They Don't Make Good Movies Like They Used to

[Flopper]

Netflix and other streamers need lots of new movies and series and they can't make enough of them. In order to meet the demand of streamers, a lot of production companies have drastically reduced cost by making movies abroad using relatively unknown actors, directors, and writers. Where major productions in Hollywood typically take 45 days of shooting, these low cost productions are usually done in 15 to 30 days. In those productions when actors forget their lines and ques, the scene doesn't need to be reshot since the movie is going to be dubbed in a half dozen languages. Such productions might cost as much 10 to 20 million. The production company can sell the rights to streaming companies in US and abroad and theater distribution companies in a dozen or more countries and make a tidy profit off of a movie that would have ended up on the cutting room floor a few decades ago.

If you want to encourage good quality movie making support local theaters that show good movies with talented actors, directors and writers.

 

[MaryL]

Take Disney.

 

[Baron Von Murderpaws]

Any really good films nowadays are going to be private made ones, or by some production company that only has a buck fitty to their name.
Which aint a bad thing.

I've seen some freeking awesome movies made on an extremely small, tight budget.

If you've got a good writer and a sympatico director............a great movie can be made with little or no budget.

 

[MaryL]

I just watched a 1951 Warner Brothers movie, "I was a Communist for the FBI". Turns out it is a documentary for the 2023 democratic party. It isn't camp, it's literally the modern democrats.

 

[candycorn]

Netflix and other streamers need lots of new movies and series and they can't make enough of them. In order to meet the demand of streamers, a lot of production companies have drastically reduced cost by making movies abroad using relatively unknown actors, directors, and writers. Where major productions in Hollywood typically take 45 days of shooting, these low cost productions are usually done in 15 to 30 days. In those productions when actors forget their lines and ques, the scene doesn't need to be reshot since the movie is going to be dubbed in a half dozen languages. Such productions might cost as much 10 to 20 million. The production company can sell the rights to streaming companies in US and abroad and theater distribution companies in a dozen or more countries and make a tidy profit off of a movie that would have ended up on the cutting room floor a few decades ago.

If you want to encourage good quality movie making support local theaters that show good movies with talented actors, directors and writers.

In 2015, Planet Money did a podcast episode about this phenomenon. Netflix and other streamers seem to be trying to copy what a company called Blumhouse Productions has done. Blumhouse (as indicated by the podcast episode), makes a lot of shitty movies. The budget for each one is very low. Almost unbelievably low by some standards. Get Out was one of their movies. The movie costs $4.5M. Which shows you how cheap Bradley Whitford works I guess. At the time of the writing, the movie had grossed $150M. That was February 2017. In October 2016, they released a movie called "In The Valley of Violence" The box office was 61. Not $61M...$61,000. I'm guessing they didn't make a lot of money on that movie--it had listed Ethan Hawke and John Travolta among others in it's cast. Anyway, if you look at their Wiki Page, you'll find about 100 movies Blumhouse has put out since 2000. You may recognize 10 of them if you're like me. But the 10 you recognize...you really recognize. Paranormal Activity for example... M3GAN (cost $12M, box office over $100M).

I would bet that Netflix is taking the same approach. You're right; there are a lot of movies I would never dream of watching on Netflix and many other streaming services. The real swamp gas is on a platform like Tubi...those movies are just sad.

 

[frigidweirdo]

Netflix and other streamers need lots of new movies and series and they can't make enough of them. In order to meet the demand of streamers, a lot of production companies have drastically reduced cost by making movies abroad using relatively unknown actors, directors, and writers. Where major productions in Hollywood typically take 45 days of shooting, these low cost productions are usually done in 15 to 30 days. In those productions when actors forget their lines and ques, the scene doesn't need to be reshot since the movie is going to be dubbed in a half dozen languages. Such productions might cost as much 10 to 20 million. The production company can sell the rights to streaming companies in US and abroad and theater distribution companies in a dozen or more countries and make a tidy profit off of a movie that would have ended up on the cutting room floor a few decades ago.

If you want to encourage good quality movie making support local theaters that show good movies with talented actors, directors and writers.

I think it's more about perspective. My dad said the same thing, I thought the movies he liked are rubbish, and movies now are rubbish too.

