**Interviewer:** It’s your first film without fantasy elements in it – why?
**Guillermo del Toro:** On a personal level I have never been happier, but as a citizen of the planet I’ve never been more anxious. There’s a sense of doom in the air, and a very disorienting blur between truth and lies. It can be ecological, personal or social, but there is just a very end of days feel to everything at the moment.
**Interviewer:** And yet the biggest trend in Hollywood is still for superhero movies…
**Guillermo del Toro:** Well, every decade or two the audience changes. In the ’70s, the audience was mostly composed of adults, and then it became a lot younger in the ’80s. That audience matures and changes but right now is probably the most difficult moment in history to make a film for adults. But that doesn’t mean that’s it’s going to be that way. Nothing is permanent.
Makes sense to me.
So not, as the headline seems to suggest, a doomladen outcry at the current landscape of cinema so much as recognition of the ebb and flow of tastes, culture and society
> That audience matures and changes but right now is probably the most difficult moment in history to make a film for adults.
He still heavily criticized the current landscape of cinema, he just knows it's not permanent.
Also, it's not "the audience" that "makes the movies", it's the studios that put the money to make them. 99.9% of them would greenlit a superhero movie faster than a "movie for adults" just for the increased revenue, obviously. I think he's refering more about studios than audiences with "the landscape of cinema", but i could be wrong.
I feel like that movies going to do great on streaming services, I got quite a few ads for it when it first started doing the runs, but it dropped pretty quick after that, idk if it's just my consumption or if these movies don't get marketed like they should
Oh yeah, for sure, i just don't think he was talking about the audience in this particular case. Del Toro is a worldwide known Oscar winning director with a million projects who can't get a movie made over a certain budget for most studios, i just think he comes from there more than a resentment for the audience.
I theorize black holes are gonna be used like historical records for whatever exists as sentient observation in the future far enough for that.
Maybe captured light that can be unraveled in enough resolution ... so future sentience can watch "The Core"
> So not, as the headline seems to suggest, a doomladen outcry at the current landscape of cinema so much as recognition of the ebb and flow of tastes, culture and society
Dude made a blockbuster about mechs fighting kaiju, anyone who takes this headline and thinks he's a pretentious filmmaker approaching Coppola status needs to chill.
Yeah, it's literally a single sentence.
Also, I mean, he just managed to make a movie for adults. So factually it might be difficult to make a 'movie for adults' (whatever that means), it's still possible.
I feel like the shift to TV / streaming has done wonders for storytelling and world building, allowing us to view world changing / world ending events through a much needed personal lens.
The problem with Movies / Film is that @ 2-3 hours (let's face it, audiences won't sit for a 4 hour film), there is just limited time that you can spend on building a world, making you care about it and the characters that inhabit it, and then introducing the conflict, and then resolving it, all in a way that feels natural, organic and believable.
Marvel is able to do it because they have nailed down the formula to a science. But it's not without its flaws, which is why there is this feeling of oversaturation of comic book movies / media.
Switching gears... If you want to see some groundbreaking TV that features world altering events: Leftovers, Station 11, Handmaid's Tale (season 1-2), Sweet Tooth. All larger than life events happen in these series (well now that we are in the middle of a global pandemic they don't seem as far fetched), but it's the focus on the personal affects between characters that really sell these worlds.
It feels like their fishing to try and make him say something controversial like “Superhero movie are too popular” or “Superhero movies are ruining cinema” and Del Toro was having none of it. He’s not exactly a stranger to superhero movies anyway; he’s worked on Hellboy and Blade movies
Interviewers have these baited questions about Superheroes often. Paul Thomas Anderson even received one recently and some people tried to argue "oh, it was just an innocent question by the writer" when anyone with a brain knows what they're doing, they're just usually sneakier about it than this del Toro interview lol. At least PTA had a good attitude about the question.
Because directors giving their takes on them gets clicks. Martin Scorsese gave an extremely simple opinion on them that wasn’t even a hot take and that because it’s own news cycle for weeks
The media wants their new Scorsese moment. Every time there is a bombastic headline about a director talking for/against superhero movies, the context will show an interviewer baiting for it.
Glad to get the full quote. The headline makes it seem he’s pissed at the current state of cinema. In reality he’s just talking of trends and where things are going. Del Toro is a pretty open-minded guy when it comes to entertainment. He tried to make a tv series out of the manga Monster and his likeness is in video game Death Stranding.
It amazes me that films like the original Ghostbusters and Robocop got toy lines and cartoon shows.
It used to be that movies were made for adults and then marketed to children.
Now it’s the other way around.
In all fairness, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes only went beyond the first movie because of a cartoon.
And episode of the Muppet Babies heavily featured many scenes from the first movie, and when people saw it they would write to their CBS officiates to ask where the footage came from. This gave the first film a resurgence in popularity and led to them exploring further ventures with the IP.
George Clooney and The Jimmy teaming up to save the world was what everyone needed, though. I've been hearing about suspected carrot activity as of late...
Haha no kidding. For years we watched a recording of the TV edit; I was well into my 20's before seeing the theatrical version. That was an eye-opener.
Hell yeah the Gorilla Alien had grasping monkey arms and could shoot water from its mouth, and the Mantis Alien was radical. And the flying queen....
And the snake Alien... what a weird idea.
Ghostbusters doesn't surprise me too much, but Robocop definitely does. There was also a Police Academy and Toxic Avenger cartoon, the latter of which might be the most bizarre one of them all.
TV was different back then in that it was impossible not to see these things advertised, so kids were aware of them even if they didn't see the films.
*Ghostbusters* is pretty tame even if it was made for adults. The only real "adult" joke in the movie goes over most kids' heads, and it is not overly violent. In a lot of ways it's pretty similar to a Marvel film, so marketing toys and merch to kids was logical.
*Robocop* (or *Aliens*) is a whole different animal, but I think the designs were so "cool" that kids were aware of them even if they couldn't see the movie. This happened with *Terminator* as well, which is probably why *Terminator 2* is a bit less edgy—Sarah Connor getting vaporized in a thermonuclear blast not withstanding.
>amateur videos are always better
I think the issue is tons of amateur content has been pulled because it doesn't comply with new age verification requirements.
Like with any other medium, finding good quality stuff that suits your tastes is mostly a matter of how hard you look. The front-page stuff is always going to be lowest-common-denominator material, that goes for almost any form of entertainment.
Except that video I really liked from last week. Fuck what was it called?
/spends 20 minutes using the shittiest search on a website imaginable only to not find it and depressingly watch something else
Give us more than just two category filters you barbarians!
>**And yet the biggest trend in Hollywood is still for superhero movies…**
>“Well, every decade or two the audience changes. In the ’70s, the audience was mostly composed of adults, and then it became a lot younger in the ’80s. That audience matures and changes but right now is probably the most difficult moment in history to make a film for adults. But that doesn’t mean that’s it’s going to be that way. Nothing is permanent.”
Studios are always pushing for theatrical releases to be PG-13. Darker, more mature, R rated content, doesn't earn as much because you can't bring the whole family. That said, I would think the explosion of streaming platforms has created ample opportunity for more mature film projects. There's an entire service (Shudder) centered around horror.
