Movies

If you want to understand why the movies seem lame of late, you need to look no further than this interview on CNBC.

The vice chair of Lionsgate seems like a really nice, smart guy - someone who is good to do business with. But it case it isn't completely and utterly obvious, he is not a "movie guy." He obviously went to business school and simply sees the easiest way to make money is to brand movies and make franchises and turn the whole thing into a McDonalds like operation. We get boring movies because we have boring people running things. Boring people make investors and stockholders feel comfortable. I know I like to invest money into boring companies who pay dividends and who don't risk the house on gut impulses. But of course, this makes for bad filmmaking. Just like it would make for bad football or bad war fighting or bad writing. In any case, this interview sums up why so many filmmakers and writers and movie fans get so frustrated with the business - because we are almost IN different businesses. We care about making movies. They care about protecting the brands, which they consider the golden goose.