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Exactly.
Unlike what @Mendes4Lyfe says, there is never such a thing as "everyone" wanting this or that type of movies. I don't even care about "type" - I just want to see stuff that interests me and I enjoy a wide variety of things.
Besides, people find different things fun. I thought TDK was fun, whereas I found something like the Avengers boring as hell. I wouldn't have bothered with part 2 of that even if I got free tickets, the same with JW - I saw the 1st of the series and have never had the slightest interest in seeing any of the others. I'll just have to go see MMFR another time since there hasn't been anything else remotely interesting for me in the theatre for about 3 months. I don't have kids to take to the movies, so I don't need to care about that side of things, either. And I have never felt like I need to go see something just because supposedly "everyone" else does. (My friends aren't "everyone" either, btw.)
Also, the more there are certain types of movies (whatever the type might be), the more some people will stay at home, and more the people who go see them will decide they'll want to see something different. Trying to do the same others are doing ultimately makes no sense. Variety is good, and most importantly good movies - not that people will often agree on what is good, since tastes vary so much, but that's another matter...
Yes, because the director had a vision for his movie. It wasn't a bunch of suits saying, 'this is what the audience want'. The audience didn't know what they wanted until Nolan delivered it with a cherry on top.
Ah, if you build it they will come. Unfortunately that's not really the case. They're plenty of examples of blockbusters that received praise failing at the boxoffice (see live die repeat). If the quality of the film was the only factor and positive word of mouth was enough, then studios would focus solely on talent instead of designating a fortune to market the films they produce. In order for a film to truly explode at the box office without being a big dumb explosion fest, it has to say something that audiences have been thinking without even knowing it. This is why we very rarely see a film like this. Sure, having quality will get you somewhere, but it won't justify a 300 million budget on its own. JW set the box office alight because it gave mass audiences something they have been craving. I'm suggesting SPECTRE should follow suit. Give audiences the stand alone Bond adventure that they have been denied for over a decade.
That's exactly what it IS like. There is a reason that modern audiences find DN slow and boring. It's because they have learnt to expect something different over time. Audiences are atuned to the modern way of things. Thats is why good films get remade now and not rereleased. If you put the old Jurassic Park back out in cinemas you make some quick cash. If you remake the film with all new cast, effects, script etc. It will make you 1.3 billion. This is because as good as the original is, it can't relate to the modern audiences in the same way as the fresh take. There is a inherent disconnect.
It's a BOND film. There's an inbuilt audience and a much larger group of casuals who will be drawn to the 'sequel to SF'. If it is deemed to be a 'great' movie, word of mouth will spread and people will go and watch it.
As for giving audiences what they want, going by your logic SF already did that. It was the breakout hit of 2012, basically the equivalent of JW this year. What are you expecting SP to do, become a monstrously dumb, brash, overblown piece of popcorn entertainment? If so, I'm imagining you'll be sorely disappointing.
That's exactly what I'm saying, the audiences didn't KNOW they wanted it, but by the way the film performed it was clear that they did. So part of big budget filmmaking is predicting modern tastes and what will be desired next by audiences. Delivering a good film is not enough, but it is certainly a good place to start.
Because they want everything yesterday. No time to sit and savour creativity. Remember the fat fucks in Wall-E who have everything beamed directly into their faces? That's the kind of people who find DN slow and boring. They should be put down for the good of human evolution.
A Director makes the film he wants and crosses his fingers that the audience wants the same. There's no predicting. The moment you start second guessing your audience is the first step on that slippery slope. It wasn't hyperbole when Mendes said he would be 'stepping away from the internet' for the next year. Mendes will be making the movie he wants to make.