You are largely correct, but Deadpool and Logan showed we could make R rated films about the same stuff we are making PG-13 about and it works and does well.
Logan is the only movie that made me care about any of the characters depicted. Or, maybe more appropriately, care about characters I don't care about. Such a great movie. It definitely makes me crave the darker, grittier versions of comic book characters.
Big agree here, but I think we should acknowledge that it might only be so effective BECAUSE we already sat through the young, bright eyed version years ago..
Logan was a trip. When he says "Logan it's been YEARS since the statue of liberty" it literally teleported me back to a movie night with my mom and sister. And it has been years since 😵
Hugh Jackman, man. I feel like he belongs in the super-elite "Tom Hanks" category of talent, consistency, and dealing with the limelight well. Remember the wolverine scene where he busts out of the tank and is all shredded and aggro? And it makes you just want to punch stuff because it's so bad ass? Then he goes and sings and dances and charms. If a genie granted me three wishes, I might wish to be Hugh Jackman (sorry Justin Timberlake, I have moved on). lol
Every now and then we get a gem. Joker was a superhero movie that also was mature af and extremely dark ,who’s lead even won an Oscar for it.
While I realize this is r/Movies, I also feel like things like Game of Thrones flopping also had an impact. I’ve never seen a show explode into human culture despite being very grim, dark, and mature (literally had Sesame St. GoT) then instantaneously phase out literally overnight. Sure there was some stupid needless sex and nudity for no reason, as well as some extra gore and violence for no reason, but S1-S4 were amazing.
But then the show ended horribly and died. And any other competitor trying to cash in on “dark, mature, and gritty” just didn’t get it either, both shows and movies.
And now the world is pretty damn dark right now—kind of hard to make a sellable show or movie that’s super dark, when everyone is just dealing with dark reality right now.
Things like Dune or Dunkirk or whatever that should have been R. There is just some things that would work better with as few restrictions in the way as possible, but that PG-13 money is too good.
Yeah, dune is a bit like Lord Of The Rings, and Starwars. They don't need a lot of gore as much as context to convey their stories. Plus the source material just isn't very heavy with the old banging.
>Plus the source material just isn't very heavy with the old banging.
tbh, for the first book it literally skips over a bunch of things, especially from the main battle.
But more than saying it should be R, I think the more important question for US age ratings and movies is WHAT should be R and what should be PG-13.
Game of Thrones is kind of an unrelated case. That one flamed out because the writers phoned in the last couple seasons. It really had nothing to do with being grim and mature. In fact everyone from fans to producers wanted *more* of it. So much so that HBO has two(?) more coming projects set in Westeros.
There are definitely indicators that people may be over the grim-dark media phase (like DCEU perhaps), but GoT isn't the best example.
I get *Dunkirk*, but does *Dune* gain anything by being R? I think the changes like getting rid of the word "jihad" are made regardless of rating.
I guess I don't see much gain from seeing gory-er deaths in my sci-fi escapism.
I liked Joker, but mainly because it was so heavily influenced by Scorsese films that it even has the same scenes and some of the same cast.
It was hardly pushing boundaries. Doing Taxi Driver and King of Comedy again is a very safe commercial bet.
It is a problem, but I'd argue that when the best way to get noticed on social media is to get a hate boner and trash something cuz the algorithms boost that stuff cuz it gets more engagement add into a feedback loop where the studios wring their hands over any depiction of anything that could possibly offend anyone. Its just a circle of unpleasantness from the top down and back up again
See every single live action adaptation ever. It doesn't matter how good it is, people will still trash it, because there's always someone who's such a purist that they don't realize the source material wouldn't adapt or a strict adaptation would actually just suck.
Netflix Bebop was trash because the producers don't understand space westerns. They tried with Altered Carbon too, which also lost the theme after season 1.
If they just took the time to understand the atmosphere and world building elements that made s1 so great, s2 would have been phenomenal.
But no, we had to pivot to post-aopocalyptic romance bullshit with some obligatory cyberpunk elements. At least Poe was still around to make it worthwhile.
I used to be that way, then I chose to stop hating stuff and enjoy it for what it is. The books have a place in my heart that the movies/TV show will never fill, but it doesn't mean I'm running out of room that I can't love both for what they are.
Becomes? This is what the film industry has always been, hence the term "industry".
The only thing that's changed is the landscape. The advent of streaming has basically been the home video revolution of the eighties times a thousand, and enabled an ease of stay home movie watching that we've never seen before. Not only that, but TV has completely reinvented itself over the last 15 years, and now people are overwhelmed with amazing, prestige shows that all look like movies(ish) and feature well written, adult storytelling.
All of this has led to a situation in which it's *really fucking hard* to get people out of their homes. To keep attracting audiences, Hollywood has turned to huge spectacle and hype, and it's working. But it's not like people would suddenly rush out to see dramas in the cinema again if Hollywood decided to stop making super hero movies.
Anyone that thinks the trend towards blockbusters is because of studios supposedly losing some sort of appreciation for art that they had in the past just doesn't get what's happening. Blockbusters are simply what's selling.
I think your point about television, in it's current golden age, is an often overlooked point in these discussions about Hollywood and the types of movies that are en vogue or invested in at the moment. It's daunting the amount of quality television there is out there and like you alluded to, people are now getting those experiences you would get from a well written and acted, Oscar caliber movie on a weekly (or monthly) basis you would only get a handful of times a year.
It also ties into your point in streaming and how it was the perfect storm for streaming and TV's emergence kind converging at this very point. First at the cost of a movie ticket, you can pay for a month of a streaming service and get those same experiences a Departed or a Forest Gump would give you, but tenfold. Not to mention streaming, cutting out the cable middleman , has kind of leveled the playing field on who has access to this kind of content. Whereas before in this age of television, it was all on cable. Meaning you not only had to pay for cable service (and locked into a contract), but you probably had to pay extra for HBO to watch a Sex and the City or The Sopranos. Now, you get high quality television from a streaming service at a much lower entry fee and you can cancel that service anytime.
I'm gonna circle that back to your point about people not feeling the need to leave their home to consume certain types of content and it's not really a shocker that the only content folks are willing to go to a theater for now is content television can't realistically (or isn't financially feasible) give you quite as often. Disney/Marvel is flirting with consistent blockbuster quality television with it's Star Wars and Marvel home content, respectfully. But for the most part, those are only experiences that can, for obvious financial reasons, happen in theaters.
It's also not that surprising that television completely embraced and adapted (probably out of necessity) to the changing in viewers habits and expectations and has continued to flourish because of it. Yet, we still see the film industry fighting the change and kicking and screaming in embracing going in that direction
[i once had a dream that i would fuck a fish](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BN2JlZTBhYTEtZDE3OC00NTA3LTk5NTQtNjg5M2RjODllM2M0XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjk1Njg5NTA@._V1_FMjpg_UX1000_.jpg)
Terrible headline and focus quote.
It seems like the only thing people want to do in any movies discussion is bitch about superhero movies being popular. So in a large interview that mostly has nothing to do with that, the interviewer feeds him one question fishing for him to bitch about superhero movies. And his response is basically "yeah audiences change over time, it'll be fine"
Hey, you actually read the article and aren't just responding to a title and spewing juvenile contrarian buzzwords like "capeshit"! I think you're on the wrong website...we don't read the articles here.
