This article here puts together a somewhat spotty claim on how American cinema is dying thanks to people not getting wet enough for Inception. The writer goes on to say how hollywood should be clamoring over exactly the kind of story that Inception is instead of rehashing every stale bit of popular culture, but there are many problems inherent with doing that.
Newsflash Hollywood makes movies that make money, hence movie industry, and they do that pretty well. Hollywood needs to make money on the almost sure bets on sequels, prequels, brand names and proven commodities so they can fund passion projects and arthouse directors to make quality films (ie. Focus is owned by Universal). It’s a sad state to be in, but if I have to watch a trailer for the Smurfs in order to see a PT Anderson movie get made or a movie like the Coen Bros A Serious Man, which barely make their budgets back if at all then so be it. You just can’t take it too personally when you get the 5th movie to a sequel, or a movie based on a toy that is popular. Didn’t people originally laugh at the idea of a movie based on facebook (mainly because they weren’t aware of the book)? How long would Hollywood be in business if they didn’t do this?
You better believe that people in the studio were sweating on whether or not Inception would be a hit, because 9 times out of 10 they don’t want to take that gamble as it would probably fail. What’s the rate of passion projects making their money back and then some 40/60, 30/70, less? And I'm talking about all the independent fare, for every Robert Rodriguez and Kevin Smith there are 1000 people that mortgage their houses, max their credit cards and fail completely. Inception was budgeted at an estimated $160 million which I would hardly call “moderate” as the article put it. I can certainly see why studios were worried about it as an unproven commodity making back that much money, and I would doubt their intelligence if they weren’t. All you have to do is bring up the case of Waterworld which can be looked at in the same light as Inception. Popular (even oscar winning) director, popular actor, interesting story, amazing set pieces but today is looked at mostly as a joke (even though it eventually made it’s budget back overseas). Inception could have easily gone that route and the studios knew and feared that. Oooh, people going through dream worlds, hmm so basically a $200 million 13th floor. But not just with Inception. If I have an idea for an unbelievable sci fi movie and drop the price tag of $160 million I'll get laughed out of the room. Remember when Corky got laughed at for wanting a million, it is the exact same thing.
I'm going go home and bite my pillow! (I wonder if Nolan ever said that?)
I think you will have a huge influx of these type of Sci-Fi Drama pieces in the $40-60 million dollar which I would label as moderately budgeted (Source Code/Adjustment Bureau is coming up), and Nolan probably has a free pass to make as many movies as he wants in that range. But Hollywood is first and foremost and will always be a business so don’t expect them to be lining up to take $200 million dollar gambles on unproven brands unless your name is James Cameron.
The second problem to this article is, and I'm putting the blame on the GQ mindset, that Hollywood is the only one make movies in the US. Granted it is the Hollywood studios mostly in other major cities, and that term Hollywood is more of a description of practice rather than place, but Independent cinema is achieving things that no one would have thought of even 5 years ago. With youtube, film festivals, custom tailored special effects shops, the lines are very much blurred between what is a hollywood production and what some guy made in his basement and that will always keep the American industry alive. But make no mistake about it ever, people don't set out with a movie hoping to lose money. You make your passion projects in hopes that everyone will see it. Granted you can't figure those times out since movies do flop. As I said earlier it is about picking your poisons, I'm perfectly fine with Studios dumping money on sure things in order to be able to finance the ones that might not make money back but occasionally become modern classics.
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