First of all, that photo is so silly looking that it looks like a parody of Hollywood blockbusters

Second, the first woman on the left is staring directly at the camera

Physical release…

Coppola self-funded Megalopolis to the tune of $120M. It has a 4.7 on IMDB. It earned about 10% of its total budget.

Every creative swing doesn’t need to be successful, but you probably want to tighten up the script you’ve been working on for literally 40 years if you’re going to invest that kind of money.

Is there ever a time when Hollywood isn’t desperate these days? It’s the first word that comes to mind to describe it.

BWAOOOOOOOOooooo

Next up: Martin Scorsese’s Kool-Aid.

I watched it. The plot really only served as an extended middle finger to Warner Bros. After I finished it, I just thought, what a waste. It had promise, but it didn’t try anything new or expand the world in any way.

The rights are reassigned after 25 years, so I don’t really think the theatrical release is a concern in this case.

They don’t have to do anything. Licensing companies will come knocking with a briefcase of money, and all they have to do is sign. It will likely result in better availability, not worse, because it’s not bound to studios. Studios can hold back releases because they want to release them later, or tie them into a remake schedule, then the remake gets canceled and they never get around to it, etc.

(And although it’s just a hypothetical, in my system above, the rights holders would always be known.)

Look at it this way: movies will be around in 100 years; studios may or may not be. The goal is movies.

Is there value in a system that isn’t essential? Writers are essential. Actors are essential. Directors are essential. Camera equipment and marketing are essential, but equipment rental companies and marketing companies exist. Investment is essential for anything larger than a student film, but startups do it every day through the VC system.

Studios consolidate all of that under one roof and streamline it, but that’s not essential. It’s convenient. And no VC demands 100% ownership of the company, so why should studios get that? The execs aren’t the ones working 16-hour days to create something.

The way that it should work is everyone involved in producing the movie should get shares in the enterprise, sized according to their role, down to the best boy. The investors should also get a big cut of shares as well, to make it worthwhile. The holding company that’s created to hold the film’s rights should be run by the biggest shareholders in order to determine future licensing deals. This should all be set out up front in contacts.

Then each worker can build a portfolio of shares and trade them on a market—not alongside companies on, like, Nasdaq, but a separate market, although I could imagine a mutual fund of movie rights appearing on the regular market as well. If the investors or creatives want to buy up worker shares, they can compete to offer up a fair price.

Or they can keep them for the dividends (residuals).

This is also how it should work with video games.

One of several theatrical projects still in development from Lucasfilm, including films by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, James Mangold, Taika Waititi and a new trilogy by Simon Kinberg, Levy’s film — Star Wars: Starfighter — will star Gosling and go into production starting this fall.

Time for SEVEN new Star Wars movies, because they’ve learned nothing.

I guess they think six years from the last cinematic debacle was enough time, especially considering the MCU ran ashore.

It sounds like a company filled with children

In the real world people are nuanced and complex

I mean, sure, but compelling characters and interesting situations is not what you said. You talked about making the viewer uncomfortable. It’s not hard to identify characters and situations that are compelling and interesting and yet don’t particularly challenge the viewer or make them feel uncomfortable.

But themes and conflicts that make you uncomfortable are what makes fiction interesting

Most moviegoers want to shut their brains off and escape and be entertained for 90-120 minutes. Not be challenged or be uncomfortable.

I own thousands of movies on 4K and Blu-ray. I’ve had a surround sound setup since the mid-2000s. I have complete collections of many directors’ entire filmographies. Even in my case, the ratio of entertained to challenged that I want most nights is about 90% to 10%.

I liked the movie, but it had no chance. The budget was way too big. It should never have been given such a big budget.

I want more mid-budget original movies that actually have a chance of financial success.

Uh, you want to expand on that?

Obviously Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was inevitable.

Red Letter Media initially joked about Gremlins 3 bringing chaos to the White House and Capitol Hill, but the concept doesn’t work anymore (for obvious reasons). So they did a new pitch to set it in Hollywood instead.

https://youtu.be/iKSemmbDAp8

Meanwhile, Warner Bros. is considering selling off the rights to Looney Tunes.

Why one over the other? Genuinely curious since I haven’t watched either, but have considered taking the time to upgrade my ancient non-anamorphic DVD copies