Roland Emmerich Says the Quiet Part Out Loud..Kind Of
It appears Roland Emmerich and Martin Scorcese have been swapping notes on what ails the industry, #marvel, but Emmerich has decided to up the ante by mentioning Star Wars. The director, known for his "the world is ending action" pics, laid it all out in an interview with Den Of Geek, which surprisingly didn't implode upon Emmerich throwing their hallowed gods, superheroes, under the proverbial bus. Deadline covers the more interesting bits here. So is he right? Well, kind of, but I think he points the finger in the wrong direction.
Emmerich's main point against Marvel and Star Wars movies is that it's crowding out the original content like his latest flick Moonfall. It isn't particularly original if you know Emmerich's history, but I digress. Regardless, he's training his fire at the wrong culprit. The main reason superheroes and the umpteenth chapter of the Star Wars saga is all we see out there is because nobody in the studio world or streaming, for that matter, really wants to take any risks. One can help but watch this teaser for Paramount+'s The Offer about the making of The Godfather and not sense that the moxy that got that movie off the ground doesn't exist anymore. And before I get whacked by the Twitter Mob, yes, things were not so great in Hollywood in the 70s, particularly with how women and minorities were treated, but they did try and swing for the fences when it came to telling original stories. So what exactly happened?
It ultimately leads back to what I've referenced in last week's newsletter, the abject fear of taking the risk and fear of anything that doesn't look like it's been done before. There are several factors, but big corporate takeovers played a part, and as the salaries and perks of the biz got bigger and better, people just didn't want to lose their seats behind the big studio desk. So many of the decision-makers are trained in a system that hasn't changed for a few decades. The captains of the various ships won't relinquish the tiller anytime soon, so the eternal cycle of superhero movies and Star Wars stories will continue. Many of you may say that they're just giving them what the audience wants, which is an easy cop-out. Nobody knew they wanted an iPhone or an iPad until they saw one. The same applies to groundbreaking content. It's precisely that kind of thinking that led to throwing everything on streaming because it's what the audience wanted. Well, if you look at this piece from the Entertainment Strategy Guy, that's going to lead the entire industry right off the cliff. Our role as content makers and sellers is to take the audience on a journey they never expected, not continually feed them the same flick over and over.
If Roland Emmerich, Steven Speilberg, and Martin Scorcese want to see changes, they have to point the fire in the right direction. It's easy to point the finger at the movies themselves, but it also comes across as if you're blaming the audience for liking these films, which smacks of elitism. Make the argument towards the studios and streamers, and then take your case to the audience. Maybe you'll start affecting real change across all content platforms. You have the money and the credibility to do it; you just need to aim the fire in the right direction.
A Netflix Hit
Holy Movies, Batman! This week, Netflix released a trailer promoting the 86(!) movies they plan on releasing this year. Yes, that is an impressive haul, and yes, my HB co-host, Tim Thompson, would most likely argue that most of them will be garbage with less than stellar production value. However, what makes this piece interesting, is the speaking to camera that the actors do throughout the piece while in character. Overall, the piece isn't anything special, but that part raises the bar.
Having worked on several sizzle pieces such as this, I know how difficult it can be to pull that off, so this week's hit is more dedicated to the behind-the-scenes crews and marketing teams that pulled that off. It was well executed and made an otherwise typical sizzle reel stand out from the crowd—something we need to see more of these days.
Pages from the Commonplace Book
We return to one of the Stoics, Seneca, for this week's quote:
"Many are harmed by fear itself, and many may have come to their fate while dreading fate."
We are often governed by fear, which can lead us to become or do the very thing we dread. Thus, we must always control those impulses to avoid the fate that someone before us has ultimately suffered.
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