Weekend Thread (12/10-12) | WSS 800K Previews

[CoolioD1]

4 minutes ago, Cappoedameron said:

Maybe this will get people to stop casting Ansel Elgort in crap. He was easily the worst part of West Side Story.

i thought he was really good. a better tony than they had in the original. even his singing was good which surprised me because i still remember when he tried to be a popstar and how much that fucking sucked.

Edited December 12, 2021 by CoolioD1

[ThomasNicole]

27 minutes ago, Eric Feels Pretty said:

You hit the nail on the head right there. People love to complain about the studios and streamers for not marketing films or not putting their muscle behind it. I get why, since it's easy to point fingers at the corporate conglomerate for being everything wrong with the world (and they are in all other respects, let's be clear here. Never forget that capitalism will kill us faster than the virus will)

 

But the fact of the matter is that audiences today are the least demanding they've ever been. They actively repel against artistically-minded pieces. Films that aren't designed to sell toys to children or tickle their nostalgia. The idea of something new and bold or from an exciting director is just too much for them. Even on Netflix the biggest films are stuff like Extraction and Red Notice. The idea of a movie being more than a commercial for toy lines or other movies, or anything more than a mildly amusing attraction is just too much for a good chunk of folks. People love to act like Film Twitter is just a bunch of stuffy hipster fuddy duddys who hate all movies, but the fact is they are far more overshadowed by people who do Ant-Man fancams and bring up Harley Quinn or whoever in every conversation. That's Film Twitter.

 

And even when more original titles or non-franchise fare does well and gets a big ad campaign behind it from the studio, it's still not enough. Even movies that do hit and reach the cultural conversation still pale in comparison and gross way less than they would have even a few years ago. If Yesterday or Ford v Ferrari came out in 2006, they would have grossed significantly more than in 2019. Sure there's the occasional 1917, but those are merely exceptions to the rule than anything else.

 

I know we all like to think that there's a clear appetite and that audiences don't want to stick to the same old franchise glut, but it's not the case, and all we can really do is hope that people wake up and realize there's more than just cheap thrills when it comes to film.

Sadly i lowkey agreed with parts of your argument.

 

Every time this discussion happens someone brings examples of original movies that did well but they're all way lower than they should. Few years ago it was normal for franchises and original movies appear together at the top 10 biggest movies of the year, not anymore.

 

Even movie like Knives Out which like i said have a brilliant marketing campaign and an insane good WOM doesn't reach 400M.

 

Nobody have the answer for why this is happening, probably the real answer is a mix of everyone arguments, but the important is that it's happening and i do believe this should be discussed more. 

 

I have nothing against blockbusters, i actually love to watch a good massive movie, but this shouldn't be the only thing to get made, especially because the industry needs another franchjses, Marvel etc won't be this huge thing forever. We need not only more "artistic" original movies, but also projects like Back To The Future and Jurassic Park being made and being succesful, so we can have new and different franchises too.

 

Anyway, this is a long discussion but i don't think this thread is innappropriate for it, since weekly we're seeing movies being a disaster at box office and this weekend is no exception (and with a beloved remake), it's definitely a worring place to be.

[Cappoedameron]

45 minutes ago, CoolioD1 said:

i thought he was really good. a better tony than they had in the original. even his singing was good which surprised me because i still remember when he tried to be a popstar and how much that fucking sucked.

Well we can agree to disagree I thought he sucked. Wooden an actor as you can get also you can't hide the fact he's a an accused rapist** and casting him to portray Tony whom seduces a very young woman in Maria was...a choice to say the least. 

 

He's box office poison, why SS casted him is something I will never understand.

 

** no charges have been filed yet. 

Edited December 12, 2021 by Cap

[BestPicturePlutoNash]

13 minutes ago, Menor said:

It's not disfavoring the genre that I took issue with, it is assuming that nobody else could get anything but cheap thrills from said genre.

Of course some genre movies elevate themselves into something special but I do think majority of them are cheap thrills and don't really seek to be anything other which is fine. I don't think Venom is going to provide a cathartic reaction lol

[Flopped]

16 minutes ago, Cappoedameron said:

Maybe this will get people to stop casting Ansel Elgort in crap. He was easily the worst part of West Side Story.

 

Any reason Twitter put a lid on their outrage re: his gross behavior?

[CoolioD1]

1 minute ago, Cappoedameron said:

Well we can agree to disagree I thought he sucked. Wooden an actor as you can get also you can't hide the fact he's a rapist and casting him to portray Tony whom seduces a very young woman in Maria was...a choice to say the least. 

 

He's box office poison, why SS casted him is something I will never understand.

i mean he was cast waaaaay before those allegations came out about him. maybe you forget it was filmed 2 and a half years ago. just because he made minority report doesn't make spielberg a precog. elgort still had a little bit of heat from baby driver when he was cast i totally get why they went for him.

 

anyway tony is pretty famously a Role That Sucks. total wet blanket character. i don't think even a super talented actor could turn in an acclaimed performance with the material.

