An Open Letter To Hollywood

Dear Hollywood,

It's often said, "There's nothing new under the sun," but you didn't have to take it so literally. Seriously, we could stand it if you decided to make even a thinly-veiled rehashing of a story that's not new under the sun.

But no. We get sequels, and we get remakes. Sequels we can dismiss out of hand. But a remake takes balls.

Remaking a movie is basically saying, "I know better." Really, Hollywood? You really know better? Remaking a lousy movie suggests that it was a good premise but lousy execution, and I don't hold a lot of faith in a second try making any difference in that regard, even if I buy your premise, which I usually don't. See, a lot of movies are bad because they're lousy premises. Even with great execution, epic execution, they're still going to be lousy movies because they are built on faulty bedrock. Your foundation's got cracks all through it, Hollywood. I'm afraid that a giant gaping sinkhole has opened up underneath some of your movies. Gonna have to dynamite that sucker, move to higher ground.

Instead, you've decided to pull down the trim, maybe knock down a few walls (pray they aren't load-bearing), paint the outside a new color, and sell it as a new house. "Stick a few sugar packets under that table, it'll be level," you tell prospective buyers. Problem is, you can't let them see the basement because it's all crazy and tilted down there, with groundwater bubbling up from between the concrete slabs and doors to the outside that no longer function because there's two feet of earth over one side of them. The house is a dump, Hollywood, and even if we could get a sub-prime mortgage on it, we wouldn't.

To set aside the metaphor for a moment (or perhaps forever), Hollywood should look into film piracy and cinema attendance. See, I posit that, if you really want to see a good movie, you should see it in the theater. There's something about that screen that almost makes selling a kidney to get in worthwhile (yes, I know, low-hanging fruit, but prices are a big factor here). So if fewer people are going to movies in the theater, I believe it has less to do with the availability of other (lower-quality) options and more to do with the fact that the movies aren't worth seeing in the big screen, which means they're not good movies.

But stick with me here, because it gets better. So there are a lot of people saying, "Eh, whatever, I'll see it in DVD." But there are people saying, "Eh, whatever, I'll pirate it from the Internet." I'm not sure that any movie execs have gone to the trouble of researching their competition, but frankly, a lot of pirated movies are crap. They require a certain amount of effort and time to procure, and the quality is hardly DVD-worthy. If I would watch something in a pirated video, it's because not only would I not care to see it in the big screen, but I'm not even willing to spend the money to see a decent version in the small screen.

I understand that there are some pirated copies which are leaked, a la the Wolverine movie. But the vast majority of piracy comes from people who want to watch the flick, but not so much that they're willing to pay for it. If there's a choice between crappy and cheap (free but with investments of time and energy, not to mention a degree of risk) and good and expensive, there are a lot of people going with the former, which says something about the level of quality present in the product in the first place.

I've seen some pirated movies. Some I've seen because they're not available in any other form. But mostly, I've seen them (notice how I'm winking at possession) because I sort of wanted to see the movie, but not enough to do anything strenuous.

Film buffs don't pirate movies. People don't pirate movies they love. They pirate movies which are so-so, or which were awful but they had to see them for whatever reason. The fact that attendance is down and piracy is up says more about the quality of movie being put out by Hollywood than I ever could.

But Jesus, Hollywood: make some new movies. It's not just remaking the old crappy movies. It's remaking old, decent movies. Just because it was made back in the days before the ability to computer-generate a 10-ton gorilla having sex with a two-headed Angelina Jolie clone while blowing up inside the Death Star in Technicolor with particle effects, that doesn't mean it needs to be "improved upon."

Sincerely,

A Guy Who's Tired of Remakes and Sequels