We live in the era of the flopbuster - $200, $300 or even $400 Million movies that are so big and expensive, they just can't succeed. But why? Why are films so expensive to make now? Well, join me as I break it down.
That’s what the jobs like sensitivity coaches and diversity readers are. They will hire people for a massively inflated salary and get some back, whether it be clout, the praise for following the message or a cut of the salary
My cousin works in sound design and worked in huge projects before. He said that some people on payroll don't even show up to work and they all have exorbitant wages. Its clear that there is some level of money laundery in big projects.
Oppenheimer involved real set construction and hired some of the most well-paid actors in Hollywood, and still came to a budget of 100mil. Matt Damon & RDJ said in interviews: he (Nolan) hates wasting money. So you get a sh*tty accommodation and no chairs on set but you don't care because every cent gets poured into the production. And if you're not working on the set, you're not allowed on'. The fact that a lot of them mentioned that multiple times goes to show how normal the waste of cash must be on other sets.
You still need some names to draw people in. If they has an entire cast that no one had heard of then there would be nothing to market and no one would have watched it
@@docsavage8640 To be fair, they were both good in the movie. I do agree that studios should be using complete unknowns much more often. A lot of the hugely popular blockbusters had new actors in their first main roles, which proves how little "star power" actually contributes to the success of a movie.
@@docsavage8640 RDJ was amazing in that film though, I thought he totally fit the role. Not once did I think it was Tony Stark. Really good performance. Matt Damon on the other hand.. no clue.. That guy has zero appeal or special talent imo. If anything, his presence takes me *out* of a movie.
I once watched Desperados, dubbed with Tarantinos and Rodriguez comment. Tarantino said something that I have not forgotten in 20 years: "The good thing about having no money is - you needa become creative"
ingenuity and creativity are born from limitations and obstacles, If I ask you "pitch me a movie about anything" your mind probably goes blank, "pitch me a movie where every scene takes place inside a single family car" and I bet you already have some ideas, maybe not good ones at first, but I bet you have some.
Some of the best movies I've seen had a shoestring budget (Near Dark 1987) or were set in one location (12 Angry Men) where the story relied primarily on the characters and story to be good.
Rodriguez is a master at low-budget-high quality entertainment - the guy is a genius when it comes to creatively crafting a movie on a shoestring budget!
One of the problems with CGI is all of these big movies now are written by committee and they always undergo changes based on focus group testing and market research, even during filming. This causes CGI artists to constantly rework everything they do. Not only does this waste money, it prevents the CGI artists from polishing anything, so the movies cost more and end up looking worse.
Don't forget that Directors are now "cast" instead of being hired. So they will make the movie they think the suits will want, and then get endless notes on what to change, after the fact.
@@seefoghall I have some idea of what casting a director means, but when did directors start being cast instead of hired, and how do you know when a director has not truly been hired, and only cast in the role of directing the movie behind the scenes?
A predictable result of reshoot after reshoot. With many modern hyper-blockbusters often needing to redo basically everything halfway through production and yet refusing to push back release, VFX houses simply don't have the time to do things right (Marvel is the worst offender here). Major setpieces become the filmmaking equivalent of a group of college students frantically grinding out an assignment late at night to get turned in by midnight, with predictable results.
Same applys to video game cut scenes. Link in Zelda windwaker still has more expression in his face than a 2024 cut dcene using 100s of times more processing power and no interaction whilst link in ww is all in game
There isn't a single video or instance that exists on the internet of a woman making fire without the guidance of a man or that hasn't been edited so you can't see it from start to finish without interuption. There are some videos that do an editing so it never actually shows a woman making fire ( because she doesn't and it's just edited to make believe she does ) but there is no such video that exists of a woman making fire unedited on her own from start to finish or without any guidance from a man. There are however COUNTLESS videos of men making fire from scratch materials without any edits so you can see it from start to finish.
@@nicholauscrawford7903 I watched the first dozen seasons of "Survivor" before realizing it was just repeating itself. I don't recall a single instance of a woman making fire. It was always made by the men.
I am not sure that Hollywood is any different than other businesses today. I am in medicine and there was a study that came out in 2012 that showed how many physicians were in a hospital compared to administrators over the years. In the 50s, for every physician in a hospital, they had 2 administrators. Now, for every physician in my hospital, we have over 400 administrative people. And people wonder why healthcare is so expensive. Lots of mouths to feed.
You are referencing an industry with very heavy GOVERNMENT interference in operations. The less that government is involved the less redundancy there is in operations. Go to a grocery store, for instance. 1 employee may be performing 5 different jobs, not the opposite. Even the "kids" working there may be given authority over a hundred different tasks. I grocery stores were run like Hollywood, 99% of them would be BANKRUPT within a year.
I worked for a just die already (Health Insurance) company and bloat was a serious problem. Easily 80% of managerial jobs could've been eliminated without any negative effect and I never found what they did. Meanwhile we had a serious lack of "front-line" employees who actually provided healthcare (who were paid far less than the "essential" managers). The less said about the redundant and stupid procedures we had to follow the better, 90% of my time was spent complying with dumb regulations instead of helping people. You couldn’t write your name on a piece of paper without a walking rules committee questioning your choice of pen and paper. I hated every day I worked there.
These administrative people are there so it's not the doctors and nurses that have to do them, like managing taxes, payroll, customer service, or even managing complaints or lawsuits.
The thing with CGI is that a film like Master and Commander had CGI in it, but it was used subtly to iron out issues, add in context and complete elements like bits of ship or gun fire. When you have to make an entire sequence out of CG, or model an entire character, or cannot be bothered to go out and reconnoitre a location, then something is wrong with your movie.
CGI should be a subtle compliment to a film or used sparingly when a practical effect is too difficult or expensive (weather, vast scenes, huge numbers of people like standing military formations, etc.). Doing entire scenes rarely works well (with notable exceptions like The Matrix). Worse, CGI is so unlikeable that studios LIE about it, like the dishonesty in Mad Max 4 when they claimed they did not use (much) CGI. Entire scenes are CGI. In the behind the scenes footage there are greenscreens everywhere!!! Oversaturation is also a big problem where everything just looks fake.
And of course the use of CGI and “post”-production-“fixing” makes people think that working with ad-hoc scripts is OK. When you have to rent an actual location in actual May (including getting permits for clearing a popular area) to get the spring blossom vibe, you want to make sure you won’t have to redo the whole sequence because someone later insists that your 18th century Alpine scene didn’t have enough DEI in the background crowd.
Spot on. I unironically find claymation more believable than CGI in almost every case - because my eyes recognize that it's a material object, even if clunky in every other way. If I want CGI or doodles on paper, I'll watch an animated film. Even then I utterly despise CGI animated films like Pixar, the robotic animation feels soulless.
Accounting for inflation, $55M is about the budget of the first Star Wars film. Someone paid Dwayne Johnson a Star Wars film to be in a forgettable one.
@@caronstout354 I would love to see him in a movie where he has to go through a jungle, that'd be something also, there is no "hype" about his acting, he is charming, good looking and generic and people do not actively watch movies he stars in. They turn that flick on and scroll tiktok or instagram for 2 hours, it's just braindead entertainment, not actual cinema. The average Joe does not care about depth, meaning or good writing, just background noise after work.
I remember an interview with Bruce Campbell, probably 10-15 years ago, where he said (paraphrasing): "A Hollywood movie costs 250-million dollars now. I could make 20 movies with that much money. Out of those, maybe 10 will be watchable... and 2 will actually be good. So that's 2 GOOD movies for that much money." And if we let artists and professionals make movies again, it could be a lot more than 2.
The correct number in that equation is TEN, not TWO. If 10 "watchable" movies" are made for the price of ONE mega-budget movie, it's actually a safer, better business model than "going for broke" on a mega-budget movie. 10 watchable movies on a low budget with even a modest net profit and low debt makes a lot of sense. This is true in any industry. Imagine if any brick and mortar store tried to sell products like modern Hollywood sells movies. You would end up with a GHOST TOWN of empty buildings for miles on end.