[Cap]

56 minutes ago, CoolioD1 said:

it's incredible how much last years oscar movies don't exist. they actually just handed out awards to a bunch of made up titles.

I have said this before, and I will say this again. The best thing Hollywood could do for adult/non-IP cinema is to destroy Oscar season. It is completely asinine that you don’t put out “movies for adults“ for 10 months out of the year and then expect everyone to go to the movies 10 times to see all the new Oscar films. During the holiday season. In the winter. None of the films have time to breathe. None of them have time to gain cultural relevance. None of them have a time to find their audience.

 

But the secret is that by doing that, it would mess up the festival circuit. And God for bid we mess up the money and networking opportunities that come with the festival circuit.

 

52 minutes ago, Eric Feels Pretty said:

But the fact of the matter is that audiences today are the least demanding they've ever been.

 

Girl, where is your data on this? 

 

Quote

They actively repel against artistically-minded pieces. Films that aren't designed to sell toys to children or tickle their nostalgia. The idea of something new and bold or from an exciting director is just too much for them.

 

Uh huh. And what bold and exciting new thing came out this weekend? Are we referring to the remake of the musical the movie that’s 60 years old directed by some dude in his 80s? 

Furthermore, this Criticism literally sets off my berserk button. We have had “cheap” cinema since it began. It started off that way. Most of the classic films that we think of came from the studio system, which was just a giant production factory. There is literally no difference between what Arthur Freed was doing with Gene Kelly and Judy Garland, and with Kevin Feige he is doing with Captain America and Captain Marvel. A lot of flash, a lot of color, a lot of Wham! Bam! Thank You Ma’am! to get people in seats. They have been doing this since the dawn of television in the 1950s. Because everyone back then was convinced that theaters were going to die, since no one’s gonna leave their house ever again. So they had to push things at the exhibition level to make you go see it outside your house. That’s how we got Technicolor. That’s how we got Cinemascope.  There are quotes from Bob Evans From the 70s when he took over Paramount saying that people don’t go to movies anymore, they go see a movie.

 

We’re also pushing further into the IP world, because frankly they don’t make movie stars anymore. The stars used to be the IP. You went and saw a Bette Davis movie. You went and saw Julia Roberts movie. All of them kind of had their own quirk, and they all fell within a certain genre/branding.  And not all of them were serious films.

 

And as for the toy argument, that is as dated as Star Wars. I bet that Steven Spielberg has made a bunch of money off of toys from things like Jurassic Park, Jaws, ET, etc. etc. 

 

I am deeply sorry that the state of movies is not where you exactly want it to be right now, but please do not throw out generalizations that people who like an IP based franchise are somehow passively lazy, and not artistically inclined.

[Flopped]

I noticed Stepmom with Julia Roberts and Susan Sarandon was in the Top 10 on Netflix yesterday. My whole life I avoided this movie - it looked corny and cringe. But I decided to hit play. It's definitely corny and cringe, but compared to the movies being made today, it's shockingly watchable. 

[Porthos]

3 minutes ago, BestPicturePlutoNash said:

Of course some genre movies elevate themselves into something special but I do think majority of them are cheap thrills and don't really seek to be anything other which is fine. I don't think Venom is going to provide a cathartic reaction lol

 

The point Menor and others are making here is that some folks get MORE out of these films than "just" cheap thrills.

 

Maybe they shouldn't.  Maybe they should just view them as eating a McDonald's cheeseburger. But if they get something out of it, even if it is as minor as "shared communal experience" (which as an aside I would suggest in this day and age of 'internet loneliness' isn't nothing), isn't that indeed more than "cheap thrills"?  If not for you, then for them?

 

Frankly this whole discussion is reminding me far too much of the discussions around cosplay and the like.  Just rubs me the wrong way, and this I say as someone who misses having a variety of success stories at the box office.

[Menor the Destroyer]

12 minutes ago, BestPicturePlutoNash said:

Of course some genre movies elevate themselves into something special but I do think majority of them are cheap thrills and don't really seek to be anything other which is fine. I don't think Venom is going to provide a cathartic reaction lol

Well, there is a place for movies like Venom as well, and just because it's not cathartic doesn't mean people don't get more than a passing grill out of it (for example, people can get attached to the Eddie/Venom dynamic). Anyway that hardly shows that people who like genre stuff only want cheap thrills.

Edited December 12, 2021 by Menor

[Cooper Legion]

Me seeing Cap enter the thread:

 

Me more seriously seeing Cap enter the thread: 

I think this topic is going to rile up a lot of people (though luckily not me) while going nowhere and I regret my role in starting it 😆

[BestPicturePlutoNash]

4 minutes ago, Porthos said:

 

The point Menor and others are making here is that some folks get MORE out of these films than "just" cheap thrills.

 

Maybe they shouldn't.  Maybe they should just view them as eating a McDonald's cheeseburger. But if they get something out of it, even if it is as minor as "shared communal experience" (which as an aside I would suggest in this day and age of 'internet loneliness' isn't nothing), isn't that indeed more than "cheap thrills"?  If not for you, then for them?

