Concerning the Next Decade: An Open Letter to Hollywood

May 2010

Hollywood, et.al.

N Highland Ave & Hollywood Boulevard

Hollywood, CA 90028

Dear Hollywood Producers, Writers, and Directors,

I write to you at this critical time on behalf of the worldwide movie-going public. They have not requested that I write this letter, but the situation is urgent and, selfless hero that I am, I accept that it is my duty to save the world of cinema using the judicious power of this blog. Maybe you'll make a movie out of my story one day. You have a lot of bad ideas like that, actually, which is why I'm writing this letter.

The American movie industry is, depending on who you ask, either in the midst of a record-breaking profit bonanza or an apocalyptic creative crisis. You obviously know the former to be true as you are currently being read this letter by your assistant, who works much harder than you give her credit for and who doesn't have the heart to tell you that the eco-luxe boutique lodge she just booked for you in Koh Kood lacks an on-site acupuncturist, or that the Maserati dealer just called to let you know that the platinum gear shifter you requested won't be available for two more months, or even that the organic wheatgrass smoothie you're drinking right now isn't actually organic.

Indeed, in spite of your obscene wealth you really do have a lot of the daily inconveniences and problems that wear us plebeians down on a daily basis. I'm not sure how you cope, but for relief from life's boredom and pain many of us head to the comfort of our local movie theater. There, we find ourselves presented with a variety of new releases each week provided by you and your peers. A few offerings are worthwhile but most are offensively bad - not that you would likely know, since the only thing you're watching is your bank account balloon as our hard-earned dollars pour in.

While it may seem that we're gladly willing to eat up whatever you put in front of us like a herd of goats, the truth is that a.) we're actually paying you this money before we see these movies, and b.) a greater number of people than you realize have much more discerning taste than you realize. You're missing their money, and I want to help you get it. That's right - I understand that cinema is a business; this is not a pathetic plea for you to act altruistically or sacrificially for the greater good.

What I'm proposing is a mutually beneficial arrangement in which you earn even more breathtaking profit by producing films that even more people are interested in. Honestly, do you want to just continue to ease past box-office records, or do you want to completely obliterate them? Because let me tell you, a lot of people with money are freely spending it elsewhere while you desperately try to find the next cash cow franchise that you can milk year after year, sequel after sequel. It's hard work finding the next Harry Potter or Twilight series, isn't it?

Well here's the best part - getting our money is not nearly as difficult as you would imagine. I'm going to lay out here a set of recommendations as we together embark on this new decade in film, and I can assure you that your profits will immediately increase directly proportional to the number of these that you implement. Er...they might. See, these run directly against everything you're currently doing - I'll tell you that right off that bat. But you can't keep doing what you're doing forever (mercifully, something has to change at some point or we would be awaiting The Matrix Reincarnation and Police Academy 18 this summer), so why not get ahead of the game and float these ideas to your peers at your next money-counting party, or whatever type of social function you regularly attend.

Our suggestions are as follows:

1. Stop it with the superheros and spontaneous sequels. Might as well get the most controversial proposal out of the way first. Look, I'm not against the concept of sequels and I admit that some (e.g., The Empire Strikes Back, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Toy Story 2) are just as good as their preceding originals. Most of the time, this is because the films were meant to be part of a trilogy, such as The Lord of the Rings or even the Harry Potter franchise. Aside from those, you have little justification to make a sequel to this year's Valentine's Day, or yet another sequel to a stale franchise like Men in Black or The Nutty Professor, or additional Superman and Daredevil and Spider-Man and Iron Man sequels.

Fact is (and you've admitted as much), a good half of the sequels you're producing these days aren't even planned in advance. You might get a surprise hit (e.g., The Hangover) and try to wring as much cash out of it as quickly as possible, or you decide it's OK to dust off a decades-old franchise (e.g., Indiana Jones) and make an easy profit while adding nothing of significance to the film industry or the culture at large. In both cases it's all about making more money, and in both cases we as consumers get nothing but two hours of fluff in exchange for said money.

Superhero movies have been an easy way for you to justify five or six sequels to a movie (after all, they never run out of villains with whom to battle), but if the recent "failures" of Kick-Ass and Watchmen showed us anything, it may be that many casual superhero movie fans are growing tired of the trend. I mean even you must be tired of it by now, or do you honestly look forward to producing Spider-Man 8 at the end of this decade? I bet you can't even tell the difference between the backstories anymore, and yet you are already developing The Green Hornet and Thor and Captain America and Nick Fury and the first of what will probably be several movies about The Avengers.

Please, give it a rest and try something new. You don't have to risk a $100 million, either. Simple math will prove that spending $150 million on a superhero blockbuster that you hope will gross $300 million in its brief shelf life will not net you nearly as much as a $30 million movie (albeit a bad one) that will gross almost the same amount thanks to the old-fashioned method of "word of mouth". Focus on producing those movies, rake in the cash, and then leave them alone. Please, leave them alone. You can't make a sequel to The Blind Side no matter how much you desire it.

