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Ever wondered why Hollywood movies suck?

Six out of every ten North American movies loses money. Various things are blamed: television, changing tastes, downloaders, the phases of the moon. . .

Studio heads say they are struggling to fix the problems with their industry, but I think they’ve lost perspective. Some of the decisions I see coming from the big studios are real head-scratchers.

Studio folks: what you need is to hire a person who doesn’t think like a studio exec to advise you. A person who likes good stories, the big screen and movies, and who actually has a clue. A person like me.

So, all for free, I’m going to give you a summary of the kinds of recommendations I would make.

You Pay Your On-Screen Talent Too Much
According to the IMDB, Nicole Kidman was paid 17,500,000 USD for her role in Bewitched. Without going into detail about what’s socially wrong with paying an entertainer seven times more than what most people will earn in in their entire lives, it also doesn’t make very good business sense.

A movie like this shouldn’t cost more than 17 million to make, let alone be spending 17 million on a single actress. I don’t care how good she is! Her wage alone is over half the entire budget of a huge movie like Hero, a movie that has earned about twice what I think Bewitched will ever earn. Which production got the better return on investment?

Pretty girls who can passably act are a dime a dozen. While Kidman is a gorgeous babe who can really act, is her talent really necessary in a bit of fluff like Bewitched? There are any number of cute, well-known actresses out there with good box-office draw who would have done this movie, and done it well, for under a million (which still is a damn good wage). So that’s 16.5 million that you get to keep to make another film with (or it could be seen as 16.5 million fewer bucks you have to earn to break even on this turkey).

Your Movies Cost Too Much To Make
This goes part and parcel with paying too much for on-screen talent. Many Hollywood movies have budgets far too large for the material they have to work with. Most stories are not worth 100 million. Just ask the television people — even the largest T.V. productions are expected to produce an entire season for under 40 million.

Not every movie is of the size and scope of The Lord of the Rings, nor should it be. Steve Jackson’s movie is the exception to the rule. Studios need to recognise the fault with trying to generate some kind of jackpot return by throwing lots of money at a project that doesn’t have the chops to carry it. If there is any industry where this does not work, it is filmmaking.

A lot of the stories I see getting told on the big screen are not big enough, interesting enough or original enough to warrant the kind of money that’s being lavished on them. Without even seeing it, I can tell you that a movie like Stealth should not have cost the reported 130 million to make. Asking a production like this one — with its B-movie plot — to make back that kind of money is next to impossible. A movie like this should have been made for 30 million, not 130 million.

Since filmmaking is all about telling a story, it has to come down to reading and understanding the quality of the source material. Anybody who’s read Tolkien knows the work had it in there. Peter Jackson knew this and his producers knew it too. When they wrote the cheques out for the 300 million required to complete the trilogy, they did so with confidence because they knew the material was good. If producers can’t figure out the good from the bad, they should hire people who can.

And it should be noted that Peter Jackson delivered some 11 hours of completed movie. That’s around 28 million per hour, less than half the cost of Stealth.

Your Movies Cost Too Much To See
There was a time not long ago, within my short lifespan, when you could see a movie in a movie theatre for two bucks. Going to see a movie was an event that didn’t really cost all that much.

Movies can still be an event. No matter how good a home theatre is it will still pale in comparison to a modern movie theatre.

Now I’m not saying that we should be charging two dollars to see a modern movie in a modern theatre, but anything under ten would be nice. In fact, I think you could pack a movie theatre every night if it showed decent movies for five bucks a head. If a couple can do a movie for under $20 (tickets, drinks, snacks) they will consider it money well spent, even if the movie was only so-so. If the movie was so-so and they spent $45 they are going to be pissed, and they’re going to look for other forms of entertainment next time.

The price of the production and the cost to the theatre needs to be structured around these realities.

There Are Too Many Remakes and Sequels
Sometimes remakes are OK. Sometimes sequels are OK. Having an entire summer of remakes and sequels is not OK.

Bewitched, War of the Worlds, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Dukes of Hazzard, The Revenge of the Sith, Batman Begins. . . The problem with the movie season in 2005 is that there seems to be little new. No original stories to watch. No original worlds to discover or characters to root for. From a creative standpoint, this is weak. Audiences like the FX, the famous names and the action, but above all else, they love original stories. There is an excitement that comes from watching a story you have never seen before. I don’t think it was this way in the past, but I think today’s discerning audiences will pick a good story over everything else, given the choice.

There are plenty of original movies coming out, but all the money being lavished on making and promoting these hopeful blockbusters is having a tendency to drown out smarter, better, more interesting, more cost effective stories. In my opinion, original stories represent a much better chance at a superior return on investment than a sequel or a remake does.

A remake can really work well at the box office but a lot of thought needs to be put into it, particularly if the original was already critically acclaimed. Although I’m sure Spielberg will produce a decent, commercially successful movie, even he can’t top the story-telling quality of the original War of the Worlds. All he can do is cast some 21st century stars and hang some 21st century special effects on a modern rewrite of the original. I think his retelling of the story will do well, but will never become a mega-grossing classic like E.T. was.

Sequels can work too. Everyone wants to see the next Harry Potter movie because we are invested in an original story arc; but does the market really need another Mission Impossible? Surely there are plenty of other great stories that haven’t been told yet (or at the very least, been told in an original way). Maybe it’s time to be giving these other stories a chance.

The conventional wisdom is that remakes and sequels are safe, because the quality of the original story is already known. This seems simple enough, as story is the best advantage a movie has. But it works against you too: if the story has already been told, much of the excitement of discovery has already been lost. This often forces directors into another kind of trap. . .

