Creation Of The Mass Niche Market In Entertainment
movies, entertainment, economy, superheroes, batman, iron, man, marvel
People now have less money, and as a result, are spending less. But people are also human, and as a result, will occasionally want to spend a little extra money on a luxury item, or fun night out. But with money now as tight as it is, they’ll want their expense to be worth it. As a result, I predict that, entertainment wise, general creations will become less common, while specialized, or niche creations will become more popular.
Ever go to a movie that tries and satisfies everyone, and as a result, creates something that no one really hates, but no one thinks is great either? I know I have. If I go to a War movie, I want to see a War movie. I want to see the battle, the heroism of our soldiers, the effects that battle has on individuals and the reasons why they fight. Everyone does. But then producers come into the equation and say: “If you want a bigger budget, you need to add a minority, comedic relief, a romantic subplot, make the hero less complex and vilify everyone else who doesn’t look like us.”
The director will complain, but usually gives into most the demands to make a more general movie. The vision is ruined, and instead of art, you get a product. If you see it in theaters, you probably won’t see it again, and chances are, you’ll overlook it on DVD. As a result, movies will make less money in the long run. Add illegal downloading of the movie to the equation and you’ll also lose the faction that are just curious about what the movie is about, or the demographic that likes one aspect but not the other.
Now, tally onto this, the fact that no one buys ten dollar popcorn in the theaters, and as a result, the revenue of the place goes down and they have to consider raising ticket prices again in order to still make a profit. Doing this would mean getting less people into the theaters, but if they target the right demographic to the right movies, they make just make a bigger profit.
Lets look at the two highest grossing movies of 2008, not coincidentally they are both superhero movies, Iron Man and The Dark Knight. In time of economic troubles, people want escapism, but as the average person becomes more knowledgeable in ways of science and human psychology, we want our protagonists to be believable. As a result, we have two Superheros that are grounded in reality and surpassing their own limits using the powers of intelligence and human determination. Iron Man uses his money to create a suit and Batman uses his resources to get hold of government prototypes to fight crimes.
Compare these two movies to other superhero films that came out that year; mainly the Hulk and Hellboy. Neither of the movies came in at a loss, but both are far from the success that their rivals had. The reason for this can most likely be that we were expected to root for the monsters and that the audience needed to suspend their belief, not just over coincidence, but suspend their concept of reality.
This problem wasn’t around with the Lord of the Rings Trilogy that came out during the early part of the decade when the economy was booming, and the biggest threat to the Western World wasn’t its own shortcomings but extremists that lived in caves. Now that it’s obvious that our own ignorance and recklessness was more effective at destroying our way of life than the high altitude neanderthals, its more fun (and profitable) to watch people overcome their human limits and make up for their past mistakes.
The other reason that these movies did well is because they didn’t talk down to their audience. They didn’t add a female love interest whose only role was to be the love interest, or who got into the fray just to show she was physically strong enough to hold her own against the men. The Dark Knight made up for adding a pointless love interest in the first film by killing her off in the second to move the plot along and give all the heroes something to fret about. As a result, there was no contrived love triangle, there was no corny moment that made her save the day, or that devolved the character into a screaming victim that was just there to be saved.* There was just authentic pain and motivation for the characters around her to evolve.
Now look at what Iron Man did with his love interest, Pepper Potts. They didn’t kiss, they don’t belong together romantically, there’s no will they or won’t they tension. But you get chemistry, and a sense that the hero needs her, not as a romantic partner, but still as a indispensable part of his life. She’s also written into the script as something more than eye candy as she’ll do whatever her boss tells her do, even though she’ll be reluctant to follow his orders that may just save the day.
Next up is that acting, no actor is right for every part. Christian Bale is a better Batman than Johnny Depp could ever be, Robert Downey Jr. Is much better at being Iron Man than Tom Hank’s would be. That was one of the problems of the new Hulk film, because while Edward Norton is a much better actor than Eric Bana, Eric Bana’s ability to look like he’s mentally tortured and mad about it made him a much better Bruce Banner.** But all movies mentioned above had a great ensemble cast that balanced off of each other instead of competing against one another to make the movies have a more well rounded pool of talent.
