George Lucas Predicts Death of Big Budget Movies 561
H_Fisher writes "Before the red carpet had cooled at last night's Academy Awards, George Lucas told the New York Daily News that big-budget movies will soon be history. From the article: "'The market forces that exist today make it unrealistic to spend $200 million on a movie,' said Lucas, a near-billionaire from his feverishly franchised outer-space epics. 'Those movies can't make their money back anymore. Look at what happened with King Kong.'" Lucas' prediction: "In the future, almost everything that gets shown in theaters will be indie movies ... I predict that by 2025 the average movie will cost only $15 million.""
George Lucas is wrong (Score:4, Interesting)
The problems I have with today's movies are:
1. More effects than plot/storyline
2. Hollywood unions controlling costs
3. Acting unions keeping the status quo too long
4. Economic pressures keeping people in their homes
5. New distribution mechanisms breaking down the cartels
In terms of plot, the average Hollywood movie is regurgitated from previous stories -- they even keep the title nowadays! I've seen great low budget movies with new twists and turns, but with lower production quality. My recent trip to Asia and Europe for the past 3 weeks showed me 3 foreign flick that were surprisingly good -- I even suspended disbelief for 2 of them.
The unions in Hollywood are notorious for continuing their blacklist and favoritism controls -- keeping costs high and quality low. In order to distribute a movie in the States, you have to be part of the union's preferred cartels. If you attempt to make a movie outside of their control, you'll generally not see wide distribution. Copyright at its finest, here.
For those who are familiar with my typical rants and raves on Slashdot, this post isn't much different. I'm the sole anti-copyright activist in most threads, and it doesn't hurt me to see copyright failing Hollywood after decades of them abusing their power. The Internet will slowly (or quickly) bring the distribution cartels down, and I can't wait to see what powers come to the artists willing to give up control of their work once it leaves their hands. Money is still there to be made, we just need to find new ways to sell our art without using the force of government to back our profits up.
On the economic pressure side, the usual enemy to movie theatres is gas pricing. I disagree -- gas prices in my home are not up much once you factor in inflation over the past 15 years. Greenspan did this country a huge disservice with his inflationary system -- making the cost of living go up much faster than our wages did. I believe the average home is poorer today than it was 10 and 20 years ago -- when you look at the cost of entertainment versus the available disposable income, you can see why entertainment is failing. Pile on huge consumer debt levels, and most families can't just Charge It! any longer.
In the long run, I see great benefit in the Internet is bringing the average consumer a new level of selection. The victor in this is the consumer -- and those who find new ways to bring art from the artist to the purveyor. I'm looking at all the options myself, as I don't really see much reason to support those (ie, Hollywood) who stole from me over the decades I've lived. I'd rather go see a local theatre production (where the actors and support staff get paid through real ongoing work) than make a millionaire out of someone who acted once and believes they have the right to continue to make an income without making actual repeated work.
George Lucas might be right that Big Budget Movies are dying -- but I think he needs to check his premises. It isn't the consumer that doesn't want to spend money, it is those who have controlled and manipulated the market that have lost the ability to continue their deceit and their monopoly. Information doesn't want to be free, the law of supply and demand just dictates that it will eventually be free in a digital world. There are still billions of people on this planet who will pay for good content, and I'd love to be one of the guys who finds a way to connect the supply with the demand in a profitable way.
$15 Million (Score:3, Interesting)
Haven't bought a movie in years. (Score:5, Interesting)
Hollywood just doesn't make content for me anymore, so I will gleefully watch its demise.
Being a major book geek, movies tend to be weak sauce compared to a good novel anyway.
But it's more fun to watch a movie drunk than to read a book.
Actor compensation (Score:1, Interesting)
What amazes me about that is that actors are imminently REPLACEABLE. There is a new crop every few years such that no actor is indespensible. Pay them a normal fee and cut huge costs and development time from films.
