Maybe not the worst ever, but other than the big hit that was Stephen King’s IT, the summer of 2017 has been lackluster to say the least. As the summer draws to a close, there has only been a handful of movies that made any impact.
The most advertised movie recently has been Mother! which was shown to be no more than pretentious and laden with more religious iconography than the actual Bible. Mother! was the last effort that could have saved the recent run of poor movies. With an opening weekend of $7,500,000, Mother! hasn’t impressed.
Originality
With more and more movies being made every year, we need to look at originality. Movies have been around for over a hundred years, meaning that new and interesting ideas are incredibly difficult to come up with. Every day people try to come up with ideas and they fail. Sometimes, no one can come up with a good idea, and that’s why the Emoji Movie was made.
The lack of originality is why so many remakes are happening. There have been too many to list, but the biggest of the year was Beauty And The Beast. It split audience members, but left everyone wondering why it needed to be done. The answer is, it didn’t. But in the eyes of producers and studios, it can make them millions.
In the end, I feel for writers. They’re forced to think of original plots and interesting characters, and they need to be able to grab a large audience at the same time. A lot of movies this year have been confused about their audiences, leaving them a mix of genres and age ratings that made for an uninteresting experience.
CGI
With the development of CGI comes the overuse of CGI. Computer Generated Imagery can be used to WOW audiences, but sometimes it can be used as a distraction from the story. The first movie that I remember that blew my mind with CGI was Avatar. Which, as I mentioned, was a distraction from the poor writing and uninteresting plot.
In 2017, we have the technology to produce unbelievable CGI. Shown in movies like Warcraft and Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2. CGI was especially prevalent in the comic book movie Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets, which relied heavily on setting and imagery; an overall enjoyable movie with a slightly odd choice of casting with Dane Dehaan and Cara Delevigne. However, the movie cost a whopping $177,200,000 to make. As of September 15, 2017 (According to IMDB.com) Valerian has made just over $40,000,000. Which, if my maths is correct, is a long way off the estimated budget.
CGI causes movies to need a massive budget, one that is very difficult to earn back. Which is why I believe movies will start having less and less CGI until it becomes cheaper. This will lead to, as mentioned before, less originality. Because CGI opens a new world that can be explored on screen.
Money Talks
Money is the first thing on producers’ minds when choosing new ideas. People questioned why The Emoji Movie was made. But when you look at the gross, it will explain why. Sure, the rating on IMDB is 2.1, but it has a current gross of just under $84,000,000. With a budget of $50,000,000 they have already made a massive profit.
The Emoji Movie, I know I mention it a lot but it was REALLY bad, is the key example of how profit is the only thing that matters. If you gave a producer two options, first option is an artsy movie that will only make a small profit but will land an average score of 8.7, Oscar nominations and potential wins and critics praising the movie everywhere. Or the second option, an animation with a script that a child could write and a plot that’s straight from the book of Cliche Plots: Volume One, but will have millions in the way of profit. They will always choose the second option.
This is a major problem that we, the audience, face. We’re sold lies through trailers that send us to cinemas with the hopes that we’ll experience the next Forrest Gump or Star Wars, but what we’re given is nothing like what we hoped.
What Can We Expect In The Future?
With Kingsman: The Golden Circle and the new Star Wars releasing soon, we can be excited in the short term. But in the long run of things, I am less than excited about what the next year has to offer. So far, the early 2018 releases have no real pzazz. However, movies are going to be around until the end of the human race, so there will be plenty to look forward to. I just hope things turn around soon.