Stop Loss ( Hollywood in general)

Just now back at the computer. Sorry for the delay. Good excuses including game Sunday :-(I admit when I hit enter with that original post, my anticipation for a good discussion was pretty low. I expected a quick sink to the bottom. Or that someone would complain its in the wrong forum. So, thanks to all even those who apparently took my post about Hollywood as a personal insult.The point was to ask -- from a business not political perspective -- why wont at least one studio try one movie that lionizes the US soldier in a current battlefield? Based on the quote in the first post, it appears Hollywood has not even considered this. Apparently, the creative types actually believe that they have covered all sides of the conflicts in Iraq/Afganistan, and moviegoers just arent buying it. Having tried "everything," they are just going to wait until the conflicts are over.Does this sound like good business acumen? Is the list of current DOA stinkers consistent with a culture that believes "Money is the crack?" I suggest not.For example, Redacted has grossed ~$65,000, with a budget of ~ $5M. Good business decision? There may have been some crack involved there but I doubt it was green. Yet this is not an anomaly. The hits just keep coming.Grace Is Gone barely sold $50,000 in tickets (with John Cusack on the marquee)Home of the Brave likewise barely made $50,000 (despite the double draw of Samuel L. Jackson and Jessica Biel).Valley of Elah has grossed under $7M (despite big names TLJones and Susan Sarandon)Rendition has grossed under $10M (despite Witherspoon and Gyllenhaal)Lions for Lambs has made under $15M (with some of the biggest names in Hollywood -- Cruise, Streep and Redford)
And now you can add Stoploss to this list of losers despite its expensive advertising efforts at channeling the popularity of Friday Night Lights and fooling 20-somethings into believing it really wasnt another agenda-driven film.

Indeed, a polical axe to grind is THE common thread of all these losers. The public smells it a mile away and avoids.

Yet it doesnt have to be this way. Hollywood has a history, even a fairly recent one, of producing box office hits when they at least treat the US Soldier fairly. And when they deal with the topic of war directly, at least dont take a political position or have an agenda. You know, just tell the story.

Transformers $318,759,914
Independence Day $306,124,059
I Am Legend $256,227,323 (Army doctor trying to save mankind)
War of the Worlds $234,277,056
Saving Private Ryan $216,119,491
300 $210,592,590 (obviously not US Soldiers but nonetheless the army that sacfaficed itself in a battle that arguably saved Western Civilization is a good historical metaphor for the US military)
Armageddon $201,573,391 (astronauts are often Air Force or Navy pilots)
Pearl Harbor $198,539,855
Top Gun $176,781,728
Air Force One $172,620,724
Apollo 13 $172,071,312 (same argument as Armegeddon)
True Lies $146,282,411 (last US movie with Arab villains)
A Few Good Men $141,340,178 (at least some balance as some US military folk cast in a bad light, while others with admirable qualities)
Black Hawk Down $108,638,745
We Were Soldiers $78,122,718
Charlie Wilson’s War $66,661,095
[Source: IMDb]

I contend that this list alone undermines the argument of the poster who said "You don't know much about Hollywood. Your statement about not caring about returns proves you've never bothered to read a thing about the crack house that is Hollywood. Money is the crack." Would you rather have the box office of Blackhawk Down or Redacted? Or Grace? Or Home? .......
>So what is the answer? Why wont they try one movie set in either Afganistan or Iraq that cast the US military in a positive light? Or at least from a neutral position? Do they think there are no good stories? If they do, they are very wrong. There are good stories all over the place if they would just look. (See "Lone Survivor", “Not A Good Day to Die”, "None Braver", "Blood Stripes", "Heart of War", "Marines in the Garden of Eden", "Ambush Alley", "Roughneck Nine-One")

My opinion of war movies is that the filmakers' job is just tell the story and let the viewer draw his/her own conclusions. I dont think that its wize to try and force a certain view down the audiences' throats. Which, I contend, is the mistake all the recent films listed at the top have made. Examples I would point to as support for this position are Saving Private Ryan, Were Were Soldiers and Black Hawk Down. These three were hardly recruiting films for the military. Yet they each told a good story without an agenda. War was simply captured as best it could be on film -- good and bad. Viewers did not need Hollywood to tell them how they should feel about it.

