Moviegoers Dealt Originality a Setback in 2024
- Reference: 0175823813
- News link: https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/01/03/1859209/moviegoers-dealt-originality-a-setback-in-2024
- Source link:
[2]non-paywalled link
. And the 10th was "Wicked." From a report:> A year ago, Hollywood's creative community was celebrating the apparent decline of corporate, paint-by-numbers sequels and remakes. Blockbuster ticket sales for movies like "Oppenheimer," "Sound of Freedom" and "Barbie" had shown -- or so it seemed -- that audiences were finally hungry for fresh stories.
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> You could almost hear the relief emanating from franchise-fatigued writers, directors and producers. "Everything Everywhere All at Once," the wildly inventive Oscar-winning art film that broke out in cinemas in 2022, had not been a fluke! Alas. Mass moviegoing swung squarely back to the predictable this past year, with sequels filling nine of the top 10 slots at the North American box office. The ennead consisted of "Inside Out 2," "Despicable Me 4," "Deadpool & Wolverine," "Moana 2," "Dune: Part Two," "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice," "Kung Fu Panda 4," "Twisters" and the 38th Godzilla movie, "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire."
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> "Wicked," a song-by-song adaptation of the first half of the long-running Broadway musical, was the only top-10 outlier, counting as original, if only by a witchy whisker. (In the alternative reality of Hollywood, a movie can be "original" even if it is derivative of something else. What matters is whether the source material has previously been used for a stand-alone theatrical movie.)
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/31/business/top-movies-wicked-moana.html
[2] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/hollywood-s-sequel-led-comeback-projected-to-extend-into-2025/ar-AA1wTWa6?
Slashdot readers dealt originality blow with dupes (Score:4, Funny)
Posted less than a week ago:
[1]https://entertainment.slashdot... [slashdot.org]
[1] https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/24/12/30/000205/2024s-ten-top-grossing-films-were-all-sequels-or-prequels
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Sings: "They're defying rational-ity!"
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I need at least two dupes before I take the story seriously. Or one dupe from the same editor as the original.
When was the last time Hollywood made an original? (Score:1, Troll)
When was the last time Hollywood made a genuinely original movie? Not one set in an existing universe or one based on a book, play, TV show, video game, historical event etc?
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Pretty sure Everything Everywhere All at Once is unique and not based on any specific thing.
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It was based upon a plot already used in a different plane of reality, it was a big hit and titled Everything Everywhere Occasionally.
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The Homestead came out on December 20th. It's not based on any of the things you named. It has mediocre ratings and isn't particularly good, but it is original.
Now move those goalposts. You know you want to.
Re: When was the last time Hollywood made an origi (Score:2)
I don't think it really matters. Hollywood is, more than ever, a monoculture. If you want go anywhere there, you need, in order of importance:
1) The same politics (including being willing to publicly disown close friends and relatives who don't share them on your social media)
2) Who you know
3) The same shitty taste in everything
4) A brown nose, including being willing to perform sexual favors to get work (see Weinstein et al)
5) Talent
Hollywood is what an industry without meritocracy and full of narcissism a
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> When was the last time Hollywood made a genuinely original movie? Not one set in an existing universe or one based on a book, play, TV show, video game, historical event etc?
People were raving about Juror #2. Heretic I hear good things about though I swear there is a movie out fairly recently that had the same premise but with male missionaries not female. Werewolves aren't new to movies but this isn't based on anything other than a concept. Kiwi film Y2K looks amusing to me. Elevation, Subserviance, There are original movies all over the place. Some of them are trash. Some are excellent. But they're there. And just because it's not original doesn't mean it isn't different and
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Or based on an existing concept, not an homage or thematic repeat? Something the Simpson's didn't do first? Ie, was Star Wars "original" in that sense? Probably not. Jaws? it was based on a book. Matrix? It rehashed Dark City (well, probably accidentally as both overlapped in production).
Nothing is original if you dig deep enough. But there are things that appear to be original, and that's good enough for most. What we have in 2024 though is blatant unoriginality. Sequelitis. A cowardly Hollywood.
lmao (Score:2, Interesting)
The "creative community" wasn't celebrating shit. People who work in entertainment just want to be employed. They'd rather be an electrician or a hair and makeup artist on a show that runs for 9 seasons with low ratings than a critically acclaimed show that runs for 1 season.
People who enjoy movies as art were modestly hopeful that we were going to start getting good movies again. But the economic forces that compel big movies (big-budget, generic movies reliably make money, largely because they have worldw
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> "Snow White" will probably be the biggest bomb in cinematic history.
The lead character is a bit too "ethnic" for you?
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You realise both the lead characters are non-white, right? One is an indigenous tribeswoman at that, and nobody has a problem with her.
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> The lead character is a bit too "ethnic" for you?
We have a character that is known for having fair skin, "as white as snow", and this trait being a very important point to the plot. This is an adaptation of a German folk tale, so I'd expect the characters to appear as Germans do. If there's some "ethnic" side characters then that's likely fine, just have some plausible reason as to why and how this character landed in Germany at the time the story is placed. This would be no different than watching an adaptation of The King and I and expecting Anna to
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There's good reason to believe that an accurate adaptation of The King and I would not have Anna as a [1]"stereotypical Brit" [wikipedia.org] because there's a strong possibility that she was of Anglo-Indian decent, as her maternal grandmother was probably born in what's now India, as were her ancestors.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Leonowens#Early_life_and_family
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> This is an adaptation of a German folk tale, so I'd expect the characters to appear as Germans do.