No, but I hope they can appreciate there has been a shift in what audiences are looking for since Sf was released. It started with the first avengers. At a time when everyone was brooding and dark along comes a colourful, fun superhero flick and kills it. Possible reasons for this could be that films had been the same way for a good decade and people were sick of it but no studio was brave enough to be the one to change. Since then there have been several examples of films (GOTG JW) which have proved that the mass apetite is moving away from dark and brooding to bright and colourful. Why you seem to think this will mean that the films will be any less competently made as a result is I must admit rather puzzling. Michael bay didn't invent the blockbuster you know.
Whether a director 'turns off the internet ' or not doesn't make any difference. It doesn't stop them being connected with the modern world. They don't live in a bubble.
I don't, it's your constant use of JW as a yardstick that has me perturbed. SP should not be attempting to do anything close to what that film did. It's unintelligent, unnecessarily beholden to nostalgia, completely forgets how to use it's most iconic cue, is bereft of tension... the list goes on - I don't want a Bond film that does any of those things. Levity in a Bond film, sure, but lets not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Precisely. Well said!
I agree with Mendes4Lyfe and how important trends are in big BO. What else has ION done for decades but second guess the general audience and current trends. We still see tons of press comments about how Bond copied Bourne in CR. look at the big 1bilion + BOfilms this year. All popcorn retreads. The studios do nothing but try to read tea leaves about what will currently hit big. As for Mendes doing what HE wants. Heaven help us. We will get a John La Carre drama that will bomb. Hopefully the action stuff they have filmed won't get heavily cut because a dark Bond drama is likely not what the general audience is going to respond too this time around. They are in a tough place. I hope we get a great film, but that won't necessarily translate into another huge hit. Their budget is too big and it requires a very big BO result or we will read endlessly about how SP bombed or under performed. If that happens, you can bet they will reboot.
I didn't say it should follow JW to that extent. I'm talking about a shift in tone. The reason I'm using JW as an example is because it is the latest film in a line of films that have proven successful with a light hearted approach which 5 years ago would have been impossible. MI5 will most likely be the next, and SW will be another. This is the cinematic landscape we live in now. If the producers are doing their job they will be paying attention. Otherwise we will end up in a situation like we were in with DAD. That film came out the same year as Bourne identity and made Bond look embarassingly behind the times.
Absolutely right. MI5 and SW can't miss. They are exactly in the same content path as the other big hits this year. We wouldn't be sweating out SPs outcome if it weren't for that huge budget. If SP doesn't do near SF #s, we will get a Bond 25 reboot like the Moore generation of breezy lite stuff.
You sound like a Sony exec rather than a fan. It's mildly depressing.
I give you exhibit A)
Does this look, to you, like a film that has turned up the 'fun' barometer to 10? No. Does it look like a potentially awesome film? Yes. Does it look to you like a film that will end up being embarrassingly behind the times? If it does, perhaps you need to go watch JW again and avoid SP altogether.
There will no doubt be more of a lightness of touch to SP, I expect Dan to have a spring in his step, a little more joie de vivre and the kind of reckless abandon that we know and love. I expect Q and his lab to play a larger role, along with disposable women, rye witticisms and heavy drinking. That doesn't mean he'll be wise-cracking with blokes called Mr. Kil, or surfing tsunamis. There will be a level of drama to this production that will make JW look like a stop-motion film made by a bunch of preschool kids.
How well it all slots together is yet to be seen, but Bond earned the right to follow its own path after the success of SF. It hasn't been able to do that since the 60's and has understandably and successfully ridden on the coat tails of trends right up until QoS. This time out it's following up on the benchmark, not set by others, but by itself.
Yes, the box office is something the studio will be monitoring, but all this talk of if competing with the likes of JW and GOTG is premature and imo, misplaced.
Seriously, who gives a fuck? Have you got shares in Sony or something?
If you want the studio heads to simply ignore the world around them and develop a pattern of inward thinking, that's fine. But the reason CR was such a hit was because it demonstrated that Bond had caught up with modern action thrillers of the time, it had finally cottened on so to speak. The bond franchise as a whole has a history of complacency and being slow to react when things change and having abrupt shifts like AVTAK to TLD, LTK to GE, DAD to CR. Light to dark, dark to light, light to dark. Well now the pendelum has swung once more from dark to light. I just hope that EON allow for that natural shift in tastes to occur with Bond as it has with the rest of the industry. Otherwise we will have another scenario where Bond just looks pathetically out of place and out of touch.
