Saw Captain America last night. It was good. If you thought Thor and Iron Man were worth your eleven dollars, you'll likely walk away from the theater satisfied. What struck me about the film, outside of Tommy Lee Jones' scenery chewing, was that, for the first time, I really got the sense that it took place in a shared universe.*
Now, I know what you're going to say. Marvel's been linking their Avengers films together since Samuel L. lectured Tony Stark after the credits of the original Iron Man. However, there's a subtle, yet important, difference.
...Okay, the difference is that the linkages in those movies didn't affect me to the same extent that those in Captain America did. Content-wise, it's harder to put my finger on. There's just something about how the Red Skull is (oh, spoilers by the way) searching for the power of the (Norse) gods, how Steve Rogers goes to Tony Stark's dad's "World of Tomorrow" where they see him demonstrate patented SHIELD flying car technology... It's all woven into the plot to a greater extent than tacking a scene roughly involving Thor's hammer on to the end of Iron Man 2. Perhaps it's simply that seeing some of these characters appear in one or two films is interesting, but crossing over into three is unique enough in movies that I take notice. Don't know. I don't doubt that its intentional; after all, they've had three years and four films to get into their groove with this logistically nightmarish experiment. Hell, Cap even ties into the overarching universe with its subtitle.
The point is, it was pretty cool. A movie universe of interlocking films in which no one protagonist is the star. It makes me wonder: could this model work for original film franchises?
Comic book movies have the advantage that their source material is already built around the shared universe. Even then, it's taken a long time to get from X-Men to Avengers. Come to think of it, I'm not surprised they started out in Iron Man with the dropping of tiny hints and hooks; if they weren't able to pull off their five films' worth of setup, then it'd all just be a drag on the now-standalone Iron Man. Any original movie that would want to emulate the shared universe of The Avengers would have to have some reasonable assurance that there'd be at least two or three guaranteed films.
Then there's another problem: if an original movie is any good (and it'd have to be), then fans are going to want to see what happens next to those original characters, not necessarily some new characters who live on the opposite coast or something. Even though each Avenger is getting his due, you still have Iron Man 2 and soon enough 3. Comic book movies have the built-in advantage that every hero is more-or-less a proven, respected, marketable lead. If we were to get, say, a Matrix side story without Neo or Morpheous, you end up with the danger of fans not liking the new characters. While moviegoers may love Tony Stark, they're not going to think of Captain America as Raiden. Thus, all the leads in your original shared universe films better be both different and compelling.
Finally, that new shared universe better be pretty damn big. In the Avengers film-verse, you have Iron Man fighting robots, Thor fighting goblins, and Captain America fighting nazis. It's the same universe, sure, but each character has a very distinct niche. Take a theoretical Matrix side story again; if it's just a different group of stylin' freedom fighters in the same green world running away from agents, you run the risk of Superman Returns syndrome.
Still, I can't help but want to see if it could be done in a different context, and I can't help but feel that after The Avengers makes a fleet of dump trucks' worth of money next summer, other studios might be willing to try. Though there are dangers to be sure, the idea of what is essentially different perspectives on a single theme has the potential to break the standard sequel mold in a lot of good ways.
*And I don't just mean the Indiana Jones reference, though that was awesome
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Monday, July 11, 2011
Curiosity Culture
"How bad do these things have to be to properly fail, anyway?"
That's the question Tom Shone asks in his book, Blockbuster. The subject matter is... well, blockbusters, and it covers them from 1975's Jaws to 2003's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. It's a laid-back, articulate look at the content of the movies themselves, behind-the-scenes anecdotes about their creators, development, and business strategies, and the changing trends of the industry over the course of three decades. When you get to the end you realize that it's something of a series of chronologically-ordered tangents from a guy who just loves to talk about wonderful movies, but it all flows so smoothly that you don't care. It's definitely worth a read.
The central theme is that summer movie season has changed, and not for the better. We've all had that sensation, right? Mr. Shone grew up with Raiders and Star Wars ("Was there any better time to be young and thrill-hungry and going to the movies?" he asks), and even I, with my meager Independence Day and Men in Black, can sense that today's summer glut has definitely become a case of quantity over quality. Again... lemme just quote the man:
"[Now, there has] risen an entirely new half-breed of film, neither a hit nor a flop, neither popular or unpopular but just there, hanging in the sky like an untethered blimp or derelict space station: semipopular culture, or kind-of popular culture - a culture of semisatiation, geared to the satisfaction of the mildly curious with the not-quite-boring: Curiosity Culture."
