The holidays are a wonderful time in many ways, and for me the absolute best part is getting together with family that’s normally spread all over the country. It’s a great chance to catch up and to discuss the challenging issues of the day. For some this means arguments about politics or maybe religion, but that’s not how we roll. We are mostly in lock step and share head-shaking moments about what going on in those realms. No, things don’t really heat up until we start talking about movies.
To be fair, I haven’t seen The Marvels, the latest in what seems to be a never ending supply of superhero movies. I enjoyed the first Brie Larson entry once I figured out why Captain Marvel was a girl and not the Shazam character from Saturday morning TV of my childhood. Despite my enjoyment of Captain Marvel, I was not super excited about the new one. The preview looked like something of a silly kids’ movie rather than a serious superhero treatment, and that’s not something I need to spend time and money to watch. When I mentioned that to one of my younger cousins, you would have thought I had slapped her.
Tell A Complete Story, Please
“It’s a great movie,” she insisted, and then proceeded to explain to me that if I had watched some streaming show on Disney+ and read something or other I would see this new movie as a brilliant piece of work. Ok. Maybe that’s true. It also illustrates one of the essential ways in which the entertainment industry is dropping the ball and repeatedly failing in the box office. When I sit down to watch something, I want to see a full story. If enjoying it requires a bunch of prerequisite work, apart from seeing the previous movie in a series, you’re going to lose me.
The third season of Star Wars’ The Mandalorian is a perfect example. I thoroughly enjoyed the first two seasons of the show and was in eager anticipation of season three. When it started, however, I felt pretty lost. I actually had to find a video series explaining each episode, and it went something like this: if you read this comic book, played this video game and watched this cartoon series then you know that character A is part of subplot C and that means that character B is really part of subplot D…and on and on.
I’m the world’s biggest fan of the original Star Wars trilogy and I had even read all of the books until I started on my Master’s degree and that book world exploded while I was away. I don’t care for first-person shooter video games and I don’t have nearly enough time for the open world variety, so they lost me there. I also couldn’t get into the cartoon series, as they were aimed more at kids, so they lost me there, as well. I haven’t read a single graphic novel, I’m super far behind on the books….why did sitting down to relax for an hour just come with more homework than I did for my Master’s??
Try Taking a Risk
It seems odd that I should have to say this about an industry that’s supposed to be about making magical dreams come to life, but come on. Most of what’s headed to the big screen is a sequel, prequal or remake of something that’s already been done. In the case of superhero movies, they’ve been done to death. Some of my favorite movies growing up featured Christopher Reeve as Superman or Michael Keaton as Batman, but those movies came a couple of years apart and left audiences hungry for more. The rest of the time we were thrilled with movies like Back to the Future, Jurassic Park, Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ghostbusters, The Matrix and The Terminator. They were original ideas from directors who were willing to take risks and do something totally new. They were also monster hits that became franchise cornerstones.
So what happened? A while back I had a conversation with entrepreneur Mark Cuban about the state of the movie industry and he said studios are now extremely risk-averse because they don’t know how to market new ideas and they’re worried about losing money. Well, how’s that working out? Disney, in particular, but many of the other major studios have resorted to just burying us in remakes, prequels and sequels to the point that we don’t even go to theaters any more. I don’t need another version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, especially not one where Snow White isn’t snow white and the dwarfs are something else because they’re trying to cater to the vocal minority driving “woke” culture. Just tell a different story, for crying out loud! Encanto was fabulous and it was a huge hit. Do more of that (not more Encanto, but more original stories, just to clarify).
Understand Your Audience
Finally, take a look at the world around you. the COVID-19 pandemic drastically changed how we watch movies, and the propensity of inexpensive big screen, hi-def TVs virtually assures the old ways are dead. Last summer Pixar’s Elemental was dubbed a failure, but when it hit streaming platforms is because an unqualified success. Similarly, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was considered disappointing at the box office, but when it started streaming it because a massive hit. I’m sure the same will be true of the new Mission Impossible movie when it hits streaming. If you want me to pay theater prices and put up with people on their cellphones and kids running around, good luck. I’ll do that for Indiana Jones, a Star Wars or Star Trek movie and a few select others, but for the most part I’m waiting to enjoy movies at home. If you want to lure me back to theaters, get back to what movie studios were doing in the 80s and 90s, in particular. Take some risks, show me something I haven’t seen before, and give me a reason to leave the house.
Keep doing what you’re doing now and I’ll probably just skip it, or at least wait for it to hit the (only slightly) smaller screen for free.
-B
Ishmael's Legacy 