@@davestang5454 My accounting of that would be: 12.M each, upfront cost. 1/2 of them break even, so subtract 125M. And your left with 125M for the remaining 2 good flicks and 8 flops. But the flops still recover some fraction of their cost, lets say 2:1 loss (-6.25M each), so really the 2 good movies only really need to carry a cost of about 38M each for the whole thing to make a gross profit. (Assuming the 10 watchable movies only break even, rather than a modest profit.)
A good example of budget concerning informing script decisions is Back to the Future. The original script involved a nuclear explosion providing the energy needed to get back to the present time, but they realized that would be too expensive to shoot an instead tried to come up with an ending they could shoot on a set they alread had. That led to the clocktower idea which turned out to be brilliant and probably a lot better than the ending they would have shot on a higher budget. Limitations breed creativity, at least in some cases...
Indeed. That, and one of the actors - I think it was Christopher Lloyd (Doc Brown) - who complained about the original nuke ending. Since it involved our time-travelling hero getting into a fridge (which was the original concept for the time machine), Chris was concerned that it could be imitable behaviour by impressionable viewers - so it was both budget and common sense that determined a new ending in this case.
As an animation/VFX artist working in Eastern Asia, I want to add a point to this already well analyzed video. The reason why the VFX here is cheaper is simple: we are paid way less. If you see reports writing about Hollywood VFX houses being sweat factories. here it is barely above low-end servers worker pay. People here usually see these works as stairs to jump to those Hollywood sweat factories for a much better life. (And ironically, that just makes the situation in Hollywood worse.) I just hope those production companies don’t take the wrong lesson from Gazilla -1 and make the wage in those VFX studios to the same level as those in Eastern Asia.
My sister works in a Hollywood VFX sweat factory and she is exhausted. She literally works 6-7 days a week, 16 hours a day. The expectations from the studios to pump out so much content just commands so much time. She doesn't have time for anything outside of work. I wonder how long she can take this before she finds another career.
@@JoyfulNoiseLiving I am sorry that this industry is like this: constantly consuming people with dreams and spitting out the remain after everything is squeezing out of them. Many of my friends who worked in here now move to northern American and seem to have a better life compared to what they had back in Eastern Asia. However, what they get is still not considered a normal life compared to other professions in Northern America. I am always sad that at the core of the industry it is just a sweat factory with seemly unlimited supply from even worse places.
Reminder that Star Wars was made in 1977 for $11 Million ($55 Million in today's money), I think the most famous actor there was Peter Cushing, it pioneered new practical effects technology and set off an entire subgenre of sci-fi. _Solo_ cost something like $300 Million, and I'm pretty sure everyone has forgotten it exists. High budgets do not make movies great. Visionary directors do.
I agree with everything that you said except that Peter Cushing was the most famous actor in Star Wars. I'd say that Alec Guinness was. He was in The Bridge on the River Kwai, the biggest film of 1957, and won Best Actor for it. It was a real coup for Lucas to get him. Peter Cushing, on the other hand, had really only been in low budget horror and sci-fi films. He would've certainly been recognizable to horror and sci-fi fans, but Guinness was probably more "famous" and known to general movie fans.
@@aldunlop4622 Solo greatest fault was being released after the "last jedi". It wasn't a good film. But it wasn't as bad as the last jedi. That's the problem. A bad movie can still make a lot of money due to people expecting or wanting it to be good. So the aftershock is not felt until after the damage is already done.
@Osprey850 Grew up seeing Peter Cushing in all those cheapo movies on late night TV. Never heard of Alec Guinness until Star Wars was released. Even now I can only list "Kwai" and "All At Sea" as Alec movies.
Solo went overbudget because Lucasfilm swapped directors halfway through in filming so they needed more time for reshoots and additional scenes under a new director at that time 🤷
The problem is the industry has zero self awareness and they have shifted the blame to the last place left; the audience. They will go down in flames never accepting that they are the ones setting the fires. The last few years have yielded the fewest movies that I want to see and none that I want to own. The industry is killing itself.
tom cruise... i went to see MI6 and top gun only to see tom cruise own the screen. ho boy i rewatched all 3 LOtR movies on the weekend and boy... i had tears in my eyes all the time.... asking myself, where did all the talent go these days? how can something so spectacular exist and fail to inspire the younger generations to same greatness...
Makes me so sad too that 20 years ago something as amazing as LOTRs was created, a movie trilogy like that could never happen today. Peter Jackson really did those movies in the right time. The thing is too that people with a passion for LOTRs where hired, today it's just people who have not even read the books using the name to make their crappy movies.
By defining that success as out of bounds because too many pale penis people were involved. Don’t like the rules, change the game. Actually aspiring to what the LoTR movies did takes a lot of work and talent. Redefining the rules is easy.
I recall Katee Sackoff saying at one point that she felt like the catering budget alone for Mandalorian cost more than a whole season of Battlestar Galactica.
I recently learned that James Woods had so much fun playing Hades in Disney's Herclusese that, when he found out the movie was on the brink of going overbudget, he volunteered to refund his salary. His offer was refused and the movie stayed within budget. However, it really exemplifies how the first problem you mention is purely artificial and doesn't need to be an issue if we just figure out how to not overvalue celebrities.
Because James Woods is a solid dude. The Rock would rather 1000 normal people lose their jobs and homes if that means he gets another 50 million on top of his Scrooge McDuck pile. Those steroids ain't cheap.
I remember when i just started working in movie production in 2007 . that time we had 3 - 5 takes , not more. Than came the digital era. In 2017 directors were making 14 - 22 takes . From my observations after 10 takes actors stop playing they just go into repeat mode and don't live , don't experience the emotions like in a first couple of takes. That are my observations that i see on the ground. Im gaffer , bast boy. Best wishes.
Looks like my mother was right - technology is proving to be our undoing. Like you said, with film you've only got a handful of takes to get it right. Now, the world's your oyster. This also extends to other forms of media - music production, game development, etc. It's a multimedia fan's dream and the common cinemagoer's nightmare.
6:17 - HAHAHAHA, VFX houses are in high demand, so they can charge whatever they want?! That's so far off the mark I don't know where to begin. I've been in the VFX industry for over a decade, and the absolute decimation of the VFX industry by the big production companies can not be overstated. Digital Domain, Double Negative, Legend3D, Rhythm and Hues ... I could go on and on about VFX houses run into the freaking ground by production companies and a race to the bottom with underbidding. Now, I completely agree that far too many films rely far too heavily on CGI, hoping that spectacle holds as much weight as story (which it obviously never does) - but don't put that on the VFX houses. That's the production companies, and only the production companies (some absolutely horrible directors/writers/VFX supervisors working directly for those production houses) that have made that change to the industry so overwhelming. VFX houses are simply happy to get work when they can - even the big VFX houses - since there's so few production companies in the industry they can have as clients. That's why they're constantly underbidding one another in a chance to win the contract.
This part of the video surprised me too, I thought by now it was common knowledge how terribly VFX studios are treated. Undercutting, outsourcing, insane deadlines - I can't see how VFX studios can be blamed for the faults of an industry that barely wants the public to know they exist.
Thank you. I was going to come comment on this, and I'm not even in the VFX industry. Honestly, I think back on _Cats_ and how horribly those people were treated before, during, and after the movie was released. How that film came out is really and truly none of their fault.
Bang on, that comment in the video was nonsense. Effects budgets are a significant proportion of some films, but there is no way looking at the state of the VFX industry can you say that's because of the VFX houses. It's because of the number and complexity of shots in a modern spectacle film. Even with the bad conditons / underbidding etc there's no getting away from the sheer amount of human effort required to create those visuals, which doesn't happen for free.
When I was in film school my directing instructor talked about his experience trying to make a small low budget sci-fi movie on a budget of 1 million. He was confident that was more than enough to make the film effectively, but his producer strong-armed him into hiring 3 to 4 times the crew required purely because it made the producer feel better about having a lot of people on set. The problem, is that all the extra people took up all the budget and all they really did was sit around and do nothing because the work required wasn't anywhere enough for the amount of people they had on set. As a result, he had to shoot twice the normal page count per day in order to get the film finished on time and budget, which meant that he had to use bad takes, botched scenes, and major compromises which ultimately ruined the film. Even amongst experienced producers, there's a degree of idiocy that makes that kid who sniffed glue and ate crayons in kindergarten look like a genius.
