- Bolek
- May 1, 2003
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Type in “death of the mid budget film” or any variation thereof into Google and you will see endless lamentations about the bygone era where Hollywood made Adult movies for Adults.Films that weren't micro budget, masturbatory art projects nor teeth shuddering tentpole blockbusters from which no one could escape hearing about. I cant be sure as I haven't followed this trend in thinking too long but I suspect it gained a lot of prominence after Stephen Soderbergh's moanfest in 2013 about difficult it was to get financing. Other established directors like Stephen Spielberg or actors like Dustin Hoffman echo these concerns. But I want to see, and I'm hoping more industry savvy people here will help, if this is actually true.
What's cited as the mid budget range seems to cover a rather huge range of figures, anything from 10 million to 60, to 90 to this bizzare utterance quote:Inception is an instructive example of what a smart, mid-budget movie can do if given half a chance. And Inception, quite frankly, wouldn't even have been made had not Christopher Nolan -- a proven big budget director -- been attached. "This shortsighted death-spiral of the original, mid-budget film has continued even amidst some great original-film success stories, like Inception, which Warner Brothers made as a favor to Christopher Nolan for the Batman films—a favor, that is, that grossed $825 million worldwide," wrote Zachary Wigon last year on this blog.
Now, you could approach this quantitatively, rounding up a representative list of movies from a sampling of studios from the last 30 years, and comparing the frequency of a movie made in a certain budgetary range to now (for all I know it may have been done already) but I sure as poo poo cant be bothered to do so for a post and I don't think that would actually illustrate the point as well as it would seem.
The cost of making a movie has changed dramatically. Not just in terms of equipment and film stock no longer being a variable but also he talent, both directorial, photographic, and of actors that draws from a much richer vocabulary that is now more readily accessible than ever, at younger and younger ages, with nothing like the barriers that used to be in place before the craft could be practiced. If you've even a passing interest in film I do not need to rattle off an endless list of movies that had budgets way south of 20 million dollars that look absolutely gorgeous and would, at least visually, put anything made 25 years ago to shame.
I hope at this point I've revealed my cards as someone who is rather optimistic for the future of film so people that have a rather grim outlook on it (Red Letter Media I'm looking at you)are not gonna in me a receptive ear.
So I guess I have several questions:
*Have "mid budget movies", whether ones of scope or actual budget, declined in such a dramatic way as is stated?
*Is this a perception of less advertising for types of movies that are still readily made and available but are simply overshadowed by tent poles?
*Is the concept totally outmoded in a radically different production and distribution market?
*Should we give a poo poo as long as the supply of great movies from more and more diverse sources is growing at a faster rate than ever?
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Oct 5, 2016 00:18
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Apr 28, 2024 18:02
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- Bolek
- May 1, 2003
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The costs to make a movie have both gone down, and gone up.
Sure, you're not paying for film, processing, rushes, transportation, etc. you're still paying for a DIT, endless backup solutions, archiving, QC, etc. For a "mid-budget" film, the costs are negligible. In fact, for a while, you could go to Technicolor, Deluxe, etc. and get insane discounts on their film suites because they weren't being used at all. With it you'd get an old guy who'd been coloring film since before your parents were born and you'd pay him a rate so low that you felt really bad for it, but he'd take it. Now those labs are being shut down. It's a real shame.
Here's the three biggest hurdles to making a mid-budget film:
1.) Scaling - When you're making a microbudget film most of the time you're calling in favors. If you've ever worked in the creative field you know the conversation "I'll get you for the next one" and all of that. Your hands are tied. You don't have any money. The project is just scraping by and always in danger of collapse. However, when you do a larger budget film, what you can pay is regulated by union contracts. In some cases it also requires you to hire certain amounts of people - people you may or may not need/want. With this comes certain other budget pitfalls, the higher the budget the more destructive going over time on a single day can be. SAG has a number of penalties that you are required to pay your actors for a number of things (Like using a fog machine, non-continuous days, etc). You're also going to need just a larger amount of people, and more skilled people since you have a lot riding on the line. This all costs money. A lot of money. It's easy to think that a higher budget will give you more resources, more freedom, but often the budget is just as tight and as constricting as a microbudget.
This comes to a big problem when it comes to the creative side, as when a budget needs to come down it leads to a shorter shoot. That leads to a lot of problems for a filmmaker, he has less time with his actors to develop/find the character, they can't explore the space in a way, a scene has to be shot in the most basic/easiest of manners because clock's ticking. Any filmmaker would prefer more days and less money. Some actually go for it. Not many.
