Matt Damon explains why the Movie scene is formulaic and mostly trash now.

[Amo Husserl]

Budgeting and breakeven.

 

[HipHopStan]

The highest grossing film of 1979 was Kramer vs. Kramer and it tells the story of a couple who divorce, and its impact on their young son, and the subsequent evolution of their relationship and views on parenting. Idc if you’ve seen it or not, but a film like that wouldn’t be in the Top 20 grossing films if it were made today. I try to go see any original film I can, but audiences want to see franchise films that have a lot of colors, action, and things that blow up. It was refreshing to see Oppenheimer do well last year.

 

[Devil Plisken…CMS]

How can Matt Damon claim to care about Hollywood when he hasn’t tapped in with Murda Pain?

 

[Duke Dixon]

He's telling the truth. Now if a movie isn't about a big IP or franchise studios want to stack the cast with big name actors. It didn't work for Babylon and I'm curious if it will work for Megalopolis.

This is also the reason why there's so many horror movies recently. In the 80s and 90s horror always did well on home video. Even today their audience collects physical media more than other subsets of movie fans.

 

[IsThatBrothaMouzone?]

nah, they've always been following that formula. It just used to be star based instead of IP based.

Instead of a million marvel movies, you had a million action films starring the same action stars doing the same catch phrases over and over.
Instead of a bunch of rambo films, and die hard films, and james bond films, stuff like that, you got a bunch of avengers films.

They mad the audience is here to see their favorite characters instead of their favorite actors

Great point.

It's why British actors been taking over. Most of em have legit theater training and degrees in theater. The Americans with that training are also elite (Angela Bassett, Denzel etc).

Problem is that a lot of younger American actors are mostly attractive people that start off in TV/commercials. Their acting is "meh" but they're hot.....so they're easily replaced. Plug and Play so to speak. You don't have movie STARS anymore. It's a bunch of character actors and fashion models instead of box office kings & queens.

That's fine except most studios don't wanna invest in new IP's. They want Marvel franchise movies where you know that a $200M investment will net you $1B. It's safe and predictable. The studios don't want stars that can make demands. They'd rather have a B or C+ actor and make $350M over having an A+ actor and make $500M.

 

[omnifax]

Interesting take. It's been said that streaming by and large has been a failure as far as a profitable business model. Netflix is the only company that has made a profit from it last I read and they did it by not just funding big projects but a lot of small projects as well. Overall this is a major symptom of monopolies. You only have a few large studios now and they have all the money so it's harder get something made with a decent budget without going through them. Too much money concentrated in a few large companies that have their hands in everything.

I found this chart someone made of the current studios and their profit breakdown:

 

[FruitOfTheVale]

Obviously he's speaking from the POV of a megastar but as someone who's on been on the indie grind for years, I honestly believe that one of the single most glaring weak spots in today's film game is simply that the great marketers of today (i.e. streamers, social media influencers and the like) are rarely aligned with the great short film auteurs.

In almost every other form of entertainment - videogames, music, etc. - the indie scenes get their flowers from channels and personalities with as high of follower counts as any other platform within the market. I.E., an indie game made for $10,000 with 2-3 hours of content can legitimately go viral on a 10M+ follower twitch page and open a million doors for a development team of 4-5 people to climb another couple rungs up the ladder and expand their ambitions.

An indie musician can go viral on Tik Tok and create tour/merch/etc. opportunities to expand their fanbase.

An indie short filmmaker? Zero real avenues for viral traction & expansion that aren't based on the short being a teaser/proof of concept for a star-anchored feature or a pilot for a web show/tv show/miniseries. Standalone shorts are glorified thesis films no matter how unique, well-executed, etc. About the only other exception is when you're making "fan films" that cater to a huge fanbase of an existing IP like Kane Pixels did w/ his Backrooms series which is now being turned into an A24 flick. A dope original short narrative is not gonna gain any traction whatsoever on any page of influence.

Shorts are legitimately where the most risks are taken but its the story of a tree falling in a forest 99% of the time.

I say all that to say that if great auteurs who actually take risks were actually promoted by popular pages, there would be a bigger pool of upcoming writers/directors/actors who had legit shots at profitability on shyt that isn't cookie cutter.