Now for the big part of what made these movies work, the story. Both movies not only used stories form the comics, but surpassed most of them. Getting rid of pointless continuity issues, tweaking the origins to make better sense of a lot of their characteristics and back stories. They used what was available to make the stories work, creating something was great as a stand alone feature, but subtly hinted about things to come.
Both films also succeeded in cutting away the crap and just leaving the core material. They tended to ensure that what was left was pure movie gold, but both movies for right to the point and tell only what they needed to tell. Showing something in a shot instead of dedicating a whole scene to it.
The movies also assume that their audience is intelligent and don’t constantly remind them about what they’ve just scene over and over again. They give hints about what’s coming and let the audience figure it out. They don’t dumb things down for the children or idiots in the audience, if they’re lost, they’ll just enjoy the action scenes that will come later.
The movies are also assuming that they’ll become a franchise and no longer feel the need to fit in every reference and idea into the movie filling it up with so many contradicting plots that it’ll other see contrived or a mess.*** So we get the clean, clear, meaningful story, and none of the fan service plots that writers are desperate to mention. They also struck a great balance of giving the audience the moments they wanted, but not in the way that was expected.
Because the movies followed these rules, they’ve become the top grossing movies of the year. So in a time when less people have money to spend on a flick, what can we learn from their success?
First, you need a great concept with a brilliant story and memorable lines. Follow up that with tight direction, special effects that have a purpose and are not just there for the sake of being there. Treat the audience as intelligent but give them the information they need in a subtle and creative way. Pick the right actors for the parts, don’t just pick them on name recognition, give the people what they expect, but just not in the way there were expecting. And finally, don’t assume your audience is stupid and just wants to part their brain for an hour, if we wanted to do that, we’d watch television. In order to get our increasingly rare pocket change, movies have to up the quality create a direct vision. They should not compromise in order to get a more general audience to come see it, because that crowd will get increasingly smaller and smaller.
So those are my thoughts on the movie franchise going to more of a niche market, and I hesitate to bring the last thing up, because I fear it may lead to unnecessarily long and pointless scenes, but here it goes" Don’t be afraid to make your movie longer and show that important scene in it. If I pay the same amount for a movie, no matter how long it is, I feel like I should get my money’s worth. Lord of the Rings could have easily been six 90 minute films, but they opted for three 3+ hour epics. But with that in mind, don’t make a film longer than it needs to be. I’m just saying that splitting the Harry Potter book into two movies will not get you any new fans.
But this niche market idea shouldn’t just stop at films, any form of entertainment that don’t talk down to the audience or generalize should be supported. If the creator has a solid idea that is stable, not altering it will make fewer people notice it, but will get more of them to purchase it. In the long run, it’ll be seen as more authentic and more art than product, making it more desirable and more likely to be purchased for people who are looking for something more than parking their brain.
One more thing; if you don’t think that my superhero movie examples are accurate, see how many of the points made also apply to WALL-E.
Anyways, those are my thoughts on how this market would and probably will go if the recession/depression continues past 2009 and well into 2010. Any thoughts, disagreements, alternative solutions on what to do with the industry? Let me know, and we can work towards a solution.
*I’m looking at you Mary Jane
**Sorry Eric, I like you but its true
***X-3, Spider-man 3, Batman & Robin, Pirates of the Carribean: At World End, are just some movies that suffered from this.
Marvel owns the image of Iron Man
DC (and Paramount) owns the image of Batman and Harvey Dent.
Views: 470 |
February 25, 2009
Author: Mike M. |
Check out more articles by Mike M.:
Underrated Classics: Big Trouble In Little China
The Watchmen Movie Review
Quickie: Guilty Pleasures (Movies) |
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James |
| What did you think of The Punisher? |
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Mike M. |
I haven't seen the new one, just the Thomas Jane (2005)one. For what I heard, the Punisher accidentally kills a cop in a crossfire. If that was the case, it wouldn't scar the Punisher emotionally, it'd cause him to kill as many criminals as he could in a week, and then turn the gun on himself, since he has caused what he set out to stop.