Oddly enough, the national origin of the characters has never once figured into my understanding of the story. Never once have I thought "Oh, these are Germans, no wonder..." Care to take another stab at why it should matter?
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I don't care about a non-white Snow White. I'm just sad of the Disney trend towards live action versions of it's famous animated movies. Boooring.
The non-white Snow White is just a middle finger to the anti-woke crowd. And I can applaud middle fingers. Whereas a non-white mermaid is just fine, why not?
After all, Disney did Frozen - they have exceeded their quota for easily sunburned nordics by leaps and bounds there, they now get a chance to branch out.
At least they're not trying the all white version o
The supply did this, not the consumers (Score:2)
Movie theaters have a contract to show a given film X times over a certain date range.
Much like paying for shelf space in a bookstore or grocery store, it limits the number of different movies shown at theaters.
Good movies take time (Score:3)
I can only dream that they are just taking longer to get the original stuff produced and this year is leftover filler.
I would settle for just better quality sequels.
I've been watching mostly movies with my kids lately and less PG-13 and up simply because there wasn't much out that I wanted to see.
The Wild Robot is probably the standout original for animated. And IF was at least not garbage-tier. But apparently they don't make as much money.
The Sonic movies are entertaining and mass market but only OK. Netflix has Sonic Prime and that show is amazing standalone. I don't think I've ever seen TV that good get a TV-Y7. That said, I haven't watched through the Avatar series yet. But sequels and IP derivatives can be good - it's the effort and risk-taking that matter.
NYTines will always find a way to punch down (Score:3)
Why is this moviegoers' faults? Maybe the problem isn't that people don't want to try movies that aren't sequels or reboots, maybe the problem is that a lot of major budgeted movies just aren't very good.
Maybe the representations of the world projected by elites onto film are no longer relevant to the common person. Hollywood found a writing formula and felt content to stick to it disregarding the intelligence of their audience. The public is presented as a parody of itself in series like the Joker.
NY Times advertisers (Score:2)
How does anyone even believe that the NY Times would post less than positive reviews of the packaged product of its movie studio advertisers?
Same thing as streamers and reviewers which get early access. Post a bad review, complain, etc. and no more early access, no more content to review to keep your job or income stream.
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> Why is this moviegoers' faults? Maybe the problem isn't that people don't want to try movies that aren't sequels or reboots, maybe the problem is that a lot of major budgeted movies just aren't very good.
It's the moviegoers fault that the top 10 are sequels. There were over 800 movies officially released in 2024 in America. It seems less than 2% of them are sequels, so very much the fault of the people who wanted to watch sequels, alternatives were clearly available.
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A lot of the Studio Ghibli movies are on Max right now. I'm thinking about a 1-2 month subscription. If you watch dubbed, a lot of them are high quality Disney dubs.
Agree (Score:2)
Terror from Tiny Town
American burnout over recent events? (Score:1)
If true. We will either see a return to originality as society progresses or we will miss the mark and suffer another generation of unoriginality as people reach for something familiar and comforting to cope with reality. I posit that populism is the result of enough people being pushed past their limits by things that shall not be mentioned for fear of sectarians. In response, people either revolt or turn inward to coping mechanisms. Think of watching a familiar comedy, a movie with a happy ending, as a c
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Wow that is some TDS right there..
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It sounds like you've bought into media portrayals of populism as a bad thing (often by tying it to Trump). Populism is not a bad thing.
No (Score:3)
It's not the public's fault studios have become so risk adverse that the vast majority of everything they make is a sequel or format shift. If the only good movies being released are sequels of course that's all anyone will watch.
Never mind that there are decades worth of data to show the public will go to non-sequel, originally written for the big screen movies when given good options
Hey, Iain Bank's estate, is timing right now???? (Score:3)
The estate nixed a planned book to TV series adaptation back in 2020 simply saying "timing isn't right". Now the timing never looked better with the ASI in the Culture Series now looking on the horizon in reality; with today's AI. Hell we have have ASI before the adaptation gets on screen! [1]https://www.theguardian.com/bo... [theguardian.com]
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/aug/26/amazon-tv-adaptation-of-iain-banks-culture-series-is-cancelled
HOLLYWOOD dealt originality a setback (Score:3)
Most movies that have claimed the world's highest grossing of all time spot were originals, in fact the only one that wasn't was an Avengers movie and Avatar retook that spot by doing a minor theatrical re-release the next year. People are good with originality, Hollywood is the one that refuses to do anything but release sequels.
and (Score:4, Informative)
also down about %4 vs 2023, and still way off 2018 levels; in terms of total box office receipts.
So even with some big budget nostalgia bets, they could not maintain positive trend.
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The movie going experience sucks for me. I hate missing a portion because I have to piss, etc. I have a 100" TV I bought at Costco for $1300. I have 9.1 all klipsch for a steal I found a coupon during their sales, and my couches have massaging seats, because I splurged a bit. Such a better experience for me and my family. The movie theatre experience is no longer unattainable for a homeowner anymore, the components have come down, relative to the cost of the home to put it in. $6k and you can build a pretty
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There's the advantage of seeing the movie with friends and partners. But who am I kidding, this is slashdot...