Hollywood expects record summer season
p2pnet news | MPAA News:- “This next phase of the campaign and the mayor’s commitment to helping fight piracy in New York are much needed during the summer when so many great movies are being released.
“WHAT????!!!!!”
The two quotes above come in a Reader’s Write to our MPAA defaces new York subways post.
“Great movies my ass!” – says the comment post, going on >>>
This is the time of the year when studios release the worst films imaginable to intentionally cash in on the mainstream moviegoing audience. 4 out of 5 summer movies are the same CGI filled, low-brow action blockbuster, or the latest crude humour-based Seth Rogen flick. The quality of films has hit an all time low, and the studios’ method of realeasing poorly conceived films to profit from the masses has impaired it even moreso.
Back to the original story: these subway posters are really nothing new. I was in England a few months back, and they had a similar campaign, warning that supporting piracy could potentially —- and I do emphasize the word “potentially” —- fund terrorism, drug trafficking, illegal immigrant smuggling, and all kinds of bullshit that have no connection with piracy whatsoever. Anyone can invent these claims to make themselves look serious, but the consumers can see right through their outright lies.
The only way to convince consumers to pay is to release better quality films. It’s that simple. Technology has certainly made it easier for us to obtain unauthorized digital media, but the fact is consumers have always been willing to pay for a decent product. They are not, however, willing to be ripped off, charged ridiculous amounts of money for box office admission or concessions, forced to sit through endless advertisements, subjected to advertisements that accuse them of criminal activities and seek to intimidate them through scare tactics, have their personal items searched for recording devices, and placed under surveillance during their stay at a cinema.
Enough is enough.
You want the consumers back?
Then start treating them like customers.
We don’t have to put up with this kind of abuse just to sit through a sub-par film. We know how to get what we want, when we want, without being subjected to your propaganda. If you’re not going to provide it, we’ll provide it ourselves.
Meanwhile, “Next Saturday is the first day of summer and you know what that means, don’t you?” – blogs Megan Smith rhetorically, going on:
“Hollywood’s summer movies! Well, er…sort of. Several of the so-called summer movies have already been released because in Hollywood summer starts around Memorial Day. But I refuse to operate on Hollywood’s timetable. Megan operates on her own timetable – and er, BlogHer’s – so here’s your summer movie preview based on my own strict movie going standards.”
Megan says she’s a single black woman living in the NYC area and, “I work in the media and I love casting a critical and hopefully humorous eye on television and pop culture,” she says.
Here are her first five choices under Movies I Would Pay Ten Bucks For >>>
The Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants 2 Starring America Ferrera, Alexis Bledel, Amber Tamlyn, and Blake Lively (August) – Based on Ann Brashares’ “Sisterhood” stories, this sequel follows the four young friends from the original movie as they navigate college and personal relationships. One reason the original movie was so good was because the chemistry between the girls was so authentic. With acting talent like this on tap, this movie should be a good bet and I’m looking forward to it.
The Dark Knight Starring Christian Bale and Heath Ledger (July) – Christian Bale is Bruce Wayne/Batman and if this movie wasn’t a must-see based on the success of “Batman Begins,” the untimely death of Heath Ledger, who co-stars here as the young Joker, will surely have people lining up at the box office.
Mamma Mia Starring Meryl Streep (July) – The only reason I might spend ten bucks to see Mamma Mia is because it stars Meryl Streep. I saw the show on Broadway because a girlfriend scored freebie tickets. For free, it was a pleasant romp down the ABBA memory lane while you waited for the cast to sing “Dancing Queen” at the end. If I’d paid $100 bucks, which is what that same orchestra seat would have cost, I’d have been storming the box office for my money back. As it is, ten bucks to see Meryl Streep is not a lot to ask, even though her comic turns have left a lot to be desired.
Brideshead Revisited Starring Emma Thompson, Ben Wishaw, Matthew Goode, and Hayley Atwell (July) – This is right up my romance/period drama alley. Based on the Evelyn Waugh novel, the story is about a love triangle set at Oxford during the years before WWII. The original PBS TV series starring Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews was a huge hit in 1981 and hopefully this version will be at least as entertaining.
Hannah Bailey, American Teen (July) – This documentary is kind of like a real “Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants” because it follows four Indiana students as they try to navigate the minefield of their teen years. Family problems, school problems, relationship problems: they’re all here.
And under Movies You Couldn’t Make Me Watch On Point Of Death >>>
You Don’t Mess With The Zohan Starring Adam Sandler and Emmanuelle Chriqui (currently playing) – Adam Sandler: the two most frightening words in the English movie language. The plot of this movie? Okay, bear with me. Sandler plays a former Israeli secret agent who fakes his own death so he can become a hairstylist. Huh!? Enough said.