I heard that the new one was a bit rushed. I personally liked the 2005 version, everything was great except Travolta, he hammed up the acting to much and created too many chances for the Punishers plan to go right at the end.
The 1980's one was so bad, I could only watch a few scenes of it.
I think that they need to do is let the series rest for a few years. Then the need to make a movie about the Punisher that is mostly about those effected by him. Show the mobs reacting to the high death count, show citizens going vigilante, show the corrupt cops not trying to stop him.
Then get a writer to through in some dark dialogue instead of gross out scenes, after the battle, get Frank Castle to admit he hates himself and let him limp off, ready for the next movie.
Hope that helped. |
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Alex L. |
| The 80's one wasn't perfect, but i was a million bucks compared to that joke they released in 2005.I didn't see the new one.....apparently it's a real laugh riot. |
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Bart M. |
Hey Mike, great post!
I'll admit I HATE reading blogs or other peoples opinions in general so I avoid it but this post was an exception: Everything you said is totally true, I have no complaints.
Score:
10/10 |
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Mike M. |
Hey Bart, thanks for the support, it's nice to see people agree with me on some ideas. I just wish movie companies would listen to me. (Or better yet, hire me.)
According to the director of the Watchmen movie, he said that: "When I got the project, what the studio had in mind was a PG-13, two-hour movie where [the bad guy] gets killed in the end," says Snyder. "Then it's sequel-able and you've got a 'Fantastic Four' franchise called 'Watchmen."
See, because they didn't do this, we now have a more powerful film that won't make fans sick and boycott future films by the studio or refuse to pick it up on DVD. I think audiences over the age of 14 are now all jaded to the formulaic film plots and demand more of a challenging experience.
Just for legal reasons, here's the link I got the quote from:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Movies/02/24/watchmenzacksnyder.screeningroom/index.html |
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Mike M. |
Hey Alex, you really didn't like that film? but it caught the spirit of Ennis' "Welcome back Frank" graphic novel so well. The only miscast person was Travolta, and that was forgivable. Look at the film as Hollywood's take on a Shakespearean tragedy and you should see how well it works.
Yes, I think I'm the first person to connect the 2005 version to Shakespeare. I'll punish myself by watching a Luke Wilson movie. |
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Alex L. |
| Mike.......are you trying to tell me the 2005 punisher movie was some how having any spirit to Ennis's "welcome back Frank?"First of all, "Welcome back Frank" is probably the most essential Punisher story arch of all time.If the movie had anything to do with the comic,Then where were the Gnucci's?What about detective soap? And why was the russian a heavy hitting silent douchebag, instead of a almost supernatural epic villain.One of the nastiest Ennis creations.Up there with "Fuck-face" and "Barracuda."Further more on the russian, the second most deadliest thing about the Russian was his tongue.He has this childlike admiration for superheros, yet specializes in killing them.The fight scene in the apartment is so much more intense in the comic.Also, The girl in the apartment opposite mr.Bumpo and spacker Dave, is a homely regular looking middle aged woman.But in the movie is cast as Rebecca Romain Stemos?Give me a fuckin break, I mean she's hot as hell, but how bout some consideration for the subject matter??The only and i repeat THE ONLY thing which was spot on from the comic was Spacker Dave played by Ben Foster, who is an amazing character actor.The villians, the scenes, and the LOCATION for christ sakes....were a disgrace.I mean who the hell sets a punisher movie in Miami??If i was from Newyorki would be insulted.Hey im not from Newyork....and im still insulted....this movie was shit with a capital "go F yourself".....the only lasting memories i have of it were screaming matches with friends afterwards trying to figure out how they could have destroyed maybe the easiest comic book to adapt to the bigscreen......SHAKESPEAR?!?!? the only thing Shakespear esque about this movie was how i desperately wanted to ingest poison after viewing it......Or maybe how i wanted to make a stew of the directors family and feed it to him.......wow mike .....im sorry dude...way of the mark on that one. |
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Mike M. |
Alex, there's some serious nitpicking going on here.