Movies Shouldn’t Be About the Special Effects
Faced with weak story material, a lot of directors compensate by ratcheting up the special effects to the point that they become the story. Many modern action movies are like this; it is the number one way to drive up costs and reduce profits.

A disturbing trend I see with movies today is the increasing reliance on special effects to tell the story. This is not the way it should be. The special effects exist only to embellish upon the story, the same way that icing does for a cake. You can’t expect people to enjoy only the icing. Movies like 2001, Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Alien, Back to the Future and Blade Runner were all hailed in their day for their amazing special effects. But special effects weren’t why any of them became classics. People remember these movies for their stories and their characters.

Any producer who thinks that all theatre-going audiences want are the big-budget special effects is lying to himself. The audiences aren’t paying the money to watch your tech-demo. If the story isn’t strong enough to be interesting without FX, then the story probably shouldn’t be told on the big screen.

Showing off the computer animation might have worked ten years ago, but the movie going audience of today is not so easily fooled. The excessive use of special effects is self-limiting. There are only so many interesting explosions the audience will want to see before it becomes old news. If that’s all the movie’s got, then eventually the weaknesses in the story telling become obvious and the audience will simply become bored.

Movies Shouldn’t Be Stupid
I am completely mystified that a movie like the Dukes of Hazzard was ever considered for production, let alone get produced for 60 million dollars. I’ve never been convinced that it is possible to make a good feature film out of a television series. But if one is to try, surely one could start with source material that isn’t so stupid.

The film-going public is more sophisticated than it was in the eighties. I thought the Dukes of Hazzard was hilarious in the eighties. But that was because I was ten. Now that I am thirty, the ridiculousness of the premise is evident and I no longer interested in it. I like slapstick as much as the next guy, but there is a big leap from watching quality slapstick (Monty Python!), to watching real people embarrass themselves on the big-screen. In other words, if it is to work, it can’t cross the line from funny to stupid. If at any time the producer needs to ask himself, “Is this still funny?” then it isn’t.

Did people honestly think that Jessica Simpson in a bikini was the thing that would make this movie sell? Surely we haven’t gotten that low, have we?

Ever wondered why light, amusing movies like Toy Story, The Incredibles, Finding Nemo and Ice Age did so well? They had every disadvantage. They were light-hearted stories. They were family movies. They were animated. They were computer animated. Conventional wisdom would have such movies sent straight to DVD, but yet they kicked ass at the box office — why? The answer isn’t because they were CGI, it’s because they weren’t stupid.

When watching a movie, an audience should never feel as if they are being pandered to. Things like chemistry and physics need to work as expected. Plot needs to be consistent and logical. Characters should act like people do. If you have to sell it with whizbang or with sex, then you have failed.

Stop Putting Tom Cruise in Movies
At least Arnold knew it was time to change jobs.

Cruise is over-valued; his best acting days are behind him. We grow tired of watching him chasing the Oscar he’s never going to get. We grow tired hearing about his strange ways. We grow tired of listening to his dumb Scientology shit. Give these big roles to younger, smarter, better-looking, better-acting leading men.

This could be said of numerous stars. Just because they like to do blockbusters, doesn’t mean that we want to see them in blockbusters.

Stop Suing Your Best Customers
The idea that people downloading has an affect on the box-office take is dumb. It’s related to the silly idea that software piracy costs the software industry billions. The loss is imaginary. It was never revenue that could have been realised in the first place. This is especially true for a product such as entertainment because it is a luxury product. Since it is not required for survival, it is very easy to decide not to purchase any of it.

The logic of the download is simple. There are three types of downloader. The people who are going to lay out money for some variant of the product, the people who will never lay out any money, and the people in the middle. And here’s the thing about it: there aren’t all that many people in the middle.

The first type are your best customers. They love movies — they buy them, the rent them, they download them. If they know how, they will sample them by downloading. Given the opportunity, they will buy. But when you sue the ass off of these people for downloading, do you really suppose they are ever going to want to buy your product again? Every lawsuit, in addition to costing you money, serves only to convert a good customer into a non-customer.

The second type of downloader would have never been willing to pay for the product anyway. Maybe you might catch him getting dragged to the movies by his girlfriend, but in the grand scheme of things I doubt this is much of a factor. This person is a non-customer. If your marketing didn’t work on him enough to make him buy, then obviously a lawsuit won’t either. Stop wasting resources on these people.

Make Downloads Available
Since it is happening anyway — is going to happen anyway — why not make proper downloads available? They don’t have to be DVD quality or have any special features. They just need to be out there. The reason is because an opportunity lies with that third type of downloader.

A percentage of the downloader movie buffs who lie in that zone between the sure-thing customers and the non-customers will watch a download and like it enough that they will lay out money for it. Maybe they will do it to have better quality, more feature-rich media, maybe to see it on the big screen in all of it’s glory, or maybe because it is easier to rent than to download.

These are potential customers, the kind who would not have purchased the product if they had not sampled it first. Because you don’t have to pay the torrent sites for this extra distribution, if anything, movie downloading actually provides a low-cost opportunity to increase sales beyond what they might have been otherwise.

. . .

So there we have it: my humble suggestions to help Hollywood movies not suck. I have no great conclusion other than to say: unless big studios do something to improve their product they are doomed. Movies are not the easy money they once were. Maybe thirty years ago you could just fire off any old thing and have it work, but these days, if you want to get a blockbuster you’ll have to think.

Thanks to the IMDB for providing me links.