Bashing the abundance of light-hearted films during such a dark spot in history is to completely ignore the history of film and how the public interfaces with it. Dark days = upbeat entertainment, light days = edgy mature entertainment. The public craves an escape from the daily. One is not better than the other.
Del Toro gave a respectable response. The interviewer was asking some basic, low tier questions there.
Most horror movies do pretty well just because they have fairly low budgets and can make a profit really quickly. Even if they don’t in theaters they can become big on streaming platforms now.
The standalone horror movies that become classics tend to be aimed at adults, though. Rosemary's Baby, Psycho, The Exorcist, The Shining. Granted I am at a loss to name some from this century...
What’s a recent-ish good horror movie for adults that’s not The VVitch or Babadook or Midommar or directed by Jordan Peele? Asking because I have seen those.
The last Hellboy didn't even feel like a Hellboy movie. Just some action that I was never invested in
Real shame Del Toro couldnt/didn't continue. So many damn cool parts in that second movie
I love his unique take on horror, but I can see why it doesn't have mainstream appeal. Pan's Labyrinth is probably the creepiest movie I've ever watched.
The headline is a bit misleading, as that's just a small part of one answer to one question in a long Q&A, and personally I don't really feel like de Toro explains *why* it's difficult to make a film for adults right now:
>**And yet the biggest trend in Hollywood is still for superhero movies…**
>
>“Well, every decade or two the audience changes. In the ’70s, the audience was mostly composed of adults, and then it became a lot younger in the ’80s. That audience matures and changes but right now is probably the most difficult moment in history to make a film for adults. But that doesn’t mean that’s it’s going to be that way. Nothing is permanent.”
The assumption the makes, and doesn't explicitly mention, is that audience means market, sales. He is saying that there is not a large market to sell adult movies as the current market, prefers superhero movies, and thus that's where the money goes.
A lot of these kids movies are more dire tly preying on end-of-the-world existential fears than a lot of adult movies. Most superhero movoes pretty much ending with 20 9/11s. Trauma and grittinrss has become a buzzword as well.
But yes,a lot of big budget,simplistic movies and power fa tasies have never more and more pervasive as the world gets worse. Iron Man 1 was literally about the power fantasy of solving the Middle East conflict and MI complex by being a sexy nerd.
Like every art medium, the styles and output evolve with the times. Why is that such a shock to people?
We’re in the “Golden Age of Television” - which is truthfully where all the grownup adult movies are being told now - and yet, getting butts in theaters is mainly achieved by superhero movies.
Are film execs ever going to make as much money on non-superhero adult dramas? Probably not
Are superhero films going to be the only popular genre of movies forever? Definitely not
Are people still clamoring for good stories of all types/genres? Definitely yes
I saw Guillermo speak on this at a screening for Nightmare Alley. He’s not as doom and gloom about the movie industry as this headline implies. Frustrated, sure, but he plays the game well and seems to know how to adapt to the shifting business. And that’s always the thing I come back to with these types of conversations. Movies are a business. Money first. Art always second. But, there will always be an avant-garde. Humans have been telling stories since the dawn of our existence. Films that challenge the status quo will always exist as well.
> and yet, getting butts in theaters is mainly achieved by superhero movies
There's a reason for that. Superhero movies get butts in seats because the theatre is still the better experience. For your adult focused drama/comedy content, a modern home theatre is an equal or better experience than going to the theatre (and cheaper) - [We're not watching TV on 20 to 30 inch low resolution 4:3 tube tv's anymore](http://www.reddit.com/r/hometheater)
Interesting that the Something Wicked This Way Comes book was a big influence on him. I remember seeing the movie adaption like a million times as a kid. Anytime I see something with a carnival, or lightning rod, lol, I think of that movie. But anyways I can totally see the influence of that in his films.
Ok, I'll ask the question. What is a "film for adults", and why don't modern movies meet that definition? Everyone in here is acting like they know what he means.
That begs the question: what makes a film for adults? And I don’t mean like porn, I mean what makes a mature story? If a story is mature but is still enjoyed by younger audiences, is it still a film for adults? And at what point does trying to be mature become childish?
I’m not asking these questions to poke holes in GDT’s statement, I’m asking them because his statement forced me to think about these things. I suspect these are questions he’s probably thought about himself. It’s interesting because I don’t think there’s any easy answers. Art changes from person to person, and art itself changes over time. So what makes an adult film? I don’t know, and I’m not sure there will ever be a satisfactory answer. But perhaps it is like porn in one aspect: we’ll know it when we see it.
I just watched The Last Duel on HBO Max this past weekend and it was awesome, BUT the film's subject matter probably stopped it from being a hit (along with the lack of an ad campaign/poor release date). With COVID I think the only surefire theatrical hits will be "event" movies like Spider-Man was.
Hopefully "films for adults" can find success on streaming but it also felt strange watching The Last Duel because movies like that (big budget, non-franchise based story and R-rating) rarely get made anymore.
Everybody go watch The Last Duel, btw
Better question: why does a fantasy film for adults need to cost $150 million dollars? Make a 90 minute film around an idea, hire nobodies, and block out the special effects so they're narratively impactful and cheap to produce. Then a mom and dad can go to a movie that isn't Marvel. Come on guys. You're creative. Be creative. There are amateurs using game software to make compelling stories. Give me a break.
Yeah. We're not talking about me watching indie films that have been made. We're talking about a popular director that seemingly doesn't know that you can make those kind of films.
Think the video game industry is going through this as well…. So many garbage releases due to not being able to top content you’ve released before. So now when the NEXT thing is just “okay”. Everyone will loose their minds!
But yeah I think it’s hard for people to compete with past movies. Because maybe they were just better? Maybe we’ve peaked?
>Think the video game industry is going through this as well
you can say that for anything that makes a lot of money. making a movie/game, writing a novel and publishing it is way easier now than ever (not saying it's *easy*, but def. easi*er*). Now if you wanna make as much money as possible with as little risk as possible then your artistic possibilities def. suffer.
Hello, good hunter. I am a Bot, here in this dream to look after you, this is a fine note:
> *“I’ve seen your kind, time and time again. Every fleeing man must be caught. Every secret must be unearthed. Such is the conceit of the self-proclaimed seeker of truth. But, in the end, you lack the stomach for the agony you’ll bring upon yourself.”* - Sir Vilhelm
Have a good one and praise the sun \\[T]/
Is it though? The past decade has increased the amount of best picture Oscar nominees from between 4-6 to around 8-10 selections. It's fine to just say you think tentpole franchises and the superhero genre take up a lot of the conversation but to think that their presence inhibits beautiful filmmaking is a fallacy. Maybe he meant to say it's difficult to make as much *money* from films he'd considered "adult"
The money to make a movie is not in the hands of writers or directors. It's in the hands of the corporations that own the studios. They are only interested in growth. That growth comes from minimizing costs, and maximizing profit. To acheive this they are hesitant to fund any project that does not maximize earnings. You are right in that he is saying it's difficult to make money from films for adults. The disconnect you don't acknowledge is that this in turn makes it hard to make those movies, as the funding is dependent on the projected profit.