But I only watched the Thomas Jane version once, maybe it's not the same movie I remember. Tell you what, if I get a chance to watch it again, I will, I'll take all your considerations to mind and then I'll write a review on it.
But I do agree that Welcome Back Frank is the most important Punisher story ever made. Garth Ennis is the definitive writer on the character. |
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Alex L. |
| To capture the "spirit" of something....you have to incompass certain essential things.....in comic films.....the things are characters, style and atmosphere, if you stray from this, you've failed in doing that franchise justice.I take comics seriously, because as an artist and writer, i understand how frustrating it must be to have your work basterdized by people who don't understand the importance of comic book panels.Im not saying that comic book movies should be shot for shot like the comic.....but you have to follow the rules....look at the Shumaker batman movies.....garbage. Punisher needs no review.....ask ANY punisher fan....at least a garth Ennis punisher fan what they thought of the movie.... |
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Mike M. |
I'm a huge Garth Ennis fan, I liked the movie, was it perfect? no. Was it a fun tribute to the character and the novel? Yes. I've read close to almost every Punisher appearance ever. (I did this on the theory that having no life makes you immortal)
The dark sense of humour was there, and if I remember correctly, there was almost no CGI in the thing. New York, Miami, all you need are tall buildings for Frank to throw things off of.
Besides Travolta, my biggest complaint about the movie was that they cut out the part of Frank's War years (they mention this in the DVD extra's too) The Punisher thinks and out kills his foes in increasingly creative ways.
Well I agree that the woman in the apartment was too hot to play the part (of Joan), it didn't effect her character that much. Also, I understood why they had a thinner dude to play Mr. Bumpo. Because when you have as much weight as the comic version, it effects your performance.
By the way, my comments about the Punisher seem to be getting more attention at the moment than any other non-article related subject on this site. Maybe one of us should just make an article for everyone to comment on there.
Also, I'm going to give you a way out here and say that I think everyone is in agreement that at least we didn't get stuck with the Punisher as an avenging angel (like, an actual angel) whose hands turned into any weapons he could think of. That (to answer everyone's thoughts on the matter) is how they could have made any Punisher movie worse. |
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Chris W |
'I haven't seen the new one, just the Thomas Jane (2005)one. For what I heard, the Punisher accidentally kills a cop in a crossfire. If that was the case, it wouldn't scar the Punisher emotionally, it'd cause him to kill as many criminals as he could in a week, and then turn the gun on himself, since he has caused what he set out to stop.
I heard that the new one was a bit rushed. I personally liked the 2005 version, everything was great except Travolta, he hammed up the acting to much and created too many chances for the Punishers plan to go right at the end.
The 1980's one was so bad, I could only watch a few scenes of it.
I think that they need to do is let the series rest for a few years. Then the need to make a movie about the Punisher that is mostly about those effected by him. Show the mobs reacting to the high death count, show citizens going vigilante, show the corrupt cops not trying to stop him.
Then get a writer to through in some dark dialogue instead of gross out scenes, after the battle, get Frank Castle to admit he hates himself and let him limp off, ready for the next movie.
Hope that helped.'
You pretty much described the new punisher movie on what they should do. I don't know man, I really liked the new punisher movie, the atmosphere felt like the warzone comics and although they didn't take as many direct scenes from the comics as 05 Punisher, it still felt more like the punisher as well as they got the deaths of Castle's family right. How the 05 movie fucked that up. I don't know. |
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Chris W |
Also what the future needs to do with movies is slow down on these rip off idea movies. I mean I'm cool with comic movies but two bad things spawn from it.
