I'm a huge GI Joe fan but I didn't go to the first GI Joe because, in my opinion, it looked awful. I love the stories of Ancient Greece (especially the heroes) but I skipped the Clash of the Titans remake because again, in my opinion, it looked awful. However, in the past couple of weeks I have now seen an ad for the GI Joe sequel and a preview for Wrath of the Titans. To my surprise, I thought, "That doesn't look awful. Actually, that kind of looks good." Is it possible that these potential franchises fixed the problems from the first movies? Or did they simply hire better promo people?
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Remember Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was better received critically than Star Trek the Motion(less) Picture. And that created more sequels and The Next Generation to boot. Sometimes if the original makes enough money, a better sequel can result.
Or they can get bogged down, i.e. The Pirates of the Carribean. "Alright, I'll do three more then that's it!"
The traditional model is that the second movie has the lesser returns factored into the production costs. ie it has a smaller budget and ambition.
However, perhaps times have changed. This is an interesting essay by critic Mark Kermode about how once the budget is big enough, big movies always make money, no matter how rubbish they are. He draws the cheering lesson from this, that big-budget film-makers now have a licence to take a few chances and go for a movie that might actually be good, seeing as their profits are virtually guaranteed.
There was so much marketing and hype for Clash of the Titans, that maybe there's still some left over to help promote the next movie. Obviously the 'marketing strategy' ;-) and hype matters more than the movie actually being good. In the old model, Clash of the Titans' rubbishness would have killed the franchise dead, but that doesn't matter any more, it seems.
The lack of choice thing isn't funny, yes, and probably a factor where there aren't alternative arthousey cinemas.
I think another factor is that there's a kind of low-level brainwashing of the public to go and see them.
They are all over the weekend newspapers and supplements. Fine articles are published in the weeks before the movie opens about the upcoming films and their tired stars giving their 25th interview of the day. The films being rubbish just has to sink in slowly by word of mouth long after the film has opened.
I think blockbuster movies have to be simplisitic and stupid too, because they will make most of their money in countries where English isn't most people's first language. An explosion or a fireball are the same in any language.
I think it's a bit of both. Probably more of the promotion though. You see advertise ment after advertisement on TV weeks before the movie is released now. Also with the internet there's pop up ads and ad banners. With technology advancements and new ways we get our information there's new ways to promote films.
I do think filmmakers of big budget films are attempting to give audiences a better product though. Fast Five was probably the best film in that mediocre franchise. Also X-men First Class was also the best X film since X2. I heard the fifth Final Destination was the best since the first, but I haven't seen many of those films. Mission Impossible 4 was probably the best of the franchise too. It might be that those films worked because the studio found the right director and let them do whatever they wanted with the film. Most of the films I mentioned aren't stellar franchises. They make money but the films in those franchise range from a few great to horrible. A lot fall into the good but forgettable category.
Another thing I'll throw in is that I think trailers ruin the films, sometimes. A studio will want to put enough in a trailer to get audiences to see it. If it's a sequel they might not put as much in since the audience is familiar with the characters. Not always the case though, Men in Black 2's trailer was loaded with jokes. When I finally saw the movie, I didn't laugh at all. I had already seen the jokes, millions of times before. Now would the movie have been good without being ruined in the trailers, probably not.
George Poague said:
Isn't that overlooking the fact that there are more screens at each plex these days -- and thus, more alternatives to choose from?
I still remember when The Color Purple came out, back in the days when your average theater had ONE screen ... and it was showing at only ONE theater where I lived. I had to wait a month before I got to see it because it was always sold out (and, in the meantime, read the book!). That doesn't happen today; any given theater has at least six screens; some have as many as 22.
Jason Marconnet said:
I was with you until ...
That doesn't make any sense.
I wrote that first thing this mornign. I thought I knew what I was saying. Just pretend that last part didn't happen.
ClarkKent_DC said:
George ... you just contradicted your own assertion.
...Over at the old Comics Journal board , the statement came up (Not from c'est moi , yer honor !) that " the dirty little secret of Hollywood is that a pretty largerg/most big releases make money , at least for the releasing company " !!!!!!!!!!!