[David C. Matthews]

(at the risk of biting the hand that may be feeding me in the future… 😮 )

Typical idiot reasoning of a Hollywood studio… two recent movies featuring female leads bomb, so the reasoning is that female leads = box office poison???

How about, maybe, just maybe, those two particular movies sucked? (At least in the minds of those who did see them, and spread the word to stay away from these films?)

Sounds like Eisner-era Disney: Lion King was such an overwhelming success (after a string of hits like Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin) that the company decided that every film they released after that would be even more successful than the last.  They spent a lot of Lion King's profits (or so I'm led to understand) to expanding the Feature Animation studio here at Disney/ MGM, and tried to jack out a new animated film every year.  When the new product (with the exception of Lilo and Stitch) failed to meet their expectations, they went the other way, and decided, NOT that they'd cranked out a bunch of crap movies, but that the public didn't want cel-animated movies anymore.  So they shut down all but the Burbank unit of their animation operation, and was ready to consider never doing another 2D animated movie again.  (Fortunately, the new management under Iger seems to be realizing that mistake, and Pixar's John Lasseter is actaully spearheading an effort to revitalize Disney's 2D animation.)

[TC2]

Dave, The Brave One starring Jodie Foster actually got good reviews, so it wasn't necessarily a bad movie.  Not sure about the other ones yet but I know the Brave one was something people were interested in watching.

[David C. Matthews]

Dave, The Brave One starring Jodie Foster actually got good reviews, so it wasn't necessarily a bad movie.  Not sure about the other ones yet but I know the Brave one was something people were interested in watching.

Point taken with The Brave One, and I didn't mean to cast aspertions on that movie; I merely wanted to make the point that when there's a trend of certain kinds of movies flopping at the box office (whether it's movies with female leads, or cel-animated movies, or movies in 3-D*, whatever) Hollywood very rarely looks at mitigating circumstances (maybe the script sucked, maybe it was badly directed or poorly acted) and instead pounces on one superficial aspect to then decide not to make any more movies of that type.

*by which I mean the kind which require special glasses to see "3-dimensional" effects.  Which is another case that makes my point.  After the success of the first couple of 3-D flicks in the '50s, those things were cranked out almost by the yard, until the box-office dried up for them, and Hollywood decided that the public had grown tired of 3-D.  When the reality was more likely that most of the later movies that tried to capitalize on the success of the first3-D movies were simply bad.

[Holiday]

The article from Variety doesn't assure me well of WB's rebuttle. While they stand commited to leading women it doesn't show that they are committed to leading action heroines or superheroines. The article failed to mention "Million Dollar Baby", which earned Oscar praise. But they saw fit to mention "The Reaping", even though that film's performance speaks for itself.  :-[

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117973754.html?categoryid=13&cs=1

Teenage girl flicks, romantic comedies, and supernatural dramas don't translate to action heriones to me. Mentioning Watchmen doesn't help because that's an ensemble picture and we know the leading characters aren't women. Justice League? Get it done first. Same with Wonder Woman. Get it done before you start hyping.

So far it's just co-stars, comedies, romance, and drama. Same old song. Why was their Sarah Connor Chronicles still delayed? Don't tell me they wanted the actress to try out for WW… ::) They still haven't chosen a script.

[Holiday]

*by which I mean the kind which require special glasses to see "3-dimensional" effects.  Which is another case that makes my point.  After the success of the first couple of 3-D flicks in the '50s, those things were cranked out almost by the yard, until the box-office dried up for them, and Hollywood decided that the public had grown tired of 3-D.  When the reality was more likely that most of the later movies that tried to capitalize on the success of the first3-D movies were simply bad.

Concerning 3-D films, I'd say it's bad material that's to blame. I watched Surf's Up and that film was a young adult story using animation best directed at younger kids. Wallace & Gromit's "Were-Rabbit" film knew how to peddle to all ages, still using old claymation techniques. Valiant is better for the European audience, as well as Flushed Away. They knew their target audience. Disney is a conglomerate that wants to sell to the whole world. Thus they sacrifice many cultural traits when they animate foreign stories.

[AlexG]

That they're idiots? I've known that since they cancelled Freakazoid!

I really loved that wacky-superhero series.  :'(

“I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.”
~ Mark Twain / Samuel Clemens (1907)

[Zespara Alathar]

It seems all that Hollywood cranks out nowadays are just sequels and remakes of movies.  It shows a total lack of imagination on their part which is par for the course.

Whenever somehow actually shows some creativity, the copycats come out and flood the market with inferior crap until they decide that the public doesn't like that niche anymore.  In actuality the people don't like watching crap (as stated more eloquently by David).

But the what do you expect from a group of people whose minds are so far removed from reality in all aspects?  >:(

Z

[AlexG]

http://amaz0ns.com/option,com_smf/Itemid,135/topic,6310.10/

Again, we've veered away from the topic, so I've also split this portion off.

“I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.”
~ Mark Twain / Samuel Clemens (1907)

[Fonk]

I think that you have to look away from Hollywood to find originality, by and large. The movie industry is, as I understand it, on its knees at the moment. That being the case, studios are only going to take on what they see as "safe bets"… the unoriginal bankers, remakes, or adaptations of books and comic books.

It makes me sad.

[JimmyDimples]

Fonk's on the money.  I'm thinking of my entertainment choices lately:  namely, "Homestar Runner," "Megatokyo," and the "YouTube" video of the day.  If I had the time, cash, and savvy, I'd set up production on the web for my show. 

And frankly I thought I was going to be culturally deprived by leaving behind America's 500 channels, and then I realized… there's nothing on.

I almost wrote something about Hollywood joining Vaudeville on history's trash heap… until I realized Vaudeville would be a step up.  :-

[Author]

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