“Stars Diss Hollywood”: Or why are there so many “shit movies”?

A Huffington Post article today accumulates a lot of F&S-bombs lobbed Hollywood’s way by some well-known actors. A few excerpts starting with Australian actor Joel Edgerton (Animal Kingdom, Warrior):

“I have an issue with the commercial aspect of moviemaking: I don’t see why a movie can’t make a lot of money and also be good. We see at least two or three of them every year,” he said. “But there is some shit movies out there now. It fucking pisses me off — and I hate it when a shit movie comes out that’s obviously made just to make money, and it does make that money and it lets everybody know that it’s okay to make shit movies because you can get rich off of it. I hate those people.”

Edgerton put his pen [or computer keyboard] where his mouth is by writing and selling the recent spec script “One Night Stand”.

Then there’s Daniel Craig:

“You swear that you’ll never get involved with shit like that, and it happens,” he told Time Out London. “On ‘Quantum,’ we were fucked. We had the bare bones of a script and then there was a writers’ strike and there was nothing we could do. We couldn’t employ a writer to finish it. I say to myself, ‘Never again,’ but who knows? There was me trying to rewrite scenes — and a writer I am not.”

There are quotes from George Clooney, Megan Fox and a link to a Robert Redford bromide against “robot action flicks.” But it’s Ben Kingsley who really runs with the ball:

“If we deviate from them and go to a film that is basically a string of sensationalist effects, the thread will snap and we’ll find that people will stop going to the cinema, because people always look for the story,” he said. “I think that once you start to make crucial decisions by committee and each member of that committee is extremely anxious about his or her job, then you’re not going to have the right decisions made. You’re going to have decisions that are fear-based, you are going to have decisions based on what they think they should say, or what they think their boss needs to hear, rather than going out on a limb and being actually creative.”

That’s the reality of Hollywood, something we’ve discussed here ad nauseum: Fear is a big factor in decisions about what gets greenlit and what doesn’t. With millions of dollars involved, it’s essentially about risk assessment.

But that’s not the whole thing. Since there are no certainties for success, there will always be a leap of faith involved, the decision to make a movie not strictly based on numbers. So a smart writer will write something that’s in the wheelhouse of what Hollywood does well, then make sure to create dynamics and elements in the story that will generate an emotional resonance with a potential buyer. Because if your script causes them to feel something strongly, there’s a chance the buyer will act on the belief the audience will feel that way, too.

Then there’s going the other way: The independent route. The article mentions how more and more actors “have created their own production companies, to finance smaller films.” Good for them. Now comes the test: When confronted with the same sphincter-tightening fear about committing dollars to a project that studio execs confront on a daily basis, will these actors have the courage to say yes to creative, interesting, and different movies when its their own funding?

For more of the Huffington Post article, go here.

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