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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Spielberg "Predicts" Implosion of Film Industry

Ouch, if even Spielberg has troubles getting a feature distributed, what are us mere mortals supposed to do ?
Should have become a butcher instead like my nana always told me to ^^

He's right though, accidents like John Carter which chew up exorbitant budgets and then completely bomb at the box office surely cant help the cause.
I had a similar discussion with a friend the other day who works for an Australian funding body and they were talking about a $40mio investment in two projects, which for Aussie standards is quite substantial......I said to her it would be interesting to see what would happen if instead of putting $20mio each in the hands of two directors and shoots.....give $1mio to 40 different filmmakers/ projects instead and see what happens. But then you run into all sorts of issues in terms of marketing and giving a low budget movie a wider release which sadly doesn't even have anything to do with the quality of the picture. Monsters was cheap as chips and turned out to be a great movie.
 
"Lucas and Spielberg also spoke of vast differences between filmmaking and video games because the latter hasn't been able to tell stories and make consumers care about the characters. Which isn't to say the two worlds aren't connected."

Okay this raises my bullshit flag. Sorry, Speilberg.
 
Isaac Marchionna said:
"Lucas and Spielberg also spoke of vast differences between filmmaking and video games because the latter hasn't been able to tell stories and make consumers care about the characters. Which isn't to say the two worlds aren't connected."

Okay this raises my bullshit flag. Sorry, Speilberg.
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Agreed.....I cared an awful lot about Lara Croft in my teen years !

Uwe Boll cares about computer games so much, he's trying to make them all into feature films lol
 
@ Dominik
The Aussie film industry is in real trouble. I was listening to Exhibitor discuss how Aus. films can only get distirbution access to 2% of cinemas here. Thats 25 cinema's nationwide !!!! Your friend from the funding body ( I wonder which one that is : 0 ! ) with the 40 Mill. just how do they intend to make money out of 25 cinemas ? Unless there is some co funding deal coming from elsewhere , or this is an international film or its being made for TV the figures don't add up.

Thank god I work in TV.
 
Mike: yep these were two pretty big international productions supposed to shoot here, I dont think they actually ended up coming through...then again considering how much of a dive the aussie dollar is taking at the moment it sure as hell becomes attractive for them again to shoot here.
But you're right 2% is a downright sad figure, when it comes to australian productions, written, shot directed and distributed here in the country, not much is happening. I dont understand why australian cinemas dont have a similar "quota" to radio stations, I know for a fact that a lot of aussie stations like ABC and JJJ have to play a certain percentage of australian artists in their mix. Its not like the cinemas dont have the resources....I live 2 minutes away from a big EVENT cinema....yesterday evening they screened 5 different movies...all big american productions....even though they have 10 screening rooms and could easily but more variety in their programming.
Aussie TV seems to get more production work but the quality of most of this stuff is shocking, I was deeply disappointed about Underbelly and Sea Patrol considering how hyped these shows were and the $$$ they dropped onto these productions.
 
Spielberg, in fact, has teamed with Microsoft to make a "TV" show for Xbox 360 based on the game Haloand he is making a movie based on the Electronic Arts game Need for Speed.
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If his plans are turning Need for Speed into a movie the industry probably needs to implode. I hope that's one of the half dozen that bombs.
 
Daniel Pearson said:
If his plans are turning Need for Speed into a movie the industry probably needs to implode. I hope that's one of the half dozen that bombs.
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Who knows...the fast and furious franchise seems to be going strong......Imagine Daniel Day Lewis as badass, inked up LA street crib burning rubber in a Ford Mustang...there would be middle aged single mums out there paying top dollar to see this ^^
 
Have to admit between what they say, and the 12.9 percent unemployment rate in film school graduates, its a little disheartening to read all this as a relatively young working professional still trying to move up the ladder...

Personally I find myself working on lots of web and broadcast based content, so hopefully there will be enough of that for all of us to pay our bills...
 
the new form of film entertainment is the news..