Look what happened to King Kong? (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree, mostly. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:2025 is a long way off... (Score:3, Interesting)
Heck, when budgets get low enough, you'll see them being given away in breakfast cereal boxes. Distribution cost to the producer is then $0, and the profit is locked in.
one long post deserves another (Score:5, Interesting)
And the theater environment is rapidly losing it's appeal for me -- I'd MUCH rather watch a movie at home on my projector than in a theater with people who can't keep quiet during a movie, can't keep their cellphones off inspite of all the warnings and can't control their bladders for 90 mins. So, for me, the incentive to find a version of a movie that I can watch at home has little to do with $$$ and much to do with convenience. And (imho) that's going to be true for everyone as home entertainment centers become cheaper and better. It used to be that there was something to going to the theater for the big screen experience. With that going away, I can't see people really interested in the cinema much at all. Someone let me know if they think people will still be "going" to the movies in 25 years in Japan or the US.
So with the Cinema viewers prefering to watch at home, home distribution is the wave of the future -- and I agree with you again, that will lead to inevitable copyright infringement. So, there's really a window of opportunity for the creators of a film to make money. In the first weeks of a movie's life -- they'll have the best version of it, and that's their chance to make money on it -- as you said, supply and demand. It will eventually be cracked though, and then they'll have to compete against the crack -- agani supply and demand. Certainly the studios will find ways to monetize their product -- that's what they do best -- but if the end sum figure is going to be what a movie can make in a competetive market -- people will not be willing to invest big $$$. These movies have these huge budgets because they have a hope of return on nivestment. Without that hope, the investments will go away, and with them the big budgets.
Fortunately for Hollywood, there are easy places to trim costs. Salaries are crazy, as you mentioned. The entertainment unions are going to be broken because the studios will have to break them. And there will be no more $30M paydays for an actor for one movie. Which is fine by me -- once again, it's supply and demand.
Fan flicks (Score:2, Interesting)
If this is the wave of the future, I say, "Bring it on!"
Re:Star Wars rules... but Lucas is a moron (Score:3, Interesting)
Given the choice between dumping brobdingnagian amounts of cash into something dull but practically guaranteed to make a small profit or into a more original concept with no money-making history, the smart investment is to put your money on the schlock.
As Lucas points out, that's where good business and good art just don't agree.
I think that Lucas is right, though, about the Next Big Thing being small budget "Indie" films. The public is getting tired of the recycled crap, and if you combine that with filmmakers who are seeing that the big studios will never make the kind of films that they want to make, then you have a market ripe for independent film. The only thing standing in the way is distribution, and I'm sure that somebody on this forum can think of a few ways around that.
Smaller movies and more of them, please. (Score:5, Interesting)
Not all of the above are cheap films, but none of them had a couple of hundred million thrown at them, and every single one of them made a decent return. Hollywood is run by suits who dole out money to what they belive to be the safest option- a small selection of dead horses which the shamelessly flog (market) into turning a profit.
Someone please, please hand Michel Gondry, Charlie Kaufman, Darren Aronofsky, Guy Richie, and Christopher Nolan ( could go on, but am pressed for time) 100 million dollars each (that's $500m - less than the cost of cost two summer blockbusters) and sit back and watch about 15 great movies happen.
What a summer movie that'd be.
Note that he said "the average movie" (Score:5, Interesting)
The "average" cost of a movie is already far, far below $200 million... I would say that the "average" cost of movies is already in the $15-20 million range.
One of the biggest expenses of the movies is actors' salaries. Do anybody here actually believe that the studio execs LIKE paying $20 million to an actor for one film? Of course not, but they are paying the market rate for that actor. Actors draw audiences, so how does Lucas propose that the studios force the big name stars to take a lower salary?
Very Independent Distribution via Web ... (Score:3, Interesting)
... can pretty much cut out the studios. If a moviemaker has a good idea (or a lousy idea) for a short film, they don't need one of the big distribution systems anymore. One such site is youtube [youtube.com] and no doubt there can be many others. Eventually they will be able to host full-length fims which are rated by the audience, not the critics .... sort of like /. itself!
Someone gets it! (Score:5, Interesting)
I think one of the bigger reasons that Mr. Lucas is right is the ability for novice movie makers to do their own CGI. While it may not be as flashy as the big-budget movies, it's enough to get across the idea, as long as a good story compliments it. For instance, while using StumbleUpon, I found a video for a fan-made parody of Power Rangers called "Emo Rangers". The initial episode (which was all I could find) ran about 18 minutes or so, and had some pretty good effects (certainly better than we saw in the original Power Rangers). Considering that all the group that made it had was a YouTube entry and a domain that forwarded to their MySpace account, I highly doubt they had a large budget.