 

[Foxfyre]

Netflix and other streamers need lots of new movies and series and they can't make enough of them. In order to meet the demand of streamers, a lot of production companies have drastically reduced cost by making movies abroad using relatively unknown actors, directors, and writers. Where major productions in Hollywood typically take 45 days of shooting, these low cost productions are usually done in 15 to 30 days. In those productions when actors forget their lines and ques, the scene doesn't need to be reshot since the movie is going to be dubbed in a half dozen languages. Such productions might cost as much 10 to 20 million. The production company can sell the rights to streaming companies in US and abroad and theater distribution companies in a dozen or more countries and make a tidy profit off of a movie that would have ended up on the cutting room floor a few decades ago.

If you want to encourage good quality movie making support local theaters that show good movies with talented actors, directors and writers.

I get frustrated trying to find good recently made movies. The older movies have great acting, intelligent, clever, even brilliant scripts, directors who knew how to get strong character development out of gifted actors, strong story lines, and careful effective editing.

That is now mostly replaced with unimaginative writers who lack the wit, insight, instincts of their predecessors, there is almost no character development, and the movies are poorly edited covered up by gratuitous sex, violence, profanity and special effects.

Which is why our extensive movie library of DVD and Bluray discs dates mostly from the 1950's into the 1990s. A few good movies have been made in the 21st Century but they are pretty rare.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

All the better recent movies we have seen the past few years were done by Independent makers.
All the majors are interested in is superhero, retreads and remakes.

 

[Flopper]

I think it's more about perspective. My dad said the same thing, I thought the movies he liked are rubbish, and movies now are rubbish too.

I not writing about any particular genre, a targeted age group, or plots but rather the poor quality of the production.

For example:
A man is walking out the front door wearing a light blue colored suit. The next scene showed him walking away from the house wearing a dark suit. Either the director missed it or he didn't have the time or budget re-shoot it.

The script in a movie set in the 13th century reads as follows:
The king says, "Our forces are too small to win the battle. You must convince Sir John to join us."
After dubbing, the audience hears, "Our forces are inadequate and John is needed".

The primary goal of the audio company who is doing the dubbing is to match words with mouth movement, thus the sound track may be quite different from the original script. Often the sound track in a dubbed movie doesn't match the scene and the acting is going one direction and the sound track is going another. Since the director is rarely part of dubbing process, he has no input into the process. The words the audience hears and the way they are delivered need to tied closely to the acting and the purpose of the scene.

I saw a movie on Netflix a few years ago where there were 3 people talking and a 4th person comes into the scene. He didn't say a word and he never re-appeared and the audience had no idea who he was or why he was there. I suspect he was a minor character and forgot his lines and there was no reshot.

 

[Flopper]

I get frustrated trying to find good recently made movies. The older movies have great acting, intelligent, clever, even brilliant scripts, directors who knew how to get strong character development out of gifted actors, strong story lines, and careful effective editing.

That is now mostly replaced with unimaginative writers who lack the wit, insight, instincts of their predecessors, there is almost no character development, and the movies are poorly edited covered up by gratuitous sex, violence, profanity and special effects.

Which is why our extensive movie library of DVD and Bluray discs dates mostly from the 1950's into the 1990s. A few good movies have been made in the 21st Century but they are pretty rare.

I think there are a number reasons for demises of great movie making.

• The popularity of movies loaded with CGI, detracts from the story and makes good character development unnecessary.
• Before covid back in 2019 there were 1.2 million movie goers. In 2022 there 760,000
• 70% of movie theaters are in financial trouble
• The streaming industry needs lots of movies at low cost. That's forcing production companies to go abroad where cost are much less and quality suffers due to tight budgets. Most of these movies are dubbed in English which creates problems.
• The film industry has relied heavily on Broadway for great drama, comedies, and musicals Broadway today is mostly revivals, and redos. We are just not getting the great material we use to get, for example:
• Inherit the Wind
• A Raisin in the Sun
• Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
• 12 Angry Men
• A Street Car Name Desire
• Whose Afraid of Virginia Woof
• Amadeus
• Henry V
• Noises Off
• Glengarry Glen Ross
• A Few Good Men
• And Comedies like....
• The Producers
• The Odd Couple
• Barefoot in Park
• Sweet Charity
• The Sunshine Boys
• Not to mention most of the great movie musicals

Etc....

 

[frigidweirdo]

I not writing about any particular genre, a targeted age group, or plots but rather the poor quality of the production.

For example:
A man is walking out the front door wearing a light blue colored suit. The next scene showed him walking away from the house wearing a dark suit. Either the director missed it or he didn't have the time or budget re-shoot it.

The script in a movie set in the 13th century reads as follows:
The king says, "Our forces are too small to win the battle. You must convince Sir John to join us."
After dubbing, the audience hears, "Our forces are inadequate and John is needed".

