Hedging Their Bets

5/19/06



Do you remember when The Real World first came out? How about COPS? I didn't, specifically, but thanks to the magic of Google and Wikipedia I can report that it was 1992 and 1989, respectively. Reality TV has been around since televisions inception, but it only really started rolling around the turn of the millennium. Real World and COPS were the forerunners to this heinous explosion of "reality" shows, which resemble actual reality about as much as having your penis ripped off by an industrial lathe resembles a blow-job. I hate reality television; it has become a run away behemoth, ruthlessly gobbling up airtime with voyeuristic hogwash dumbed-down to the lowest common denominator, all efforts to make quality programming defecated upon, set on fire, and thrown out the window in the singular pursuit of distilled, white-hot profit.

But you know what? I really liked the first few seasons of The Real World, (until they stopped putting actual human beings on there in favor of beautiful psychopaths with the personalities of a rusty bear trap and egos that would make Narcissus blush) and I still enjoy COPS, because it sticks with what works: making us feel better about our stinking lives by showing us hilarious incarcerations of shirtless, drug-addled white trash.

These were the ancestors of today's Thalidomide-baby offshoots such as Survivor, American Idol and the always insipid Big Brother, to name merely a few. The fact that these shows make embarrassing amounts of money isnt a reflection of quality; let's remember they are free, network programming and, well, there are a lot of morons out there. Just thinking about these watered-down abortions of creativity makes me want to soil my boxers just so I'll have something with which to distract my impotent rage.

But can we really blame the studios? Yes, yes we can, because they took what was a good, money-making idea and just went hog-shit insane with it. Which brings me rather circuitously to my point: There is a shit-ton of CGI movies coming out this year. At my last count, I found 12 slated for '06 release, which is the same number as have been released in the past three years combined. Can you say market saturation?

Fox already released Ice Age 2 with impressive returns, and has Yankee Irving set for this summer. Sony is releasing Monster House and Open Season later this year, and Paramount has set Barnyard for October premier. Rounding out the newby CGI studios list is Doogal (flopped this past March) and Hoodwinked (grossed $50 mil in January) by The Weinstein Co, and The Ant Bully and Happy Feet by Warner Bros. The old war-horses of the genre have their own contenders: Dreamworks' Over the Hedge premiers today, with Flushed Away set for fall. The powerhouse and granddaddy of 'em all, Pixar, is releasing Cars on June 9th.

Whew! I'm exhausted just finding the links for all that. I can understand why Hollywood feels that jumping upon this particular digital bandwagon is appealing; the movies make big bank, the production costs are cheaper, and you can garner huge A-list voice talent for cost.

As happened with reality TV, anytime you have a huge influx of movers and shakers climbing onto your vehicle of financial success it's going to drag down the quality of the product. Not because suddenly all the ideas dry up like a puddle in the desert, but because the reason for the new studios to start up their own CGI factories is the almighty buck, not a sincere desire to make a good movie. I think this quote puts it best:

"The temptation is too great for Hollywood to resist, said Dennis McAlpine, an independent media analyst. "Hollywood has never been bashful about its own competence. If studios see somebody else do something, they think they can do it better. But it's not as simple as it looks -- the story has to attract people."

CGI pictures aren't like live-action; you can't have hundreds of them per year and still expect people to keep going. Parents aren't going to drag-ass to even ten animated pictures in a year, no matter how long little Suzy holds her breath and stamps her feet. (Suzy sucks.) And the adults who like these movies for their cross-generational appeal aren't going to put up with a product that appears to have been written by a disgruntled hedgehog with a crippling PCP habit. Pixar became the cash-cow and CGI juggernaut it is today because they only release a picture about every 2 years, and it's always a good picture, as if, oh, I don't know, they actually care about the production value.

It's not difficult to understand why the execs at these studios might figure the sort of success cranking out shitty reality TV at a feverish pace would translate to film. It won't. People are much less forgiving of shitty celluloid than they are of watching free "entertainment" in their home while they eat dinner and avoid speaking to each other, because not only do movies require you to go out, but they cost upwards of a cool sawbuck, provided you don't want bad popcorn and sugar-water for the price of rock-star semen.

On a related note, you can have my semen for a very reasonable price; I'm practically giving it away! Let's all go to the lobby!




Sources: CNN Money

NPR Dreamworks Chases Profits with Hedge