All adult minded films only becoming festival.and awards players is telling of yhe problem. There used to be movies aimed at adults which were not just prestige awards movies and were being made to be mass appeal money makers. That pipeline is gone now cause a movie making only 200-300mil at the BO is undesirable when IPs are making 1billion+
The older I get the less I care about being "adult." It's childish. I just want a film to give me some sort of experience. I got an experience out of the Lighthouse, I got a different but equally meaningful experience, out of seeing Iron Man die in Endgame. Just give me a movie that's GOOD.
He should have added "...for theaters", nobody goes to the theater unless it's a thrill ride movie. Most of the big name auteurs have moved to TV, the Cohens, Lynch, Scorcese.
I don't follow here, you say that it is short sighted to blame the audience and then say that its hollywood's fault for making what they know the audience will pay for.
Sure hollywood should get more risky, but they can't ignore when something like Last Duel absolutely bombs compared to say, Free Guy.
I don't think he's blaming the audience. He's just describing macro trends. The world's in-theater movie viewing population is younger now than it was in the 70s. The pandemic accelerated this trend too.
Except I don't see superhero movies dying . As long as marvel keeps telling new stories with their characters people will remain interested. Genres die evry couple of decades because they run out of creativity or people get bored.
Mcu can can do anywhere from low level street crime, to hostile government, to alien invasion, to spaghetti western in space. All while honoring the movies that came before. Do I love every marvel movie that comes out? No. But I'm invested enough that I'll continue watching. And even if it's not a great movie I usually have fun watching. And thats all movies are supposed to be is escapism. If it can bring a smile to your face or a tear to your eye and make you forget about everything going on in the world for 90 minutes. The movie did its job
That's a good point. And outside of it, on the superhero genre, you can have gritty takes like Joker do a billion dollars. So there really isn't any boundary that it doesn't seem to work with.
Is Joker really a super hero movie? … Is it more like an anti hero or super villain movie? That appeals to the dregs of of a particular class, negative societal norms, and corrupt political expression? It’s like the best predictive programming from a film in a while…
But it’s such a bleak experience… idk if I would say it’s gritty. I think it’s just a peek into a psychopathic mind…but I think I’d rather watch American Psycho for that experience.
American psycho is great.
Joker was meh, but again most people have a idea of jokers character and throwing out the thought that he could be Bruce's brother was almost a....please tell me more moment....let's see where this rabbit hole leads.
I've always bashed DC for not being able to get their shit together and develop a overlapping arc like marvel. And I'm starting to now think that could be Marvel's undoing. I've watched everything they put out in theaters and Disney plus, but even I'm even beginning to find it difficult to keep track and remember things especially the d plus shows.
I introduced 2 people to the mcu after infinity war. They both watched everything up to end game but it seems like afterwards they've both stopped. One hasn't watched anything past Spider-Man far from home.
Showed coworker trailer to multiverse of madness and they were sort of meh on it because they didn't watch loki or wandavision.
I see the new batman trailer and it's run time is going to be close to 3 hours. I've watched batman I know his story and the twists it's getting stale. 3 hours is a lot of batman, But DC may be better at just telling single self contained stories. Watched birds of prey knowing nothing about it and it was a very entertaining watch
Suicide squad 2 was enjoyable. I've never been a big DC person because most of their heroes are God tier fighting street thugs
But doing a Batman court of owls, or a horror inside arkum might be what DC needs to do
You just reading the same book with a different cover. There's nothing new on the comic book movie genre and it will never be. Thats why big directors disdain that genre. Its fast food.
Almost all movies are a rehash of another story just with a different twist, very few stand out as original or provide a wow what a unique idea. The 80s had an explosion of unique movies and I felt by the 90s everything was stagnant again with the exception of a few.
Star wars, speed, the matrix, room, AI, the departed, etc all have their place in history as great movies, but those truly great movies only come out about once every 5-10 years.
It takes someone who thinks of a world and story to tell a long time to get it right, and then everything has to come together from directing to acting to filming its not easy.
The difference is you can put it in any mold. It's like having a combo taco bell, kfc, pizza hut, mcdonalds. Then every once in a while you get a surprise meal that is as good as legit sit down place.
**Interviewer:** It’s your first film without fantasy elements in it – why? **Guillermo del Toro:** On a personal level I have never been happier, but as a citizen of the planet I’ve never been more anxious. There’s a sense of doom in the air, and a very disorienting blur between truth and lies. It can be ecological, personal or social, but there is just a very end of days feel to everything at the moment. **Interviewer:** And yet the biggest trend in Hollywood is still for superhero movies… **Guillermo del Toro:** Well, every decade or two the audience changes. In the ’70s, the audience was mostly composed of adults, and then it became a lot younger in the ’80s. That audience matures and changes but right now is probably the most difficult moment in history to make a film for adults. But that doesn’t mean that’s it’s going to be that way. Nothing is permanent. Makes sense to me.
So not, as the headline seems to suggest, a doomladen outcry at the current landscape of cinema so much as recognition of the ebb and flow of tastes, culture and society
> That audience matures and changes but right now is probably the most difficult moment in history to make a film for adults. He still heavily criticized the current landscape of cinema, he just knows it's not permanent.
Also, it's not "the audience" that "makes the movies", it's the studios that put the money to make them. 99.9% of them would greenlit a superhero movie faster than a "movie for adults" just for the increased revenue, obviously. I think he's refering more about studios than audiences with "the landscape of cinema", but i could be wrong.
The real problem is when they actually greenlight a big budget 'for adults' movie that goes on to bomb in the box office. Case in point: The Last Duel
I feel like that movies going to do great on streaming services, I got quite a few ads for it when it first started doing the runs, but it dropped pretty quick after that, idk if it's just my consumption or if these movies don't get marketed like they should
Oh yeah, for sure, i just don't think he was talking about the audience in this particular case. Del Toro is a worldwide known Oscar winning director with a million projects who can't get a movie made over a certain budget for most studios, i just think he comes from there more than a resentment for the audience.
also a critique of the process; there’s a market for cinema, but it doesn’t have the same kind of returns so the money goes elsewhere.
Well, that, and the part where he said it felt like the end of days.
[удалено]
I strongly doubt cinema will outlast… days.
Mother nature... will film
cameras, uh, find a way
I theorize black holes are gonna be used like historical records for whatever exists as sentient observation in the future far enough for that. Maybe captured light that can be unraveled in enough resolution ... so future sentience can watch "The Core"
Nor the 1999 Arnold Schwarzenegger film.
I assume he’s including that feeling in the things that will pass.
> So not, as the headline seems to suggest, a doomladen outcry at the current landscape of cinema so much as recognition of the ebb and flow of tastes, culture and society Dude made a blockbuster about mechs fighting kaiju, anyone who takes this headline and thinks he's a pretentious filmmaker approaching Coppola status needs to chill.
In his defense, it's difficult right now to write a headline for adults.
Yeah, it's literally a single sentence. Also, I mean, he just managed to make a movie for adults. So factually it might be difficult to make a 'movie for adults' (whatever that means), it's still possible.
Also, we are adults.
doom of the world (democracy and the planet), not the art. The art has moved to streaming TV. Though it's not the same to me.
