Spielberg "Predicts" Implosion of Film Industry

[David Ellison]

I wouldn't mind but it's spielberg's fault ALL of it and Lucas. The two of them used to be all for the indie director along with Coppola and Scorsese who all decided to band together to take power out of the studios and create small indie arthouse films (like taxi driver) then Spielberg decided to go ahead and design the summer tentpole movie. How can he slag off a system that he created? He must have been feeling this way for a while so why back transformers if it bothered your film making morals?

I agree with their assessment of the current state of affairs but movies tickets costing $150? Give me a break that shows how out of touch these two are. Noone would pay that at all, it'll trigger a paradigm shift but not so film becomes the ultimate luxury item.

This all happened in the 60's when colour came along and most movies being made were absolute garbage just to take advantage of the new technology. Then the 70's came and changed everything because people were P**sed off over nam and corruption now we're coming to that same place a world of p**sed off people and nothing drives art better than anger.
I don't know exactly what is going to happen but there predictions are ridiculous not to mention both of them talking about Lincoln and Red Tails as though they were small indie art house movies...NO THEY'RE NOT! Red Tails was a rebadged Memphis Belle with a race war gong on in it and Lincoln was ANOTHER dull biopic like so many others we've seen. More likely studios saw no value in ANOTHER biopic and Lucas's same beef different gravy movie that these like to think are arthouse films...
If the industry was as bad as they say things like Drive would never have been made. I do agree the more fringe material is difficult to get made but that will change with things like Red cheapening production costs. The main thing to wipeout is mass marketed distribution deals. I think it's disgusting a films costs it's own budget over again just to sell it.

I also go on a lot of screenwriting websites and most of the pitches I read on their sound absolutely awful, yet this is what we have today badly written scripts in a mass marketing environment. People seem to have lost the ability to innovate in films and I think that comes from no one being angry, challenged and having hugely long attention spans instead of getting bored by anything with the desire to innovate.

I also never in my life saw a jaw droppingly awesome film fall through the cracks because of poor distribution. Great films get noticed simple as that.

Good writing, word of mouth, digital distribution and digital production will put these old dinosaurs in their place

 

[Chris Henze]

+1 David nicely said.

I wouldn't mind but it's spielberg's fault ALL of it and Lucas. The two of them used to be all for the indie director along with Coppola and Scorsese who all decided to band together to take power out of the studios and create small indie arthouse films (like taxi driver) then Spielberg decided to go ahead and design the summer tentpole movie. How can he slag off a system that he created? He must have been feeling this way for a while so why back transformers if it bothered your film making morals?

I agree with their assessment of the current state of affairs but movies tickets costing $150? Give me a break that shows how out of touch these two are. Noone would pay that at all, it'll trigger a paradigm shift but not so film becomes the ultimate luxury item.

This all happened in the 60's when colour came along and most movies being made were absolute garbage just to take advantage of the new technology. Then the 70's came and changed everything because people were P**sed off over nam and corruption now we're coming to that same place a world of p**sed off people and nothing drives art better than anger.
I don't know exactly what is going to happen but there predictions are ridiculous not to mention both of them talking about Lincoln and Red Tails as though they were small indie art house movies...NO THEY'RE NOT! Red Tails was a rebadged Memphis Belle with a race war gong on in it and Lincoln was ANOTHER dull biopic like so many others we've seen. More likely studios saw no value in ANOTHER biopic and Lucas's same beef different gravy movie that these like to think are arthouse films...
If the industry was as bad as they say things like Drive would never have been made. I do agree the more fringe material is difficult to get made but that will change with things like Red cheapening production costs. The main thing to wipeout is mass marketed distribution deals. I think it's disgusting a films costs it's own budget over again just to sell it.

I also go on a lot of screenwriting websites and most of the pitches I read on their sound absolutely awful, yet this is what we have today badly written scripts in a mass marketing environment. People seem to have lost the ability to innovate in films and I think that comes from no one being angry, challenged and having hugely long attention spans instead of getting bored by anything with the desire to innovate.

I also never in my life saw a jaw droppingly awesome film fall through the cracks because of poor distribution. Great films get noticed simple as that.

Good writing, word of mouth, digital distribution and digital production will put these old dinosaurs in their place

 

[Isaac Marchionna]

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.

Have you played games like Bioshock Infinite or The Last of Us. Absolutely amazing examples of storytelling, and there are many many others out there. I think I'm finding that there are more emotionally fulfilling experiences coming from interactive entertainment than these hollywood films.

 

[Nick Morrison]

I´m not sold on their vision for the future. I think there will always be a market for the ¨event¨ of going to the movies. People will always want to go out and see a film, and I don´t see that changing. But I do see new platforms emerging that challenge the status quo...like Netflix, streaming, etc.

 

[Al Lougher]

So how does that affect us indie filmmakers? I see no talk of Odemax or Redray and had thought the intro of these devices and services were a sign that the distribution model is going to change, especially for us. I have a feature in development right now, killer script, great story and I'm raising about $1mil to make it and yet everyone I talk to in the industry is telling me there's no chance of getting it into the theaters no matter how good it is, because all theaters want now is comic book or high spectacle films. So where does that leave the indies? Should we be putting all of our eggs into VOD or streaming services like Amazon and Netflix? What is the return like there? What if any is the return on distribution through Odemax and Redray? Is the direct-to-DVD model the model of the future for all indie films? Yet I see films like The Purge, shot for $4mil, grossing $30mil on opening weekend. So I still have hope!