King Kong, the Peter Jackson version, is a great movie. The special effects are amazing, Naomi Watts is marvelous, and the three hour running time zips by. There’s just one small problem:
No one went.
Well, some people like me did, and a few million others will too before this is all over. But the reason the movie underperformed in its first weekend is simple: We’ve already seen King Kong.
We have DVD players and AMC. This is the third installment of Dirty Hairy, fifth if you count the two versions of Kong Jr. called Mighty Joe Young. What about this story needs to be re-stated?
It’s the same for turning TV shows like Bewitched and Dukes of Hazzard and Aeon Flux into movies. Sure diehard fans will show up. And yes, with the safety net of the DVD aftermarket in play, studios will make their money back and maybe even turn a profit.
But if 2005 teaches Hollywood anything it’s that the remake and the “based on” is getting tired.
We don’t want to see them anymore. We can write these movies ourselves. Nothing about them is surprising or intriguing.
So we don’t go.
Pity the studio executive. His or her job is to say “no” to screenwriters like you and me. Say “yes” and they risk their jobs. A safe bet, up until this year anyway, was to make something we’ve already seen. Odds are it will do okay. Odds are they can keep their jobs by pulling the trigger on The Longest Yard… again. But after King Kong and a year fillled with “safe bets” that turned out less than satisfactorily, it’s time to re-think the business model.
And that’s where we come in.
We too recognize the need to hook an audience with an intriguing poster. We know what casting and cost are about. We also have fresh ideas, new twists on the genres Hollywood — and the public — like to see. It’s just a matter of the studios taking a chance. But with results like King Kong to look to as a sign that the “safe bet” isn’t anymore, maybe it’s time to say “yes” to something original?
Don’t get me wrong, I think Peter Jackson is a genius. His skills are on high in King Kong. There is heart and amazingly rendered beauty in his tale; it’s the best of the three versions in my opinion.
No, it wasn’t beauty that killed this beast, just a public that wants something new. It’s time for Hollywood to get daring again.
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I agree wholeheartly. And it’s not because I want to sell my scripts to the studios. Hollywood or any of the main line studios have gone the way Detroit did when we had the gas crunch in the 70’s. They buried their collective heads in the sand and prayed for no change.
The average moviegoer wants to be entertained by new and different storylines, not the same old dribble that worked before but now retooled.
I thank the independent film makers who gave us a fresh breath of new air a fews years back but are now in the same trenches as the main line studios.
But will they listen? One can only hope that last year’s dismal attendence to these supposed “blockbusters” will ring someone’s bell in Hollywood or New York.
Don’t remake good movies. I just wish one studio would be brave enough to remake a failed movie with a great core story into a good movie. Remaking a good movie is far riskier IMO since it will always be compared to the prior or classic version of the film. Plus the cost.
How many times have you walked out of a movie saying “if only the ending was better” or “if only they’d gone this way in act 2” or “why’d they cast such annoying actors”. Redoing a movie “as it could have been” would educate other filmmakers and I think boost the writer/director/producer’s reputation.
Alas, I may have to wait a long time for this.