But is it really new? The creation of the TV had people saying this, as did VHS. The idea that only franchises are being made now and the dumbing down of media has been cried out since penny dreadful’s arrived, taking away from real books. At no point has it been true.
I beg to differ.
Only 20 years ago the so-called adult fare had a much bigger slice of the box office pie than it does now, and in this year that amount is dwindling rapidly. Sure, it could change back - but I doubt it very much.
And, again, I’m talking about the mass audience which might have been persuaded to watch other stuff than the superhero or franchise films before. These days, with streaming making everything cheaper and more readily available at home, people will not seek out those movies at the cinema anymore.
And I am including myself in that group, too.
Don’t get me wrong: as a film lover I am absolutely loving the fact that streaming makes so many more movies, old and new, available to me much cheaper and faster. But I am worried about cinemas becoming just a place of spectacle again, especially since smaller, intimate dramas do deserve those big screens, too.
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I agree, as much as i love Netflix and Amazon prime, its use as a cinematic dumping ground isn’t doing either any favours, in the way VHS was in the 90’s
Just musing aloud here, but do you think the death of the movie star contributed to the current trend? Or is it simply the aforementioned mass audience are too close to living in a dystopian nightmare to want anything other than the cinematic equivalent of the popcorn they’re eating.
Hah, that’s a sly question.
In a way I have adopted the perspective that if you always eat junk food your taste buds will find it harder to acknowledge or even tolerate other seasonings. So, with movies, any other form of visual language or storytelling will be rejected when you grow up on, for example, Marvel superhero films or The Fast and the Furious.
Don’t get me wrong: I actually enjoy the Marvel films a lot. But despite my enjoyment I’m well aware that their narrative strategy has already become very repetitive, even if they contain very clever ideas and are a lot of fun.
Now, as a teenager in the 80´s I had the great good fortune of being served a platter of very different blockbuster films which were not streamlined on one brand at all. To enjoy the summer of ´82 with all the genre films which would influence the next decades was really a privilege.
Still, back then my taste was geared a lot towards that kind of genre fare. However, I was also interested in other stories, the so-called mature, adult films, dramas, tragedies, epics. And later on, with the rise of independent cinema in the 90´s and my personal cinematic upbringing through university, opening up my taste for foreign-language films, I got the whole buffet cinema has to offer - and I had the good fortune to watch all of it on big screens in local cinemas.
That is all gone now. Those local cinemas have either closed or show just the big blockbusters, with one arthouse cinema trying to hold out, for who knows how long. Audiences just don’t come anymore, not even the students who - like me, back then - flocked to those films.
As for movie stars - well, my take is that the mystery of a true movie star has vanished thanks to the constant exposure these days. Also, when movie stars still could open even lesser films, there just weren’t that many other offerings there. And… why go to see a movie on opening weekend when I just have to wait about three months and get it at home through my subscription services?
Who is a movie star today? Tom Cruise? Only in M:I films, maybe the next Top Gun. Apart from that, he has no drawing power anymore. The Rock? Well, kinda, but more in an 80´s-/early 90s- Schwarzenegger-ish way - meaning: mostly in those action extravaganzas he is known for, nothing else.
Leonardo di Caprio? Probably. Brad Pitt? He is a star, but he cannot open a movie (anymore, if ever).
The problem with movie stars these days seems to be that nobody just goes to see them anymore, only if the movies seem to hold an interest for the mass audience - which basically means: these movies have to be well-known franchises. In other words: Robert Downey jr as Iron Man? Success! Robert Downey jr. in original fare? Oh, let’s wait for the home video…
Notice I could not think of any female movie star? Jennifer Lawrence was opening movies for a time when her “Hunger Games”-franchise was hot. Now? Not anymore.
Meryl Streep is a movie star - and people even watch lesser films if she stars. But she cannot open a movie either.
Will Smith has had very rocky years, success-wise. If he can open “Gemini Man” he might be considered a movie star again. Otherwise he will have the same status as the other former movie stars: depending on the movie he stars in.
Returning to the thread´s title (I apologize for this long detour): Daniel Craig is a movie star if he plays James Bond. Apart from that?
