The film industry in Hollywood is in big trouble. Nick Clement discusses the future of the town.
Pardon the French, but Hollywood is F*cked. I know it, you know it, they know it – we all know it. So why does the industry continue to operate in a backwards fashion, not truly looking into the future for inspiration, but continually clinging to old modes of doing business?
The film industry in Hollywood has all but shut down due to the rampaging effects of COVID-19, and has been that way since mid-March, and for just reason – it’s not safe to resume production until a vaccine can be administered.
But wait – we’re now hearing reports about special production documents that have been created by groups of producers and industry workers – which detail the insane safety measures that would have to be taken to get a TV show or feature film developed, shot, edited, and released in our current societal landscape.
I’ve been keeping up with as much of these absurd reports as possible, and it blows my mind to think that anyone would be interested in working in that fashion, and outside of the fact that it’s reckless and potentially deadly to resume production during the middle of, you know, a GLOBAL PANDEMIC, it just strikes me as greedy and unnecessary.
But, that’s Hollywood, for you – it’s an industry filled with tons of smart and educated people who don’t really know anything about movies, who take forever to get anything accomplished, often times ignoring talent when it’s staring them directly in the face – and then those same people wonder why audiences have become fickle or unresponsive to many of the offerings that are put in front of them.
So now, apparently the idea is that productions will look to limit on-screen sexuality, stunt work, action sequences, and various narrative ingredients (AHEM: Why bother making movies?) so that actors and actresses aren’t in close proximity with one another.
If this doesn’t strike you as positively stupid, then I’m not sure what planet you’re from. For the most part, and for many people, and for better or worse, movies are an escape, so now the industry is going to scale back the excitement and escape factor because they can’t safely protect the people making the various entertainments.
I have a solution – DON’T DO ANYTHING UNTIL THERE’S A VACCINE. It sucks, lots of people will have to file for unemployment, but that’s the sad reality of the situation. I’m not interested in seeing artistically compromised pieces of work that are made simply because people feel the need to rush along the process of “Getting Back to Work.”
Change was imminent in the industry, even if the studios and old stalwarts were afraid to fully admit it.
Over the last 10 years, Netflix and other streaming providers have put a massive dent in theatrical attendance numbers, thus creating this bizarre situation where only the biggest, most expensive films make any sort of cultural impact in terms of in-theater viewings, while nearly all of the prestige items and good-old-fashioned-programmers have been relegated to minor theatrical releases followed by a VOD platform, thus diminishing the perceived importance of some of those titles.
The slavish devotion to gargantuan, CGI-laden blockbusters, many of which have budgets that could supply 20 independent productions with more cash than they’d ever need to get one of their projects made, on the part of consumers is also an area to lay some blame; discernment in choices is rapidly eroding, with many viewers simply tasting the same things repeatedly, and without any sense of conflict about doing so.
Cinematic discovery and artistic investigation seem pointless to even suggest in terms of wide-populace viewing habits.
Box office receipts worldwide will plunge, at minimum, 50% in 2020, per a recent Variety article, with major theater chains facing imminent bankruptcy; it was reported yesterday that AMC faces near-certain demise, and Cinemark is foolishly planning on re-opening theaters in mid-June.
Nearly all of the major studios have abandoned the summer movie landscape, and for good cause –it’s socially irresponsible to open a major blockbuster during the middle of a pandemic.
You cannot enforce face masks in a movie theater, for any number of reasons (darkened lighting, people eating and drinking, people being abjectly dumb and inconsiderate to others), and to be honest, only someone without an operating brain would go into an air-conditioned movie theater with a group of strangers and knowingly possibly expose themselves – and then others – to a lethal disease. It just doesn’t make sense.
I love seeing movies on the big screen as much as the next person, and I’m beyond depressed that I can’t take my almost-five-year-old-son to the cinemas this summer. But guess what? Boo-f*cking-hoo. Cry me a river if this is a major problem for you. And in all honesty, I’m disgusted with Warner Brothers and Christopher Nolan for not moving Tenet off the release schedule yet.
They aren’t “saving the theatrical experience” as some articles have tried to valiantly suggest. They are enticing mouth-breathing idiots to show up to a movie theater and possibly kill others in the process.
And also, here’s the real rub – nobody in America, especially the folks who continuously support Hollywood with multiple trips per month to the theaters, to say nothing of family outings to the multiplex, will have any extra spending money to go to the theater in a post-COVID landscape where the government hasn’t stepped up to continually put dollars into the pockets of American citizens.
One in four American workers have filed for unemployment, cash-hoarding is becoming commonplace, consumer spending is in the toilet, benefits have been extremely slow to roll-out for many individuals, and the last thing that many people are going to be thinking about is forking over dollars for tickets, and then grabbing concessions on top of it.
If anything, people will spend whatever money they’ve reserved as “Entertainment Cash” on streaming rental/purchase options. The results are in, and both Trolls 2 and Scoob! were big hits for their respective studios. And nobody spread germs while watching them, either.
Awards Season 2020 is in massive jeopardy, not only because there won’t be a vaccine to administer to the town (how can anyone think that holding an Oscar ceremony in early 2021 is a rational idea?), but because the cinematic offerings will have been drastically reduced.
With theaters closed and filmmakers and studios not wanting to dump the vast majority of their new product on to streaming platforms (again: old ways of thinking die hard), we’ll be seeing more and more titles getting indefinitely delayed, resulting in a dearth of quality cinema to discuss by the end of the year.
Only the most inwardly greedy and morally oblivious person would think about travelling to film festivals, and possibly exposing themselves and others to COVID, just so they can be “First” to see the new movie from Wes Anderson or Steven Spielberg. And listen, I love those guys and so many others who have continually made me happy in a darkened movie theater. I’m just not risking my life, and the lives of others, so that I can sit in a movie theater for two hours and breathe in the coughs of other people who aren’t wearing masks.
And by the end of this year, I think that so many things will have changed, not just within the industry, but on a worldwide level, that the cinematic experience is absolutely going to morph into something new, and possibly revolutionary.
It’s going to take brains, skill, innovation, passion, and forward-thinking to get us there, and I have no doubt that we can, but for right now, the industry and the theater owners and everyone who is making a buck off of filmed entertainment needs to look themselves in the mirror, and ask, how important – truly – how important is it to be doing this sort of work when there are so many unknown factors we’re all still facing?
Stay at home, cue up your old favorites, find some new TV shows to binge, buy a new and massive TV and have it delivered, pick a genre and find 10 movies from five different decades, and just sit back and enjoy in the comfort of your own home. You’ll be happy when you’re alive in 2022, and the next phase of Marvel movies are coming out, and you’re able to see them with your greasy popcorn and sweaty coke, instead of lying in a wooden box while the bugs eat away at your remains.
The film industry in Hollywood is truly f*cked.
Article written by Nick Clement
Nick Clement is a journalist for Variety Magazine and motion picture screenplay consultant, as well as a critic for websites Back to the Movies and We Are Cult.
He wrote the introduction to the book Double Features: Big Ideas in Film, which was published by The Great Books Foundation, and is currently working on a book about the life and work of filmmaker Tony Scott.
He lives in Connecticut with his wife and son.