If that producer wanted more people just to make it look more busy, they should’ve found a way to increase the budget to accomodate them. But like you said; there’s people out there who make kids sticking crayons up their noses seem smart.
@@user-mi2qw3ns4u and he did that for two reasons. So he could extend the amount of time on the production and because for the type of production he was making you don't actually need that many people. You'd be amazed at what a micro crew can put together with a good DP and Gaffer running things
I feel a reason that these celebrities have lost most of their star power is that fact that most of them no longer act. They are not becoming another character they are just acting as themselves while pretending it is someone else.
It's because of social media. People feel closer to "influencers" because they aren't playing a character. They are genuine 😉. Either way celebrity worship is sickening.
"I think that when you push the budgets into the stratosphere, it makes it that much easier to steal." - Billy West, on why voice actors were replaced by celebrities in animated movies My last job in Hollywood was just after 9/11 and it was a temp-like job. I was asked with another PA to drive a passenger van full of documents from the Sony lot in Culver City to a nondescript house in a residential neighborhood; no signs, no indications--if we hadn't been given the address we never would've noticed it. Even in a 12' passenger van with no seats, it took 2 trips. The house was like the TARDIS: it was a lot bigger on the inside than it looked from the outside (1 long sprawling storey) and every room was an office with stacks and stacks and stacks of banker's boxes and people at desks typing data into terminals. So this was a "counting house" where paper documents on budgets were compiled into electronic files. I remember thinking that there was no feasible way on God's Green Earth that a proper audit of all these documents could be done accurately because you were looking at 1M+ pages per project, and that was just what we brought for ours--no telling how many trips like ours per movie got done in total. I've never forgotten that experience because of how mundane and suspicious it all was.
I think bad writing is the biggest problem. Titanic was absurdly expensive at the time and was full of big name actors, but was a great film because it had a compelling story as well as (for the time) amazing special effects. I don't know why writing is so bad. I think it might be because studios don't start with a script and build the movie from that; they start with an idea of remaking some old film or going to the well yet another time to some existing franchise, chuck a lot of money at it and then expect the creative types to come up with something in a very limited time frame, the script being very much an after thought
You should try get Matt Damon into an interview. He runs a production company built entirely on trying to return to sane budgets. Their business model is quite interesting and touches some of the points you've raised.
@@GreyhawkTheAngry I may be wrong but I think it's called Artists Equity. They produced the film 'Air', and have a bunch of other projects in the pipeline.
Hey drinker vfx artist and editor here You are spot on in most aspects but cgi and vfx, especially where I come from and projects I work on are very different to what you said. vfx and cgi artists don't get to choose what price we want, it's actually based off of commission and how low you're willing to do the job for. That's right vfx no matter the production boils down to how cheap can the most important part of the film be done. An excellent example of this would be the flash movie where the speed force scenes were actually done in one week... because that was all the time they had to work on it due to poor planning from the producers and directors. Vfx artists do not have the luxuries granted to us like writers, actors, or directors. No unions or protections are in place. This is why many production houses actually go out of business due to needing to finish one project and making massive changes on the flip of a dime with no compensation or residuals. This as you can imagine leads to bad CGI or effects. A great example is "Life of Pi" it won the academy award for best vfx... but the whole studio was shuttered before that because of that movies demands. In the vfx world I have to say that there is an extreme disconnect between the directors and producers where they seem to think that everything can be fixed in post production. This is some not all mind you. So in their eyes a messed up shot , dirt on the camera, or missing actor... can just be easily edited in/out because its simple right? That's not the case, and it's very time consuming and depending on the shot... and even then some things can't be salvaged without a re-shoot. ideally we need to be more involved with the teams and production on site. forge a contract and let us be on set and ask us how to plan certain shoots so we can achieve what the client wants. this current process of just filming a movie and sending it to a vfx house without insight on the production needs to stop. especially when you have 30 or more studios working on one film doing several other elements. it's a broken system and it's starting to really show. I hope you enjoyed the comment and I'll go away now....
Unfortunately, the term ''CGI'' is almost like a bad word today. I would highly recommend watching the series 'No CGI is just invisible CGI' by The Movie Rabbit Hole.
Ever jump out of a plane just to hand knit a parachute? It's hard work... but I love it and when I see someone enjoy my work it makes my soul sing. I only hope I can keep doing more, and making more people love film. @@dlewis9760
Back in the day for special effects sequences they always had the special effects guys on set and involved in planning the shots. It sounds like with the overuse of special effects and the increase in the power of digital tools, they have let it go. In the music industry the same thing has happened. In the analog tape days, bands had to nail performances and the edits were limited. The engineers could focus on the sound and be present. Now with all of the tools available, people show up and expect an audio engineer to construct a usable track from a pile of garbage. And then the artform becomes staring a computer screen, with the worker completely separated from the aspect of the job that they actually like.
I think Gosling is the one name left (that i can think off) that made some people (mostly men) watch whatever movie he starred in. He has that twang that cant be replaced
Over the last decade, 2020 was the year I went to the movies the most. Towards the end of summer, with Covid restrictions loosening, the drive-in theatre opened and I went to movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park, and Jaws. Movies today are not only expensive to make, but not worth watching.
I am a lighting technician in the film business. The last movie I worked on had a crew list in which the first 12 pages were all producers. What do they do? Nobody knows.
Seeing your occupation prompts me to seek your view on the thought that went through my mind as I watched the video, a thought that has arisen from meeting a few people working in the film industry over the past year or so, namely: For all that there may well be a lot of bloat and waste in the areas Drinker describes, might another factor accounting for the high cost of film-making be the high rates of pay for most of the people working on them? I've been pretty stunned by the amounts paid to riggers, sparkies, props guys et al.. I mean, good luck and more power to them (and you!) - I'm very happy that they're making a good living from a fun industry, and it does sound like fun - but hearing about some of these rates of pay did help me think I might begin to understand how these films and programmes are so expensive to make. I don't know. What do you think?
Nope as we usually dont work between November and February, as well as pay our taxes ourselves and have to plan our own pension. Also we don’t get holiday pay either….
Absolute corporate drone logic. The money that is spent on a money should go to the people MAKING the movie, and not to some random list of 20 do-nothing producers. Also, you can find plenty of examples that were commercial successes, but were officially flops due to some "creative accounting".
Reminds me of Disney's Wish. It's made around $244.1 million which is rather respectable in a bubble, but due to the budget being an unjustifiable $200 million, it's seen as yet another flop for the company. Where all the money goes during production I will never know.
It's a "flop" because it lost money. Its production budget was $200M, but they probably actually spent 20%‒50% more than that and they probably spent another $100‒$150M on advertising. Let's just say a conservative $300M. Its domestic box office was $64M of which Disney gets 55% = $35M and international, $180M of which Disney gets an average of 43% = $77M. Thus, Disney took in only $112M for its $300M spend, for a loss of $188M. It lost more money than its net revenue!
Drinker missed one very important element about why movies are so expensive, (although this is not new.) Producers, who determine the budget, are paid a percentage of the budget. They might get a backend deal, but their primary pay is 5-10 percent of the budget. They are literally rewarded for having larger budgets. I used to work in the contracts department at Universal Studios and saw this firsthand for years.
While I agree with almost everything that you'd said, but I disagree with the sentiment that intimacy cordinators aren't needed on movie setd. I think it's important to have a dedicated person who staff can turn to when it comes to intimate scene and how to handle them.
it's possible, but unfortunatley as drinker and many people in comments pointed out, giving people a job that you cannot really tell wether someone's doing a good work or not, opens a door for hiring a load of staff that dosen't really have to be there for reason other than collect their paycheck
One thing that wasn't mentioned is lack of planning. There used to be long period of pre-production to make the actual production as efficient as possible, to prepare the footage for special effects etc. Nowadays, the "we will fix that in post" became a meme and film often starts shooting before the screenplay is even finished. It's no wonder that many of cheaper film comes from directors who have previous experience with VFX, allowing them to plan more efficient production
This is exactly what I was thinking. Not only do they have terrible writers, but in many cases the writers are literally writing the script a day ahead of filming (sometimes not even that punctually). This means that a lot of really subtle interplay between scenes falls by the wayside, as well and any kind of larger view about what the script calls for and whether it is really worthwhile. It's the kind of situation that can only persist when nobody cares how you waste money or whether there's any quality in the end, because hundreds of scenes will just be patched together into some kind of Frankenstein's monster. Some of the low-budget successes have been made by directors who have the whole thing so planned out that even the special effects that are added post-production are accounted for in their single takes during production.
