WaltJRimmer
@WaltJRimmer@lemmy.world
- Comment on Circus Maximus (2023) 1 year ago:
I wonder how they’ll choose who gets crushed to death at every screening.
- Comment on ‘Exorcist: Believer’ Gets Horrifying Reviews After Studio Gambled $400 Million for Rights 1 year ago:
$400m for the rights alone. It doesn’t talk about cost of production.
Meaning they’re looking to make that rights cost back across the trilogy rather than from one film, but they’re constantly adding costs along the way.
- Comment on Martin Scorsese urges filmmakers to fight comic book movie culture: ‘We’ve got to save cinema’ 1 year ago:
It’s weird to me that he’s lumping all comic book movies together and acting like they’re the problem. We keep having trash movies churned out by studios because they make money. That’s been true since at least the nineteen-forties if not earlier. Hell, I’m really just talking about the ones where enough of them still survive that you can go find them. Earlier, in the silent era, yeah, you had trash get made quickly and churned out so that people would pay a dime to watch it. I don’t get how a single genre is supposed to be the culmination that’s ruining cinema.
But, here’s the thing. Have movies changed over the years? Absolutely. Scorcesie’s movies have changed over the years! His style has changed, his vision has changed. What sells tickets has changed. How studios are producing films based on what they think will make them money has changed. It’s been discussed before that the fall of video rentals and the rise of streaming has changed what kinds of movies studios are willing to put their money behind and how they’re less likely to take a risk on something than they used to be. That’s a problem. That’s a big problem because it’s reduced the number of small-budget and medium-budget studio films. None of that can be blamed on comic book adaptations.
And there’s nothing inherently wrong with a comic book adaptation. Marvel movies are overly formulaic and especially since Disney bought them overly safe. Even in the ones I like, I can just feel that Disney touch that makes me go, “Ew,” sometimes. DC’s movies have been mismanaged with an unfit vision helming its original run from the start. So the big series, yes, I’ll admit, they’re kind of shit cinema. I still enjoy some of them, but they’re kind of shit cinema. There are plenty of shit crime movies and thrillers and other things like that, but I’m not going to start yelling about how they’re killing cinema and we have to fight against them. Why do comic book adaptations get singled out as artless trash when there’s a constant stream of hollow feel-good romance films that get churned out every year? Do those formulaic vacuous sap-fests (some of which I love and will watch whenever I need a good cry, I’m really not knocking them) really merit a pass yet for some reason comic books require this war be waged by filmmakers against them? I really don’t see how they’re the problem.
And you can come in and say things like, “He’s just stirring the pot to promote his film,” but I don’t think so. Scorsese has had a lot to say about modern filmmaking even when he doesn’t have a project on the table. He’s talked about his feelings on modern film culture, comic book adaptations, using the word content to describe any form of media, and more. I really don’t think he’s doing it to bring attention to any project so much as he just really feels very strongly that movies have changed and change is bad? Is that really what it is? Because some of the stuff he sees as a problem, yeah, I agree, it’s an issue. But other stuff like this, even if there is a problem, your aim at what the problem really is is just completely off.
- Comment on Cruise CEO says SF ‘should be rolling out the red carpet’ for robotaxis, threatens to maybe leave town 1 year ago:
I don’t really know how you can threaten someone when you need them more than they need you.
If you leave town, where are you going to go? The city doesn’t need you. If you’re not making what you want/need here, go ahead, leave, the city won’t be hurt by it. You will, though. Because you’ll have to pack up your business, set it up somewhere else, and hope that they do the things you want them to. It’ll be expensive for you, won’t mean a thing to the city.
So how is it a threat?
- Comment on Microsoft is killing WordPad in Windows after 28 years 1 year ago:
If Chicken can be a language, that can be a language!
And I don’t mean the actually useful programming language. I mean the esolang one where the only valid character is Chicken.
- Comment on ‘The Idol’ Canceled At HBO After One Season 1 year ago:
Only once, but then it’s rare that a show needs to be canceled more than one time.
- Comment on ‘The Idol’ Canceled At HBO After One Season 1 year ago:
Did they quit or did they go on strike? I’m not familiar with the show or its behind-the-scenes happenings.
- Comment on Hulu’s ‘Futurama’ Reboot Is Brilliant, but Inside Jokes May Alienate Newcomers: TV Review 1 year ago:
Certainly something I’d considered as well. Though, I would say that kind of strategy hasn’t generally proved successful in television in the past, at least not over the average. However, streaming kind of makes that a little foggier. Futurama, along with The Office, were some of the most repeatedly streamed shows on Netflix before their contracts got canceled and they were moved to Hulu (The Office eventually moving to Peacock). So while that strategy tends to not work very well, every time that it does work may be a big enough boost to retention that it’s considered a viable strategy. I don’t know, of course, since I don’t work for Hulu or in any relevant field, so it’s all amateur speculation.
- Comment on Hulu’s ‘Futurama’ Reboot Is Brilliant, but Inside Jokes May Alienate Newcomers: TV Review 1 year ago:
To everyone saying, “That’s a stupid take,” or, “But who cares?” Probably Hulu.
It’s a numbers thing. You have fans of Futurama, that’s one market, and you’re likely to get a good percentage of those as people coming in to watch the reboot, but not 100% of them. But if they’re the only ones who stick around to watch the full new season, that’s a really limited market. That’s a relatively teeny tiny audience. There are plenty of shows that tried to continue marketing themselves in their later seasons, especially episodic (as opposed to serial) shows. Because you always want your numbers to grow. You want to bring in new fans.
I also don’t see it being a huge thing because I don’t think a lot of people who have never heard of Futurama before are going to be particularly interested in the reboot, but the thing is that some would be. And hitting them with inside jokes that they’re not going to get without having watched the rest of the series, yeah, it’s going to make some of them turn the show off instead of going back and watching the older stuff or keeping going. We’ve seen that happen before. And that risks making the audience shrink instead of grow. That’s bad. That will probably lead to it getting canceled again. If the creators are fine with that, I as a long-term fan am going to watch the new season anyway and would prefer a good, clear artistic vision to shine through than something that’s simply looking to draw in the widest possible prospective audience, but from a publisher standpoint, from the viewpoint of a new fan, and even from the viewpoint of someone who simply wants more seasons, I can kind of understand why potentially alienating new viewers would be seen as a concern.