This is the second piece in a series. The first chunk can be found HERE. As all of Hollywood runs around panicking because Box Office receipts are Down, Down and Down this year, I’d like to take another moment to point out that the reason we are staying away has everything to do with the QUALITY OF THE PRODUCT. I am writing this as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle reboot hits the theaters at the end of a lackluster summer and the Top Ten Domestic films currently sit as so:
Top Ten Movies of 2014 as of 8/9/14
1 Captain America 2– Sequel – Universe Expansion
2 The Lego Movie– Original Film based on Toys.
3 Transformers 4–Sequel
4 Maleficent– Reboot/Reimagining
5 X- Men 7– Sequel that is fusion of original series and reboot
6 Amazing Spider-Man 2– Sequel to reboot
7 Godzilla (2014)- As the year in parenthesis suggests: Reboot
8 Dawn of the Planet of the Apes– Sequel to Reboot
9 22 Jump Street– Sequel to Reboot
10 How to Train Your Dragon 2– Sequel
And what has been the highly publicized plan to get your regained confidence and get asses back on the plush seats? More Super Hero Movies!!!!! Lots more. As in 8 scheduled for the year 2017. That’s one every 6 and a half weeks, all year long. DC comics is struggling to catch up with Marvel so they are green lighting any movie what features a cape. The plan currently slated would end the Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman/Super Dog Avengers-style Justice League projects with another reboot of a Batman series. The third Batman series in 30 years.
Slow down, Hollywood. You’re going to kill it and kill it fast. We already have a Marvel movie coming out every six months. To start layering Fantastic Four and Shazam to it will make the seams bust quick. Then you will be back in the same boat: Sitting there with all of these $200 million dollar movies on the shelf that no one gives a shit about.
I’ve been thinking hard about this problem. Why are we being fed some much regurgitation? I’ve said it before that the problem sits with the theatergoing crowd as much as it does with the movie executives spoon feeding the masses.
There is a deep, deep love for nostalgia with current generations that is perpetuating an everlasting child mentality. Look at Comic Con. Grown men and women dressing up as their favorite Saturday morning cartoon and fake sword fighting in the downtown streets of San Diego. We like our Disney. We love our movies based on action figures from the 80’s. We love “The Same Thing” repeated. But why?
Forty is the new Twenty. Thirty is the new Twelve and Twenty is the new “I think we need to get him tested”. Starting with Generation X, people have taken their time growing up. We (I’m 39 and guilty of all I speak of) are a generation raised by children as the norm. Our parents were to have kids right out of high school and figure it out. Our parents had parents that started young, worked hard and expected their children to do the same. Maybe it was our grandparent’s exposure to war and hardship that allowed for no funny business. As you go back generations, the pattern was the same and continued: Have kids young, go to work to support them and kick them out of the nest as soon as you could so they could repeat the cycle.
But our parents did not pass the baton. There was a universal sheltering of Generation X moving forward. Kids started living with their parents deep into their 20’s and not even thinking about marriage until their thirties. Regardless of that, important items from childhood started to migrate into adulthood. The videogame industry is thriving because their biggest customer is the 42 year old male with money to spend. We flock to Transformers and Spiderman because it satisfies that need to keep in touch with our inner-child that has become so very important.
We, the Collective We, have not grown up in certain respects.
Now the question becomes why did our parents decide, in unison, to shelter? To change the course. I need to do more digging. I’m not saying that the change was for better or for the worse. I’m just stating that I think it is definitely screwing up our movie choices.