@@rennmaxbeta where I can find that list? I'm genuinely interested. I didn't say that it didn't happen in the past. Or that such movie cannot be good. But last minute changes became common in modern movies, and they are not always caused by poor test screenings. One example that comes to mind is Thor:Love and thunder, where one scene was completely changed late into post-production, because the "director" didn't like it.
Disney has given an example of something which preproduction would point out. they fixed a costume in post due to not planning it out to not need any fixing beforehand.
They have reshoots because their Diverse team is incapable of writing anything good. Then, it does poorly with test audiences. But, they should just release it anyway, since they'll never recover the first dime of the cost of reshooting it.
When I heard the budget for the Lord of the RIngs trilogy, I never thought they'd be able to do what I'd been imagining the film adaptation(s) would be like. I'm glad that there are always gems that slip though the Hollywood nonsense to surprise us. If there are indeed fewer of these these days, I kind of feel that that makes them all the more special. I don't think I want one hundred must-see movies per year. When I saw Star Wars (A New Hope) in theatre in 1977, you could feel the electric buzz of the audience. We knew we were watching film history.
Thanks! Man, I know that I am but one of your 2 million + fans, but thanks for being a voice that says the things that need to be heard this day and age…. It seems like common sense is no longer common …. So keep on brother! People need to hear messages like yours… stay true!!!
The issue with big-name actors pushing for higher salaries is a vicious cycle. As they demand higher salaries, it shuts the door for smaller actors to get the big break. This, in turn, makes any new rising-star who gets a big-break demand even more money, feeling entitled to it (like Rachel Ziegler).
Disagree. Actors asking for the highest payment is only half of the issue. Studios agreeing to pay them is the other half. They should just take new actors for new movies, each with a production budget of around ten million dollars and not try to make everything into a cinematic universe. Then they can produce a greater variety of genre movies with a various different actors in them. Maybe a new box office draw will come out of the process, maybe a hit like minus one or Sisu and pay for the inevitable flops along the way. Kinda like how evolution works.
Don’t underestimate the amount of theft and “creative accounting” involved in the modern Hollywood machine. I’d love to see a full, independent audit of a film like Marvels. It would be an eye-opener.
Yes, this goes back years. Ghostbusters 2016s budget was insane. Especially when you saw what was on screen, it looked terrible, no better than the Scooby Doo movies. Where did the budget all go? Because if it went on the effects they were robbed....
Yeah completely. They setup a new company each film. Borrow the money to fund in by increasing debt. Then if it flops there no liability or a single person takes the hit but everyone still gets paid. This happens with a lot of companies. It's a win / win situation with zero risk. Where there is risk is the loan / initial investment. But this functions more like hedging a bet. You be on 5 but 2 make massive profit to offset the 2 losses and 1 come out neutral. Its same as football here in the UK. You will have some guy sitting in a pub complain about the rich people. Failing to realize, the football top/scarf he is wearing paid the £50k/wk paycheck for each guy on the team he supports. But can't seem to play connect the dots. It's quite comical if you take a step back to consider that everyone is basically chasing after not much better than the "court jester" and making them stinking rich because they took their cloths off once. Its pretty sad when you think about it...
I have to assume the nepotism is off the charts at this point. Sure a movie "lost" money, but that money isn't actually lost, it's in somebody's pocket so who cares if a movie bombs? They will just blame some external factor like "Star Wars fatigue" and go right into making another bomb without changing a thing.
Great, informative video about a major problem that needs fixing! I do have one small nit to pick, though; you specifically mentioned intimacy coordinators at least three times in the video, and give the impression that this is a useless position. But there are plenty of stories from young female (and even a few male) actors who felt uncomfortable or even exploited in love scenes that were handled badly by directors, before movies had intimacy coordinators. While there are definitely some bad intimacy coordinators out who don't help the moviemaking process, or even impede it, there are also plenty of good ones who advocate for actors in a way that makes love scenes much less awkward or traumatic for them, while still working well with the directors and the crew.
Yes. I'm not sure he understands what an intimacy coordinator actually does, or how much they get paid. At the end of the day they're involved to make sure the actors feel comfortable and safe so they can give great performances. There is no way that having a coordinator on set for (maybe) a handful of scenes is going to disproportionately blow the budget out.
Yes. I'm not sure he understands what an intimacy coordinator actually does, or how much they get paid. At the end of the day they're involved to make sure the actors feel comfortable and safe so they can give great performances. There is no way that having a coordinator on set for (maybe) a handful of scenes is going to disproportionately blow the budget out.
In my mind, all of this boils down to lack of pre-production. Are they even doing story boards these days in Hollywood big budget films? Earlier films used to have shot list and this one prevents over shooting.
Another factor is overblown marketing and advertising budgets. The worse a product is, the more you have to convince them to buy it. This would fall somewhere between symptom and root cause though
Agreed. The Diarrhea of Dysentery was on every TV channel all day for months. They made an announcement in the NYC subway, ffs. There was a little promo graphic at the bottom of the screen during Jeapoady. DURING GAMEPLAY. It showed up on YT videos. There were billboards. I have no idea how much they spent on marketing, but it was outrageous.
Dave Hollis was in charge of selling Disney product to the cinemas. He felt like an imposter and quit his very lucrative job because it was way too easy to sell Marvel movies and Frozen. I wish he were alive and remained at Disney trying to sell The Marvels to the theather chains. We'll, I wish he were alive anyway.
@@jamesogden7756 Ever wonder why commercials are so stupid or illogical? Execs want to get the product stuck in your brain, no matter what. If they manage to accomplish this, then the job is done.
As a Dublin electrician I did some work on movies back in the day like The General, Michael Collins, The Boxer etc. Even though they were low budget they still had tons of people who seemed to do nothing except yack on their phones and talk nonsense all day, so I can only imagine the crazy overstaffing on a big budget Hollywood movie. Movies like Zulu and Ben Hur boasted a 'cast of thousands' but today it appears to be a "staff of thousands".
Hi , im working mainly in Spain as gaffer . Ill give my observations , in 2007 in we had 3- 5 takes per scene , and in 2022 14 -22 takes became norm. And my observations that its seriously counter productive. How is it in Uk ? had amount of takes had risen there too man? Thanks
@@hilarywade687 Ha ha, I'm old but I'm not that old? The General I worked on was made in 1998 and based on a Dublin criminal called Martin Cahill, with Brendan Gleeson in the title role. Jon Voight was also in it but he wasn't on set when I was there.
@@Rom2Serge Hi, I was only involved in films in the late '90's and early 2000's but from what I remember most were done in one take, however I was only involved with outdoor filming. I didn't work directly for the film companies I was loaned to them by the city council. Most of what I did was to do with street lighting, hoists etc.
There are many who are just on standby, because it is cheaper to pay them a regular rate and have a problem fixed with no delay than it is to pay emergency call and the remaining cast and crew to stand around waiting for the rescue crew to arrive. In some other cases they aresomehow involved befor or after the shooting day (But as an electrician you would have already accounted for many in this group.). Then you have the people who aren't being paid at all, they just know someone with a production job and hanging around the set makes them feel more important.
Your video is spot on, you talked about what the problem is and how to fix it. But there's a larger "why" at play here. Corporate greed. It wouldn't be hard to downsize the movie industry, pay deserving salaries and cutting out the needless leeches, but it would mean the cost of making movies will go down. Thus the expected revenue will go down. And executives at major studios will inevitably have to take smaller salaries because they are no longer in charge of a trillion dollar industry but a billion dollar one. And that's a big no no. The Kevin Feiges and Kathrin Kennedys of Hollywood are the real problem, in order to line their own pockets they make sure the most money rotating through their production machines, it's all a numbers game to them, cinematic quality does not even rank on their list of priorities
@@limlaith i think a balance can be struck. I dabbled in the independent movie circuit for a while, real "artists" don't create anything of note on lunch money budget. But I think of major hits such as the original star wars where a young and creative George Lucas had a brilliant idea and a few millions to make it happen. Far less than AAA standards but still enough to go all out. Another example is John Wick. In 2014 it was a low budget movie with a washed up star and an unoriginal plot on paper. But it became iconic just on cinematography alone
@@damiantirado9616 True, but unfortunately, big bad capitalism is not the only issue here. Non-Capitalist countries are notoriously known for making the absolute worst movies you can imagine. Taking away capitalism also takes away individualism. If the movie industry becomes the government's propaganda machine, we would've swapped one devil for another.
