Francis ford coppola, another director of movie master's Godfather series, said: "Martin said that this is not a movie, which is great! He hasn't said that Marvel comic films are annoying. "
Terry Csorian, the director of "12 monkeys", was even more rude, bluntly saying, "I hate superhero movies, it's a piece of shit! Grow up! We can't be teenagers all our lives. "
However, Tony Stark Robert Downey Jr., who has a glib tongue, was also asked about Marvel comics on the show two days ago, but he said: "Marvel comic films have always been questioned, but if I think this is an impact on film art and a' troublesome problem', I am willing to be one of the' problems'. When you rush in like a beast and rewrite the industry competition model, this is very powerful. "
When Donny said the beast, he meant Marvel comics.
However, are a series of Hollywood super-English blockbusters represented by Marvel comics really so despised?
This film development model is actually a wave set off by another palace master.
Yes, Spielberg.
From 65438 to 0975, his thriller Jaws, which cost 7 million dollars, earned 470 million dollars at the global box office, thus opening the golden age of Hollywood blockbusters.
Since then, "big production+global distribution" has become a panacea for the American film industry and continues to this day.
Only today, the prescription has become a "superhero".
Unconsciously, Hollywood has changed in the past century. As Downey said, the American film industry has entered a brand-new era.
The business model war of American film industry
At present, the pattern of American film industry has been divided into two completely different camps-the traditional Hollywood film companies headed by the "Big Five" (in the past, it was the "Big Six", and in March this year, Disney officially acquired Flowserve and became the "Big Five"), facing the high-tech Internet companies headed by Netflix and Amazon.
The "Big Five" are Disney (Flowserve), Universal, Warner Bros., Paramount and Sony.
For the Big Five, every movie is an independent product-every product must be profitable.
Hollywood takes the route of "global distribution", so every movie must be sold in North America, South America and Asia at the same time ... So only "universal value+visual spectacle+strong brand appeal" can make fans all over the world pay for it.
"Iron Man can save the world. I like Iron Man, so I'm going to see Iron Man and Marvel comic movies! "
Netflix, Amazon, and even the new Apple ... the purpose of making movies is completely different from that of the Big Five.
Amazon is an e-commerce giant, and making movies does not depend on the movie itself-Amazon intends to make you its Prime user.
After spending $65,438+$02.99 per month to upgrade to Prime users, you can not only watch Amazon's video content for free, but also enjoy many shopping discounts and e-commerce value-added services.
Amazon wants 6.5438+0 million users who like to watch movies, not 6.5438+0 million consumers who buy tickets to watch movies.
Other internet companies have similar ideas.
Wall Street allows technology Internet companies to operate at low profit, because what they value most is "growth" and "profit expectation", rather than making big money now.
However, the "Big Five" shareholders will never allow your film products to have a profit of 1%.
In Hollywood, there are some small independent production companies scattered between the two camps.
They are mini versions of the "Big Five", struggling to find their own way of survival in today's extremely limited space.
Recently, A24, a cutting-edge independent production company, produced the representative works "Moonlight" and "Lady Bird", which shined brilliantly at the Oscars.
A24 is funded by private placement, mainly relying on word-of-mouth works and free marketing on social networks, which saves a lot of promotion expenses.
The producer of "Escape from Desperate Town", which also rose suddenly at the Oscar, is a small production company "raised" by Universal Pictures, one of the "Big Five".
They only shoot "mini-cost" horror movies, and the budget is generally less than 5 million dollars.
If movies make the world look pleasing to the eye, they will help Bloomfield Studio to make cinema distribution. If you don't like it, Universal will distribute the film in other small channels, at least to recover the cost and not lose money.
If we are lucky, Bluehouse Studio can also help the world make a lot of money. For example, Escape from the Broken City, the previous series of Human Cleansing Plan, introduced China's Happy Death Day.
In the five eyes, as long as it is not a sequel to a superhero or a successful brand, the production budget must be very low.
So you will only see movies with a cost of 5 million dollars, and rarely see movies with a cost of 30-50 million dollars.
Many "drama films" with budgets in the middle are almost squeezed out.
Brand Operation-Hollywood's Lifesaving Straw
Living room digital TV, computer, ipad, mobile phone ... The Internet has sent all the contents of the world to your home.
Netflix alone will produce more than 700 kinds of content this year.
In the United States, this trend is becoming more and more obvious: people don't want to leave home without a strong reason.
At present, only phenomenal movies, such as Escape from the Broken City or Black Panther, can make Americans spend more than ten dollars to dress up and walk into the cinema, because if you don't go to the cinema at the first time, you will be out of touch with your social circle.