That sums up my feelings about as well as can be done. Compared to the movies of the past, today's movies are isolated events. They're out, you're made very aware of that fact, and you might even go see them... but then you never really think about them again. They're like a show that gets canceled in four episodes. What's up with that? With the enormous budgets Hollywood has to throw around and the advances in technology and the art of filmmaking, is there any good reason we shouldn't be getting movies that trounce Raiders and Terminator 2?
If we don't, Mr. Shone argues that, as with every other aspect of life, the reasons are economic. Back in the 70s, 80s, and going into the 90s, movie marketing was not what it is today. People saw a movie due to positive word-of-mouth, so you were under enormous pressure to make a movie impressive enough to make people talk about it to their friends. Consider that. I talked about Green Lantern with my friends on the way out of the theater, but I can't think of a reason to ever talk about it again (And no, right now doesn't count. Do not see Green Lantern.). Summer movies played all summer, as word-of-mouth circulated.
What happened, Mr. Shone says, is that movie studios found a way to “eliminate a certain stratum of failure” from the system, essentially immunizing their pictures from failing to make a profit. With the various steams of revenue available to them (theater, overseas, DVD, Blu-Ray, video-on-demand, television) and a big enough marketing budget, they can ensure that, with an end product sufficiently expensive and flashy, they can drag in enough people over the course of the opening weekend to make their money back. Again, I quote:
“By 1998, what was in place was a system where it is perfectly possible for a studio to buy our curiosity for the space of a single weekend, which was all the time the studio needed to make back its money. It didn't matter whether we liked what we saw or not, only that we sat there, liking it or disliking it, in sufficient numbers... That's all our bum on a seat now meant: the satisfaction of a vague curiosity, and vague curiosity - unlike like or dislike, let alone love - could be bought...”
This also rings true. I have no idea, in retrospect, why I saw Green Lantern. I didn't even go in anticipating a good movie, let alone something on par with, say, Back to the Future. It was... just a movie. That you could go and see. So I did.
Weird.
But anyhow, if a bad movie is going to be as profitable as a good one, then there's less of an incentive to produce a good movie. Surely, all else being equal, studios prefer good movies, but if there's going to be huge profits either way... well, let's not knock ourselves out, eh? The end result is a load of flashy, mediocre movies meandering around the screen every weekend in turn, and me wishing the theater would show Back to the Future.
So let's make a pledge, right here! If Captain America doesn't get legitimately good reviews, then we won't watch it! We'll send a message! We have a nightmarishly staggering buffet of entertainment choices available to us, and we won't settle for anything less than the very best! No more will we see anything with a familiar name on it! From this point forward, I declare this the summer of the legitimately good movie!
Or we can at least buy a ticket to a well-reviewed movie and go into Captain America's theater. Same end effect.
...I'm going to go watch Back to the Future.
That's the question Tom Shone asks in his book, Blockbuster. The subject matter is... well, blockbusters, and it covers them from 1975's Jaws to 2003's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. It's a laid-back, articulate look at the content of the movies themselves, behind-the-scenes anecdotes about their creators, development, and business strategies, and the changing trends of the industry over the course of three decades. When you get to the end you realize that it's something of a series of chronologically-ordered tangents from a guy who just loves to talk about wonderful movies, but it all flows so smoothly that you don't care. It's definitely worth a read.
The central theme is that summer movie season has changed, and not for the better. We've all had that sensation, right? Mr. Shone grew up with Raiders and Star Wars ("Was there any better time to be young and thrill-hungry and going to the movies?" he asks), and even I, with my meager Independence Day and Men in Black, can sense that today's summer glut has definitely become a case of quantity over quality. Again... lemme just quote the man:
"[Now, there has] risen an entirely new half-breed of film, neither a hit nor a flop, neither popular or unpopular but just there, hanging in the sky like an untethered blimp or derelict space station: semipopular culture, or kind-of popular culture - a culture of semisatiation, geared to the satisfaction of the mildly curious with the not-quite-boring: Curiosity Culture."
That sums up my feelings about as well as can be done. Compared to the movies of the past, today's movies are isolated events. They're out, you're made very aware of that fact, and you might even go see them... but then you never really think about them again. They're like a show that gets canceled in four episodes. What's up with that? With the enormous budgets Hollywood has to throw around and the advances in technology and the art of filmmaking, is there any good reason we shouldn't be getting movies that trounce Raiders and Terminator 2?