The First is lack of creativity. Today's movie tend to be based strictly of book, comic, remakes of old movies, and sequals to old great movies. This is the definaition of being lazy as it tells everybody "we were too lazy to think of our own ideas so instead we did some market research and found out people would like to see another Die Hard movie". Die Hard only being an example of today's poor creativity and inability to drop old greats and leave them in a movie hall of fame. Instead they would rather make a shit load of money while in the mean time ruining movie series.
Blade Runner is of these possible remakes. Why does the movie need to be remade. It is great to begin with, so there is no need to remake them. Why, so we can dumb them down to duller audiences or make it flashier with today's CGI, which I have another problem on but I won't go further into it.
The second problem with this lack of creativity is the way the new youth perceive it. With all you comic fans out there that have read the comics of these new comic movie franchises, you should be the most outraged which I am sure some of you are. You see the faults within the movie and can usually just throw it on as a poor try at making the comic into a movie while turning it into what Mike said about how the movie is meant to appeal to all audiences. This kills chances at good comic movies because it appeals to flash rather then substance.
Best example of this is the Terminator movies. T1 and T2 were Scifi/Horror movies which had great atmostphere and connected stories really well. But when Cameron lost the rights to the movies after not planning a 3rd, typical movie makers of the day got hold of the rights and decided to bank off the name. What we got was an over CGI'd incorrectly written story which decided that male audiences would find a female terminator more aesthetically pleasing thank the previous. The movie was crap but still banked off the name while not embodying anything from the originals.
I'm not saying the comic movies are bad and while I've spread my view in this reply in different genres, the point still remains that movies need to derive from people's ideas, not just banking off what we remember from our childhood. Otherwise in 10 years we will be remaking the punisher or Watchmen again just to dumb it down to an ever furthering dumber audience. |
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Chris W |
| Also I forgot to elaborate on you comic fans part. The problem is that the youth will grow up view these comic movies as what they see, not what they read. While you guys view spiderman from the different comic perspectives and will argue more plausible version amongst the comics, little timmy who loved Spiderman 1,2,and 3 will argue you to death that the true spiderman is these crappy movie versions because he wouldn't read the comics either because like most people don't have the attention span or only get caught up in the hype of the movie commercials, or cause they are hard to accumulate many of the comics to read. |
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Brandon |
All of this commentary needs to be recast in a framework that explains why the industry is up 17% this year. Escapism is often popular in bad times, and in that sense, we can expect films to cater to this demand for some time to come. I think it is true that more 'niche' delivery is seeing some success, but there will always be scope for more 'crap culture'. Sometimes rolling out a bad movie is the best decision a studio can make, because it actually yields a higher return on investment than more focused, ambitious (read: risky) projects.
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Mike M. |
You make some good points Brandon, I didn't read that poll though, so is the industry up 17% since January, or is it up 17% since twelve months ago? As for rolling out bad movies, crap like Paul Blart made almost $130 million so far. Which is more than Slumdog Millionaire got. (I'm only comparing US Box office Gross) but my guess is, as the recession/economic crisis wares on, people will be forced to get smarter with their money and which movies they can see. Most will probably wait to see the more focused niche flicks that cater to them than the general, heavily-influenced-by-the-studio-producer-instead-of-the-director flicks that get thrown out every week.
As for the 17% (which I haven't seen) my guess is that most people still have enough money left that they'll justify to themselves that paying to see any movie out in theaters is worth the moments they can get engrossed in tale that lets them forget about the economy and the hardships of life. Once money becomes even more scarce they'll stop supporting films like Paul Blart.
Also remember that a lot of people aren't used to saving money and just kept spending for the last decade, it's a habit that many have yet to break. They may think "I didn't buy another big screen TV, I can afford to see a couple of movies now."
Like I said, without the facts, those are all my guesses and various reasons about why the industry is up 17% this year. |
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Mike M. |
Okay, no one responded to Chris W.'s comments, so I'll tackle those.
