The Death of Hollywood?

The American film industry may be financially booming with phenomenal successes like Avatar and the Avengers. But, the massive majority of films are saturated by interfering studios that don’t allow the director complete artistic control. The resulting effect on the industry is a reduction in quality of films produced for more mainstream and most films now leave me thinking ‘they only did that to make more money’. That is all well and good, but I think of films I’ve seen recently and how they could have been improved if studios hadn’t pushed for a certain actor or age rating. The most recent that springs to mind was The Hunger Games, which would have been better if it had been a 15 and would have enabled more believable action to adhere to the original source material.

Hollywood has also lost its faith in the audience. I literally can’t remember the last truly original film to come from Hollywood that was not either a sequel or a remake. Films like the Avengers were always going to make money, sure thing. The independent film companies are solely responsible for some of the last 3 or 4 years greatest films (one off the top of my head is Drive) because no big bosses are interfering with their films.

The other reason why I worry that one day Hollywood will become little more than a production line, only capable of hammering out a tried and tested template of action, romance, comedy and horror to fill cinemas all over the world. It is my fear that Hollywood is forgetting its roots by failing to remember the art and magic of cinema itself.

Hollywood isn’t dying, it will survive. But at what cost? I miss the glory days when the megabucks studios were prepared to take a punt on a movie.