People are waking up and realizing that they've already seen this plot thrice, and oh now we can predict the plot twist. Shiny objects will entrance people for only so long. Good stories are taking precedence, and this will allow more indie directors to get their turn in the spotlight.
And me without Mod Points (Score:4, Interesting)
Audiences want actual storylines. The problem is Hollywood is going for the "safe" or "Sure" bet of remaking something that's already been done.
The example of "King Kong" was an incredibly absurd one. Jackson got to make "King Kong" because of the tremendous success of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, which demonstrated nicely that long, epic, big budget movies still draw a substantial audience.
The age of big budget movies is not coming to an end. What we are hopefully seeing is an end to banal, poorly written big budget movies. I suspect one of two things will happen. Either Big Budget movies will start being produced with innovative, interesting and well written scripts, or the bad writing will continue at a lower cost per movie.
Big Budget Hollywood movies are only going away if Hollywood fails to hire decent writers and take some chances on new plots.
Actually, from the viewpoint of Lucas, he's right. The kind of Big Budget movie of which he's capable is dying. You need actual writers to make one that will thrive.
Re:Yes, look at King Kong (Score:2, Interesting)
Therein lies the disconnect between our two comments. I'm using the definition of profit that most people outside the film industry go by - producer's gross minus production costs. I know that Hollywood has dodgy accounting practices, but there's no reason to pretend it makes sense and go along with it. King Kong was highly profitable no matter what the accountants claim.
If Lucas is right (Score:3, Interesting)
He was a big part of the start of the expensive movie model. I hope he's right that we're goin back to things before Star Wars.
The effect would be story-driven movies, with more actors and writing, and less special effects and production value costs. That means more movies, and more ideas.
(And a lot more crap, but the massive information flow of the Internet helps filter out stinkers.)
I'd be a happy camper.
Re:Actor compensation (Score:5, Interesting)
I also have to wonder if you understand capitalism.
The movie studios, if they could have their way, would charge the movie stars to appear in their movies. They pay them millions of dollars because the top-name actors think they are worth it... and they are right. Tom Hanks will pull a lot of people into the theatres, enough to recoup the costs. The expert accounts wouldn't be approving the payouts if they hadn't run the numbers, come to this conclusion, and been proven correct numerous times.
You really can't say this is a sign of some sort of global stupidity or anything, either. There are ~300 million people in this country, and the Hollywood market is much larger than that. It only takes a very slight average preference to have amazing box-office consequences. I don't love Tom Hanks and I won't go to see something just because he's in it, but I do think he is a well-above-average actor*. Take that opinion and multiply it by 300million+ and you've got something.
(*: My personal standard for acting is the ability of an actor to play a character and have the actor themselves disappear. Tom Hanks is extremely good; the difference between Forrest Gump and Jim Lovell (Apollo 13) is pretty big, but I still think I see some Tom Hanks-ness in the similarity. A worse actor is Jennifer Aniston, who seems to play Rachel Greene over and over again. Some of the better actors include Patrick Stewart (who does have a certain force of personality, but the distance between Professor Xavier and one of his Shakespearean roles is quite large), and sometimes the smaller players in sci-fi series are suprisingly capable; I've been extremely impressed by Michael Shanks playing Daniel Jackson in SG-1. Daniel Jackson himself is an almost dead-on impression of the original in the movie (I initially didn't realize they changed actors, because it had been a while since the movie), and he does the traditional character-body transfers extremely well, as opposed to Richard Dean Anderson, who does the understated humor thing well but always seems to be Richard Dean Anderson.
Obviously, this is not most people's standards, who I think want the actor to leak through and then pay for the actor. Thus, the cream-of-the-crop tend to be semi-good actors that people really like. Tom Hanks is, IMHO, a minor anomaly in that I think he's pretty good (although not the best) and he's also pretty popular.)
Re:one long post deserves another (Score:3, Interesting)
Seems like a good place to plug the Alamo Drafthouse again as a great place to see a movie [originalalamo.com]. Heck, my wife and I went to the Oscar watching party last night - having the movie theatre experience to watch a television show. And my wife despises regular movie theatres with annoying people with cellphones and smelly kids playing Yu-gi-oh and peeing in the back.
The movie theatre experience, as exhibited by typical big-box theatres, may be as decrepit as the big-box movie. But, like the independent film, the independent theatre will always survive and flourish.
