Ton Newton - Out

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Seriously I keep asking this and ... still no real answer? In what way do you make better movies?

Right now, from looking at the reviews and the numbers, the only thing that would have made The Little Mermaid a better movie, was if it were 100 million cheaper.

So is the answer to just make cheaper movies?

Stop selling remakes as “original”…easy examples there

But also bring in the best writers - if they ever stop striking - that can develop a character and make a plausible story with them.

The Disney story groups have sucked for a decade and the management meddles. This is where we are.

 

[Indy_UK]

Seriously I keep asking this and ... still no real answer? In what way do you make better movies?

Right now, from looking at the reviews and the numbers, the only thing that would have made The Little Mermaid a better movie, was if it were 100 million cheaper.

So is the answer to just make cheaper movies?

I’ve said it previously but it’s all well and good Iger being about the creators but someone does need to go into these movie productions and see where money is actually spent?

Did they really need to spend $150,000 on Hallie Berry’s hair in TLM?

If the average film is getting a $250 million budget, I’m sure they can really look at the costs and produce something as good for $175 million

Part of it is probably the short filming schedules that they throw money at to get complete and then the high cost to have hundreds of Visual Effect creators working on the rest. They then have a small timeframe, they push for release date and the effectors look bad anyway (AntMan 3)

I am by no means an expert but with animated movies, could they do exactly what they do with park attractions and have smaller teams working on them for longer to reduce costs?

 

[TheIceBaron]

I think Disney movies lately have problems over and above leaning too much on DEI. I mean the Super Mario Bros movie did well and it a wasn’t particularly compelling story or script. I enjoyed it and saw it in theaters. I also plan on seeing Oppenheimer and Dune Part 2 in theaters which I have high hopes for.

Many of my friends are movie goers and are more interested in those movies or Barbie than anything from Disney. (Late twenties demo) When I go to the movies I want it to be an event, not some canned remake or sequel. That’s why Avatar 2 did well, it was an event.

While Indy 5 should be an event, it definitely is not. I think we all anticipate Indy 5 not doing spectacularly either. Not completely Disneys fault here as Indy 4 damaged the franchise. But Lucasfilm has been on a bit of a losing streak lately and I feel that it has spent much of the audiences goodwill already. If that Indy 5 Kathleen Kennedy will be next on this exec shuffle.

 

[monothingie]

Seriously I keep asking this and ... still no real answer? In what way do you make better movies?

Right now, from looking at the reviews and the numbers, the only thing that would have made The Little Mermaid a better movie, was if it were 100 million cheaper.

So is the answer to just make cheaper movies?

Let's look at the upcoming disaster of Indy 5 and find out what not to do.

Popular IP and a Mega Franchise with A lister Harrison Ford playing the beloved Indiana Jones.
Production budget $350M+ (So it needs to make almost $900M to break even) and projected to be a massive BOMB.

Why?
Because the creatives chose to mishandle the character and rather than recreate the magic, they favored disrespecting the audience and the fans.

Then they further chose to degrade and demean the character by adding the ever unlikable Phoebe Waller-Bridge to continually remind the audience of the contempt they had for them.

If you want a framework of something done right, look at Picard season 3. It was done on the cheap (seriously the budget was almost shoestring), but done in a way which respected the characters and the fans alike. The story was not epic, but the respect shown for the characters through the writers and show runners appreciation of them was incredible. It completely redeemed two previous seasons of the exact opposite and spurred interest in expanding the series beyond its original arc.

 

[Riverrafter21]

Seriously I keep asking this and ... still no real answer? In what way do you make better movies?

Stop making live action remakes, it comes off as a greed rather than creativity (Water cooler talk from people who are casual fans)
Honor the original source material (previous movies, comics, books)
Find directors who like the original source material, and don't just want to nuke it
Stop thinking you know what's best for your audience, ask them, listen. Flyer over country buys tickets too
Stop letting cast and crew insult your audience on social media
Make good characters of all types, and original stories of all types. Don't just forcefully insert them

 

[FettFan]

Let's look at the upcoming disaster of Indy 5 and find out what not to do.

Popular IP and a Mega Franchise with A lister Harrison Ford playing the beloved Indiana Jones.
Production budget $350M+ (So it needs to make almost $900M to break even) and projected to be a massive BOMB.

Why?
Because the creatives chose to mishandle the character and rather than recreate the magic, they favored disrespecting the audience and the fans.

Then they further chose to degrade and demean the character by adding the ever unlikable Phoebe Waller-Bridge to continually remind the audience of the contempt they had for them.

Not only that but from what I've heard, just like Han Solo, they essentially "reset" Indy by taking away his wife and son. (Mangold has stated that Mutt's absence will be addressed in the movie, while Marion is reduced to a cameo.)

