25 Films That Are Impossible to Make Today
The way Hollywood makes theater films has changed dramatically. COVID has changed the landscape of ways I’m not sure what we can foresee, but it may have only accelerated trends already underway: shorter release windows, simultaneous streaming debuts, and a general erosion of theater as a place to see new films.
But the market has been in constant flux for over a decade – the growth and global reach of Marvel Studios, in particular, has cemented the four-quadrant blockbuster as the dominant mode for Hollywood studios. There are fewer mega movie stars these days – at least outside the world of franchised intellectual property. The sheer amount of quality TV (and the falling price of huge TVs) certainly made me think twice about going to the movies – even before the pandemic.
In the broadest sense, these and many other factors have led to the death of mid-budget films made for adults, at least in cinemas. The prevailing trend is towards ultra-cheap (in Hollywood conditions, anyway) a la Blumhouse or towards big-budget mega-blockbusters, with little intermediate content – studios simply do not want to spend a lot of money. on a question mark. Movies are expensive to make, and people need a reason to go to the theater: It’s hard to get the audience excited about a quieter movie that you can watch at home with much cheaper popcorn in a month or two.
This is not a screed and not an argument in favor of the fact that films were better in the past. Looking back, we only think of the best and most memorable films, which distorts our point of view. In every era of filmmaking, a lot of trashy things have been filmed – great films are being made today that would not have had a chance 30 years ago, and vice versa.
Some films that we no longer watch seem to be lost, without others we are better off. Some of them are cyclical: a few years ago I would say that we will never see the big-budget detectives with stars that were popular before, but that was before Knives Out and Murder on the Orient Express , both of which have sequels ( although the latter is admittedly funded by Netflix). Beyond that, and for a number of reasons, the next 25 films will definitely never be filmed today.