I don’t think the worse thing that came out of the recent Sony movie studio controversy is leaks of oncoming projects and what they personally think of the talent working under their financial backing. The worst thing is that it has confirmed everything I have been saying for five years about the situation in Hollywood and where it’s going—which is downhill fast. There are some wonderful projects on the horizon like Star Wars, new Godzilla films, and comic book adaptations but Hollywood is facing a massive black hole for which it will not survive. Ten to fifteen years out from now, Hollywood will be a memory—evaporating into dust collapsing under its own weight. To begin to understand why listen to George Lucas explain it to Charlie Rose below. Then check the links after the video to see what types of things Sony had leaked and what it says in support of my next assertions.
http://defamer.gawker.com/sony-leak-studio-exec-calls-kevin-hart-a-greedy-whore-1669403407
http://www.blastr.com/2014-12-14/sony-leaks-reveal-other-studios-plans-x-men-fantastic-four-aquaman
Whether it is the opinions of studio executives that Angelina Jolie is a spoiled brat, or that the new James Bond picture needs to have more twists and turns at the end one thing is clear—the studio execs at Sony are dreadfully out of touch with what audiences want and they mask that ignorance with haughty Hollywood statesmanship—which might sound wonderful around a dinner conversation but won’t deliver a billion dollar multi national box office film to theaters. And with the prevailing union wages attached to the entertainment industry coupled with the ability of independents to compete directly with technology–the business model of Hollywood just does not hold up much longer—so enjoy it while you still can.
Hollywood executives as George Lucas said are not creative people and have no business trying to manage creative endeavors. If they want to be the money men, then they should place their bets and shut up resuming their latté sipping at Santa Monica Pier. But when they resort to calling their talent names and trying to inject their opinions into a franchise like James Bond which has been around forever—they are setting themselves up for extinction—which is exactly where it’s going.
Star Wars is not new. Jurassic Park is not new. The Avengers is not new, neither is Batman, Superman, Spiderman, or the Hulk. None of it is new—Hollywood is simply tapping into material already loved and created—just like James Bond to live for another business quarter until the expenditures finally exceed the investment. There were a lot of movies in 2014 that lost money, the total box office is down 4.7% from 2013 numbers and that trend will continue. It is likely that the Ridley Scott film Exodus will lose money over the Holiday 2014 season as the final Hobbit film will soak up what is remaining in ticket sales for the fiscal year. Exodus would have to have strong sales for the next three weeks to make back its domestic take and that just isn’t going to happen—especially since the early word in religious circles is that the movie is too secular for them as opposed to the numbers seen by The History Channel’s Bible. Again, neither the Bible movies nor the Hobbit films are new—they have been around for a long time—they are not original productions coming from Hollywood and that is a really dangerous thing to an industry that is so dependent on fiscal increases at the box office every single year forever. In this case, forever never comes and by the time Star Wars has run its course in 2020, as well as the Marvel movies—there is nothing left in the tank that can drive the kind of numbers needed to make movies these days.
It doesn’t help that the executives at companies like Sony are as clueless as a rock under a car tire about how to make a good movie—then are arrogant enough to actually put their opinions in an email. They should kiss the feet of Angelina Jolie, she is beautiful, smart, and knows how to speak to the media—which is a lot more than the executives bring to the table. She drives me crazy with her endorsement of the U.N. and Brad Pitt her husband the actor flirting with socialism as a government means to solving problems—but they are generally good people who make generally good movies routinely. They can at least tell a story.
So it really doesn’t matter what came out in the leaks from Sony because they are already a dying company. With people like that in their leadership—they are finished. Their new James Bond film sounds terrible as they have moved away from the confident swagger of Sean Connery into a sensitive and troubled “modern man.” I mean who wants to watch James Bond get tortured again and again—if he was such a superspy, he’d avoid those kinds of problems—but the writers are out of ideas and it shows.
So Hollywood is doomed—they just don’t know it yet. Only very rarely does a film like Interstellar come along and people like Christopher Nolan will have individual success at the box office for a number of years into the future, but as an industry, the movie business is set for its own reboot—and they will only have themselves to blame. They were warned—but they did not listen.
Rich Hoffman
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