Thursday, February 13, 2014

Hollywood officially doomed, doesn't understand its own customers anymore.

Seems the guy who made The Black Swan and Pi wanted to make a movie about Noah's Ark.

The trouble began when Paramount, nervous about how audiences would respond to Aronofsky's fantastical world and his deeply conflicted Noah, insisted on conducting test screenings over the director's vehement objections while the film was a work in progress.

Friction grew when a segment of the recruited Christian viewers, among whom the studio had hoped to find Noah's most enthusiastic fans, questioned the film's adherence to the Bible story and reacted negatively to the intensity and darkness of the lead character. Aronofsky's Noah gets drunk, for example, and considers taking drastic measures to eradicate mankind from the planet. Hoping to woo the faith-based crowd, Paramount made and tested as many as half-a-dozen of its own cuts of the movie. "I was upset -- of course," Aronofsky tells The Hollywood Reporter in his first extensive interview about the film's backstory. "No one's ever done that to me."

The problem is of course that Aronofsky wants to make a movie "inspired by" the Noah's Ark story, and he can't understand that a lot of Christians (and Jews!) would have a problem with him taking "artistic" liberties with it.

By contrast, Aronofsky would never make the same mistake with the Koran, I'm sure. Or if he would, his backers wouldn't.

The thing that makes me say Hollywood is DOOMED is the budget. These idiots bet $125 million bucks on something that is guaranteed to piss off anybody who's been to Sunday School. They don't have a single clue who their audience is, and they are too stupid to be afraid of what could happen if they enrage that audience.

Bankruptcy is what's going to happen, obviously. People in ever increasing numbers are just not going go to their movies at the theater,  or purchase their movies on video, or download them off Itunes, or even watch them on Netflix.

Worse, sooner of later some brave visionary is going to make a movie that actually caters to and respects the audience. A movie that makes them feel good about their values and their beliefs instead of getting their backs up and making them defensive. Something that does for the Big Screen what FOX News has done for TV. And they will keep doing it, and they will make billions and billions of dollars at it.  Can you say "Captain America?"

Then you'll see some serious carnage in Tinseltown. Heads rolling, guys jumping off the "HOLLYWOOD" sign, the works. I can hardly wait.

And no, I'm not going to go see "Noah" at the theater for fifteen bucks. I'll wait for that sucker to come out on video, for sure.

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