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That i’d definitely agree on, Craig’s non-Bond films, whilst are very much hoping to grasp onto his Bond fame to promote what are quite often more adult fare, have not been successful financially, though I don’t think that bothers Craig as it has allowed him to work with a wide variety of actors and directors that he might not otherwise have had the opportunity to do so. Fortunately his name has been enough to attract investors - Flashbacks Of a Fool and Knives Out being blatant with that use of Craig’s name, and I suspect that “Returning for Bond 25” announcement was for much the same reason…
Should say, I too love Marvel, but I have a…complicated, relationship with Endgame. Really enjoyed it, and the actor in me loved the silent performances, in particular RDJ’s selfless act for an entirely selfish reason, particularly at the end with his Iron Man co-stars joining in with it. However, as a writer, the horrendous lack of consistency in the time travel plot pains me… you can’t change time, except when you can, but that’s all nonsense, except when it’s not. It changes its rules depending the character at that very moment, it needs to unchangable for Black Widow to get her dramatic death, changeable for Captain America to get his happy ending. This inconsistency blows up all logic when you reach the guardians of the galaxy characters as it relies on their films having happened and not happened.
Made worse by someone saying Back to the futures method is bullshit…before using it exactly.
But I digress.
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Have to get back to you on ENDGAME. I bought it as a download last week, haven’t even seen it in the cinema because… see my overlong ramblings above 
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Getting back to NTTD - did EON release the title at this stage because
a) they were sick of every article referring to the film as BOND 25
b) they thought “better say it now that the Materra shoot will get major exposure so we can promote the film better”?
c) it is part of a PR strategy because a teaser is imminent?
I had kind of assumed the name reveal would be part of the teaser like Star Wars did but the more I thought about it this gives them 2 bits of publicity instead of one.
I think EON tries to keep the movie in the public’s consciousness once a week or two, and the name was the bit of publicity for this week, if that makes sense. Others were the Jamaica video, Prince Charles, etc.
The Lashana Lynch things fell in their laps, in that respect.
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I hope a teaser is imminent, but I think October is more realistic. I wish they would release another stylistic behind the scenes video in the interim.
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My teenage years were in the 1970’s, so I was exposed to the remnant of Classical Hollywood, the birth of the New Hollywood, and then the birth of the blockbuster mentality–JAWS/STAR WARS–all accompanied by the rise of the multiplex which was followed by the proliferation of screens.
Even as late as my mid-late 20’s I remember going with my lover at the time to the new movie that opened on Friday, and it was usually just one or two movies per a week, and often in only one theater…in New York City! I remember going to see DICK TRACY on opening day, and it played in one theater on 34th Street in Manhattan. A duplex was as multi-screen as it went, with the exception of Cinema 1, 2, & 3 (a later addition) opposite Bloomingdale’s.
Now we are inundated with screens, so seeing something on the big screen (which is not as big as it used to be), is less impressive and important. And this plethora of screens allows us to watch things on our schedule and not someone else’s–an ability increasingly cherished in our hyper-individualized society. And since an artist does not know what size screen her work may appear on, she has to size for all ratios, leading to the dead-eye cinema we are offered today.
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Moreover, there is the purely economic approach: say you’ve got 300 seats in one theatre, the aim will always be to have most of those seats occupied on each showing. Smaller films have a much harder time now, even though there are multiplexes with smaller theatres, simply because they now show the blockbusters on 30 minute intervals in four or five theatres simultaneously.
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I like to see the epic films on IMAX, but when I’m seeing one that doesn’t require the big screen, I like the fact it’s on multiple screens offering more chances to get good seating.
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I also wonder if television doesn’t do a better job of addressing what I will vaguely call “the contemporary” than do movies nowadays. As everyone can probably tell, I love the cinema of Classical Hollywood, especially the movies made just after the end of WWII up until the mid 1960’s. In the work of Mankiewicz, Wilder, Kazan, Zinnemann, Sirk, Preminger, Huston and others, the ideas and issues that were churning in society made their way to the screen–sometimes obliquely, sometimes forthrightly, but in whatever fashion, the forces unleashed in America through participation in the war were being explored on screen.