 

[hopemax]

Seriously I keep asking this and ... still no real answer? In what way do you make better movies?

Right now, from looking at the reviews and the numbers, the only thing that would have made The Little Mermaid a better movie, was if it were 100 million cheaper.

So is the answer to just make cheaper movies?

That's not the impression I got from the reviews I've read. The complaints I've read are A. character designs, especially Flounder & Sebastian. They didn't translate well to live-action. B. They should have done more, story-wise, to separate from the animated version. The result is supposed to be nostalgic, but it turns out to be just blah and uninspiring.

The impression I got is that people really wanted this to be a good movie, but it's just not. It has a lot of potential, and sparks are there. Which IMO, is part of the problem going on at Disney. I recently watched several things: Turning Red, Luca, Strange Worlds, Raya... and they mostly have that same blah quality, of "I've already seen this story, give me something new to make my heart sing." Turning Red came the closest to breaking through to that next level for me. I just want to sit the production staff down and say things like "this is just ugly," "this is boring", "the pacing is messed up", "this doesn't feel fun."

 

[Chi84]

Ergo... the change is something more than " they won’t take their kids to the theater to see any movie that will eventually show up on a service they’re already paying for."

People keep saying that, but that's nothing new. Is because people think they already already paying for Disney product? Is it the time-frame? Is it the diminished opinion of what the theatre experience is? Cost? Or delta vs what they get at home just not being significant enough?

I think the issues are far more difficult than people thinking the movie is coming out on D+ anyway. The absurdity of prices really acts as a deterrent and hurts customer sentiment too.

I think the amount of content you get on youtube/etc is part of the issue too. Just think back to how much of a film you could know about/see from a film in the 90s before you went and saw it... vs what someone does now..

If someone went and told you 'John Wick 4 has the most incredible scene... you gotta see it' - in the day that would be anticipation and maybe help tilt you to go see the film. Now, you can google it and get all the details or even see it.... It really cuts into the anticipation and push to go out and see a film 'now'.

For them it was both the time frame and age of the kids. Not old enough to nag.

 

[FettFan]

That's not the impression I got from the reviews I've read. The complaints I've read are A. character designs, especially Flounder & Sebastian. They didn't translate well to live-action. B. They should have done more, story-wise, to separate from the animated version. The result is supposed to be nostalgic, but it turns out to be just blah and uninspiring.

I would also say that the live action renditions of certain scenes don't have the same impact as the animated versions.

Case in point: Ursula's reveal at the climax of the 1989. She bursts out of her disguise in a rather disturbing bit of animation.

THEN, she drags herself across the deck while the guests recoil in horror, like something straight out of an Evil Dead movie.

Comparison? CGI tentacles appears out of a puff of smoke.



She does the crawl for a second, but it's more about standing up than anything else.

 

[flynnibus]

Yes, that scene alone makes me NOT want to see the film. Yeouch...

 

[DisneyHead123]

I think the amount of content you get on youtube/etc is part of the issue too. Just think back to how much of a film you could know about/see from a film in the 90s before you went and saw it... vs what someone does now..

If someone went and told you 'John Wick 4 has the most incredible scene... you gotta see it' - in the day that would be anticipation and maybe help tilt you to go see the film. Now, you can google it and get all the details or even see it.... It really cuts into the anticipation and push to go out and see a film 'now'.

For kids, I also feel like YouTube is the "sugary cereal / junk food" of media viewing. My son is 3 and I find that getting him to watch a Disney movie is a hard sell - they're actually fairly complex, narrative wise. You need to have an understanding of the character's personalities and backgrounds, understand the social dynamics between them (Woody is jealous of Buzz, Elsa feels pressured to be perfect by her parents, etc.), and follow / recall sequences of events that span about 90 minutes in order to really make sense of them. Whereas YouTube videos are a few minutes long and easy to parse without a more advanced understanding of narratives (they always seem to be running a business selling kid sized jeeps that wackily break down or trapped in an inflatable maze wherein they must find five keys to get out - strangely, many of the major channels literally remake each other's videos, not sure if they collaborate together or just say to heck with it, let's see what Jason and Alex or Roma and Diana are doing and roll with that). From what I can tell, once kids get a little older they graduate to videos of watching people open packages of Pokemon cards and playing video games, then eventually they start playing video games or Roblox themselves. That kind of content is not only super cheap to make, it's also like someone waving a lollipop in front of a kid when you want them to eat an apple. Now that this particular genie is out of the bottle, I think making children's content is going to be very different for this next generation.

 

[el_super]

If the average film is getting a $250 million budget, I’m sure they can really look at the costs and produce something as good for $175 million

Yeah... looking at the other remakes, $250M does seem rather high, although some of that might have been inflationary costs post-pandemic.

