The Academy Awards are coming and nomination speculations are flying.
As critics and filmgoers consider which 2018 movies are worthy of awards, the underlying questions remain: what is a good movie and who makes them? Big business isn’t faring too well in the American conscious (Jeff Bezos is too rich to cry, though), so it makes sense that we would transfer that distrust to our moviemakers. But are we?
That’s the question: Can big studios with overwhelming financial interests even produce a good film, or does the day go to small studios?
CHADWELL: While it’s true that Hollywood has always been run by major production studios, modern filmmaking is increasingly dominated by big names and even bigger franchises.
Iconic titles like Star Wars and Marvel continue to produce box office hits, but risk undermining the entire market with inconsistencies in the quality of their releases. One only has to look to the reception of the Star Wars sequels to see the effects of corporate mistakes.
In addition to this, near-monopoly hurts the chances of smaller firms rising to prominence. According to Box Office Mojo, an online database tracking sales in the film industry, the top 5 studios of 2018 combined for a commanding 77.3% share of the U.S. market, and grossed well over $9 billion.
This is a small increase over previous years but continues a larger trend of consolidation among top firms. Disney’s purchase of both Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm, for example, marks a multi-billion-dollar transfer of intellectual property to one corner of the market. Thus, small studios are hard-pressed to produce high-quality content to compete in the current environment.
CULPEPPER: My first question is simply: Why is this bad? Looking at the Big 6 studios’ releases for the past year, there’s a lot I want to leave in 2018, like “Fantastic Beasts” and “Solo,” but then there are entries that have redefined entire genres and modern cinema as a whole, such as “Black Panther” and “Crazy Rich Asians.”
I’m not saying small, independent studios have nothing to offer – A24, for sheer artistic strength, is producing the best films on average. But I’d argue that the radical visions in their productions does not extend to radical change in the industry’s structure, which is absolutely crucial for a more dynamic cinema landscape!
“Wonder Woman”was little different from its bloated, incoherent DCEU siblings, but Patty Jenkins provedsomething. I can’t help feeling that big change happens on the biggest stage.
CHADWELL: I’m glad that you brought up A24, because it’s exactly the type of studio that – while rising in the industry thanks to critical acclaim and masterful production – is reliant upon its consistency to remain relevant.
I can hardly imagine the studio releasing a truly terrible movie, but the danger of blockbuster failure is simply a more serious threat to an independent group than to multi-billion-dollar corporations.
In addition to this, it also shows how the structure of the industry isrelevant. It’s not a question of whether big or small studios are better at making movies, but how they preserve and challenge the nature of power in the industry.
Many of A24’s greatest commercial and artistic successes have come from first-time directors, like Ari Aster and Bo Burnham, or those who hadn’t previously been well known, such as Greta Gerwig, Lenny Abrahamson and Barry Jenkins.
While Patty Jenkins’ record-breaking achievement with “Wonder Woman,” the highest-grossing film ever directed by a woman, is a true inspiration, she had already established herself as a talented director with her 2003 film “Monster,” and had previously been involved with the production of “Thor: The Dark World.”
What small studios have to offer is discovery: of new ideas and fresh faces.
CULPEPPER: First, you’re being too kind to the major studios.
You’re right that A24 would never give us “The Emoji Movie” or the “Transformers”franchise, and if they did, they wouldn’t survive. But “The Emoji Movie” didn’t kill film, and even though A24 is pound-for-pound the most consistent studio, the best of the big studio films equal or outdo them, with only a few exceptions. For example, we can do without “Room,” not without “Moonlight.”
Take the offerings of 2013: A24 gave us “The Spectacular Now” and Warner Bros. distributed “Gravity”! I’m just not convinced that small studios are inherently more consistent, artistic andvalidthan the traditional titans.
And I’d like to make explicit the idea of an American cinema. This feels reductive, but modern American cinema is the genre film. Nolan’s “Dark Knight”trilogy changed us, and “Arrival” ushered in a new era for serious sci-fi. We work out our social morality in our superhero films, which is not insignificant.
Here’s another point: Small studios really can be susceptible to gate-keeping according to socioeconomic factors. A24 shows at Downtown West and the big studios show everywhere else and the dollar theater.
CHADWELL: While I have reservations about big studios, I’ll acknowledge that there are reasons for their success.
The first of which being that it takes a lot of money and time to produce quality films in the modern era, two things that established studios are well-equipped to provide.
One doesn’t make “Children of Men” without some serious resources and manpower. So, in closing, I’d urge everyone to support indie studios so that the prosperity of Hollywood can be used to elevate new artists and ideas.
CULPEPPER: And it doesn’t have to be an either/or. You raise a good point with “Children of Men”(everyone who hasn’t seen it should treat themselves).
Movies are their own art form, and one peculiarity is how much financial backing it takes to even start shooting. Small studios don’t have that kind of cash.
And while we’ve been discussing artistic merits of big vs small studio productions, another discussion is how the film industry’s “gentleman’s club” environment creates the horrific, systemic incidents that gave rise to the #MeToo movement. The big studios, their execs, and the industry as a whole are the culprits there.
It’s wrong to separate that out from the discussion we’ve been having, and it’s definitely something worth discussing in the future.
AJ Culpepper is a junior studying Mathematics and Russian. She can be reached at [email protected].
Parker Chadwell is a freshman studying Public Administration in the College of Business. He can be reached at [email protected].
Columns and letters of The Daily Beacon are the views of the individual and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Beacon or the Beacon’s editorial staff.
