Posted on 10/23/2017 12:31:57 PM PDT by EdnaMode
A change of the old order in Hollywood is long overdue, according to Paul Haggis, the Oscar-winning film-maker behind the hit films Crash and Million Dollar Baby.
The Canadian screenwriter and director said many of the established rules of big-budget showbusiness should be re-examined in the light of falling box-office receipts and the recent scandalous claims and revelations about the enduring influence of the casting couch.
“Los Angeles is a town run by a group of powerful corporations, the studios, and they inevitably want to make what they know they can sell. This means they often lag a few years behind creatively,” he said this weekend.
A reliance on sci-fi and youth franchise reboots is not enough, he added. “I love comic-book movies, but do we want a diet of only that? It is about money, of course. The studios have to make more than they did last year, so we have Fast and Furious number whatever.”
Haggis, who wrote the screenplay for Casino Royale (2006), as well as Clint Eastwood’s Letters from Iwo Jima and Flags of Our Fathers, and whose exposé of gritty Los Angeles life in Crash earned him international plaudits in 2005, said a desire to make grown-up films had led him to leave Hollywood. The insular nature of Los Angeles both concealed bad behaviour like Harvey Weinstein’s and inhibited creative risk-taking.
“LA is pretty much a one-industry town and conversations become quite circular. In New York I talk instead to neuroscientists, bakers and restaurateurs,” he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
bump
Sort of odd, he’s trying to cast this as, “I left all that crap in Los Angeles, New York’s so much better”, when Weinstein lived and worked in New York. ???
Today’s movies are terrible with a few exceptions. I’ve been watching old movies and shows lately.
Please note LA is in California. A state that doesn’t want to hear conservative voices and will do everything within their power to shut them up. Much better to start up somewhere with a more friendly culture, business and political.
Yeah it’s a bit odd. New York and Hollywood are similar.
Thanks, I’ll check those out.
I had to stand in line to see “Jaws” and “Star Wars” when they came out. “The Godfather” was held over for 38 weeks at a theater in South Jersey,near me when it came out. M.A.S.H. also did well when released.
I remember Jaws. It made MCA’s stock jump, it made so much money.
I got a Jaws skateboard for Christmas later that year.
Jaws was quite the social phenomenon.
This reminds me of things I forgot. I actually went and read Benchley’s book after Jaws came out. And also The Deep because of it.
works for me
I read “The Deep”, and the book about making “Jaws”. Don’t remember reading “Jaws”.
This is one place where Netflix, Amazon, etc can succeed. I’m not crazy about them doing “in-house content”, but insofar as people want such content, when it’s available - it’s available everywhere, immediately. If Hollywood isn’t going to solve that marketing problem, someone else will - and directors/producers are going to start taking that into consideration when shopping their plans to studios.
Yeah I agree. I think that Netflix and Amazon would be really successful if they do that.
The one about the car crash and its effects? I thought it was good.
I guess a lot of people did.
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