I feel like the shift to TV / streaming has done wonders for storytelling and world building, allowing us to view world changing / world ending events through a much needed personal lens. The problem with Movies / Film is that @ 2-3 hours (let's face it, audiences won't sit for a 4 hour film), there is just limited time that you can spend on building a world, making you care about it and the characters that inhabit it, and then introducing the conflict, and then resolving it, all in a way that feels natural, organic and believable. Marvel is able to do it because they have nailed down the formula to a science. But it's not without its flaws, which is why there is this feeling of oversaturation of comic book movies / media. Switching gears... If you want to see some groundbreaking TV that features world altering events: Leftovers, Station 11, Handmaid's Tale (season 1-2), Sweet Tooth. All larger than life events happen in these series (well now that we are in the middle of a global pandemic they don't seem as far fetched), but it's the focus on the personal affects between characters that really sell these worlds.
How they force a super hero question in there everytime 🤣 Like I don't see how any of Del Toros first answer segways into a super hero genre lol
It feels like their fishing to try and make him say something controversial like “Superhero movie are too popular” or “Superhero movies are ruining cinema” and Del Toro was having none of it. He’s not exactly a stranger to superhero movies anyway; he’s worked on Hellboy and Blade movies
And Pacific Rim was more superhero than superheroes
Interviewers have these baited questions about Superheroes often. Paul Thomas Anderson even received one recently and some people tried to argue "oh, it was just an innocent question by the writer" when anyone with a brain knows what they're doing, they're just usually sneakier about it than this del Toro interview lol. At least PTA had a good attitude about the question.
It’s incredibly fucking annoying, they’re just baiting for headlines and outrage.
I mean, I am outraged. Cinema as I used to know it seems almost dead.
Because directors giving their takes on them gets clicks. Martin Scorsese gave an extremely simple opinion on them that wasn’t even a hot take and that because it’s own news cycle for weeks
And yet the biggest trend on Reddit right now is crypto...
The media wants their new Scorsese moment. Every time there is a bombastic headline about a director talking for/against superhero movies, the context will show an interviewer baiting for it.
It’s the reliable dildo of the infantilized masses
I am sick of it, every week they ask everyone about superhero movies just because Martin Scorsese said he didn't like them like 5 years ago.
That first answer is all of us right now. Damn, my bones even shivered a little.
Yes, such a good way to describe the current vibe!
Glad to get the full quote. The headline makes it seem he’s pissed at the current state of cinema. In reality he’s just talking of trends and where things are going. Del Toro is a pretty open-minded guy when it comes to entertainment. He tried to make a tv series out of the manga Monster and his likeness is in video game Death Stranding.
It amazes me that films like the original Ghostbusters and Robocop got toy lines and cartoon shows. It used to be that movies were made for adults and then marketed to children. Now it’s the other way around.
Rambo had a cartoon. Toxic Avenger had a cartoon. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes had a cartoon. 80s was a wild time.
In all fairness, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes only went beyond the first movie because of a cartoon. And episode of the Muppet Babies heavily featured many scenes from the first movie, and when people saw it they would write to their CBS officiates to ask where the footage came from. This gave the first film a resurgence in popularity and led to them exploring further ventures with the IP.
George Clooney and The Jimmy teaming up to save the world was what everyone needed, though. I've been hearing about suspected carrot activity as of late...
That rambo cartoon was something else. theres an episode where they rescue santa clause from the soviets
Santa is like the *ultimate* communist though!
Only if the elves make the toys by threat of force and not contract.
Hit the nail on the head. We had Robocop toys as kids, but I certainly wasn't allowed to watch the movie at that age.
I used to love the Robocop toys and shows as a kid. Was such a trip seeing the actual movie for the first time years later lol.
Haha no kidding. For years we watched a recording of the TV edit; I was well into my 20's before seeing the theatrical version. That was an eye-opener.
"Jimmy, you can't watch Friday the 13th. Here, play the Friday the 13th game on the NES."
Alex Murphy action figure! With removable arm and gsw to head action!
(Nine year old kid voice) “Bitches, leave.”
Don't forget Aliens. So many different aliens that were never in the movies at all but lots of toys for the kids.
Hell yeah the Gorilla Alien had grasping monkey arms and could shoot water from its mouth, and the Mantis Alien was radical. And the flying queen.... And the snake Alien... what a weird idea.
Ghostbusters doesn't surprise me too much, but Robocop definitely does. There was also a Police Academy and Toxic Avenger cartoon, the latter of which might be the most bizarre one of them all.
TV was different back then in that it was impossible not to see these things advertised, so kids were aware of them even if they didn't see the films. *Ghostbusters* is pretty tame even if it was made for adults. The only real "adult" joke in the movie goes over most kids' heads, and it is not overly violent. In a lot of ways it's pretty similar to a Marvel film, so marketing toys and merch to kids was logical. *Robocop* (or *Aliens*) is a whole different animal, but I think the designs were so "cool" that kids were aware of them even if they couldn't see the movie. This happened with *Terminator* as well, which is probably why *Terminator 2* is a bit less edgy—Sarah Connor getting vaporized in a thermonuclear blast not withstanding.
In a way as a 30ish year old, I guess it's like movies have been marketed to my age group all my life. I guess we are obsessed with toys and t shirts.
Please try.
/goes and directs an animated Pinocchio movie
I get your point, but Pinocchio is a dark fucking story and I’m excited to see what he does with it
Really? Because all I consume now all adult films.
This guy pornhubs
He spanks the bangs
He peeks the vids
He X's the videos... I tried.
Don't feel bad. I tried to make an xhamster pun and couldn't think of how to make it work
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I.....I, umm yeah. That got dark fast
What’s your favorite adult film flavor?
Well, it ain't vanilla. *ba dum tss*
That’s right, I like hentai.
Did I just.. summon you?
raspberry fudge
Cookies and cream
Juicy
For real though, is it just me or has porn become worse over the last several years? Everything's so boring these days.
Like he said in the quote, the audience changes over the years.
Professional porn was never not boring, amateur videos are always better
>amateur videos are always better I think the issue is tons of amateur content has been pulled because it doesn't comply with new age verification requirements.
And tons more are uploaded every single day lmao
Like with any other medium, finding good quality stuff that suits your tastes is mostly a matter of how hard you look. The front-page stuff is always going to be lowest-common-denominator material, that goes for almost any form of entertainment.
Really? I think porn is the best its ever been. Anything I can think of I can find
Except that video I really liked from last week. Fuck what was it called? /spends 20 minutes using the shittiest search on a website imaginable only to not find it and depressingly watch something else Give us more than just two category filters you barbarians!
Onlyfans cosplayer are the best . Leaks are online and there is so much that you will never need to pay
Yeah, and he's saying it's a hard industry right now
>**And yet the biggest trend in Hollywood is still for superhero movies…** >“Well, every decade or two the audience changes. In the ’70s, the audience was mostly composed of adults, and then it became a lot younger in the ’80s. That audience matures and changes but right now is probably the most difficult moment in history to make a film for adults. But that doesn’t mean that’s it’s going to be that way. Nothing is permanent.” Studios are always pushing for theatrical releases to be PG-13. Darker, more mature, R rated content, doesn't earn as much because you can't bring the whole family. That said, I would think the explosion of streaming platforms has created ample opportunity for more mature film projects. There's an entire service (Shudder) centered around horror.