Costs are spiraling upward while theater attendance is declining.

I still don't see enough to suggest though that this was an obvious outcome for TLM specifically. Chapek may have been the last one to have an opportunity to reduce the budget or pull back expectations for it, but I'm sure at that point in time, everyone still expected a full rebound of the theater audience. It's just not there yet.

 

[el_super]

Stop thinking you know what's best for your audience, ask them, listen. Flyer over country buys tickets too

The audience consistently bought tickets to see the live-action remakes year after year. What was the indication that they didn't want to see this one? Even now it's expected to hit the name numbers as Aladdin, so it doesn't seem to be a demand issue.

 

[el_super]

Let's look at the upcoming disaster of Indy 5 and find out what not to do.

Indy's just a dead franchise. It should have ended with Last Crusade but even that one felt... repetitive when it came out.

Spending $350 million with the hope that they could spin it off into a new direction was wasteful. Should have just let it rest in peace.

On the other hand, there are new Indy toys and lego sets coming out, so it might work out for them afterall. That is how Lucas made most of his money right?

 

[Kingoglow]

Remakes of existing movies are definitely an issue.
First of all, I have seen these movies already (several times). I am not at home so I can't log in to D+, but I would bet that the animated classic is available on D+ already. Why pay for a trip to the theater when the original is already available to me at home? Nothing about 'this is a remake, but its live action' sells me on spending money at the movies. There is nothing distinctly different about the movie that would make me go.

They could do things like reinvent the idea of the vault and remove the animated classics from D+ years prior to the live-action release. That might move the needle some for families with FOMO, but again, I have already seen the movie (several times). I am not in the market to see it again, nor would I choose to pay for that experience.

Remakes don't scream 'new stuff'. I already have my memories, experiences, and nostalgia. So what good is a remake?

 

[Indy_UK]

Yeah... looking at the other remakes, $250M does seem rather high, although some of that might have been inflationary costs post-pandemic.

Costs are spiraling upward while theater attendance is declining.

I still don't see enough to suggest though that this was an obvious outcome for TLM specifically. Chapek may have been the last one to have an opportunity to reduce the budget or pull back expectations for it, but I'm sure at that point in time, everyone still expected a full rebound of the theater audience. It's just not there yet.

I’m not going to knock The Mandalorian as it’s the best Star Wars to come along in a long time but when so much is made in ‘The volume’ how is it costing $10 million an episode?

Maybe it just is the going rate to make stuff these days?

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Let's look at the upcoming disaster of Indy 5 and find out what not to do.

Popular IP and a Mega Franchise with A lister Harrison Ford playing the beloved Indiana Jones.
Production budget $350M+ (So it needs to make almost $900M to break even) and projected to be a massive BOMB.

Why?
Because the creatives chose to mishandle the character and rather than recreate the magic, they favored disrespecting the audience and the fans.

Then they further chose to degrade and demean the character by adding the ever unlikable Phoebe Waller-Bridge to continually remind the audience of the contempt they had for them.

If you want a framework of something done right, look at Picard season 3. It was done on the cheap (seriously the budget was almost shoestring), but done in a way which respected the characters and the fans alike. The story was not epic, but the respect shown for the characters through the writers and show runners appreciation of them was incredible. It completely redeemed two previous seasons of the exact opposite and spurred interest in expanding the series beyond its original arc.

I really don’t need another two week: “Disney did nothing wrong! The audience is out to get them!!” discussion about Indy if it fails…
But it looks like it’s gonna fail.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I’m not going to knock The Mandalorian as it’s the best Star Wars to come along in a long time but when so much is made in ‘The volume’ how is it costing $10 million an episode?

Maybe it just is the going rate to make stuff these days?

I think it’s a combo of things

Fundamentally…they’re just blowing money like Rohde did in imagineering at this point.
Sailors on shore leave. Reshoots…crews are insane…often they do traditional effects - then CG - then try to mesh them with 50 people.

Obviously talent costs a fortune.

But I blame Tom cruise too. Stunt doubles pare cheap. Have ewan mcgreggor and a fencing master for weeks is not.

It’s largesse. Which always finds a home in Hollywood and on any Disney lot

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

Seriously I keep asking this and ... still no real answer? In what way do you make better movies?

Right now, from looking at the reviews and the numbers, the only thing that would have made The Little Mermaid a better movie, was if it were 100 million cheaper.

So is the answer to just make cheaper movies?

I wish I knew because I’d be rich.

Being good doesn’t seem to be the deciding factor for financial success though, there’s dozens of bad movies (Fast and Furious films, Transformers, Jurassic Worlds) that make billions while much better films never find an audience.

Appealling to a huge audience seems to be a bigger factor than being good.

 

[Nubs70]

Has Zenia or any of her minions put out any replies?