@@curiousconsultant7922 Soviet Union was notoriously famous for making great movies and filmmakers had more creative freedom than in the US. Almost communist countries don’t have resources after their revolution so most don’t even make movies. Vietnam didn’t even make any movies.
One thing about film crews is the unions have a ton of absurd rules which make working with them cost a lot more than it should. My dad used to work in television in New York, and he told me about this one time everyone on this one production had to just sit around waiting for this one guy to show up to plug something in because no one else was allowed to do it. So because this one guy was late, the production was held up and wasted a ton of time (and therefore money). And it's not just stuff like that. A union might require a production to pay someone they don't need who would just end up standing around, getting paid to do literally nothing.
Even Sound of Freedom, a western film in its limited budget got outstanding success. It’s like gambling, the more you put in, the higher the risk of winning, or in Disney/DC’s case, losing.
I have no idea how someone up-and-coming just gets their hands on $10 million though Sound of freedom made more than its money back it was a very important movie but I hope they invest in a lot of creative people it’s always the people That need to be invested in
Sound of Freedom was successful because of the fact that it unnecessarily became controversial as well as it being a faith based film. Faith based films and tv shows normally do fairly well regardless of the quality because of its specific audience. Regular movies on the other hand have to deal with a large over saturated market that has now engineered success through having good marketing and hype as having the choice between something familiar or something unfamiliar will always lead to the prior in most cases.
High budget movie nowadays is almost guaranteed to flop. You must make supersafe, bland production for "modern audience" with story not offending anyone by accident and following all garbage modern day agendas. And low budget movie ? It can afford risks and hiring unknown people to do amazing things.
That movie got the popular zeitgeist, in the wake of the explosion of the Epstein case, that child exploitation and trafficking ought to have a movie talking about it. It was effects-less, but it did have a story going for it. A starker comparison is the one being made by Critical Drinker: Godzilla Minus One vs. MCU movies.
This is partly to do with the early access model mixed with agile (which is very very wasteful process). If you play EA games... the game is purchased but the money is borrowed by end user so you still have to complete the game after everyone who is going to buy it already had purchased it. I am SW dev as well.. After you build the thing there nothing left to do. Its kinda like building a building. Once its built you need to move onto the next one and build it instead. However the games market is now saturated.. people are turning out games faster than people can consume same in android apps (there 7.5 million apps now...). Its "throw stuff at the wall and see if it sticks" methods. I have always considered SW jobs like construction jobs. Your a long term(2-5 years) contractor but has a status of employee.
@@greggibson33 You do realize the game companies have EXACTLY the same thing going on as the movies? Not to mention, most movies now have games as a spin off from the movie. So yes they become relevant very quickly in the conversation.
@@greggibson33 I worked in Hollywood and the Video Game Industry, they have the same issues. Anything creative and big budget will run into these problems. 🌠Now you know...
@@slider799 Yeah, and the competition for free time is out of control, too. You're up against kindle, youtube, free books, free games, free movies, free tv shows, etc... as well as games. (Not to mention hobbies where you go outside) There's no substitute for a AAA title though, so there's always going to be a market for that.
I don't know that I agree about Passengers. Lawrence was definitely one of the biggest names out there at the time that movie came out. I don't think I can think of a single young actress from that time period that was similarly high profile. She was kind of at the height of her popularity following the Hunger Games, but after that franchise ended it seemed like everything she appeared in ended up being mediocre at best. Personally, I really liked Passengers.. but I'm a fan of sci-fi type movies, so that's no surprise.
When it comes to how a movie's script affects its budget, when they make an adaptation of a novel or something like that, they have to streamline the story to fit within the movie's allotted running time and budget constraints. They have to go through it and decide, "Okay, this character appears in only two scenes, so we can just have this other character say his lines so we don't have to hire another actor. And this location only appears twice, so let's move these scenes to these other locations so we don't need to build that set. We can probably boil this subplot down to one or two scenes and eliminate these characters entirely." It takes a skilled and experienced writer to figure out how to do all of this trimming without completely butchering the story and turning into an incoherent mess.
I'm a VFX artist, While I agree with many of your points, you saying that visual effects houses can charge as much as they want because they are in such high demand couldn't be further from the truth. VFX houses are extremely competitive with eachother and with foreign companies with many going bankrupt. They often operate with less than 5% profit. But to your greater point: As a VFX artist, I'm actually in favor of less CGI in films. I'm talking about the flashy, marvel type CGI. I love CGI when it helps improve the story, and not become the center of the movie. Making a summer scene look like winter, a city look like the city from 50 years ago, that sort of thing.
I watched a movie this afternoon made in 2022…the length was listed at 2 hours and 23 minutes. The movie ended at 2 hours and 5 minutes. The rest was the credits. Just wow!
@@davidanderson_surrey_bc Those lists probably also include the guy who brought the pizza or donuts on one specific day. I'm too lazy to check. They might as well have.
I never understood how paying 2500 Computer animators is cheaper than paying 20 special effect artists either. Those computer artists are why most credit rolls take 20 minutes or more now.
As someone who's worked on a lot of film sets over the last ten years, I'll go to bat for intimacy coordinators any day. Purely because the industry is quite predatory and they serve as a buffer to protect (mostly young) actors.
I would say Keanu Reeves is one name that i would watch no matter what movie he's casted in. He brings something to the screen that Hollywood has lost. Not to mention him being humble which is something that Hollywood last had in the early 2000's. Now, its the message.
My cousin just finished his capstone project at film school. It was a group of 5 students who made a 15 minute sci fi film. It had a run-of-the-mill script, okay, but they snagged some decent actors from a local theatre group, packed in a variety of creative and dynamic shots, built a variety of sets, and produced CG that was utterly, mind-blowingly gorgeous. We're talking a rocket taking off and space panoramas, the works. To my untrained eyes (i.e. the sort of eyes that watch most movies) it was as visually appealing as good as almost anything you'd expect out of Hollywood. They showed this at a film festival, and I paid the $15 to watch it. But with that fee I got to choose from about a hundred more short movies made by other film school students. Each film I saw had amazing practical and special effects, wildly cool cinematography, professional acting, original scores.... All told, there was about 25 hours of film in that festival, all at least as entertaining as (and less annoying than) any Marvel movie I've seen, made for a collective total around $500k.
The CGI scenes in Babylon 5 were done on an Amiga home computer back, in the 1990s. They they look a little dated today, but they are still effective. Combine them with a good story line, good writing, and good acting and it is still head and shoulders above the dreck produced today.
@@bf-696 Well... technically, they were done on a *lot* of Amigas; they actually had a "render farm" of about 25 - 30 Amiga 2000s equipped with NewTek "Video Toasters", and it still took about 45 minutes to render each frame. :-) Still a pretty impressive achievement considering the technology of the time, to be sure! But your point is sound -- the computer technology to pull off credible F/X work is well within the reach of even a shoestring-budget student film nowadays, so you'd think even Hollyweird *ought* to be able to do a reasonable low/mid-budget movie without having to spend $100mil on F/X alone...
Hollywood will do everything in its power to never hire those filmmakers. They prefer overpaying the same people over and over to create the same bland trash
i am an editor in Hollywood and I can tell you that we have to go through A LOT OF revisions, because A LOT of executives need to give notes on anything...and there's usually a fight (a big fight( between them , about what gets made. But hey, as long as they pay me, I am OK. The problem is that they have hired incompetent people . On director responded to my question " How do you see this scene" with..... "I don't know, I can yet imagine it until is edited". I felt like saying " aren't you the fucking director with a vision ? "
Let's look at my favorite movies from recent years: - The Translators (A low budget french thriller that is shot inside one building for the most part and has no CGI) - Parasite (A low budget korean movie with fuck all in terms of CGI) - EEAAO (An indie movie with a pair of new but brave directors and a male lead that had no significatnt role for decades before) - Another Round (A Danish drama with no CGI and Mads Mikkelsen who isn't typecast as a villain) - The Boy and the Crane (An animated Miyazaki movie) I'm seeing a significant lack of big budget Hollywood movies here.