The Happening Starring Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel (currently playing) – Evidently it ain’t…happening, that is. The reviews have been universally bad for this latest from M. Night Shyamalan. Yo, M? Maybe it’s time to switch to romantic comedy.
Wanted Starring Angelina Jolie, James McAvoy and Morgan Freeman (June) – Could someone explain to me the Angelina Jolie hysteria? I simply don’t get it. I don’t care about her adoptions, I don’t care about her pregnancy, I don’t care that she broke up Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, I don’t care about her silicone injected lips. I just. Don’t. Care. But I seem to be in the minority because here she is again. Someone’s buying those movie tickets. This one’s based on a graphic novel and has our Angelina playing an assassin training James McAvoy so he can go on a vengeful rampage.
Step Brothers Starring Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly (July) – Will Ferrell falls into that Adam Sandler, Steve Carell school of comedy for me, meaning they don’t make me laugh. Ferrell and Reilly play the adult, still living at home sons of two single parents who get married. The result? Comic mayhem. Supposedly.
Be that as it may, people continue to fork out mega-bucks to watch the latest Hollywood drivel, and the impoverished (according to the MPAA) multi-multi-multi-billion-dollar Hollywood movie industry is rolling in dollars, reporting mind-boggling income and record breaking attendances.
“Even though the industry set a record pace with its first $4 billion summer last year, the results are showing signs that 2008 could beat that record,” says MarketWatch, going on:
“Figures from box-office tracker Media By Numbers through June 15 show that the business raked in $1.46 billion in U.S. receipts for the first six weeks of what is considered the summer season, nearly 5% ahead of last year’s $1.4 billion.”
What’s, “even more remarkable about the 2008 season is that attendance is ahead of last year’s pace,” says the story, adding:
“Often, the industry sees an uptick in revenue due to higher ticket prices but attendance is either flat or down. So far this year, 206.2 million tickets have been sold, compared with 202.8 million at the same time last year, an increase of 1.6%, according to Dergarabedian. The average ticket price is up 20 cents to $7.08.”
Hollywood is being bled dry by file sharers and counterfeiting criminals, p2pnet posted last December, going on:
“Day after day, support workers, writers, set makers, office staff, you name it, are being thrown onto the streets,” according to the studios.
Yet, “somehow, they continue to report truly mind-boggling, eye-popping revenues without the slightest trace of embarrassment and without a single reference to these huge discrepancies by the mainstream media.”
The MPAA is owned by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Universal City Studios and Warner Bros Entertainment Inc.
Jon Newton – p2pnet
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June 18th, 2008 at 11:53 am
wonder how well that turns out in canada , where boycotts of dvdrs and movie theatres are in full swing?
wonder how those sales that went up almost 200% in the last 3 years will all this so called thievery are about to crash.
Wonder how that CDR levy and blank media levy thats almsot 75million a year now will crash.
No more FUNDING FOOOOOR YOUUU
June 18th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
Me, I am boycotting the movie industry too. No DVD, No bying, no renting no movie theater. (Better not for the theater trust me!)
Every one do like me please until all the parasites are gone. PLEASE!
June 19th, 2008 at 12:32 am
Money goes around, whoever ends up with it has nothing to do with any individual it makes contact with. Many would object to some of their tax money being spent on the military, but does that mean we should refuse to pay taxes, and can get away with it? That’s been tried already by a famous actress, whose name eludes me, but the court didn’t see it that way, and she had her income further taxed thereafter.
Everyone who shares their media doesn’t really need to buy or attend theatres, so lets all not. If the greedy studios and actors stopped making video it would be a great relief and timesaver to millions.
June 19th, 2008 at 3:57 am
I wonder, this article basically is centered around box office tickets, meaning theatres. What about those of us that refuse to go to a theatre b/c of the idiots that talk on their blue tooth (during a movie, nice blinky blue light), text message on their phone, and the all important “wait till this next part comes up, its SOOOOOOOO fake” ppl talking in the movie…
I have 4 dependents and we refuse to step foot into a theatre b/c of those distractions, and add the cost of a ticket price for all of us, its crazy.
So, I have been a proud supporter of Netflix. Could I d/l the movie off the P2P sites and watch it? Yes, why don’t I? I’m lazy. I just don’t care anymore. W/ Netflix, I just jot down the title of each/every film I want to see, and then add it to my Q. When its released, I get it in the mail.
So, lets see, I didn’t purchase the title, I didn’t go to the theatre. I would how many ppl are living in the streets b/c of my family’s choice to NEVER step foot into a theatre again.
June 19th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Not to mention the fact that it costs ten times as much for a family of 4 to see a movie in a theatre as it does to rent the DVD, which they could watch as many times as they like, skip, the commercials, etc.