 

[Saysumthinfunnymike]

They mad the audience is here to see their favorite characters instead of their favorite actors

That's not entirely true. A lot of comic book movies have been flopping of late with the exception of something big like a "Deadpool & Wolverine" a lot of them like "The Marvels" for instance were gigantic flops..

Meanwhile... 80's and 90's nostalgia like "Top Gun" and "Twister" have been raking in a lot of money. I don't think it's only the DVD/Blu Ray business that hurt Hollywood, it's the entire creative process. The writers have been putting out trash and expecting us to eat it up..

 

[⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐]

i hate when people smack their lips when talking, just annoys me to no end.
Edit: just realized this was an episode of hot ones nevermind

Can you give a time stamped example of this? I'm unfamiliar with the term and don't know what to associate it with

 

[Cloutius Maximus]

The highest grossing film of 1979 was Kramer vs. Kramer and it tells the story of a couple who divorce, and its impact on their young son, and the subsequent evolution of their relationship and views on parenting. Idc if you’ve seen it or not, but a film like that wouldn’t be in the Top 20 grossing films if it were made today. I try to go see any original film I can, but audiences want to see franchise films that have a lot of colors, action, and things that blow up. It was refreshing to see Oppenheimer do well last year.

 

[HipHopStan]

Touché, but for the most part, Oppenheimer is a film where characters talk for about 98% of the runtime. It's impressive that a movie like that succeeded with the majority, even though dialogue-heavy films aren't typically what most audiences are craving today.

 

[WaveCapsByOscorp™]

I can see that, there’s definitely lost revenue stream when you don’t allow the media to be released in certain ways. I wish maybe he’d break down the streaming situation in today’s game and explain that in comparison to the era of cinema he grew up in.

It’s hard to think that they’re getting screwed THAT bad from streaming services but it’s possible.

 

[TheHonorableOmarSharif]

Can you give a time stamped example of this? I'm unfamiliar with the term and don't know what to associate it with

 

[Wildin]

I think the real issue is that Hollywood-produced films have lost that gritty, surreal, etc aesthetic that was once prevalent throughout filmmaking during the 70s, 80s, 90s, and even early 2000s.

Movies and their lesser quality sequels within the franchises during those years felt more different, more classic, more grandiose, and more authentic, but nowadays, most movies and franchises feel cheap and not as satisfying for moviegoers.

A lot of modern-day filmmakers and writers aren't very good and are just rehashing the same script over and over again. Sure, remakes and sequels have always been a thing, but there was and is a difference in the overall feel for past and present franchises.

This.

From Rambo, to Die Hard, to Jurassic Park, to Lord of the Rings, to Lucas' Star Wars, to Disney's Star Wars. Aliens to Jason Vorhees, Freddy, Hannibal, Chucky films, Scream films, etc .. whatever the brand, they've always stood on business: fukk art, get money. Not saying it's "right" but that it is what it is.

Even when the brand was an Eddie, Arnold, Denzel, Pitt, Leo, Carrey, Will, or Tom acting as themselves for 2 hours.. what was a common complaint for a number of these guys? "Oh he just playing the same character every movie." Absolutely. Kept going to that same well bc that's what paid for their big hollywood mansions.

blame Jaws for that, honestly. as much as i LOVE the OG Jaws flick, it was the original blockbuster that started the trend.


ether lol... why does matt damon look like glenn danzig here? yuck


theres also a stunning lack of originality in all the arts right now. i think its kind of become a problem because theres so many of us that its more and more likely that were going to have the same ideas. personally, im afraid of writing a song and years later find out i ripped off some shyt i'd never even heard of. it happens. all. the. time.

This has been discussed openly in the past few years.

There is a safety net in Hollywood now that wasn't there before. There's plenty of has been directors, filmmakers, producers....if you fukked something up, made a bad choice or a bad investment you could get dropped or get lost. Now mfs will get one movie greenlit but be on the hook for a sequel or a trilogy if the sequel does well. And if they make another Scooby Doo movie and it flops, who cares. The studio still owns the rights everyone will get another chance. But to take a gamble on something new and unheard of and not hit it out the flop. That's almost a sin.

 

[Roid Jones]

This has been known.