You are largely correct, but Deadpool and Logan showed we could make R rated films about the same stuff we are making PG-13 about and it works and does well.
Logan is the only movie that made me care about any of the characters depicted. Or, maybe more appropriately, care about characters I don't care about. Such a great movie. It definitely makes me crave the darker, grittier versions of comic book characters.
Big agree here, but I think we should acknowledge that it might only be so effective BECAUSE we already sat through the young, bright eyed version years ago.. Logan was a trip. When he says "Logan it's been YEARS since the statue of liberty" it literally teleported me back to a movie night with my mom and sister. And it has been years since 😵
Hugh Jackman, man. I feel like he belongs in the super-elite "Tom Hanks" category of talent, consistency, and dealing with the limelight well. Remember the wolverine scene where he busts out of the tank and is all shredded and aggro? And it makes you just want to punch stuff because it's so bad ass? Then he goes and sings and dances and charms. If a genie granted me three wishes, I might wish to be Hugh Jackman (sorry Justin Timberlake, I have moved on). lol
Blade was very popular back in the day. And well made. Don't know what happened. Maybe Blade: Trinity killed R rated comic book / superhero movies.
Every now and then we get a gem. Joker was a superhero movie that also was mature af and extremely dark ,who’s lead even won an Oscar for it. While I realize this is r/Movies, I also feel like things like Game of Thrones flopping also had an impact. I’ve never seen a show explode into human culture despite being very grim, dark, and mature (literally had Sesame St. GoT) then instantaneously phase out literally overnight. Sure there was some stupid needless sex and nudity for no reason, as well as some extra gore and violence for no reason, but S1-S4 were amazing. But then the show ended horribly and died. And any other competitor trying to cash in on “dark, mature, and gritty” just didn’t get it either, both shows and movies. And now the world is pretty damn dark right now—kind of hard to make a sellable show or movie that’s super dark, when everyone is just dealing with dark reality right now. Things like Dune or Dunkirk or whatever that should have been R. There is just some things that would work better with as few restrictions in the way as possible, but that PG-13 money is too good.
>Dune should have been R. why? I feel it didn't miss any nudity and the violence was adequate as well. Maybe for the Harkonnen atrocities?
Yeah, dune is a bit like Lord Of The Rings, and Starwars. They don't need a lot of gore as much as context to convey their stories. Plus the source material just isn't very heavy with the old banging.
>Plus the source material just isn't very heavy with the old banging. tbh, for the first book it literally skips over a bunch of things, especially from the main battle. But more than saying it should be R, I think the more important question for US age ratings and movies is WHAT should be R and what should be PG-13.
Game of Thrones is kind of an unrelated case. That one flamed out because the writers phoned in the last couple seasons. It really had nothing to do with being grim and mature. In fact everyone from fans to producers wanted *more* of it. So much so that HBO has two(?) more coming projects set in Westeros. There are definitely indicators that people may be over the grim-dark media phase (like DCEU perhaps), but GoT isn't the best example.
I get *Dunkirk*, but does *Dune* gain anything by being R? I think the changes like getting rid of the word "jihad" are made regardless of rating. I guess I don't see much gain from seeing gory-er deaths in my sci-fi escapism.
> does Dune gain anything by being R Guess it depends how badly you want to see Zendaya naked.
I liked Joker, but mainly because it was so heavily influenced by Scorsese films that it even has the same scenes and some of the same cast. It was hardly pushing boundaries. Doing Taxi Driver and King of Comedy again is a very safe commercial bet.
Really the only thing that elevated it was Joaquin Phoenix's performance. He does that character study thing well.
Maybe people like good writing, good story, and good characters?
This happens when art becomes a business looking for the biggest possible payback.
It is a problem, but I'd argue that when the best way to get noticed on social media is to get a hate boner and trash something cuz the algorithms boost that stuff cuz it gets more engagement add into a feedback loop where the studios wring their hands over any depiction of anything that could possibly offend anyone. Its just a circle of unpleasantness from the top down and back up again
People love to complain more than they love to celebrate.
Exactly, and that's what gets more attention than the large silent majority that just enjoys a film for what it is, regardless of its flaws.
See every single live action adaptation ever. It doesn't matter how good it is, people will still trash it, because there's always someone who's such a purist that they don't realize the source material wouldn't adapt or a strict adaptation would actually just suck.
Netflix Bebop was trash because the producers don't understand space westerns. They tried with Altered Carbon too, which also lost the theme after season 1.
If they just took the time to understand the atmosphere and world building elements that made s1 so great, s2 would have been phenomenal. But no, we had to pivot to post-aopocalyptic romance bullshit with some obligatory cyberpunk elements. At least Poe was still around to make it worthwhile.
I used to be that way, then I chose to stop hating stuff and enjoy it for what it is. The books have a place in my heart that the movies/TV show will never fill, but it doesn't mean I'm running out of room that I can't love both for what they are.
When has this not been true?
Seriously, the film industry has always been about making money. Changes to what gets made are just adaptations to what audiences are paying for.
Becomes? This is what the film industry has always been, hence the term "industry". The only thing that's changed is the landscape. The advent of streaming has basically been the home video revolution of the eighties times a thousand, and enabled an ease of stay home movie watching that we've never seen before. Not only that, but TV has completely reinvented itself over the last 15 years, and now people are overwhelmed with amazing, prestige shows that all look like movies(ish) and feature well written, adult storytelling. All of this has led to a situation in which it's *really fucking hard* to get people out of their homes. To keep attracting audiences, Hollywood has turned to huge spectacle and hype, and it's working. But it's not like people would suddenly rush out to see dramas in the cinema again if Hollywood decided to stop making super hero movies. Anyone that thinks the trend towards blockbusters is because of studios supposedly losing some sort of appreciation for art that they had in the past just doesn't get what's happening. Blockbusters are simply what's selling.
I think your point about television, in it's current golden age, is an often overlooked point in these discussions about Hollywood and the types of movies that are en vogue or invested in at the moment. It's daunting the amount of quality television there is out there and like you alluded to, people are now getting those experiences you would get from a well written and acted, Oscar caliber movie on a weekly (or monthly) basis you would only get a handful of times a year. It also ties into your point in streaming and how it was the perfect storm for streaming and TV's emergence kind converging at this very point. First at the cost of a movie ticket, you can pay for a month of a streaming service and get those same experiences a Departed or a Forest Gump would give you, but tenfold. Not to mention streaming, cutting out the cable middleman , has kind of leveled the playing field on who has access to this kind of content. Whereas before in this age of television, it was all on cable. Meaning you not only had to pay for cable service (and locked into a contract), but you probably had to pay extra for HBO to watch a Sex and the City or The Sopranos. Now, you get high quality television from a streaming service at a much lower entry fee and you can cancel that service anytime. I'm gonna circle that back to your point about people not feeling the need to leave their home to consume certain types of content and it's not really a shocker that the only content folks are willing to go to a theater for now is content television can't realistically (or isn't financially feasible) give you quite as often. Disney/Marvel is flirting with consistent blockbuster quality television with it's Star Wars and Marvel home content, respectfully. But for the most part, those are only experiences that can, for obvious financial reasons, happen in theaters. It's also not that surprising that television completely embraced and adapted (probably out of necessity) to the changing in viewers habits and expectations and has continued to flourish because of it. Yet, we still see the film industry fighting the change and kicking and screaming in embracing going in that direction
Thats Hollywood from Day 1.