My position is that the same could be done with the current conflicts. War doesnt need spin. The battlefield representation found in Saving Private Ryan made that both an anti-war film and very profitable. Why? Because it treated the soldiers fairly, showed them as human. Some heroic, some flawed. (That and the premise of the movie was not that the US Govt was necessarily worse than Germany's).
 
You compare Transformers, Independence Day, War of the Worlds and Armageddon to movies that take on considerations for a current conflict in reality? Further, you boil them down to favorable stories about soldiers versus unfavorable stories about soldiers? And you expect to be taken seriously?

Um, those were movies about fighting space aliens. I suppose I could point to ET and say what boffo box office that movie had as it depicts sypathetic invaders and sinister government officials including soldiers. And then just sniff that " this [title] alone undermines the argument of the poster who said [whatever it was you said]" But that would be silly.

Your other examples are only slightly less preposterous:
300 - Sure, a lot of people have differing opinions on the comic book version of a real historical event from 2500 years ago that was made into a movie.

Top Gun - Uh, what war was that? What reality was that?

Air Force One, True Lies, Apollo 13- ?????

The actual war movies you name are WWII movies and a vietnam movie whose $78million box office was likely disappointing for a big budget Mel Gibson film. A Few Good Men is a remake of a better WW11, the Caine Mutiny, and actually works against your argument because the military lead (Nicholson) and his officers are guilty of a murder.

Anyway, your examples are off target and further reflect how little you know about movie making. You still write as though the Hollywood Grand Council annoints films as a unified body. They don't.

Further, of course every movie maker would choose to make "Saving Private Ryan" over any of the failed Iraq war movies. It's a good movie, made money and you could be proud to have your name on it. The problem is, you can't tell in advance how movies will do. You bet on the draw of talent and a guess about the market.

If Speilberg decided to do an Iraq film and got Tom Hanks and Harrison Ford and Matt Damon interested in the project, some studio would pony up the money for it. Notice I don't say if the movie is a cheerleading piece or a downer view of the issue. They'd be banking that those stars and that director will prove to be bankable again.

It is naive beyond description for someone to believe that Hollywood decision makers are kicking sure-fire 100 million dollar profit pictures off the lot in order to embrace sure-fire money-losers that might promote their "agenda."

Nobody can be sure what will score big. There were huge doubts about Titanic before it was released. Who would have guessed that girls in their mid teens would see the movie dozens of times? But that's were the money came from.

Ron Howard did Apollo 13, big money. He also did the excruciating Irish picture with Cruise and Kidman (bankable stars and bankable director) that crashed and burned.

Maybe my wording is too harsh. If so, I apologize. I am impatient with opinions based largely on idle speculation and unsubstantiated views of how things work in a certain arena. You're probably very learned about some things, but movie making decisions isn't one of them.
 
Move the goalposts?

You haven't refuted the way in which Hollywood decision makers operate as described by me.

You keep parroting the idea that "Hollywood" could just go out and ape the Passion of Christ or Armageddon and make millions if they wanted to. But you think they have some reason outside of market economics which stops them from doing so.

You are wrong in your thinking that there are abundant scripts, concepts or adaptation materials that can be easily identified as money makers. You've ignored my examples of Cinderella Man (a universally acclaimed movie with a bankable star and director) that nobody went to see in theater and the odd success of crap like Porky's.

You also ignore my point about the market. Most people here and an even bigger majority abroad are against the war. That is not promising for a pro-Iraq war, heroic feature. This is market force, not politics.

I didn't move the goalposts, I was trying to present you with directions so you could find the playing field. If you don't want to go there, fine. Go ahead and use another homey cliche to declare victory and toast yourself.

The fact remains, you show no insight or knowledge about the movie industry. Maybe the movie you're looking for would be a huge hit, I can only speculate about why the crack whores in Hollywood might be shying away.
 
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