The primary goal of the audio company who is doing the dubbing is to match words with mouth movement, thus the sound track may be quite different from the original script. Often the sound track in a dubbed movie doesn't match the scene and the acting is going one direction and the sound track is going another. Since the director is rarely part of dubbing process, he has no input into the process. The words the audience hears and the way they are delivered need to tied closely to the acting and the purpose of the scene.

I saw a movie on Netflix a few years ago where there were 3 people talking and a 4th person comes into the scene. He didn't say a word and he never re-appeared and the audience had no idea who he was or why he was there. I suspect he was a minor character and forgot his lines and there was no reshot.

Well, I'm sure there have always been bad films, these films get forgotten, so in the past you remember the good films, and now you see whatever you see.

 

[Missourian]

Plenty of old movies to watch.

Recently watched "The Court Jester" from 1955. Funny and clever.

Going to watch "Algiers" (1938) tonight...

 

[Foul Owl]

Movies have progressively gotten worse over time. There's still some great films put out each year but as a whole the quality has decreased. Seems to me most movies that come out nowadays are super-hero/retarded action films...both I despise. I think one of the best decades for film was the 70's.

 

[Flopper]

The old movies is Hollly

I get frustrated trying to find good recently made movies. The older movies have great acting, intelligent, clever, even brilliant scripts, directors who knew how to get strong character development out of gifted actors, strong story lines, and careful effective editing.

That is now mostly replaced with unimaginative writers who lack the wit, insight, instincts of their predecessors, there is almost no character development, and the movies are poorly edited covered up by gratuitous sex, violence, profanity and special effects.

Which is why our extensive movie library of DVD and Bluray discs dates mostly from the 1950's into the 1990s. A few good movies have been made in the 21st Century but they are pretty rare.

Hollywood made some really great movies in the golden years but they also made some terrible ones. It was said that for ever 5 movies that went into distribution 1 died on the cutting room floor. Also there were a lot B rated movies that never had a premier. They were just release to small chains and within in a year they were archieved, never to be seen agaion. Between 1930 and 1950, Hollywood released over 10,000 movies to major theaters across county. Beginning in late forties there were movie theaters opening in major cites that ran just foreign films. It is estimated the number of films shown commercially in US between 1920 and 1970 exceeds 75,000 films. Of all movies shown in the 20th century, there are about 100 movies that appear on AFI 100 best movies that are usually called the classics.

Are movies today better or worst than older movie?. Technology is certainly better but new technologies does not movies great, people do. Acting, directing, writing, and cinematography are what makes great movies. I don't think we are really getting the great movies today, but in general, movies are not better are worst today. They are just different because we live in a world that is far different than that of 50 or 75 years ago.

 

[Flopper]

Movies have progressively gotten worse over time. There's still some great films put out each year but as a whole the quality has decreased. Seems to me most movies that come out nowadays are super-hero/retarded action films...both I despise. I think one of the best decades for film was the 70's.

As someone once said, good movies entertain, but great movies, affect you on a personal level. They may leave you laughing or crying or thinking differently about life, and they might even change your life.

 

[lg325]

Just discovered this one a fine movie.

 

[Dadoalex]

Netflix and other streamers need lots of new movies and series and they can't make enough of them. In order to meet the demand of streamers, a lot of production companies have drastically reduced cost by making movies abroad using relatively unknown actors, directors, and writers. Where major productions in Hollywood typically take 45 days of shooting, these low cost productions are usually done in 15 to 30 days. In those productions when actors forget their lines and ques, the scene doesn't need to be reshot since the movie is going to be dubbed in a half dozen languages. Such productions might cost as much 10 to 20 million. The production company can sell the rights to streaming companies in US and abroad and theater distribution companies in a dozen or more countries and make a tidy profit off of a movie that would have ended up on the cutting room floor a few decades ago.

If you want to encourage good quality movie making support local theaters that show good movies with talented actors, directors and writers.

Too much capacity, too little content.

This is much like the cell phone industry around 2000.
In the end there will be 3 or 4 streaming providers with more competition among the content providers.

 

[Flopper]

Too much capacity, too little content.

This is much like the cell phone industry around 2000.
In the end there will be 3 or 4 streaming providers with more competition among the content providers.

There will be more completion. However, Netflix has been targeting SE Asia and they have been very successful. You could guess this from the number South Korean movies and series on Netflix. There is only one major streamer that is nearly 100% American and that's Hulu. There have a large number of distribution agreements that restrict viewing to the US and Canada.