A big hit is irrelevant to me. The budget is irrelevant. We're cinema goers like everyone else. I don't see for a minute why it won't be successful and even if it was a monumental bomb, they'd just recast and start over. Hardly doomsday. As for wanting a great film, comments such as the following are why that sentiment seems disingenuous. It appears you've already decided where you stand.
Are you choosing to ignore the fact that 'the modern action thrillers of the time', of which you speak, now includes SF at the very top of that list. The highest grossing action/thriller of all time. Bond is no longer chasing, it is currently the genre benchmark and Jason Bourne is nowhere to be seen.
As for this talk of tonal shifts, yes the pendulum does swing, but Bond isn't 'keeping up with Joneses' to the same extent it has had to over the past couple of decades. And I'll remind you, it was the reaction to the tone of TWINE that forced EON to lurch towards the escapist, overblown fare we got in DAD. They'll no doubt lighten the mood of SP to contrast with SF, but they won't be chucking out the drama, which some see as 'boring', to accommodate paint by numbers action scenes that lack any inherent tension.
You are saying that back in 2008 The Dark Knight became such a big success because the audience wanted brooding and dark. Guess what the second most seccessful movie of the year was? Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Let's look at 2012, when, according to you, people suddenly wanted more fun movies, hence the success of The Avengers. The second and third highest grossing movies of the year? Skyfall and The Dark Knight Rises.
People will never get sick of dark and brooding films, and they will never get sick of fun films either. And if anything makes mass appetite change, then it's a movie that's great, period. A great fun film may make people want to see other great fun films, but that doesn't mean that a more serious movie can't change the general audience's taste yet again.
I'm not SF's biggest fan either, but I think we could be in much worse shape. I'm banking on Mendes keeping what worked and reworking what didn't. What I don't think they should engage in is some sort of knee-jerk reaction to this summer's blockbuster fare, which if I might say has been sub-par, the only decent flick being MM:FR. As a film fan I'd be much happier as a MM fan this summer than a JP fan. I am a massive JP fan and JW symbolises everything that is wrong with big budget cinema imo.
No. The reason it was a big hit is that it's a great movie, and easily the best Bond film since the 60s. If CR had been as mediocre as QOS (another modern action thriller), then it would have made significantly less money.
Name a single great movie that looked out of place and out of touch just because it was more serious, or more fun than other movies at the time.
Even if we agree that audiences want fun movies nowadays, Spectre could easily change that. If it is as dark as the trailer makes it look, and if it becomes a huge success, then people like you will suddenly claim that audiences want to watch brooding films again, instead of fun movies. The truth is that people simply want GOOD movies. (Or at least movies they think are good... like the Transformers films...)
"Delighted to confirm we are developing promo concepts with Sony UK & ROI for Spectre #Spectre #JamesBond"
You're just naming comparable moments. In that case, DAF is responsible with its facial reconfiguring and its satellite laser, or alternatively TWINE is responsible for SF with it's M centric plot... The point is that they tried to dip their toes in the drama pool a little more with TWINE, failed, and then switched to car chases, hammy villains and crazy lairs. The kind of things casual, fly-by-night fans want shoved in their face every couple of years.
Perhaps if they hadn't had such a knee-jerk reaction they might have tempered the approach to DAD, but at the end of the day the B.O. suggests they were right to do it, after all it's what a lot of you want isn't it, successful box office? Thankfully, despite DAD's haul, they were well aware that the quality was sub-par.
After SF I think they're in very different territory. No need to go 180 on the work of that film.
@RC7? Can I hug you today :D!. Sjee, 2nd time today I agree with you ;-).
You don't want successful box office then?