Populist Internet Infuriates Hollywood Fatcats

NewsMax.com ^ | 7/24/03 | Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

[kattracks]

Tinseltown bigwigs are in a tizzy that the American public is no longer lapping up whatever slop they dish out, and they're finally realizing that the Internet is one cause of their well-deserved woes.

People attending advance screenings are inundating the Internet with their reviews and exposing such duds as "The Hulk," "Hollywood Homicide," "The In-Laws," "Alex and Emma" and the sequels to "Legally Blonde," "Dumb and Dumber" and "Charlie's Angels."

Positive word of mouth has boosted "Finding Nemo" and good low-budget movies not touted by the Hollywood hype machine: "28 Days Later," "Bend It Like Beckham" and "Whale Rider," the Christian Science Monitor reported today.

"Hollywood is pulling its hair out trying to figure out how to market its movies amidst the new world of Internet buzz," said Anthony Kusich, analyst for Reel Source Inc., a box-office tracking company.

"First-time viewers are having much more say in which movies make it and which ones don't, creating potential audiences for stuff they like and killing off audiences for stuff they don't."

Coming up: "Gigli," starring the media-saturated Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, is being greeted with catcalls, while "Seabiscuit," based on Laura Hillenbrand's outstanding best seller, is generating positive buzz.

The box office has fallen 3 to 4 percent from last year, the Monitor reported. Second-week attendance has plunged especially steeply as people who failed to heed advance word of mouth and unwittingly paid to see terrible movies quickly told their friends to stay home.

Another factor: Many Americans are fed up with and boycotting Hollywood's inane self-appointed political "experts."

[bmwcyle]

Stop the liberal political stance and crap movies would solve most of their problems.

[KellyAdmirer]

The worst is when they make crap movies ("Charlies Angels: Full Throttle") and the stars themselves admit they are crap (Cameron Diaz). I'm sure she cashed her check, though.

[mabelkitty]

aint-it-cool-news.com

[xzins]

Give me plot, give me action, give me adventure, and give me purpose, direction or meaning.

Roll those into a film, and I'll probably watch it. (Rob Roy, Braveheart, Mohicans, etc.)

Put any politicized actor in it and I'll be thinking more about how much I hate the dude's politics than what's happening on the screen. I just can't suspend belief when I see these people.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Lets look at the list, and figure out why they're less than well attended, shall we?

"The Hulk" - The trailer was obviously CGI, and made him too big and too strong. I loved Hulk comics and the Bixby Hulk series, but will not see this until it hits cable, because it looks too stupid to pay for.

"Hollywood Homicide" - Harrison Ford is getting a little old to be playing a cop, even a mature one. He is a great "big picture stress" guy, and needs to stick to that.

"The In-Laws" - Peter Falk and Alan Arkin define this movie. Redoing it was something akin to redoing "Jaws".

The sequel to "Legally Blonde" - It was cute in the original, but that character should have changed.

The sequel to "Dumb and Dumber" - The original appealed to a very specific taste in humor, and was really over the top.

The sequel to "Charlie's Angels" - Camp is fun through a couple of titles. Otherwise, it gets old.

[Nick5]

The article is faulty in in its facts. Bend it Like Beckham and 28 Days Later are distributed by 20th Century Fox, owned by Rupert Murdoch/Newscorp and are very much "touted by the Hollywood hype machine." All the movies mentioned in the article that are suffering from bad internet buzz were also lambasted in the mainstream press, and there's certainly nothing new about that. To paraphrase the Bible "The failed blockbuster you will always have with you."

[tm22721]

Yeah I noticed that Yahoo recently watered down their users' movie ratings and comments to letter grades only (no comments) probably in response to pressure from the studios who heavily advertise on their site.

Well, it doesn't work. There are many movie discussion boards on the net and they can't kill them all.

BUMP

[Steel Wolf]

That's what I'm saying. I've still waiting for a sequel to 'Red Dawn'.

Imagine if they made a movie about a Democrat president that sold out the country, weakened the military, and lowered our defenses at the right time to allow a massive Chinese invasion. (Hey, it's far fetched, but no more so then the rest of the junk Hollywood puts out).

[gnarledmaw]

Beyond anything else Ive ever read, this proves, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the Hollywood machines are driven almost exclusively by agenda.

I know that if I were CEO of a corporation (read: a machine that produces money) and my product was regularly rejected over a competitors product line which was always overwhelmingly successful (Mel Gibson), then I would try to figure out what made the other product better in the eyes of the public. I would make some kind of effort to make a similar or better product...

But then again, what do I know? No one pays me tens of millions a year to oversee movie production...

[Nick5]

Where do you find a liberal political stance in Charlie's Angels or Dumb and Dumberer?

[gnarledmaw]

Beyond anything else Ive ever read, this proves, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the Hollywood machines are driven almost exclusively by agenda.

I know that if I were CEO of a corporation (read: a machine that produces money) and my product was regularly rejected over a competitors product line which was always overwhelmingly successful (Mel Gibson), then I would try to figure out what made the other product better in the eyes of the public. I would make some kind of effort to make a similar or better product...

But then again, what do I know? No one pays me tens of millions a year to oversee movie production...

[AD from SpringBay]

"Hollywood is pulling its hair out trying to figure out how to market its movies amidst the new world of Internet buzz," said Anthony Kusich, analyst for Reel Source Inc., a box-office tracking company.

Here's a start: scrap the formula plots, tell the stars to shut the hell up because their opinions do not matter, hire some writers that can do dialog, quit being communist sympathizers, spend more time on story and less on special effects, recognize that real life does not revolve around Hollywood and being queer, deal with it.

[VOA]

while "Seabiscuit," based on Laura Hillenbrand's outstanding best seller, is generating positive buzz.

That's probably the one movie I'll actually spend money on this summer (would see
"Nemo" if I had little ones).

I highly recommend PBS's episode on Seabiscuit on "The American Experience".
It was low-key, well-narrated by actor Scott Glenn, and I think captured the
"up-tick" the story of a dark-horse and his tough luck rider gave the country.

[kevkrom]

"Hollywood is pulling its hair out trying to figure out how to market its movies amidst the new world of Internet buzz," said Anthony Kusich, analyst for Reel Source Inc., a box-office tracking company.

I dunno, maybe they should make better movies rather than hyping flops. They've ruined whatever credibility they ever had by continuing to trumpet awful, high-budget movies.

[Nick5]

Unfortunately Red Dawn was a huge flop, one of the biggest box office flubs of the 80's, so you'll wait a long time. If only it had been a good movie...

[kevkrom]

would see "Nemo" if I had little ones

It's fun even without little ones...