It happens, good ideas fall down merely by the setting of greed. I get that some people revere greed, they pray qt the shrine of coin to get more, forever they prey to get more. Yet what happens when greed gets in the way of a good deal? For that we merely have to look at the place where boobs and smiles are as genuine as a crooked politician trying to get reelected. The forever need to drive that movie that will bring in a billion plus and some make it. Some make movies that gets the juices of desire flowing. Marvel is an excellent example. But you need a small education in reality. You see when we think directors one of the most famous and most achieved directors is Steven Spielberg, he gained revenue of $10,665,089,317 yet it took him 37 movies to get there and there are many nowhere near as good as him. So how about that $1 billion mark? When we look at franchises Harry Potter might be one of the most visible ones. In this Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II (2011) is the only one that passed the one billion mark. Does this mean that we lower the bar? Not necessarily, yet that one billion mark is too visible, too much of an orgasm point for all the wrong people. All whilst there have been a good selection of options out there and they are overlooked.
I mentioned before that the comic book called The Trigan Empire has every option with a right director to get to the high point, optionally with a blonde John Cena in the title role. They might not make the one billion, but they could make a massive profit, an amount that goes further than merely return on investment. There are so many others. There was Franka, a modern version of Brenda Starr, but with subjects that matter today, options that make women herald this next hero. There have been so many comic books in the 70’s and 80’s, all making a good chance to rake in the revenue and most of them not from the USA.
So why does this matter?
It matters because SKollywood is becoming a thing, because more and more people are accepting movies with subtitles and South Korea is producing more and more movies that are connecting to people, perhaps not in the US, but guess what? Over 2/3 of Hollywood revenue is often international. That Harry Potter movie only made $381M in the US, the rest, almost a billion came from outside the US and Hollywood needs to change steps and up the game because Korea (south part) is bringing people the Witch and more movies that are connecting to people all over the world. A stage Hollywood never considered is now becoming a reality. Who saw the Japanese movie Audition? That was intense stuff. Other movies like Old Boy and the ring found American versions, but non-Americans look at what is. You see we all liked the Departed, but those who saw the original Hong Kong version will find it lacking. Not the actors, not the script, but the original in Hong Kong just had that little more and Korea is producing a whole fleet of movies, as are several other nations.
All this and then we get to Netflix, Hulu, Disney Plus and a whole range of others. Hollywood gets 3500 scripts each year and 350 are being made, so what is failing, because something is, the revenues do not lie. So far this year Avatar 2 and Maverick were the only two movies I ran to a cinema for and that is over the last 20 weeks. The well is drying up and Hollywood needs to set the steps to new heights, because they cannot afford to lose more and as I see it pointing the finger at streamers is not good enough. Japan and South Korea have their share of amazing movies, so it is not merely the materials. I personally believe that it is the process that is failing. People have the wrong mindset at present. It should not be what gets me the most, it needs to be what can I do to get enough and up the quality of movies, that is the real trick and as far as I can tell, they haven’t figured out how to go about it. My evidence? The Trigan Empire, I made mention of it well over a year ago and since then no one picked it up. Not Netflix, no other streamers and not Hollywood. But I do remember hearing all kinds of complaints that Anansi (American Gods) is too black, or something of that nature. With the quote that “Charles Eglee, thought Mr. Nancy wasn’t right ‘for black America.’” In this I think he should talk to the writer (Neil Gaiman), as we see that it is more and more becoming all about perception the natural outcome is that others will reject what is there and over 65% of the revenue comes outside of the US.
I let you decide what you watch, it was always your choice, but do you want American gods the way it was written, or what some producer thinks it needs to look like? Perhaps some of them remember the Justice league movie and what happened in the end.
Just food for thought, in the mean time South Korea has a few new gems coming this year. I wonder how far they make it this time, so far their record is pretty impressive.
Lawrence van Rijn - Law Lord to be 