Hollywood lays an egg

Wouldn't $175 million be put to better use alleviating world hunger?

That's how much the suits gave Guy Ritchie to make a King Arthur film - it made back $14 million on it's opening weekend. No one understood that it was Robert Downey Jr who saved the caca Sherlock Holmes films from being box-office bum fluff. And why do another King Arthur film after Excalibur, the best Cosmik film ever made. Made by John Boorman, who also made Deliverance and Zardoz beforehand.

It's deja vu all over again!

The passing of Chris Cornell, the greatest singer of his generation, had me hitting the Jameson. As I wallowed in my sadness, my message box started to burn up.

It's seems that Spider Man 3 weighs as heavily on the corporate mind of Sony as much as Batman and Robin troubled Warner Bros. The corporate suits interfered with Sam Raimi's vision and something brown and smelly was squeezed out. Obviously there's collusion between WB and Sony to slow down the Disney/Marvel express. The success of this project will depend on total creative control. In other words, corporate suits fangula.

News flash: Alicia Silverstone will reprise her role as Batgirl - oh joy!

Are WB/DC ever going to stop producing cinematic bum fluff. Maybe there is hope, Patty Jenkins wrote and directed Monster which got Charlize Theron a much deserved Oscar. I'm prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt, Wonder Woman could be a golden egg.

Iris.

You've figured out Disney's grand plan to a tee. A company founded by an anti-Semitic fascist who sent Adolf Hitler a personal reel of Snow White. Nike got most of the blame for sweatshop economics but it was Disney who originally devised the strategy cosying up to dictators like Suharto to get their trinkets made.

Karl Marx's Das Kapital is an idealized philosophical work, he didn't understand man's capacity to exploit. But one part he got right:

"The capitalist class consists not of wealth creators but of rent seekers - people who are skilled at expropriating other people's work and presenting it as their own."

This happy formula has lost none of it's allure. Billionaire owners leaning on the tax paying public to get their gaudy sports playgrounds built, the latest examples being Edmonton and Atlanta. The system works pretty well until the rent-seekers get too greedy.

The contract Tom Hardy signed with Warner Bros is very lucrative depending on how Hardy plays his cards until 2022. It allows him greater creative freedom in the projects he chooses and to set up his own production company. That doesn't mean that Warner has first dibs on his projects (the asking price for Taboo was to rich for HBO and Fox got the North American broadcast rights), but it does preclude from working with Disney/Marvel. The partnership with Sony is low risk for WB, if Hardy gets it right it keeps the Spider Man franchise from falling into the hands of Disney. If he gets it wrong, as executive producer, he will shoulder the cost and get the blame. High stakes indeed.

Nothing new here, Adam Sandler signed a similar deal with Netflix, critics say the product is awful but profitable to the company all the same.

Doctor Zoidburg said:

Movie makers are not social workers. To say that they should have spent the money alleviating world hunger instead is like saying that if Bill Gates puts out a product that flops he should he should surrender and throw up his hands in frustration and start to give away all his money.

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Of course, the comment was egalitarian not economically realistic.

https://nonprofitquarterly.org/tag/bill-and-melinda-gates-foundation/?gclid=Cj0KEQjw0v_IBRCEzKHK0KiCrKMBEiQA3--1NoPOg3EdOi55zUzzz-jTwGSO6zxjTfWKodb-xXX00OAaAhpg8P8HAQ

onthebottom said:

Movies are feeling the pressure of so much money (and this talent) moving to TV. As bad as movies are these days TV is killing it.

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HBO looked to the BBC's Golden Age in the 70's for their artistic/business model and ended up saving it's parent company (Warner Bros) from their own stupidity - the merger with AOL. The BBC Era ended with Margaret Thatcher but most of today's TV programming is based on their 70's product.

At the forefront of that era was Patrick Stewart, he had pivotal roles in the BBC's flagship mini-series (Fall of Eagles, I Claudius). When he joined the Star Trek franchise, IT WAS A BLOODY BIG DEAL.

IMHO Logan is the best film of 2017,so far. Much of that has to do with how Patrick Stewart portrays Professor X in declining health.

The biggest turd Hollywood has squeezed out this year is Ben - Hur. Why mess with perfection?

A remake of a remake...Scarface. Never saw the Paul Muni original.

Critically, Brian De Palma didn't do Al Pacino any favours. Alfredo just went with it, sweeping up De Palma by the coat-tails. It happens more often than not that the director's vision isn't clear.

The lead actor takes the lead - the director of the Kray film (Legend) didn't know what he was doing.

FX is running a Taboo marathon this weekend, they've renewed the show for another season. There's a problem, Steven Knight is still putting together the next installment of Peaky Blinders and Tom Hardy's dance card is full.

If there is a second season, Jessie Buckley and Stephen Graham must be given greater roles. As Clara Bow, Jessie made sweet lemonade from an initial offering of lemons. Englishman Stephen Graham is a phenom, no one has played Al Capone better.

I came across what IMHO could be a disturbing trend.

After the acclaim she got for playing a M.A.S.H nurse in Hacksaw Ridge, I wanted to see what the gorgeous Teresa Palmer has forthcoming. Hollywood is betting that there's money to be made from "abduction - thrillers" and has a few coming out in the next few months. I have a problem with this, Room was not an abduction thriller and there are almost no actresses with Brie Larson's range. There's even a film called Hounds of Love based on the Bernardo - Homolka murders. Oh swell!

Teresa Palmer can pull it off but after that, I'm not sure. Maybe this is what audiences want in the Trump Era.