2.) Marketing - The biggest cost to making a movie is marketing it. No question. I get frustrated when people argue that with social media that it's easier to get the word out about a movie because, I can assure you, it is not. (these people also just advise you to "make something go viral"). It's really tough to get people to be aware of a film and even harder to get them to be excited about a film. Awareness matters, but it doesn't drive dollars. "Oh yeah, I've heard of that movie but I don't know what it's about". Film fans are particularly hard to reach because the streaming services don't serve ads when you watch a movie, or maybe one or two pre-rolls. Most people have wised up to the fact and use that time to go get a drink from the kitchen, go to the bathroom, put a sock on the doorknob, what have you, before it starts. If you're looking for intelligent film fans you'd think you could just cater to the internet, but most of them have ad-block. How do you reach a potential audience? Their attention is splintered a million ways and so much is about looking at reduced/no ads. There is some hope in that studies are showing that people don't mind ads when watching on a streaming service, but, they're looking at a reduced amount (I know the ads on Hulu seem like they're forever and every time you load it up the number of ads seems to go up, but it's still less than broadcast). As ubiquitous as they seem, twitter and facebook reach only certain types, and those are the types that are going to seek out new movies to watch. Your casual viewer says "man they don't make movies like they used to", they still do, but nobody has any solid ideas of how to reach him. And because they don't, they won't make 'em like they used to.
3.) Box Office/Ancillaries - The last few years the total box office returns have been going up and down, yo-yoing back and forth, generally at the same general area. Not great, but fine. With inflation, even worse, but not completely terrible. That's when you look at the numbers overall. Unfortunately these gains/losses are pretty much held in the tentpoles. Last year was up, but that was because of the new Star Wars movie. It might have been responsible for the increase itself, who knows. Your movies that are mid-range and lower, have been declining. A big part of this is that theater owners have to book their movies month in advance. They want to maximize butts in seats so they go with the big blockbuster. Of course they would, you would too. The problem comes with over the last 15-20 years that a tentpole film would take up one or two screens in a theater. Now they take up 7. They push out the small ones because they can't afford to lose. Then when a tentpole underperforms, they have empty houses. They can't switch to a mid-budget, and basically everybody is unhappy.
So mid-budgets are making less up front, and that used to be... well, not fine, but more acceptable. Because a good film could "find it's audience". Zoolander, Fight Club, Big Lebowski, etc. You know the type, you talk about them all the time here. The DVD market was so incredibly lucrative that these films just lived there. Really did great. Direct-to-DVD always was a condemnation of a movie's quality, but it was a viable business model. Around 07-09 this market started to decline. A couple of reasons why. There was one study that said that people only had so much shelf space in their house, and that once they filled it up, they didn't want to buy a new set of shelves, nor did they want to throw out the DVDs they already purchased, so they just stopped buying new ones. It sounds weird, but there's a lot of merit to it. I'd always see the plastic still on a movie I was excited to buy and hadn't watched two years later... didn't put me in the mood to buy new ones. People also stopped seeing them as collector's items. There's few limited runs - what am I collecting a copy of Snatch for? If I need one it's in every house on the block! So people slowed down buying DVDs, and things got really bad. But then streaming came along. Streaming was just the knock-out blow to home video. Why would I pay $20 for a movie I've seen already when I can pay $8 and watch anything? It was great for the consumer, terrible for anybody who wanted to make any money off of their product. These movies that found their audience on DVD were now finding their audience on Netflix, but their audience wasn't paying near the same amount. So, the producers, the studios, etc. don't get the rewards for their labor. Even in a "successful" film. The studio can now make 5-7 mid-budgets that will die at the box office, make them no money in success, or make another Transformers movie that nobody wants, but will pay to see opening weekend in 3D because of the CG. It's a no brainer on their end.
Yeah. This is where it suffers. If you go back and watch a random 70s movie, they're going all over the place! Multiple cities, all sorts of locations - many that are not necessary, they just decided to shoot the conversation in a museum! Nowadays if you want to get a movie made your best bet is opening with "so it takes place in just one location" or if you really want to juice it "So it takes place in just one room".
So lets say we accept this as the state of the industry today, the questions I have from the OP remain: quote:
*Is the concept totally outmoded in a radically different production and distribution market?
*Should we give a poo poo as long as the supply of great movies from more and more diverse sources is growing at a faster rate than ever?
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Oct 12, 2016 05:13
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- Bolek
- May 1, 2003
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So that's the first time someone's taken up the challenge of naming a movie that wouldn't get made today but...Bridesmaids was 5 years ago and cost 32.5. Superbad was a decade ago and cost 20 million. Bad Moms cost 20 million this year, The Hangover cost 35 million, the 20-40 million range is the bulk of hit comedies in the last 15 years.
These movies are obviously a different style of comedy than Clueless, but that's a separate issue - raunchy semi-improv ensemble comedies are in, and can get 30 million dollar budgets and turn profits on them. 20 years ago, Amy Heckerling was a name director whose previous two movies were a gigantic monster hit and the then expected diminishing returns sequel to that hit, and a comedy about hot valley girls starring the girl from the Aerosmith videos who had just dramatically impacted the sexual tastes of a whole generation of boys was the same kind of en vogue idea. Bad Moms seems like exactly the same kind of movie today, and it got made and was a similar level of hit.
Yea, exactly. I just dont understand how "somethjng like Clueless wouldn't be made today" is the argument instead of "something like Clueless wouldn't get the same amount of money to be made". I know ive seen crowds in movies since the 90s that weren't blockbusters! Cars too! 500 days of summer had a big dance number with crane shots and everything and as I recall it was pretty cheap (I know it's just one example and I tried to steer away from the " name movies to prove my point" in the OP but you started it  )
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Oct 19, 2016 17:56
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Oct 5, 2016 00:18
