The New Republic's Alex Shepard and Wall Street Journal reporter Ben Fritz, author of “The Big Picture,” had a fascinating chat about how it’s all turning to CG extravaganzas in theatres, but that if you looks closer at non-theatrical, we're actually in a golden age. Which I, of course, agree with 100%.
Date 4.9.18, “Will Hollywood Ever Make Another Children of Men?,” claims that movie theaters have now become CG overkill and that the best cinema is actually streaming.
In a 4.9 New Republic piece called Shepard: “2017 was an outstanding year for movies but it does seem like Oscar-bait movies are working on a smaller scale, for a smaller audience, in part because Hollywood has stopped investing in big budget Oscar-bait movies that aspire to a mass audience. In The Big Picture, you argue that three of my favorite recent movies — Michael Clayton, Captain Phillips and Children of Men — would have a much hard time getting made right now.”
Fritz: “That specialty market will certainly survive. If you live in a big enough city you’ll be able to see the next Ladybird in a few years. But most people won’t. They’ll see it on streaming or whatever. And that will be fine. But Children of Men, that’s a great example. I don’t know what it’s budget was — $80 million maybe. It’s not cheap to make that film. You’re making a film that’s really worth seeing on a big screen.
“But there’s no Children of Men cinematic universe. There’s no franchising. There are no tie-ins. There are no sequel possibilities. That’s a one-off film and that’s the type of thing that won’t get made anymore. It’s also the kind of thing that’s tough to replicate for a streaming service. It’s the kind of movie we’re losing and that’s a bummer.”
My colleague Jeffrey Wells over at Hollywood Elsewhere commented that the current state of cinema is "major cultural tragedy."
My response: "It's more than that. It's a dumbing down of culture will likely have reverberating effects in the years to come. Mike Judge's "Idiocracy" wasn't far off in its depiction of a low-IQ futuristic America. A minor difference is that we don't have President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho (as played by Terry Crews) living in the White House, but, close enough.
An excerpt of my "Children of Men" reviews from 12 years ago:
"Here's a movie miracle that grows on you and is the definition of great storytelling. Alfonso Cuaron has made a movie for our times and a movie that can rival almost any sci-fi of the past three decades. It is a film that has built up an audience since its release in December and has become one of the crowning achievements of the decade. With its handheld camera and its long takes, Children Of Men is a social message for a better future and a wakeup call for our government to stop the broken promises to its people. It is about the last child on earth and the first child on earth, the first sign of optimism and the last."