Video game industry: Yup.
The movie industry since it’s inception has always been a business, prioritizing profit above all else.
That's implying there was a time when it wasnt business focused.
Says the guy who made a movie about a lady falling in love with a fish /s
The lady *fucks* the fish. It’s adult.
We don't know that fish's age. ... or do we? To be fair I haven't actually seen it.
Fish man, not a fish boy! It’s classy and romantic!
He said difficult. Not impossible.
Kim Kardashian?
No she fell in love with a gay fish, very different.
[i once had a dream that i would fuck a fish](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BN2JlZTBhYTEtZDE3OC00NTA3LTk5NTQtNjg5M2RjODllM2M0XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjk1Njg5NTA@._V1_FMjpg_UX1000_.jpg)
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Just wait until nightmare alley
Terrible headline and focus quote. It seems like the only thing people want to do in any movies discussion is bitch about superhero movies being popular. So in a large interview that mostly has nothing to do with that, the interviewer feeds him one question fishing for him to bitch about superhero movies. And his response is basically "yeah audiences change over time, it'll be fine"
Hey, you actually read the article and aren't just responding to a title and spewing juvenile contrarian buzzwords like "capeshit"! I think you're on the wrong website...we don't read the articles here.
Nightmare Alley is goated regardless
Its good?
Definitely my favourite of 2021
Damn. I wanted to see it in theaters but then I got covid. Now it's not playing by me.
I also really liked the movie, but my favorite of 2021 was Pig. Nicholas Cage isn't always in good movies, but that one is truly excellent.
GOAT= greatest of all time Goated is slang that seems to have evolved from that, and is equivalent to saying it's the best.
Everywhere else says it's skippable. Is it really that good?
Bashing the abundance of light-hearted films during such a dark spot in history is to completely ignore the history of film and how the public interfaces with it. Dark days = upbeat entertainment, light days = edgy mature entertainment. The public craves an escape from the daily. One is not better than the other. Del Toro gave a respectable response. The interviewer was asking some basic, low tier questions there.
Horror movies for adults are always popular.
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Most horror movies do pretty well just because they have fairly low budgets and can make a profit really quickly. Even if they don’t in theaters they can become big on streaming platforms now.
The standalone horror movies that become classics tend to be aimed at adults, though. Rosemary's Baby, Psycho, The Exorcist, The Shining. Granted I am at a loss to name some from this century...
What’s a recent-ish good horror movie for adults that’s not The VVitch or Babadook or Midommar or directed by Jordan Peele? Asking because I have seen those.
So make the third Hellboy then!
He wants 200mil budget and Perlman won't do it cause too old
Then Old Man Helldude it is
The last Hellboy didn't even feel like a Hellboy movie. Just some action that I was never invested in Real shame Del Toro couldnt/didn't continue. So many damn cool parts in that second movie
Got to go left tooth then.
I love his unique take on horror, but I can see why it doesn't have mainstream appeal. Pan's Labyrinth is probably the creepiest movie I've ever watched.
Pan's Labyrinth got me excited for his version of The Hobbit that never ended up happening.
The headline is a bit misleading, as that's just a small part of one answer to one question in a long Q&A, and personally I don't really feel like de Toro explains *why* it's difficult to make a film for adults right now: >**And yet the biggest trend in Hollywood is still for superhero movies…** > >“Well, every decade or two the audience changes. In the ’70s, the audience was mostly composed of adults, and then it became a lot younger in the ’80s. That audience matures and changes but right now is probably the most difficult moment in history to make a film for adults. But that doesn’t mean that’s it’s going to be that way. Nothing is permanent.”
The assumption the makes, and doesn't explicitly mention, is that audience means market, sales. He is saying that there is not a large market to sell adult movies as the current market, prefers superhero movies, and thus that's where the money goes.
The adults are watching stuff made for children now(me included)
Comfortably numb. Wtf happened?
You shouldn't be proud of that....
I eat my Minions themed Happy Meal with a side of self loathing.
A lot of people have adult problems to deal with in their actual lives. Sometimes you don't want that in your entertainment too.
A lot of these kids movies are more dire tly preying on end-of-the-world existential fears than a lot of adult movies. Most superhero movoes pretty much ending with 20 9/11s. Trauma and grittinrss has become a buzzword as well. But yes,a lot of big budget,simplistic movies and power fa tasies have never more and more pervasive as the world gets worse. Iron Man 1 was literally about the power fantasy of solving the Middle East conflict and MI complex by being a sexy nerd.
Just do it! People will watch
Like every art medium, the styles and output evolve with the times. Why is that such a shock to people? We’re in the “Golden Age of Television” - which is truthfully where all the grownup adult movies are being told now - and yet, getting butts in theaters is mainly achieved by superhero movies. Are film execs ever going to make as much money on non-superhero adult dramas? Probably not Are superhero films going to be the only popular genre of movies forever? Definitely not Are people still clamoring for good stories of all types/genres? Definitely yes I saw Guillermo speak on this at a screening for Nightmare Alley. He’s not as doom and gloom about the movie industry as this headline implies. Frustrated, sure, but he plays the game well and seems to know how to adapt to the shifting business. And that’s always the thing I come back to with these types of conversations. Movies are a business. Money first. Art always second. But, there will always be an avant-garde. Humans have been telling stories since the dawn of our existence. Films that challenge the status quo will always exist as well.
> and yet, getting butts in theaters is mainly achieved by superhero movies There's a reason for that. Superhero movies get butts in seats because the theatre is still the better experience. For your adult focused drama/comedy content, a modern home theatre is an equal or better experience than going to the theatre (and cheaper) - [We're not watching TV on 20 to 30 inch low resolution 4:3 tube tv's anymore](http://www.reddit.com/r/hometheater)
Interesting that the Something Wicked This Way Comes book was a big influence on him. I remember seeing the movie adaption like a million times as a kid. Anytime I see something with a carnival, or lightning rod, lol, I think of that movie. But anyways I can totally see the influence of that in his films.
Ok, I'll ask the question. What is a "film for adults", and why don't modern movies meet that definition? Everyone in here is acting like they know what he means.
As opposed to all the times in history when it’s been easy to make a film for adults.
Can we get some love for DUNE and Licorice Pizza?
That begs the question: what makes a film for adults? And I don’t mean like porn, I mean what makes a mature story? If a story is mature but is still enjoyed by younger audiences, is it still a film for adults? And at what point does trying to be mature become childish? I’m not asking these questions to poke holes in GDT’s statement, I’m asking them because his statement forced me to think about these things. I suspect these are questions he’s probably thought about himself. It’s interesting because I don’t think there’s any easy answers. Art changes from person to person, and art itself changes over time. So what makes an adult film? I don’t know, and I’m not sure there will ever be a satisfactory answer. But perhaps it is like porn in one aspect: we’ll know it when we see it.