I just hate how every movie has to be larger than life and more importantly larger than the one before it. Its always world ending life shattering insane situations.
I agree. It is an "arms race" where every event has to be larger, more important, with more at stake, than the past. It becomes tiringly predictable and uninteresting.
Honestly i have no issue with movies having a big scope and tons of crazy scenarious... If they are animated but no we have to make animated movies but with ugly and expensive cgi effect instead!
This was a problem in the Star Wars Expanded Universe decades ago. The comics and novels always had some planet-destroying device to overcome (or some dark force creature was going to literally destroy the Force or something) which basically made the whole thing monotonous. The problem was overcome to some extent after the prequel movies because they gave a much wider array of topics to cover (esp politics and conspiracies, but also things like exploring new worlds and training young Jedi, etc). I tried to read all the Star Wars novels while I was in college but a few I couldn't even force myself to read because they were so tedious. Lots of great novels though. One of the many reasons I'll never buy into the Disney universe.
It's so hillarious. I remember that Henry Fonda just lived in a caravan when filming "Once upon a time in the West" and he was a real actor to just look a film to see him (as I think that he was outstanding in "My name is Nobody").
Vfx houses actually struggle a lot. Big studios like disney are notorios for paying really bad and setting absurdly short deadlines, but the vfx studios have to take those deals if they wanna stay afloat.
As a 3D Artist, it also sucks on our end. It is extremely common in our industry to work huge overtimes and basically live in the office, because executives at some major studio set unreal deadlines and our management has to somehow make it work. The result is basically you get incredibly expensive, shitty CG, because people that are actually making it are tired, overworked and burned out
@@TheGodCold And that assumes everything goes right. Something I'm sure you're well aware just doesn't happen. At some point, a computer will fall over, and now you're having to replace it, and all the work that was lost. Or one of the artists will have a medical issue that causes them to miss days or weeks at a time. Or someones car won't start. Pick an issue, it's going to happen. Oh, and let's not forget the production babies that are now cropping up in the credits of every film...
There's also the issue of coordination. Large VFX studios have dedicated departments for modelling, texturing, rigging, animation, composition/post-processing, etc. Compartmentalising elements of a CGI-intensive production leads to communication and management challenges, which entirely separate departments exist solely to mediate (roles such as "I/O technician", "pipeline coordinator", or "department coordinator" that typically follow lengthy lists of VFX artists in a movie's credits reel). Smaller projects (or those with minimal/practical VFX) tend not to suffer the inertia felt by large studios that need to coordinate hundreds of moving parts per project, and a smaller team that shares similar responsibilities like compositing and post-processing will benefit from a nimble workflow and more direct lines of communication. *TL;DR:* Less is more, more or less.
The expensive option becomes MUCH cheaper by comparison when you won't stop fiddling with the CGI because you have a budget exceeding some mansions' price tags and don't have a clear vision of the story
7:42 This explains why movies that are written and directed by the same person are so much more concise. They will not only write the scene with the budget in mind, but sometimes they will be able to shoot a scene for much less than others would because they know exactly what they want and how to get it without any extra work. However, solely blaming the writer for this isn't always right. I remember that the writer for Black Widow was told not to do any writing for the actions scenes and that it would all be decided upon by the CGI studio they hired. Which also reminds of how Taiga W was blasted for blaming his CGI team for poor production. However, if you think about it in the context that he might not have been allowed to write for those scenes, you may understand why he considers them the weakest part of the movie.
Back in the '80's, one of the executive producers at Cannon Group was asked if he would ever make a 20 million dollar film. His response was "Why make one film for 20 million when I can make 20 films for one million?". As the years passed, he didn't follow his own advice and the company got itself into financial trouble.
Growing up, I naturally gravitated towards action movies with male protagonist, rocky captured my attention so much at young age, a common man with every struggle, fighting through life until he gets a opportunity to better his life, & having to give every ounce of strength to overcome the obstacles he faced, showing not only courage but also resilience, I wanted to have that, the “eye of the tiger”. I haven’t felt that way about any movie protagonist in years, hopefully that changes.
Writers, writers, writers. That is the root of any story, that is the root of any success. Pay the good ones well and everything else becomes a no-brainer. People are stories and stories are people. It's what we live and breathe.
The good writers are being sidelined for ideologists. Also I'm starting to think the younger writers just don't have enough real life experience or imagination to draw from to write a good story.
The "woke" argument would be that this is a necessary growing pain, as these diverse writers need to get that experience to become experienced writers. Which is a fair point...however they took several wrong turns 1) they threw out the experienced writers, rather than having both, and making the older train the younger, in favor of all younger. 2) they assumed that the problem wasn't already being solved. Most older white male writers could already tell you the younger cohort in 2000-2010 was far more diverse by nature of the kids graduating college, or just simply writing indie film was more diversified. The problem was already being solved. So now we have writers who don't know how to write, not getting trained because they are always the victim, who wont listen to an older writer even given the chance. They will build a huge backlog of failures as experience, then eventually become the "experienced writer", but never actually gaining any wisdom. The blind will lead the blind, until merit becomes the norm again. Remember, experience isn't everything, and talent is probably just as important in the arts. NASAs first moon missions engineers were largely in their 20s and 30s. That isn't experience...that's merit.
I recently watched “Rocky” again. The acting and building of a character in that movie is amazing. Makes you realize what today’s movies are missing. Great video.
Yes its a classic. No one but Stallone could have pulled that off the way he did. At the time I was a kid and never saw it in theatres. I was too young, all into Star Wars and not a boxing fan. Years later in the late 80s I saw it on video and thought it was amazing. And it just gets better with age and the more times you watch it. We were truly spoiled back then in the 70s and 80s. So many great films, covering all sorts of themes. Action, Comedy, Adventure, Sci Fi and thats just a few. They were all well written and effects being new since Star Wars, were not over used. And here we are today. And the problem I think is this. Its all been done. All sorts of stories and genres covered. There is nothing new or fresh anymore as its been done before in older movies and probably done better. The super hero stuff of the last twenty years is the first time the effects could make it look real and believable and that is why they have been so popular, but its been mined out and exhausted. And now there is nothing left to cover. When was there a film as shocking and new and ground breaking as Alien? When has there been something as thrilling as Star Wars that changed the film and toy industry over night, old and new themes worked into something special and unique? Where is this generations Terminator? Or Ghostbusters? Or Back to the Future? A character piece like Rocky? A thriller like Jaws? Its all been done and everything is either a sequel, a knock off, a copy or a belated sequel or remake or reimagine....even animation has stalled and gone up a blind alley. Its all got very stale and samey the last 20 or so years....I think the very last thing that came from nowhere and became huge as it was a new fresh take on ideas and mixed them up was the Matrix back in 1999. I am not counting Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, as good as they are, they are book adaptations. I am talking about something new and unique from Hollywood in film. And its really hard to do....
Truly, I grew up in Philadelphia and was a kid when Rocky came out, just old enough to understand what he was going through. And I like so many people in Philadelphia could relate, an underdog story, a boxer, lots of boxers in Philadelphia. And then you have that unbelievable musical score. I’ve never met a person who didn’t like the movie. And for a movie that cost $1 million pretty ridiculous that would be like making a movie today for about 3 1/2 million not very much at all.
Thing is with all these modern production movies is for all their bloated budgets and “big name” actors, you only want to watch them once. Sometimes not even that.
Just a reminder that Heat, with 5 major actors who were at the peaks of their careers, fantastic practical effects, training for the actors from ex SAS operatives, and shooting mostly in downtown LA, had a budget, adjusted for inflation, of roughly $120 million. Compare that to what we have now for $300-400 million
@@caronstout354 That's an example of making minimal resources work, Heat was an example of getting tons of super expensive actors, shooting locations, props, and effects, and it still cost less than half what most big budget movies today cost
That surprises me, because in Australia access to staff counselling is considered a basic organisational requirement in healthcare. No one likes using them because it feels like a great way to get fired, but they're there.