How many movies have you actually seen? (Score:2, Interesting)
Additionally there are films for religious people and always have been. Recently there has been Narnia and The Passion of the Christ. Traditionally how about, The Ten Commandments or Ben Hur?
Really Hollywood is trying to make money and they will make movies about whatever as long as people go and see them. Now maybe they will give awards to different kinds of movies but thats not always the case. For example Gladiator won best picture in 2000, and LOTR in 2003.
Also do you think there were never gay cowboys? I don't know even Westerns could be a little gay at times, checking out each other's pistols and what not.
Re:one long post deserves another (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not going to try to read the tea leaves on this one, but for me "going to the theater" has always been a way to get out of the house, much like going out for dinner or to a coffee shop. Yes, I can cook my own dinner or make my own coffee at home more cheaply and conveniently, but I do like to change my surroundings and see other people once in a while. More and more, I see Americans (particular in the burbs) fortressing themselves in their bedroom communities with their home entertainment systems, looking for ever more ways to avoid ever leaving their homes. Whatever works for you is fine, of course, but I think I'd go nuts living that way.
That said, the one thing that has destroyed the cinema experience for me more than anything else is: Commercials. No way will I pay $10 to see a movie and then be made to sit through 15 minutes of commercials.
And there will be no more $30M paydays for an actor for one movie. Which is fine by me -- once again, it's supply and demand.
There's another side to that coin, though. Suppose that your involvement in a film (or any other endeavor, for that matter) demonstrably adds $50 million of value to it (i.e., in increased revenues), for whatever reason. Or, suppose that 100,000 people are willing to pay $50 a head to watch you do your thing in a large stadium. How big a slice of that pie would you think you deserve, and if it's only a tiny slice, then who deserves the rest?
Hollywood accounting tricks (Score:4, Interesting)
Is it just me, or do you get the impression that the mob has easier to follow bookkeeping than a lot of corporate America today?
Re:George Lucas is wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
Art is about emotion.
No one really gave a damn about any other character.
There wasn't any character conflict with any other character.
The dinner scene where jar jar irritated leem nielson was about the only character conflict in the entire movie (and revealed more about the jedi master's character than any other scene in the movie).
No one really cares about the other characters in the movie but they all have an opinion on Jarjar. So I say most annoying AND the best character after palpatine in all three movies.
Re:Haven't bought a movie in years. (Score:2, Interesting)
I've watched 2001: A Space Odyssey about a month ago and I must say that I enjoyed it much more than most movies I've seen in the past 8 years (including Episodes 1-3 of Star Wars). 2001 is not just a movie you watch while eating popcorn - it's art, and a really fine one. Not just pretty faces trying to look as if they are acting. And special effects (which seem to become duller and more redundant) aren't the only point of the film.
Re:one long post deserves another (Score:4, Interesting)
On the flip side I work from home, and my home theater is in my basement. I've only seen two movies at the cinema in the last six months, but I've probably watched fifty movies in the time (thanks to Netflix
I'd say your stereotype of home theatre owners being anti-social is way off base. In fact of the five or six people I know that have a home theater, I wouldn't categorize any of them that way.
Re:Yes, look at King Kong (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:one long post deserves another (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been a fan of Alamo Drafthouse [originalalamo.com] for years, and I'd like to echo your sentiment. For those of you who haven't had a chance to experience the Alamo Drafthouse in Central Texas, it's more or less a combination of the dining / drinking / movie experience. Basically, you take a movie theatre, add a kitchen & bar, then remove every row in the theatre & add a table. You place your orders by writing them down on paper, and a waiter comes by, takes your order, and brings your food / drinks without disturbing your movie experience.
Of course, you can get there early to place your orders ahead of the movie showing (I enjoy that, and it's the only way to do it if you have more than just 2 people). I've attended hacker contests, movies, and even TV broadcasts, and have always enjoyed the experience.
Ultimately, I beleive that the movie experience will have to be redefined to remain relevant and competitive in the future. Alamo's done a GREAT job of doing that, IMHO.
They've also demonstrated that you don't have to show the latest Hollywood movies to pack a theatre. I've seen several "classics" while enjoying dinner and drinks at the theatre, and I'd be willing to wager that this probably plays into the long tail phenomenon [wired.com].