REALITY programming..

the creation of events planned carefully with big BLACK budgets..
all played out and pumped up on national news media
a sucker born every min..
everyone gathered around their TV.. waiting to find out what the bad guy or hero is doing, and what will happen next..

or which bomb went off where... SO ON

REALITY FILM MAKING.. planned carefully, produced, and displayed to further jello the minds of the people
 
Mike Garrick said:
@ Dominik
The Aussie film industry is in real trouble. I was listening to Exhibitor discuss how Aus. films can only get distirbution access to 2% of cinemas here. Thats 25 cinema's nationwide !!!! Your friend from the funding body ( I wonder which one that is : 0 ! ) with the 40 Mill. just how do they intend to make money out of 25 cinemas ? Unless there is some co funding deal coming from elsewhere , or this is an international film or its being made for TV the figures don't add up.

Thank god I work in TV.
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Fortunately, it is not only 25 cinemas that they distribute to... for example, there is the rest of the world, and also Australia (Australian movies tend to be distributed in Australia on the rare occasion...).
 
Mind you, I will give credit for one thing... the rate at which this article has gone viral, I have no doubt that it could likely become a self fulfilling prophecy...
 
Unfortunately as proven time & time again international audiences aren't rolling up to see Aussie movies at their local google-plex either. A lot of government funding is tied to the pursuit of Australian cultural identity may work fine in 25 cinemas real problem making money anywhere else.

Of course there are always exceptions like Baz's latest or maybe "Red Dog" but these are very few & far between...unfortunately.
 
One rather interesting thing about this article that nobody has really spotted is that it is not just a slash piece on the industry, but it is also a promotional piece of Lucas and Spielbergs upcoming business ventures. Notice that one of the co-presenters was a person from Microsoft. Spielberg is also developing a TV concept for Halo with microsoft.

If nothing else, I think it is a clever move on both Spielberg and Lucas' behalf to posture themselves to be in prime positions when this shift occurs. THey have the money, tech and talent behind them... they just need to jump out of the gates right...
 
Ivan Kovax said:
One rather interesting thing about this article that nobody has really spotted is that it is not just a slash piece on the industry, but it is also a promotional piece of Lucas and Spielbergs upcoming business ventures.
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Has anybody noticed that Spielberg was the executive producer on all three Transformers movies?

Methinks they protest too much. It's hard to feel sorry for people worth close to $10 billion apiece. Note that they did say that a lot of small films will still be made, only they'll probably go to cable or the net, like the current flux of Netflix and Amazon shows. And let's face it: some of the best shows on television are on AMC... not broadcast network. Things have been changing for some years now.
 
I hate the fact that these Dinosaurs had to publicly state their opinion prediction like this. Their words carry weight and influence and now some studio suit in his glass tower can reference another reason why he won't fund that small movie that isn't a comic book film...
 
Perhaps its up to the rest of us to make sure this prophecy doesn't happen ?
 
Ivan Kovax said:
None of us has several billion dollars worth of movies behind our belts, so despite our best intentions, I know whose side I would be betting on... :)
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True but probably there are more of us ! I also observe there are a few who make a huge amount of money out of movies and many that don't. (no critisim to any one in tended) Perhaps its just the scale tipping the other way a bit.
 
Isaac Marchionna said:
"Lucas and Spielberg also spoke of vast differences between filmmaking and video games because the latter hasn't been able to tell stories and make consumers care about the characters. Which isn't to say the two worlds aren't connected."

Okay this raises my bullshit flag. Sorry, Speilberg.
Click to expand...


I wouldn't tell this bullshit, but I think where he has the point is that movies are made for people who are interested to look at other people lives. Based on something called empathy.

Today we are in a "Gopro be a Hero" generation where the hero is MYSELF. Thus the gaming industry will have an incrinsingly role to play (or market share to take)... and theaters are going to dissapear.

My two optimistic cents ;-)

Pat
 
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