2. Allow the cracks in the glass ceiling to become holes. Last year, for the first time in more than 80 years, a woman won an Academy Award for directing and an African-American won an Academy Award for screenwriting. People talked about the "glass ceiling" being shattered, but I don't buy it for a number of reasons that I won't go into here. It's true, however, that some additional cracks were made in the glass. Ideally, over the next decade those will develop into holes, and eventually the ceiling will come crashing down. But it will take years - too many years, unless you take some risks and/or simply allow it to happen. I mean really, we both know that the unspoken truth in Hollywood is that you're all a bunch of white guys.

There's nothing wrong inherently wrong with that, of course, but it becomes a problem when you're trying to entertain a public that increasingly isn't represented by people like you. We (and by that I mean both Americans in general as well as the international audience that you desperately seek) are not all white males, and in addition to seeing more movies starring people like us, we'd like to see more of them made by people like us.

I'm telling you that you're missing out on an ever increasing amount of money from a public that has an ever increasingly easy way to find very specific entertainment niches. If you don't believe me, go ask Tyler Perry. So instead of being left on the sidelines, why not bridge the cultural gap? Have more women make romantic comedies. Rid your movies of the stereotypical stock characters that will only continue to ruffle feathers. Make space for and put your marketing support behind "small" movies like Better Luck Tomorrow, ATL, Quinceañera, Amreeka, and Night Catches Us. Trust me, you'll soon be the hit of your next money-counting party. 

3. The 80's are so...1980. Leave them alone. I've observed that pop culture trends are collectively driven by a variety of highly influential and creative individuals between the age of 35 and 45, including many of you in show business. At least that's what I figure since everything around us in the last decade was a retread of the 70's and everything around us in this young decade so far has heralded the return of the 80's (beginning in 2020, I'll be in the sweet spot of that group and we'll celebrate the 90's).

You can see the 80's returning everywhere - fashion/color/clothing/hair trends, music trends (welcome back to the synthesizer and saxophone!), television, food, and, of course, film. Just this year you've excitedly prepared for us Hot Tub Time Machine, The Karate Kid, Wall Street 2, The A-Team, Predators, Piranha 3D, Red Dawn, Footloose, Ramona & Beezus, and Tron Legacy. There is hardly a more outrageous and yet more lucrative concept in Hollywood these days than making us pay to watch movies we've already seen. So what do you already have lined up for the next couple years of this decade? A remake of Short Circuit, or Little Shop of Horrors, or RoboCop, or Conan the Barbarian, or Ferris Bueller's Day Off? Or how about Top Gun 2? Ghostbusters III? Beverly Hills Cop IV? Wow, I'm so excited I don't know what to do with myself. Oh wait - I'll just watch the original 2D versions on VHS!

I get it. A lot of you Hollywood hot shots are in your 40's and are desperate to turn back the clock (Exhibit Z: the upcoming Adam Sandler/ensemble comedy Grown Ups). But do we really need to put this much effort into completely recreating the past when what exists in its original form is still awesome on its own terms (and yes, I'm talking about something like Top Gun)? The answer is resoundingly no. 

4. Agree to disagree about 3D. Congratulations, you've found a method of making 30% more profit on each ticket sold that is so easy and limitless in its potential that it should almost be criminal. Well I've got bad news for you - 3D doesn't work for everybody. Or at least it doesn't work for me (or Roger Ebert). I can see static images with no problem, but when you make an action film in 3D and keep the camera in the same frame for less than a second, well it all becomes a big fuzzy mess. In 2D, I found Avatar to be a visual feast - lucid, fluid, crystal clear and like nothing I'd ever seen before. In 3D, I found Avatar to be a blurry headache, in and out of focus and so distracting that I would go minutes without hearing any dialogue because I was so focused on just seeing straight. Why pay $5 more per ticket for that experience?

Now if everyone had my problem with 3D (and it's been the same problem for all films I've seen in 3D, most recently Alice in Wonderland), you wouldn't be making such breathtaking profits. But - and this is a big but - I think you are crossing the line when, as I read recently, you are contractually forcing theater chains to show your films in 3D or not at all. By not leaving at least some of us with the option to see films in 2D, you'll simply lose a lot of our money while you gain only a little more of everyone else's. Please, leave the option open to the theaters and don't force me out of the game with a fake IMAX 3D version of a movie I just want to see in good old-fashioned 2D.

And for the sake of propriety let's just set one more rule in place: the only 3D films that are being produced at this time should be produced using James Cameron's new technology. Even though it didn't work for me, I know that what he did with Avatar should be the new standard, if only out of professional respect. If the 3D-loving public knew what was good for them they would pay for nothing less.

Respectfully, and on behalf of the worldwide movie-going public, we ask you to seriously consider these ideas. They won't guarantee profits in the short term, but over the long term and as the economy evens out and your assistant who is reading this to you moves on to a better job, they might just be your path to even greater riches.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned