No Film School: The month brought in only $425 million across all releases, the lowest haul in 27 years (if you don't count the pandemic-beleagured 2020).
When you adjust the 1997 number for inflation, we're looking at losses that are even more stunning. This marks the second-worst October of the entire 21st century.
5 comments:
While the sentiment discussed in the article is well taken, advice like this often makes me wonder about what paths to success are most worth pursuing and if there can even be a definitive answer to which may be best for any particular person. What I mean by this is that the article encourages people to raise their own money to produce their own film to then try and distribute it or sell it as opposed to getting your foot in the door at a large production company to they work your way up to getting a work produced, mainly because the movie industry itself is struggling and that if your idea is worthwhile, there’s a chance that the production company won’t hear it out or let it happen in they way that you think it should. As such, it seems that doing this solo work has a much different level of difficulty in terms of the kinds of problems you have to solve, whereas the other is incredibly difficult to reach high enough to have creative control and also have people trust the product you want to create. So while it is unclear, it is clear that reflection and good planning is always needed to best support oneself.
This isn’t what I want to focused on with this comment, just a side thought, but I didn’t even KNOW Tron: Ares came out, speaking to the message of this article. I also had never heard of any of the other movies spoken of in the article. I definitely do agree with the sentiment that Hollywood is going downhill. While there used to be more movies that were good that they made in theaters, nowadays you get the occasional good movie in a flood of bad ones. The movies being made by indie studios tend to be better and higher quality, especially in the animation industry. It would be nice to see the studios rise and succeed in the space as the bigger companies get more corrupt and crash and burn. I’d definitely support it, I think that indie studios need an opportunity to shine, and in a lot of cases tend to be better than the bigger companies in terms of practice and practically everything.
I actually know a ton of indie filmmakers and it's nice to hear that they have their chance right now. I think a lot of films though actually do make a decent amount of money that are considered indie. I work at a small movie theater in my hometown that exclusively shows small indie films, and despite what people say about indie films not having a large audience. I have yet to really find that true. There's definitely a regular flow of costumers flowing throughout the movie theater. I think that ever since platforms like TikTok have become the best ways of getting yourself out there, small film creators have had a much bigger spotlight on them, and I don't think it really has anything to do with the amount of money that Hollywood is making. It's the same deal with music, really anyone can make music now with the power of DAWS being basically limitless, now you can even shoot log footage on your iPhone. It's really about how you promote it, and young people know how to promote to young people.
There are 2 specific points in this article that I think are most poignant. First of all, audiences for the most part are tired of seeing old franchises remade either by making animation live action or trying to create sequels to films that stand on their own. I think it is becoming apparent to audiences that big companies are afraid of trying anything new because they believe there is a more reliable profit in bringing back something already done. Maybe this big flop will remind big companies that we want to see new stuff and give indie filmmakers the opportunity to make movies audiences actually want. Which brings me to the second thing, big companies are not really listening to audiences at all. As the article mentions there are not any big horror releases in October? That to me indicates that big companies don't know what audiences want or are not listening. Indie filmmakers I feel often get support firstly from audiences and so maybe will do a better job of listening to what audiences want.
I didn't know that it would be this bad in terms of the revenue Hollywood is bringing in but I definitely knew that it's been taking a hit recently especially with all of the backlash. I definitely think that the biggest contributor to this is movie theaters and how people usually wait till something comes out on streaming services or just understandably can't afford to go to the movie theaters anymore. I don't want to say it's good that Hollywood is taking a hit but I do think it is an interesting opportunity as the article mentions for Indian small filmmakers that are trying to break into this industry. I do hope that movie theaters become more accessible in the future and that there's something that can be widely enjoyed and not incredibly overpriced or hard to access for the general population, but as of now I am excited for the small films that we will get to see promoted more and the young Indie filmmakers that are going to take advantage of this.
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