"When a movie is released, you can see it anywhere in the advertising space, see it at the same time with friends around you, talk about it constantly, and get excited about it ... This is not just a task in my ipad player list."
Ben Fritz, author of The Big Screen, said:
"Nerflix's only problem is how to establish the' special feeling' of his own movies and make watching his own movies a' cultural ceremony'. Users are eager to enjoy this work in groups for the first time.
These are the only remaining competitive advantages of traditional film companies-they know how to turn movies into social phenomena; And internet companies don't know what to do yet. "
Indeed, for Star Wars and The Avengers movies, nothing is more enjoyable than going to the cinema.
"Brand (IP) sense of ceremony" has become the lifeline of traditional film companies and the most powerful weapon against the Internet.
In this environment, the "Big Five" has changed-it has become a "brand manager", and the core business of film companies has also become "how to better manage these brand IPS".
Movies with IP attributes have now learned the operation mode of TV series. For example, Marvel Pictures launched "Marvel Cosmic Phase", imitating the concept of "season" in American TV series.
"You buy apple products because you love apples," Fritz said. "You went to see Marvel Comics movies because of your loyalty to Marvel Comics, which changed the business strategy of the film company."
"When Robert Iger took charge of Disney in 2005, he shifted the operation core of the company's film department to IP. His acquisition of Lucasfilm, Pixar and Marvel Comics made Disney the overlord of Hollywood and continued to write its own glory. "
At this time, an interesting phenomenon appeared: Star Wars 8: The Last Jedi didn't perform as well as Star Wars: The Force Awakens at the box office. Most of these "sequels" declined rapidly after the box office exploded in the first week.
The rumor that Star Wars spread "Korean solo" has been negative so far. Does it mean that the brand power of Star Wars has been over-exploited and overdrawn?
Fans will also have aesthetic fatigue. Even if it is a sequel, people expect different elements.
For the super English movies of Marvel Comics, the most successful example is Black Panther.
The definition of "movie" has been challenged.
In recent years, the highest honor of American movies-Oscar is also quietly changing:
In the past, Oscar heavyweight awards were often awarded to the best box office in that year, such as Rain Man or Forrest Gump.
However, the current box office champion "Reunion 4" will never enter the eyes of Oscar. This is also because the business model has changed.
In fact, Hollywood also realizes that the most profitable movies can't make them proud.
There have been fundamental differences in the understanding of movies in the film industry.
If movies should have basic artistic value, rather than pure goods, then Hollywood has rarely made such movies! Instead, internet companies took over the job.
If you define a movie by "whether you watch it in the cinema", isn't the movie you watch on your mobile phone a movie?
Technology Internet companies are spending a lot of money to produce and buy good content.
Amazon has been wandering in the independent film circle for 3-4 years. It has replaced Searchlight Pictures and Milla Max in the past and become a big buyer in the independent film market.
For the first time in history, an Internet company won an Oscar.
Internet companies are increasingly daring to spend a lot of money on content production. Netflix spent $6 billion on content production in 20 17, and plans to spend $8 billion this year; The content budget of Amazon 20 17 is $4.5 billion.
Ben Fritz said: "The version I heard was that Internet companies lobbied around with checkbooks, often bidding twice as much as Universal and Warner, and immediately paying the advance payment ... It is simply too difficult to refuse Netflix!"
Under the heavy money, Internet companies have gathered a large number of good stories and talented filmmakers.
Of course, for filmmakers, the definition of film has also been divided.
One view is represented by the great director Christopher Nolan, who thinks that movies are made for cinemas and should be enjoyed by everyone in the best cinema environment.
In his mind, you would rather not watch Dunkirk than watch it on DVD or mobile phone.
A Netflix executive in charge of content said that what you can watch all night is movies; It takes several nights or weeks to finish watching, that is, TV series; Whether it can be called a "movie" depends entirely on the length of the content.
Some "movies" on the market now follow Nolan's definition, while others conform to the definition of Netflix executives.
What Is Cinema? What is TV entertainment?
Which movies should be shown in the cinema? Which ones are only suitable for streaming media viewing?
Which movies can participate in the Oscar?
The boundary between them has blurred.
But the reality is that there are not many great directors who have the right to speak like Nolan, Scorsese and Coppola. After all, they are invited to make films, and the films they want to make are rushing to invest every minute.
But if other directors want to make money, they can only choose to make super-English movies and commercial blockbusters. If they want to shoot their own works, I'm afraid they'll have to go to Netflix and Amazon for money. ...