Such films were not an aberration either: earlier Hollywood movies were a place where cultural conversation occurred–think Warner Bros. movies in the 1930’s or Darryl Zanuck’s leadership at 20th Century Fox. One of the things that facilitated this conversation was the fact that movies needed to be made quickly to keep up with demand, so there was a constant scramble for material. MGM may have been the master of the prestige literary adaption, but you had all the other studios needing to keep their theaters full as well, and there are only so many “Wuthering Heights.”
In 1930, 65% of the American population went to the movies; in 2000 it was 9.7% (sorry–all of my statistics are for American viewership). Movies were speaking to a large segment of the nation and the studios did have a sense–sometimes rudimentary–of having an obligation to address reality. I am not talking about agitprop, but about I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG or GENTLEMAN’S AGREEMENT. I think this function from the late '60’s to mid-70’s was taken over more and more by television. Movies became more expensive and took longer to make. Television needed 26-39 episodes per year (though now a season can be 10 episodes. I sometimes think that a season is now a very long movie–I got that impression watching WESTWORLD [admittedly I do not watch much television–I have difficulty adjusting to the aesthetic]).
So I wonder if the small films Dustin is referring to have the additional problem of being niche products–not only are they small and adult–they are aimed at a very specific audience: filmmakers are afraid of speaking to a large audience as their predecessors did for fear of making a misstep and being called out for it. I see these smaller films and then sometimes encounter them again on television, and often they play much better on my small home screen which seems to fit their ambitions.
Mankiewicz, Kazan, et. al., may have made movies about a specific subject, but they still thought in terms of appealing to a broad audience–they still made movies for the big screen. People like Spielberg, Coppola, Scorsese–who were raised on this tradition and were active during its final phase–still seem to be able to make films aimed at a large audience, but that ability seems to be ever less in evidence. Orion muses correctly about the importance of the death of the movie star–do you need a star (or star quality) for a performance to look good on an iPhone? Presence becomes a liability as the screen shrinks. (Apologies–this was a bit more of a ramble than usual)
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The problem that arises from that situation is that discourse in a society will shrink when mass audiences can only discuss the details of every Marvel hero but not reality since too many people will grow up on the equation of “movies have to be escapism, otherwise they are dull”.
I believe movies can strengthen empathy, especially for situations that are beyond one´s daily comfort zone. But if people will only watch “good vs evil, good triumphs” this will not help to make them feel for the complexities of our world.
Yes, I’m looking forward to “No time to die” in which a shady man will try to triumph over evil.
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Beautifully said. I have always believed that watching movies put me in touch with other lives and other ways of seeing the world, which in turn encouraged me to be adventurous in life as well as respectful of difference. Too often today people seem to want affirmation rather than challenge/expansion from their art.
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And at this we stagger into the two arguments of media;
We are told how to think and feel by what we watch
Vs
We take from what we watch based on what we think and feel
I personally lean towards the latter, but a century of debate is yet to give a firmer answer
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I’m sceptic about the ‘we’re told’ argument, simply because influencing thought and behaviour just isn’t that easy. We’d have no litter on our streets and no idiots clogging up the internet if it was. Nobody would drink and drive, nobody would stuff themselves with fat and sugar. People would just say no to drugs.
Evidence points to the opposite.
We watch what resonates with us - and we take from that what we will, for better or worse. Nobody can be ‘made’ to think in a certain manner if they don’t already bring the willingness to do so. Much less can people be told to feel whatever. It’s hard enough to educate people to behave halfway civilised, never mind feel like it.
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For those who aren’t on the spoiler thread - there was a photocall today in Matera, Italy.
Full set of images - https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/photos/no-time-to-die?events=775402796
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And we have our first little bit of rumour regarding Bond 26:
Reportedly the producers are very happy with Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s contributions to the No Time To Die script and would like to bring her back for Bond 26. Obviously I can’t speak for her work on Bond but having just watched Killing Eve this is quite an appealing prospect. Also if they’re thinking about the Bond 26 script now maybe it means everyone will get production going a little quicker this time?
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I wouldn’t bet on it.
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