 

Frankly this whole discussion is reminding me far too much of the discussions around cosplay and the like.  Just rubs me the wrong way, and this I say as someone who misses having a variety of success stories at the box office.

The same can be said about the films Eric mentioned--the films that are being boxed out and excluded, too. That feels to me like the point he was trying to make. The communal and shared experience isn't limited only to "cheap thrill" movies. And other films shouldn't be seen as stuffy or unexciting when they can provide the same experience for many adults. Yes Endgame was an astonishing experience in theaters but I still remember and miss the theater erupting during the 3rd act of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood or the collective cries throughout Little Women or the gasps during A Star Is Born

[Cooper Legion]

Ironic observation though — more discussion about marvel in this weekend thread than wss itself mirrors more sales over ThFSS for marvel than WSS itself 🙈

[Eric Prime]

33 minutes ago, CoolioD1 said:

i thought he was really good. a better tony than they had in the original. even his singing was good which surprised me because i still remember when he tried to be a popstar and how much that fucking sucked.

Ariana DeBose the MVP. Her last few scenes at the end were simply chilling.

[BestPicturePlutoNash]

12 minutes ago, Cap said:

I have said this before, and I will say this again. The best thing Hollywood could do for adult/non-IP cinema is to destroy Oscar season. It is completely asinine that you don’t put out “movies for adults“ for 10 months out of the year and then expect everyone to go to the movies 10 times to see all the new Oscar films. During the holiday season. In the winter. None of the films have time to breathe. None of them have time to gain cultural relevance. None of them have a time to find their audience.

 

But the secret is that by doing that, it would mess up the festival circuit. And God for bid we mess up the money and networking opportunities that come with the festival circuit.

 

This isn't true. Adult/non-IP cinema is released all throughout the year and many have successes while some don't

 

Pre-fall adult or original films in the last few years:

Stillwater, The Help, The Butler, Green Knight, Straight Outta Compton, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Us, The Upside, Downton Abbey, Rocketman, Crazy Rich Asians, Book Club, Get Out, Dunkirk, Split, Girls Trip, Grand Budapest Hotel, Boyhood, Moonrise Kingdom, The Nice Guys... the list goes on

[grey ghost]

Lmao

 

Fans are blaming Elgort for the floppage.

 

https://www.tmz.com/2021/12/11/spielberg-west-side-story-flops-fans-ansel-elgort-casting/

Edited December 12, 2021 by grey ghost

[Menor the Destroyer]

6 minutes ago, BestPicturePlutoNash said:

The same can be said about the films Eric mentioned--the films that are being boxed out and excluded, too. That feels to me like the point he was trying to make. The communal and shared experience isn't limited only to "cheap thrill" movies. And other films shouldn't be seen as stuffy or unexciting when they can provide the same experience for many adults. Yes Endgame was an astonishing experience in theaters but I still remember and miss the theater erupting during the 3rd act of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood or the collective cries throughout Little Women or the gasps during A Star Is Born

I have no dispute about this. Obviously these films are valuable to their audience. I also really enjoyed watching Little Women in theaters. But I don't think people should be derided for not valuing the same types of films. 

[CoolioD1]

5 minutes ago, Product Driven Legion said:

Ironic observation though — more discussion about marvel in this weekend thread than wss itself mirrors more sales over ThFSS for marvel than WSS itself 🙈

every potential fox flop needs to take the venom 2 lesson and just have a post credits scene where a character gets transported into the MCU. they don't even have to ever follow up on it but it'll get the stans out to the cinema just in case.

[Cappoedameron]

5 minutes ago, Eric Feels Pretty said:

Ariana DeBose the MVP. Her last few scenes at the end were simply chilling.

Best part of the movie hands down, her charisma was something to behold especially taking on the iconic role that Rita Moreno made.

[Porthos]

5 minutes ago, BestPicturePlutoNash said:

The same can be said about the films Eric mentioned--the films that are being boxed out and excluded, too. That feels to me like the point he was trying to make. The communal and shared experience isn't limited only to "cheap thrill" movies. And other films shouldn't be seen as stuffy or unexciting when they can provide the same experience for many adults. Yes Endgame was an astonishing experience in theaters but I still remember and miss the theater erupting during the 3rd act of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood or the collective cries throughout Little Women or the gasps during A Star Is Born

 

And I agree with you. 

 

For the health of the industry there does need to be more variety as I think evolution shows what happens to an ecosystem when it gets dominated by something to the point of everything else getting hunted to extinction.  All I was saying is that looking down on folks who get more out of these so-called, and I really do hate the term but since it's yours I'll use it, "cheap thrills" films is just, well, Not Cool.

 

And if that's not your intent, well that's how it's coming across to at least some of us in this thread.

 

---

 

In the end, I 100% get the frustration that the market is getting crowded out of Different Things.  Just don't blame the consumer is more or less all I am saying.  Or rather, blame them if you want, but don't disparage them.