5 ms·
Eventually the money men become so risk-averse that they give up on originality entirely. Hence the endless stream of remakes, adaptations and formulaic additio
by TazeTSchnitzel 3y ago
Eventually the money men become so risk-averse that they give up on originality entirely. Hence the endless stream of remakes, adaptations and formulaic additions to existing series.
- kristopolous 3y agoReminds me of a movie from the 1960s, The Fabulous Baron Munchausen, I was watching recently. I couldn't help but notice how the wild artistic risks taken in the movie would likely never happen today unless the artists paid out of pocket for both the production and distribution https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Na1h7ozW9VQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Na1h7ozW9VQ Putting money behind stuff like this is dead.
- toyg 3y agoActually Munchausen was remade by Terry Gilliam in 1988. The same Gilliam in 2009 made The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, which was also pretty wild. > the wild artistic risks taken in the movie would likely never happen today Tim Burton or Christopher Nolan would disagree. And there are plenty of brave films out there, just not necessarily from big Hollywood studios.
- kristopolous 3y agoYou really see the two versions comparable in execution? Here it is in full if you'd like to compare https://archive.org/details/the-fabulous-baron-munchausen https://archive.org/details/the-fabulous-baron-munchausen
- jwestbury 3y agoNot really a remake, though -- both were based on the 18th century German book.
- _trampeltier 3y agoAlso Monty Python. I think it never would be possible today to release such movies to theaters.
- ctippett 3y agoFunny that you mention Monty Python, they almost had to cancel the production of The Life of Brian since their original financier was apprehensive about the the film's content making fun of religion. George Harrison of Beatles fame ended up funding the movie, I believe almost entirely out of his own pocket. This was back in the 70s.
- blarg1 3y agoRecently they were doing a Life of Brian play, where they wanted to cut out a certain scene.
- dspillett 3y agoThere was no one suggesting that the scene but cut, it was a clickbait-like appeal to the reactionary press to get some extra awareness of the project out there. And it worked. It wasn't “someone has suggested/demanded it be removed, and we have refused” but “if someone did suggest/demand it we wouldn't”.
- pjc50 3y agoThe Beatles funded some very weird stuff. Ringo Starr in The Magic Christian is probably the best example, an extremely on-the-nose set of satirical sketches.
- angus-prune 3y agoThe same was true for the holy grail too. Other financiers included (iirc) led zeppelin and other British rock greats. The top marginal rate of income tax was ~90% and this heavily encouraged investments like this. It meant that there was more space for creative risk taking as well as more commercial/industrial capital investment.
- flyinghamster 3y agoMonty Python was only ever possible with something like the BBC. There's no way a commercial network would have taken a risk with it, and even more so in the USA. Its popularity in the States began underground, with PBS affiliates getting the ball rolling in the 1970s. There's no way that major networks would have run the show, even in a late-night slot. Back then, the short late-night voiceover, "Portions of the following program may be unsuitable for younger or more sensitive viewers," was the hallmark of Quality TV.
- slg 3y agoIt is always the businesspeople at fault for it. Creatives don't naturally want to create bland and uninteresting work any more than software developers want to naturally build CRUD apps for ad-tech companies. The employees go where the businesspeople and their money lead because working class folks need to make a living and most Hollywood creatives are working class.
- thworp 3y agoHah! They might be low-paid and on a salary, but they snub their noses at the "working class" and share none of their values or beliefs.
- cafard 3y agoHN is definitely where I go to get a finger on the pulse of the working class.
- shoubidouwah 3y agoAdd a /s so nobody's confused. That's inclusivity!
- JimtheCoder 3y agoWell, most of HN probably does interact with the working class often, seeing as everyone here loves public transit...
- Timon3 3y agoHow many of them have you talked to or worked with? The ones I know don't "snub their noses at the 'working class' and share none of their value of beliefs". But I have a feeling that you're not looking at the whole working class, only a subset.
- suoduandao2 3y agoAnyone who complains about “toxic fandom”, particularly for a franchise they inherited (which includes all of marvel and Lucas film) is thumbing their nose, you can call it what you like but the behaviour is evident. It used to be, when an adaptation was bad, writers and execs would blame each other and audiences would sorta side with writers. Then game of thrones proved it was possible to make an adaptation that was both faithful and good cinema, so now writers and execs blame audiences when they fall short.
- throwawaysleep 3y agoThey print money though. That is what the customer has demonstrated they want.
- Grum9 3y ago[dead]
- uoaei 3y agoVery often the money printing is more a function of how many eyeballs you can get your product in front of, and reducing friction of consumption to a minimum, rather than their real preferences in a flat hierarchy of all the options out there. "Market logic" is very easy to misunderstand. For instance, do people in food deserts really want cheez-its and ice cream for dinner? Or do they just not have sufficient access to healthy options that they prefer?
- rob74 3y agoYeah, over the last years (at least according to my impression) 90% of movies have been either remakes, sequels or comic/video game adaptations...
- detourdog 3y agoI'm stuck watching old black and white movies. I find it easier to escape into a forgotten past full of previous cultural symbols.
- HillRat 3y agoStudios are essentially big piles of cash to fund movies; rights to scripts, stories and IPs to make movies; and contracts to distribute movies (and, since everything old is new again, they now also own streaming services rather than movie theaters). So it makes economic sense to lock down as much IP as possible that can then be used to generate an endless torrent of remakes, sequels, adaptations, secondary media, adaptations of secondary media, remakes of adaptations of secondary media, and so on; much more cost-effective than hunting for new screenplays in the slush pile, and much more comforting to the investors to see the next two years of movies on a PowerPoint slide at the shareholder meeting, even if you have no idea what those movies are beyond a title and some executive producer's vague plan.
- juujian 3y agoThe only thing that baffles me about that is that there are so many people who want to watch that.
- dspillett 3y agoSometimes it is as much because there isn't something better so people default. And there often isn't much better because it is more financially rewarding to get a “not bad” reaction from a large audience than it is to produce something that only appeals to a smaller one. Sometimes people actively want something that allows them to, even requires them to, shut off parts of their brain.