DRECK THE THIRD?
The apparent creative void at the Hollywood studios is beginning to piss me off. Especially during the summer, it seems like every other studio movie is either a sequel, re-make, or adaptation of a comic book, novel, TV show, Broadway play, or foreign film (The Departed, The Ring, etc.). This summer alone, the following come to mind:
- Sequels Spider-Man 3, Shrek 3, Pirates 3, Harry Potter 3, Die Hard 4, Bourne 3, Fantastic Four 2, Bruce Almighty 2, Ocean's Eleven 3, and Rush Hour 3
- Re-Makes Nancy Drew, The Invasion
- Adaptations Transformers, The Simpsons Movie, Hairspray
Sure, studios have always been able to make a quick buck by churning out formulaic stuff, but at least in the old days they had the courtesy to show a 'real' movie after serving you up a fun but ultimately empty serial like Flash Gordon.
In the wake of Spider-Man 3, I'm particularly aggravated about sequels. Despite poor advance critical reviews, the Sony release set the opening weekend box-office record by raking in $148 million, which it will add to for the remainder of the summer. When members of the public emerged from seeing the movie, despite the warnings, most agreed that it was pretty disappointing. So what's the problem?
The problem is that the studios play the public like fools, and the public acts accordingly. Sure, some sequels are okay, but for every The Godfather, Part II--hell, for every Batman Begins--there's dozens of others that more closely resemble Dumb and Dumberer or The Matrix: Reloaded.
In the case of Spider-Man 3, the good people at Sony were so confident they had a built-in audience and would make back their money that they knew they didn't have to make a great movie in order to fill seats and recoup their investment... so they didn't. Sure, the movie had a record $258 million budget, but most of that went towards special effects which, no matter how impressive, cannot make up for the absence of a story.
What is most sad about this whole situation is that smaller but worthy fare, like the indie Waitress (directed by the late Adrienne Shelly), never have a chance to find an audience because they lose theater bookings and publicity to today's deliberately manufactured, hyped Hollywood blockbusters.
In the interest of equal time, you can get a different perspective from Manhola Dargis, one of the film critics for the New York Times, in her May 6, 2007 article 'Defending Goliath: Hollywood and the Art of the Blockbuster.' (NYT subscription required)
Will Shrek the Third disappoint moviegoers when it hits theaters this weekend? Maybe. Will moviegoers still buy the inevitable hype and go back for the already planned Shrek 4 in 2010? Probably. And, worst of all, will it and others like it make it harder for good movies to get made? Definitely.
Best case scenario: People get a clue and realize that when a fourth movie has already been greenlighted before the third has been released, they are being taken for granted.
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