If we don't, Mr. Shone argues that, as with every other aspect of life, the reasons are economic. Back in the 70s, 80s, and going into the 90s, movie marketing was not what it is today. People saw a movie due to positive word-of-mouth, so you were under enormous pressure to make a movie impressive enough to make people talk about it to their friends. Consider that. I talked about Green Lantern with my friends on the way out of the theater, but I can't think of a reason to ever talk about it again (And no, right now doesn't count. Do not see Green Lantern.). Summer movies played all summer, as word-of-mouth circulated.
What happened, Mr. Shone says, is that movie studios found a way to “eliminate a certain stratum of failure” from the system, essentially immunizing their pictures from failing to make a profit. With the various steams of revenue available to them (theater, overseas, DVD, Blu-Ray, video-on-demand, television) and a big enough marketing budget, they can ensure that, with an end product sufficiently expensive and flashy, they can drag in enough people over the course of the opening weekend to make their money back. Again, I quote:
“By 1998, what was in place was a system where it is perfectly possible for a studio to buy our curiosity for the space of a single weekend, which was all the time the studio needed to make back its money. It didn't matter whether we liked what we saw or not, only that we sat there, liking it or disliking it, in sufficient numbers... That's all our bum on a seat now meant: the satisfaction of a vague curiosity, and vague curiosity - unlike like or dislike, let alone love - could be bought...”
This also rings true. I have no idea, in retrospect, why I saw Green Lantern. I didn't even go in anticipating a good movie, let alone something on par with, say, Back to the Future. It was... just a movie. That you could go and see. So I did.
Weird.
But anyhow, if a bad movie is going to be as profitable as a good one, then there's less of an incentive to produce a good movie. Surely, all else being equal, studios prefer good movies, but if there's going to be huge profits either way... well, let's not knock ourselves out, eh? The end result is a load of flashy, mediocre movies meandering around the screen every weekend in turn, and me wishing the theater would show Back to the Future.
So let's make a pledge, right here! If Captain America doesn't get legitimately good reviews, then we won't watch it! We'll send a message! We have a nightmarishly staggering buffet of entertainment choices available to us, and we won't settle for anything less than the very best! No more will we see anything with a familiar name on it! From this point forward, I declare this the summer of the legitimately good movie!
Or we can at least buy a ticket to a well-reviewed movie and go into Captain America's theater. Same end effect.
...I'm going to go watch Back to the Future.
Friday, July 8, 2011
"There's something very familiar about all this"
"We knew we were stuck with where the first one left off: something has to be done about their kids because that's what Doc Brown says. That was just a joke!"
-Bob Gale, co-writer and co-producer of the Back to the Future trilogy. And probably some other stuff. But who cares?
Holy Christ do I love Back to the Future. I'm reading Tom Shone's Blockbuster, and a post about it in its entirety is likely coming soon because one bit of it is making me turn my computer back on and type when I really should be sleeping.
Okay, so, Back to the Future Part II. Co-creators Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis didn't really want to do one, but they were presented with the choice of sequels being made with or without them, and they chose "with." As Zemeckis says, "When you make a movie that's successful, it becomes a piece of real estate. It becomes a franchise and the reality comes at you very quickly, which is 'We're making a sequel and you guys can either help us or not but a sequel is going to be made.'" So what do they do?
That fun but slightly off-kilter bit in which Marty goes back to the events of Back to the Future? That is a commentary on sequels. As Gale says, "The trick to writing a sequel is that people want to see the first movie but they don't want to see the first movie. They want the same except different. That's what we gave 'em."
WOW! That is so cool. Why don't I notice these things? Back to the Future is somehow even greater than I thought it was. Now watch the hoverboarding scene.
-Bob Gale, co-writer and co-producer of the Back to the Future trilogy. And probably some other stuff. But who cares?
Holy Christ do I love Back to the Future. I'm reading Tom Shone's Blockbuster, and a post about it in its entirety is likely coming soon because one bit of it is making me turn my computer back on and type when I really should be sleeping.
Okay, so, Back to the Future Part II. Co-creators Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis didn't really want to do one, but they were presented with the choice of sequels being made with or without them, and they chose "with." As Zemeckis says, "When you make a movie that's successful, it becomes a piece of real estate. It becomes a franchise and the reality comes at you very quickly, which is 'We're making a sequel and you guys can either help us or not but a sequel is going to be made.'" So what do they do?
That fun but slightly off-kilter bit in which Marty goes back to the events of Back to the Future? That is a commentary on sequels. As Gale says, "The trick to writing a sequel is that people want to see the first movie but they don't want to see the first movie. They want the same except different. That's what we gave 'em."
WOW! That is so cool. Why don't I notice these things? Back to the Future is somehow even greater than I thought it was. Now watch the hoverboarding scene.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)