Thanks Chris for your thoughts on the Punisher, I'm glad you agree with me on what they should do for the next movie. Let's hope some director asks an actual fan to write the next film. (And if any Hollywood producers are reading this, I'll write it.)
Your right about the movie versions being the true versions for many people. I've lost count of how many guys think that they're experts on Lord of the Rings, because they've seen the Peter Jackson trilogy.
But if you have no attention span than I don't think its really going to effect comic book movies, since comics are quicker reads than their movie counterparts and are becoming more and more available at regular bookstores and libraries.
I've gone over my thoughts on remakes in my article on remakes lists. I agree at least that Blade Runner should not be remade, since I really can't think of any way to improve it. But I do believe that remakes can be done right when made by people who care about them and want to create an amazing tribute to the original film, or expand the story or technique in a different direction.
I do believe that CGI is overused and prefer to see miniature models when they can be used.
I do agree that Terminator 3 was not up to par with the first two (I like the second movie best) but I thought that the 3rd was a fun summer flick, and at least had some great stunts in it. If you don't like the third movie don't watch it and pretend that it happened out of canon. It's what every fan of the Star Wars novels does.
Since I tend to get into trouble with my views, I want to say that I agree that Hollywood needs some new ideas and should start waking up and creating stuff. I want to root for a new hero, quit taking a lot of the old ones out of retirement. Yes, some movies do it successfully (like Rocky and Rambo) but the last time a depression hit the world, we got costumed Superheroes out of the deal. Let's create something amazing out of this crisis, eh. |
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Sci Fi Fox |
Oh I completely agree with this, 100%. Though not so much from the movie side of things, but from the TV side. Namely (and possibly the best examples) Come from the Sci Fi genre.
I can point out one series right off the bat that did -not- compromise itself (Or at least that's how it felt) Babylon 5. It was one of those shows that when people that are unfamiliar with it they take a look at it and become 'quickly lost'. It was a truly dynamic show. The characters were robust and even believable. The overall storyline was more of a Saga (with just enough sub plots) than (for instance) a more plug-n-play universe like Star trek. (Big fan of that one too. It made a truly fantastic show.
Now a show I can offer up in the other extreme is Sliders.
It's one of those shows that I loved (to start), could have been fantastic, but I believe the real end all for it was when it started to try and cater to a broader audience (Thank you Fox! Not.)
Sliders started going down the tubes once John Rhys-Davies's character was axed in favor of Kari Wührer's character (Played Tanya of all things in the video game) Red Alert 2. It didn't stop there. Her character was a 'tough marine' to start (Season 3) and ended up a whimpering fragile type. (Season 5) It was bad, very bad.
Funny point in that show: It even had one of the stars from Babylon 5 play as the final 'primary villain', which I saw as the last desperate attempt to keep people interested. (Along with alot of garbage Sci-Fi channel tried to 'add' to 'enhance' the show)
I could say more, but there you go. |
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Mike M. |
Hey Sci Fi Fox,
I never really took a look at this from a television perspective. Your right though, some of the science fiction shows are becoming deeper and more involving. I completely agree with the Babylon 5 observations. I'm planning to do a big in depth article on the show in the distant future.
I never really watched Sliders (that's Rico's thing) so I can't comment too much on it. I remember it being more stand alone episodes until the last season or two when they went against a constant villain.
My fear with TV is that people already have lower expectations of it, than they do for movies, and that studios will play on that too cut costs.
If a TV executive wants to make something cheap, they'll do a reality show, since it's nearly impossible to lose money off of those, and they'll gather large audiences for the novelty of it.
My hope is that more TV shows that follow the novel's format of pacing come out, where a series has a limited agenda to tell us something, and reveals something new every week until it reaches it's climax and ends. Shows more like Babylon 5, LOST, Battlestar Galactica, and arguably Deep Space Nine, and 24 (we'll see how the final seasons plays out)shows that high quality niche shows can find an audience and help improve profits on DVD sales.
But lets be honest, you'll probably see good shows get canceled in favor of cheaper and more low brow ones. |
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