The dream didn't work


Here's my take on the failure of Dreamworks
I expect the fall of Dreamworks is going to be minutely analyzed in agonizing detail. I thought this paragraph was pretty telling.

But perhaps the primary failure at DreamWorks was simply one of will. Of the three founders, only Katzenberg wanted to actually head a studio; now he is, at DreamWorks Animation. Spielberg's first love has always been directing, and he has spent the last year on sets making "War of the Worlds" and "Munich" back to back. And Geffen has always been upfront about his distaste for the movie business. What both men wanted, it seems in retrospect, was the power and freedom of owning a studio, not the burden of running one. And who can blame them? If you were Steven Spielberg, would you want to sit behind a desk, fretting about profit-and-loss statements? Didn't think so.

I do think the day of the studio supported factory film is passing. If you look at the last thirty years in American film, the most successful films (and film franchises) were produced outside the studio system. Star Wars of course is the best known example, but there are dozens of others. Even The Blair Witch Project, a film with no repeatability, was filmed and produced outside of normal channels.

At one time, the most successful factory film studio was Disney. But that studio almost didn't survive it's founder's death. Even now it's most successful films come from outside it's own production channels. Mulan was one of the best recent Disney films, and it was produced by a studio unit that was almost in exile. And of course Disney keeps strip-mining it's own legacy.

I can tell you exactly when I knew that Disney had started irreversibly cannibalizing itself. They did a film called Lilo & Stitch which was pretty good but not great. But for the ad campaign, they had Stitch invade the scenes from previous Disney movies. The ballroom scene where Belle turned into a spoiled brat was bad enough, but the one where Jasmine ditched Aladdin for a ride in Stich's space car was over the edge. Think about it, sixty seconds of throwaway ad that totally destroyed the message, story, characterization, and impact of a multimillion dollar film. That is worse than making direct to video sequels.

As bad as Disney is, they aren't the only ones. Paramount took what could have been a decades long franchise with Star Trek and merchandised it into the ground. Universal concentrated on theme parks. MGM sacrificed first it's costume and prop department, and then it's film library. While these may have been sound business decisions, they are lousy entertainment ideas.

You can't keep recycling and showing variations on a theme. There are great stories out there that are just waiting for film. But they aren't proven quantities. Test audiences aren't going to reveal what the next big thing is. The next big thing will happen because nobody expects it.

Let's return just a moment to Steven Spielberg and his first hit film, Jaws. It was 1975. If you had said a year earlier that the biggest money maker film the next year was going to be about a shark, no one would have believed you. If you had told anyone that lines like "We're going to need a bigger boat," would become pop culture, the studio execs would have tossed you out on your ear.

Nobody knew it was going to work. Somebody took a chance.

Mr. Spielberg has 48 directing credits according to the Internet Movie Database. I'm a film buff, and I have only seen three of his works that came before Jaws. Some of the ones that came after 1975 weren't all that good (1941 anyone?). And he screwed up the ending BIG time to Artificial Intelligence. Still, his films do show a willingness to take risks. Also a willingness to push the effects envelope way too far, but that is another story. I can pretty much guarantee that The Color Purple and Schindler's List would not have gotten made if Mr. Spielberg had not championed them and put his reputation on the line.

Peter Jackson is another director that everyone is talking about right now, especially since the success of the Lord of the Rings films and the release of the King Kong remake (96% at rottontomatoes.com as of this writing). But again, as a film buff I had seen just one of his films before the LOTR trilogy, the competent but not particularly inspired The Frighteners starring Michael J. Fox, who I think is a seriously under rated actor. Chances are I never would have noticed this filmmaker if he hadn't tried to film the "unfilmable" Lord of the Rings. I'm really looking forward to seeing King Kong.

Brad Bird, another really talented filmmaker and one that probably would have faded into obscurity after The Iron Giant. That was an absolutely brilliant film that had it's advertising campaign and distribution gutted by the studio. If it hadn't been for a word of mouth effort on the internet, it probably would never have been recognized as one of the all time great pieces of animation. And nobody at Pixar would have thought of giving Mr. Bird his way to make The Incredibles.

I could go down the list of movies that NO ONE expected to be hits. It's a Wonderful Life. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. MASH. Goodfellas. Some Like It Hot. Kill Bill. Frankenstein. If I worked at it, I could probably come up with a thousand more.

The point is, these weren't films that were made by committee. Somebody took a chance. It paid off, as it sometimes does. Others failed.

But the moneymakers came from the risk. And that you can't put on a production line.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Mon - December 12, 2005 at 05:44 AM  Tag


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