A nomination for bloated blockbuster movies, particularly ones about superheroes.
This isn’t a cunting of the ‘Blockbuster’ in general as that would include Planet of the Apes, The Godfather and Jaws (their queues stretched around the city block and beyond), just the recent trend in Hollywood churning out dross for eyewatering sums and making them all look like fucking cartoons.
A quick look down the list of the most expensive films will demonstrate that a lot of these films cease to be actual ‘films’ and become a braindead hybrid of theme park ride and lurid cartoon. Cinematography and screenwriting seem to be dying arts, particularly with the House of Mouse.
You will see numerous entries from the Pirates of the Caribbean series (a series based on a Disney attraction), the Marvel films, the ridiculous Fast and Furious series, the moribund Star Wars property, the recent Bond outings that ruin the characters, and a few children’s cartoons such as Tangled.
Peter Jackson’s’ Adventure around the Greenscreen’ that left McKellen in tears of boredom, The Hobbit, cost north of $600m to produce across three overly-long films and is not well -liked by anyone. For an adaptation of a single children’s book it seems something only Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria would’ve done, rather than the director of low budget horror films.
Link about McKellen breaking down on the set of The Hobbit; Express News Link
Fucking madness.
Personally, I would limit most of this dross to a relatively thrifty $100m a film.
A smaller budget usually forces a director to think more creatively.
Compare these monstrosities to the budgets of a few of Christopher Nolan’s films (even The Dark Knight, a superhero film that was actually filmed, cost around $180m and made about $1bn because it was a decent crime film, as well as being about Batman).
Inception cost $160m, Dunkirk $150m and The Prestige $40m.
Nolan’s breakthrough film Memento, using a non-linear narrative had a budget of $5m, and made almost $40m worldwide.
Even Tarantino’s most expensive film to date, Once upon a Time in Hollywood, is only $90m, but it is a well-shot film and made $240m worldwide.
The Revenant cost $135m but made back $530m as it’s a compelling story and shot in real locations and uses them to help tell the story.
It turns out a lot of these more artistically-minded grown-up films with budgets around $100m make back their budget more times over than stupid bloated cartoons from Disney. it was as true in the late sixties and throughout the seventies; Audiences want a well-shot film with compelling story and characters, and now word of mouth travels faster , thanks to the Internet.
I don’t expect Hollywood to take much notice though.
Nominated by: Cuntamus Prime