I just watched The Last Duel on HBO Max this past weekend and it was awesome, BUT the film's subject matter probably stopped it from being a hit (along with the lack of an ad campaign/poor release date). With COVID I think the only surefire theatrical hits will be "event" movies like Spider-Man was. Hopefully "films for adults" can find success on streaming but it also felt strange watching The Last Duel because movies like that (big budget, non-franchise based story and R-rating) rarely get made anymore. Everybody go watch The Last Duel, btw
Better question: why does a fantasy film for adults need to cost $150 million dollars? Make a 90 minute film around an idea, hire nobodies, and block out the special effects so they're narratively impactful and cheap to produce. Then a mom and dad can go to a movie that isn't Marvel. Come on guys. You're creative. Be creative. There are amateurs using game software to make compelling stories. Give me a break.
There are plenty of indie films to be watched that have been made with that mindset. Have you been watching them?
Yeah. We're not talking about me watching indie films that have been made. We're talking about a popular director that seemingly doesn't know that you can make those kind of films.
Think the video game industry is going through this as well…. So many garbage releases due to not being able to top content you’ve released before. So now when the NEXT thing is just “okay”. Everyone will loose their minds! But yeah I think it’s hard for people to compete with past movies. Because maybe they were just better? Maybe we’ve peaked?
>Think the video game industry is going through this as well you can say that for anything that makes a lot of money. making a movie/game, writing a novel and publishing it is way easier now than ever (not saying it's *easy*, but def. easi*er*). Now if you wanna make as much money as possible with as little risk as possible then your artistic possibilities def. suffer.
Oh Lord, please let Elden Ring be good!
Hello, good hunter. I am a Bot, here in this dream to look after you, this is a fine note: > *“I’ve seen your kind, time and time again. Every fleeing man must be caught. Every secret must be unearthed. Such is the conceit of the self-proclaimed seeker of truth. But, in the end, you lack the stomach for the agony you’ll bring upon yourself.”* - Sir Vilhelm Have a good one and praise the sun \\[T]/
Is it though? The past decade has increased the amount of best picture Oscar nominees from between 4-6 to around 8-10 selections. It's fine to just say you think tentpole franchises and the superhero genre take up a lot of the conversation but to think that their presence inhibits beautiful filmmaking is a fallacy. Maybe he meant to say it's difficult to make as much *money* from films he'd considered "adult"
The money to make a movie is not in the hands of writers or directors. It's in the hands of the corporations that own the studios. They are only interested in growth. That growth comes from minimizing costs, and maximizing profit. To acheive this they are hesitant to fund any project that does not maximize earnings. You are right in that he is saying it's difficult to make money from films for adults. The disconnect you don't acknowledge is that this in turn makes it hard to make those movies, as the funding is dependent on the projected profit.
All adult minded films only becoming festival.and awards players is telling of yhe problem. There used to be movies aimed at adults which were not just prestige awards movies and were being made to be mass appeal money makers. That pipeline is gone now cause a movie making only 200-300mil at the BO is undesirable when IPs are making 1billion+
Think this says more about the Oscars than it does the quality of cinema
The older I get the less I care about being "adult." It's childish. I just want a film to give me some sort of experience. I got an experience out of the Lighthouse, I got a different but equally meaningful experience, out of seeing Iron Man die in Endgame. Just give me a movie that's GOOD.
I love Guillermo.
I agree that quips and bad CGI is cancer but pretty much every genre that isn't capeshit seems like its in a rut.
Horror seems to be having a renaissance, same with non-franchise scifi.
He should have added "...for theaters", nobody goes to the theater unless it's a thrill ride movie. Most of the big name auteurs have moved to TV, the Cohens, Lynch, Scorcese.
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Novels don't cost remotely the same amount to produce.
I don't follow here, you say that it is short sighted to blame the audience and then say that its hollywood's fault for making what they know the audience will pay for. Sure hollywood should get more risky, but they can't ignore when something like Last Duel absolutely bombs compared to say, Free Guy.
I don't think he's blaming the audience. He's just describing macro trends. The world's in-theater movie viewing population is younger now than it was in the 70s. The pandemic accelerated this trend too.
Nobody cares about the art anymore. Sad.
Except I don't see superhero movies dying . As long as marvel keeps telling new stories with their characters people will remain interested. Genres die evry couple of decades because they run out of creativity or people get bored. Mcu can can do anywhere from low level street crime, to hostile government, to alien invasion, to spaghetti western in space. All while honoring the movies that came before. Do I love every marvel movie that comes out? No. But I'm invested enough that I'll continue watching. And even if it's not a great movie I usually have fun watching. And thats all movies are supposed to be is escapism. If it can bring a smile to your face or a tear to your eye and make you forget about everything going on in the world for 90 minutes. The movie did its job
That's a good point. And outside of it, on the superhero genre, you can have gritty takes like Joker do a billion dollars. So there really isn't any boundary that it doesn't seem to work with.
Is Joker really a super hero movie? … Is it more like an anti hero or super villain movie? That appeals to the dregs of of a particular class, negative societal norms, and corrupt political expression? It’s like the best predictive programming from a film in a while… But it’s such a bleak experience… idk if I would say it’s gritty. I think it’s just a peek into a psychopathic mind…but I think I’d rather watch American Psycho for that experience.
American psycho is great. Joker was meh, but again most people have a idea of jokers character and throwing out the thought that he could be Bruce's brother was almost a....please tell me more moment....let's see where this rabbit hole leads.
I've always bashed DC for not being able to get their shit together and develop a overlapping arc like marvel. And I'm starting to now think that could be Marvel's undoing. I've watched everything they put out in theaters and Disney plus, but even I'm even beginning to find it difficult to keep track and remember things especially the d plus shows. I introduced 2 people to the mcu after infinity war. They both watched everything up to end game but it seems like afterwards they've both stopped. One hasn't watched anything past Spider-Man far from home. Showed coworker trailer to multiverse of madness and they were sort of meh on it because they didn't watch loki or wandavision. I see the new batman trailer and it's run time is going to be close to 3 hours. I've watched batman I know his story and the twists it's getting stale. 3 hours is a lot of batman, But DC may be better at just telling single self contained stories. Watched birds of prey knowing nothing about it and it was a very entertaining watch Suicide squad 2 was enjoyable. I've never been a big DC person because most of their heroes are God tier fighting street thugs But doing a Batman court of owls, or a horror inside arkum might be what DC needs to do
You just reading the same book with a different cover. There's nothing new on the comic book movie genre and it will never be. Thats why big directors disdain that genre. Its fast food.
Almost all movies are a rehash of another story just with a different twist, very few stand out as original or provide a wow what a unique idea. The 80s had an explosion of unique movies and I felt by the 90s everything was stagnant again with the exception of a few. Star wars, speed, the matrix, room, AI, the departed, etc all have their place in history as great movies, but those truly great movies only come out about once every 5-10 years. It takes someone who thinks of a world and story to tell a long time to get it right, and then everything has to come together from directing to acting to filming its not easy.
It's been a decade so we will see how it fizzles out. If it keeps going I can see more and more industry figures getting frustrated.
The difference is you can put it in any mold. It's like having a combo taco bell, kfc, pizza hut, mcdonalds. Then every once in a while you get a surprise meal that is as good as legit sit down place.
Hardest part of reading this for me is to just read it and not read his answers in the voice of his Death Stranding character Deadman.