistent and his biggest hits are 40 years ago. And based on the interview, it seems he has a hard time explaining what the movie is even about, which is no-go for Hollywood. If you cant pitch a movie in a sentence you can't market it.

slg 5y ago

What are the big expensive movies that Terrence Malick is making? His budgets have consistently shrunk over the years and his last film didn't even cost $10m. Coppola could easily get that. He just can't get $120m without giving up some creative control and he doesn't want to do that.

justin66 5y ago

> I am shocked he has to put his own money into this movie. It must be really off the wall for a studio to not invest in that. Coppola had to mortgage everything to do Apocalypse Now, and that was following the very successful Godfather II. This is probably why he's so confident about making a big bet on himself again while doing an "off the wall" film. It worked out well previously. (Megalopolis honestly sounds like a much lower risk thing than sending late seventies Dennis Hopper and Marlon Brando into the jungle...)

achairapart 5y ago
This. There is a great documentary about the troubled production of Apocalypse Now: Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse[0] After watching this, that 100M bet will look like a trifle. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearts_of_Darkness:_A_Filmmaker%27s_Apocalypse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearts_of_Darkness:_A_Filmmake...

alexilliamson 5y ago

OT but Tree of Life was definitely a critical hit in 2010.

squintychino 5y ago

I've noticed that for the past decade or so, Hollywood has really only been interested in doing either sequels or remakes. Ever since streaming and, more recently, the pandemic, has affected box office numbers, they seem to be playing it very safe in terms of getting a decent ROI. One of the last few directors that makes original films (Christopher Nolan) has only had success, I believe, because he's made recent hits. Studios are more willing to take a chance on him. Francis, on the other hand, hasn't had a successful hit since the 1970's. While no one doubts his greatness, one could argue he has peaked and his name doesn't carry the cache that directors like Steven Spielberg or Quentin Tarantino have.

caycep 5y ago

Maybe something to do with creative control/strings attached/freedom from studio accounting practices?

billydenim 5y ago

Malick isn't the best example here. Tree of Life was made for around $30 mil and his most recent, A Hidden Life was made for in the vicinity of $8 mil. In the context of our current blockbuster climate where the latest Bond movie costs upwards of $300 mil to make, I wouldn't call Malick's films "big expensive movies," and I certainly wouldn't compare it to Coppola's $120 mil+ price tag. Hollywood has shown that it will only give that kind of money to films that fit a strict, suffocatingly rigorous formula (i.e. existing IP, car chases, explosions, world-saving heroes, etc). It most certainly will not fund a project to the tune of seven figures based on an original idea that has been described as “a love story that is also a philosophical investigation of the nature of man.” If you don't have a remake or reboot of an existing IP, you're not getting funded, period. Also Malick is a consistent awards contender in years where he releases a movie. Tree of Life is one of the most critically acclaimed films this century and studios like to invest in critical prestige when they can, given a reasonable budget. His movies also generally make their money back. This is also why networks will let TV shows like Crazy Ex Girlfriend and The Americans go on towards a natural conclusion, instead of canceling immediately, even if viewership is low. Coppola simply does not have that reputation anymore. In fact, I think he lost it all the way back in the early 80s. After Apocalypse Now, he failed to make a movie that captured unanimous critical favor like his string of hits in the 70s. Four of his last five movies have been largely panned. His 1996 flop, "Jack," is one of the worst movies I've ever seen and a lot of other critics agreed. A movie like that typically ends careers. He does not have the cachet to warrant an investment of $120 mill on an idea that appears at first glance to have dubious mainstream popular appeal. With that said, I would certainly see it.