Oversaturation is a big killer, too. Nothing has room to breathe anymore because they're constantly cycling through movies, so if something isn't an immediate hit the chances are it'll never make it big in the theaters. There are just too many movies packed into the schedule. That doesn't even include streaming, TV, etc.
That is a humongous problem that not enough people talk about. Ridley Scott mentioned it at a director's roundtable when _The Martian_ was released, and he was absolutely right.
A lot of this is due to the streaming services, and cable/satellite channels. People run through a whole season of a tv show in one night! Many people watch movies every single day.
This has always been my take, especially with the big franchises. The MCU had 6 movies in it's first 5 years starting with ending with The Avengers. Then they had 5 movies in 3 years ending with Age of Ultron. Then they had 11 movies in 5 years ending with Endgame. Now they have had 9 movies in the last 5 years without an overarching plot to keep the franchise together.
Movies and TV shows are a literal addiction to many people today who spend many hours every day watching new content. The dealers need to keep the drugs flowing.
The majority of what we considered classic cinemas often written buy a small number of writers, sometimes only a single writer. Nowadays does literally mandated that films in Hollywood be written by a freaking committee, no wonder they are all generic.
It’s crazy that there aren’t any big Hollywood film stars anymore, except for Tom Cruise and maybe Leonardo DiCaprio. But back in the 80’s and 90’s I remember watching new films simply because of the cast. Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Kurt Russel, Willis, Deniro. There are too many to list. But now I don’t know who most of them are and they all look and act the same. I miss how things were 40 years ago.
I was looking over the entire run of COLUMBO recently, and could not help but notice that when the series was revived in the late 80s, each episode had between 7 and 9 "PRODUCERS". W--T--F! Anything more than 2 or 3 (executive, producer, assistant) is uncalled-for.
@@henrykujawa4427. I watched season 1 of Get Smart. 1 producer, 2 directors. Also, maybe 1-3 writers. Now ? 5 producers, 9 directors. And multiples of writers.
I got an idea…we do a modern reboot of the producers, but instead of it being a musical set in 1950s Broadway, it’s just everything behind the scenes in modern Hollywood
hollywood accounting aside theres also a lack of planning disney spent a lot of budget on fixing a costume in post instead of getting an easier to do costume made in the beguinning or getting it fixed in real life. proper planning is the key to keeping a budget
Think about a movie like “The Shawshank Redemption “. That movie, one of the most beloved stories ever put to screen, could never be made today. Makes me think of what kind of great things we’ve potentially missed over the last 15 years.
@@kanrakucheese lol. True enough. But in the case of Shawshank I can’t imagine anyone but Morgan Freeman in that role. If the roles were based on merit like that one was, there would be a lot less pushback to the DEI nonsense. Of course, then they couldn’t blame their terrible movies on racism anymore.
Why couldn't it have been made today? It is worthy of every accolade, but The Shawshank Redemption budget was $25 million and it made $16.4 million at the box office. It bombed. The budget for Citizen Kane was $900k and it's box office failed to make back the money. They lose money, win Oscars, get re-released later on and then make money. Avatar wasn't cheap it made billions, and was re-released again in 2022 and pulled in another boatload of cash.
About "focus groups" and "test audiences", in 1980, my best friend and I were signed to do a TV test pilot. My best friend and I were playing hospital orderlies that just screw off. Our one scene involved having fun with the electric shock therapy machine. The studio audience was laughing their @$$es off and the director was laughing so hard that he fell out of his chair. The episode was played in front of a New York city focus group and they didn't like it because "We don't think capital punishment is funny." So, end of the project and end of our onscreen career.
Your experience was a huge problem of misuse of test audiences. Test audiences should only be used to correct basic things like "I do not understand why this is happening or who is that character". Opinion test audiences are daffy, because the smaller the audiences for something that is supposed to appeal to the masses, the more error you will have.
I don't understand. Shock therapy isn't punishment. Its "therapy". If you were talking about the electric chair, that makes sense. And why would that be the end of your career? This story is suspect.
@@ckmoore101 So, full story. Steve and I grew up in less than happy homes. In the military, we would just bounce comedy bits off of each other to make each other laugh. We ended up on a double date and very impromptu, in a public place, we launched into a comedy bit to make our dates laugh. We soon drew a crowd. About ten minutes into our little impromptu skit, a man approached us, gave us his card and said "Call me on Monday. I think we can work together." So, when he called us, he said "They're looking for comedians for a show, nothing is set in concrete, call me back on Friday and I'll see if I have new details." So, on Friday, he gave us an update. In about ten days we were to report to a studio in Hollywood (we were in San Diego) to start a week of rehearsals for the show. On Monday morning, we saw our platoon sergeant to let him know that we were going to miss a week of work and he referred us to the first sergeant. The first sergeant was black and very unhappy that two white corporals had a golden opportunity and he said "No" (this was 40 years ago). We called our contact and told him. He then drove to the base and ended up talking with the first sergeant and Captain. The compromise that was reached was that because the show taping was on a Friday, that was the only day we would be allowed to go (the Marine Corps had to approve all "second jobs"). After our contact left, the first sergeant sullied the deal further. We would not be allowed to drive there, but would have to rely on "auto transport" to get us there. This was bad because auto transport started their day very early, so, Steve and I would have to report at 4 AM for the drive to Los Angeles. We got to the studio at seven in the morning. The gate guards saw our name on the list, but no one from that show would be there until 2:30 in the afternoon. So, Steve and I had a very long wait. When the director got there he reminded us that we missed rehearsals and because of that, he could only give us two minutes at the end of the episode and we would have to make the best of it. So, seeing that it was a "shock therapy room" we decided to a comedy parody of a 1950's crime drama where the convicted killer was going to the electric chair. And we played it up big time, doing voices, like Jimmy Cagney and Edward G. Robinson, which made the audience laugh. Then, I pulled a switch on Steve. While he was "in the chair" I walked over and gave him two bananas that I had taken from the catering table. Steve looked at me, like "What am I supposed to do with this?" look, but then he started making a bunch of really crude remarks about bananas "Getting hard and throbbing." It was about this time that everyone was losing their s*it and it was when the director fell out of his chair and got out "Cut!! Cut!!" A couple of weeks later we talked to our contact again and he told us what the focus group said. He also told us he would try to find us something else. The next time he talked to us he told us that because we weren't able to go to rehearsals, no one else was interested in us. Steve and I did do a couple of stand up performances on stage, but then Steve suddenly married his girlfriend and she very much disapproved of Steve doing anything but work and serving her. Steve was transferred and we lost contact. We regained contact 20 years later, but there was too much water under the bridge to regain our friendship because we had both changed.
@@ckmoore101 *"I don't understand."* Apparently, neither did some people in that test audience, only the other way around. Which is something that, if anything, improves the chance that it did happen.
The only thing i disagree with in this vid is the opinion about intimacy coordinators. Their job is surprisingly very important. They work with actors making sure that they’re comfortable with what they’re doing and provide solutions to get them there. They’re also the on set consultant to make sure all the rules all followed and that it basically doesn’t become a porn shoot
What does this person do for 99% of the film that doesn't contain any intimacy? And why can't the director be trained to do it himself? It doesn't sound particularly difficult.
I remember hearing someone a while back say that older Disney animated films used to have stronger stories and better pacing because they were hand-drawn in 2D rather than 3D generated in a computer. Because 2D is so work intensive, there was a greater incentive for the filmmakers to nail down the script first, making sure the pacing was right, the characters were compelling, and the story itself was solid, so that fewer changes would need to be made once the animation process actually began. As a result, the films from the company's earlier eras felt like they were more well-thought-out and impactful. I think that mentality, if applied to most films (animated or live-action) would do a lot to bring budgets down. Instead of rushing something into production, taking the time in development and pre-production to really plan everything out and make sure everyone is on the same page when it comes to the creative vision of the project will make the process of filming a lot smoother. Reshoots are not a bad thing. If something isn't working in the moment, it's okay to rework it down the line, and I do think that budgeting for reshoots is a smart idea. The problem is that there seems to be a mentality that everything can just be reshot later and fixed in post, which leads to costly mistakes that could have easily been avoided if a solid plan had actually been set from the beginning. There's no reason not to go in with a plan.