The Alamo Drafthouse is localized to the Central Texas area, though they are rapidly multiplying. Are there any other chains or specialized movie houses that server dinner and/or drinks elsewhere in the States? List them, cause I'm a recent convert and would like to visit them while travelling.
But copyright only lets you horde (Score:4, Interesting)
The thing is that over-restrictive copyright simply lets holders horde media and ideas. But it does not stop new ideas, which simply cannot use existing popular media as a base as they were able to in the past (like Disney using classic fairy tales).
So what it does is punish those companies who lack creativity (like, ironically, Disney - though with Pixar they bought creativity once more) but those companies that actually are creative and able to come up with new ideas are actually rewarded more than they would have been in the past, because there is less competition in the space of the truly original work. Pixar is an example of this, where they were successful because of how creative they were but that success was increased by the mediocrity all around them, as other companies worked for years to cross-licence something that was popular last decade.
I don't really mind longer copyright because I know it will correct itself at some point and kind of become irrelevant in the face of smaller groups able to deliver high-quality media content with far less money. I just feel sorry for kids today that will have a whole media heritage from their childhood locked in a vault guarded by dying compnaies that cannot undserstand how they are killing themselves.
Re:Haven't bought a movie in years. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Note that he said "the average movie" (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's consider the first X-Men movie. It was a blockbuster, had tonnes of special effects, well-known actors... And they did it all for a reported $75 million USD, plus marketing costs of about $22.7 million USD [boxofficemojo.com]. Not to say that the movie was perfect (the script certainly needed work -- who's the idiot who came up with "Do you know what happens to a toad when it's struck by lightning?"), but it was an undeniably huge success. X-Men almost made back its production costs on opening weekend by bringing in about $54 million, and has so far made back about three times the production & marketing budget with a total lifetime gross of about $296 million worldwide.
In my opinion:
a) A bigger budget doesn't guarantee a better movie. (Waterworld, anyone?)
b) Spending more on scriptwriters and less on A-List actors would do many movies wonders.
c) Who thought that a sequel of a remake of a remake was a good idea in the first place?
d) One of the main reasons that people like indie films right now is because they don't suffer as much from over-recycled plots and characters.
e) Stop charging $10 to $15 CAD a head for a movie at the theatre and people might go more often!
f) Investors seem much too keen on throwing good money after bad on ideas for productions that haven't been thought through from a "what does the consumer want?" perspective.
Re:Yes, look at King Kong (Score:5, Interesting)
Unless the chains somehow got more power, this isn't the case.
When I worked for General Cinema in the late 80's, there was a sliding scale for the amount of profit the theater kept. It started out at about 10%, and increased each week the movie ran, and I believe it capped out at 50%. So, a movie had to run 5 weeks to get 50% of the box office ticket.
That's why concession prices are so high...they only made (then) about $0.75 a person for an opening showing. Most movies never stayed running for 5 weeks, so the only place they could recoup costs was to charge a bazillion percent markup on popcorn and soda.
Re:George Lucas is wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
This is debatable. There's no denying that cars are much better today than they were 20 years ago, but entertainment really isn't about technology; it's mostly about story and characters. The reason that the block-buster model is giving way to indie movies is that they focus on the basics.
Would the average american want to watch a black and white movie, where you can see the strings, and there's only 6 actors, and the director/producer/editor/cameraman/lighting tech/lead actor is all the same person?
I think most people here would like Primer [imdb.com]. Budget: $7,000.00. (And it's in *COLOR*!)
Where have we come? (Score:3, Interesting)
Clerks' budget was $230K. Yes, _K_.
Or maybe it's the larger opening week take (Score:3, Interesting)
Chilling effect of derivative work exclusivity (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't believe ideas are quite as infinite as some would have you believe. At some point, we'll be up against a wall, and the excessive burden of today's copyright terms just might extinguish entertainment as we know it.
Damn right. "Melancholy Elephants", a short story by Spider Robinson [baen.com], expresses this sentiment. Unfortunately, the wall of accidental similarity may have already appeared in songwriting: see "Three Chords and the Truth" by Peter C. Lemire [lld-law.com] and someone's probability analysis [slashdot.org].
Re:If so, only because he killed them. (Score:3, Interesting)
They have 8 theatres per location, why are they all playing the same thing? keep movies in there longer, so that I can choose between 8 different movies. Then when I'm in a mood to watch a movie I will be liekly to find something watchable.