Hitchcock said he found the shooting process boring because he had already filmed it in his head exactly how it was going to be on screen; a locked script, a detailed storyboard, a complete shot list.
Good writing is the the most important aspect that needs to return. It used to be that writers would write a script then shop it around til a studio bought it. There would be minor changes and the movie would get made. Now they have an “idea” at best or proceed with the scrapbooking method and find a story somewhere in the footage that they shot. We need to go back to starting with a good story.
But who today would appreciate a good script? The collective Western imagination was driven out around 2008; that's the insurmountable elephant in the room. It's not Hollywood but us.
From what I heard, VFX isn’t what’s expensive, it’s the use of it that’s expensive. It used to be CGI was used to enhance practical effects (think the TRex in the original Jurassic Park, which was a massive animatronic touched up in post), but now when entire sets, costumes, and sequences are entirely CGI, every little modification needs a team of artists to go through and retool it. Apparently She-Hulk had such a massive price tag because they were constantly redoing shots and did an effects pass on shots they didn’t use. A normal TV show might be able to get away with that (traditional sitcoms modify on the fly all the time), but not one where the primary characters are almost 100% digitally altered. I do disagree with the Drinker on intimacy coordinators though. One person for an entire production is not the reason films are costing $200 million. Plus, I’m pretty sure most production staff don’t want to see some poor actor’s hairy taint all through the editing process, so having someone on hand with spare flesh tone undies and pointers on where to point a shot to keep unmentionables unmentionable is better for everyone.
Not to mention making sure there’s an advocate for each actor and actress doing intimate scenes to make sure they get treated fairly, ethically, and with respect.
It's really interesting, the difference between older days and modern times. It's been a really long time since I've been to the cinema, but I recall watching at least some part of the end credits of some movies. The list just goes on and on... It even feels like the end credits scene is getting longer. This spills even into animation. I remember watching the first Disney animations, and wondering to myself "huh, that's a lot less people in the credits than a movie made in, say, 2008 animation". Can't say much else than was already said in the video, but I'm simply in shock at the reasons behind these problems. Crazy.
laundering. thats the reason movies are so expensive now but the quality is so terrible. because the money thats supposed to be going into the effects budget, is really going into the pockets of the producers
@@IronMan-ds5bi Also multiplayer is free to play because they focused on players buying skins from the store which the fans weren't too fond of, while the campaign was a full priced game where most Halo fans just play the multiplayer. No idea how they thought the game wouldn't flop unless it was done for money laundering
I was talking to barbie stans about this. Barbie made 10 times more money than Godizilla but for every dollar spend on Godizlla they got 10 back. Where with Barbie for every 1 dollar spent they only got 5 back. So movies like godzilla are actually better for long term profits for companies
@@carsandsports123 The point of Barbie was creating an overhaul for Barbie in a time where she was becoming less relevant. That's why they spent such a large amount of time making her seem "above" and "more" than the argument that she is just a corporation exploiting children. They even joke about it several times, in the self-depreciating way that says "we have a problem and are actively doing NOTHING about it but we made fun about it so it's fine now". The Barbie movie was about making a new generation of Barbie buyers, the movie being successful was simply a benefit. Plus many female-centric brands were pushing HARD for pink product placement.
The thinking has been for the last few years that blockbusters are the only way to make money in the theaters because everyone skips the smaller movies for streaming. I think that might be starting to change though.
Um, the irony being they certainly do make those. The fact that you don't know about them is the reason why they shy away from making a ton of them each year, but they're certainly there
I work in film whenever I can get the opportunity and i can tell you that the cost makes sense when you're on set. Especially if shooting on location. Much of the cost is upholding measures to prevent liabilities. You also have to take care of EVERYONE'S basic needs from talent all the way to grips, ADs and makeup artists like myself. There's also a lot of heavy duty equipment that has to be flown in separately which of course incurs a travel and insurance cost. I think people at the very top are taking waaaay too much when compared to those of us on the ground, hence the strike, but ultimately, if you want your stuff to look good and if you want to get creative, it costs money to make it look polished.
One issue that bridges the “overpaid actor” and “bad writer” issues is the “unnecessary cameo”, where a studio realises their movie sucks so they pay someone a crazy some of money to turn up in the hopes people will want to see that.
One sure sign a movie is awful: when the credits list more executive producers than the combined total of principal cast, director, cinematographer, screenwriter, editor, head of effects, and orchestrator.
One of the things I notice watching old films on TCM is how short the credits are compared to modern films that seem like they have a thousand people working on them.
Actors - While some actors are grossly overpaid, I think you are underestimating the pull actors have in how much they draw in an audience. People aren't JUST going to see movies for actors, but popular actors will bring more attention to your movie and thus more money. So if a studio is willing to pay an obscene amount of money for an A-list actor, it's more of an investment rather than actual talent. Because they could find a MUCH cheaper and talented actor. The pool of actors is massive. Production Bloat - While there are A LOT of jobs and roles related to film, it's way too nuanced of a subject to simply say, "fire all of these minor jobs because they probably aren't doing anything." It's mostly a case-by-case basis. I'm sure If you're running a massive blockbuster set then you're probably going to need an excessive amount of workers to make everything run smoothly. Will there be some redundancies? Yes, but it's probably cheaper in the long run to have a set that runs smoother with less risk. Because the second you run over schedule the budget skyrockets. Too Much CGI - VFX houses being able to charge whatever they want is false. It's an incredibly competitive market with no union and they essentially make bids to work on projects. Could movies in general contain less CGI? Sure, but sometimes it's a necessity to make scenes better. And if done right, the audience won't even notice it. Bad Writing - For the point about how inexperienced writers write scenes that are unachievable and overly expensive; you don't bring up the fact that these scripts go through a layer of approvals between producers and executive producers. So if there's a scene that they think is too expensive then they'd probably ask them to rewrite it. Then "just get better writers" is wishful thinking. I also wouldn't make it a race or gender thing because there are also plenty of old white hack writers. Reshoots - Pretty much agree, but you don't go into how to properly fix reshoots which is an extensive pre-production process. Marvel as an example has devolved into what it is now because they simply took on way too many projects. So they slapped artificial release dates onto shows/movies, quality assurance plummeted, and the executives were stretched so thin to the point that they couldn't properly evaluate the projects. There's also A LOT of other shit going on like no showrunners, but proper planning is EVERYTHING. Pre-production has been getting shafted and is the most critical step in making a film.
I was recently binge watching one of the Disney Plus shows. As the timer counted down during the end credits to the next episode, I took notice of something and had to stop and rewatch it again. I counted a total of 9 producers, executive producers and co-producers. WTF? Its movie making by committee! This level of bloated and undoubtedly conflicting management by itself drives up costs.
It drives down quality as well. Committees are good when you need to build consensus or work out a compromise. That’s what results in a bland generic “omnifilm” aiming to please everybody. When you’re trying to do new or exceptional things, you need one or two visionaries, and one or two people as their sounding board.
Clearly the only solution for Disney is MORE producers and management types! Let them crank it up to 30 on every show. The faster they fail, the better we are.
Zack Snyder said that there are 2 kinds of movies: Movies made by filmmakers & movies made by a committee. Regardless of what you think about Snyder's movies, you gotta admit he's right. You just found the evidence.
Our movie industry is stagnant because it is monopolized by a few movie houses who have created regulatory barriers to the entrance of new competitor firms into that market. Like with most things in the US at this time - the problem is corruption, protected monopolies, and/or cronyism and statism.
Same with pretty much every industry in the west now. A few juggernauts at the top who play with politics to block competition. I'm glad someone commented this as far too few are versed enough in basic econs to understand the root cause.
@@commandercaptain4664 I'd say they are inherently intertwined, the ideology forced on cinema is derived from the overly regulated, bureaucratic system that the ruling class manages. These are people disconnected from regular society, think that every idea outside their own is from ignorant savages at best, hold no standards for themselves and hold no personal agency in their life outside of the regulatory agencies.
The idea that intimacy coordinators are useless is pretty harmful. Granted, they're a new invention, but I'd argue a long necessary one. Getting two actors on camera and just saying 'figure it out' is a recipe for disaster.
