Good grief, Prof. Jones….

Updated on July 7, 2023 By Ken Begg 19 Comments

So the latest, horrible-sounding Indiana Jones movie came out on June 29th. Six days later, after less than a week in theaters (and I included the Thursday night “preview” showings, since Friday June 30th was the official release date), that $300 million plus production, mega-promoted feature was beaten $14 million to $11 million on July 4th by a $15 million budgeted independent film called Sound of Freedom.

[Homer Simpson whisper] Disney, you’re doing great!

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  • On top of that, Sound of Freedom only opened in half as many theaters. It has great reviews, but not sure if I can bring myself to watch it given the subject matter.

  • 🐻 bgbear_rnh

    I hate to be the one going on about a woman’s looks but that Indiana Joan is really unattractive for this kind of film.

  • Eric Hinkle

    Can someone explain why Disney and the rest of Hollywood have, in the past few years, been spending insane amounts of money on movies? I mean, so much that I can’t see how they could have ever turned enough of a profit to justify making them?

  • Gamera977

    A friend tried to talk me into seeing this and my response was pretty much: ‘ I have no interest in watching an 80-year old Jones staggering from one scene to another while a shrill-voiced obnoxious harpy screams at him…’

  • Gamera977

    Well, from what I’ve heard besides the huge salary paid to Ford much of the film was reshot. And then piles of expensive CGI on top of that.

    I’ve heard it explained that everything these days is what they called ‘scrapbooking’ aka the studio shoots hours and hours of footage and then assembles it into a film rather than just starting with a scrip and filming only what they need.

  • 🐻 bgbear_rnh

    Didn’t we get that 40 years ago with Mrs. Spielberg?

  • 🐻 bgbear_rnh

    I could not figure out The Lone Ranger. OK film but how could you spend that much on a western?

  • Ken_Begg

    OK, here’s why (or at least my theory). You can’t hire veteran scripters anymore because they are, largely, old straight white dudes. They might, you know, give you a screenplay where Indiana Jones is cool and the actual star of his own movie. So they hire the Checkbox crowd, and they can’t really write well, and the scripts are a mess. However, Disney will have locked in the release dates years in advance and just start shooting anyway. Then they do test screenings, and find out that general audiences STILL don’t like this sort of thing, and have to do masses of last minute, super-expensive reshoots that don’t really fix anything. Oh, and everything is digital now, and that costs more, but practical effects aren’t, you know, hip, so whatever. But that means you needs a zillion digitally enhanced shots, and only a small number of firms to do them, and they are overbooked and overworked, and so on.

  • Ken_Begg

    GGI trainwrecks.

  • boundingintocomics*dot*com/2023/07/06/elizabeth-olsen-reveals-wild-ride-and-multiple-rewrites-for-doctor-strange-and-the-multiverse-of-madness/

    This pretty much confirms the above. Starting with incomplete scripts, filming bunches of stuff where the actors have no idea of the final direction, then having the actors dub in lines for the different rewrites and stitching the Frankensteined mess together based on test screenings along the way. And yes, last minute CGI because they don’t know what they need until they figure out how to put it together.

  • kgb_san_diego

    As an alternating take, I actually watched the movie. And it’s pretty good. Much better than crystal skull (not that THAT is a high bar to clear). My family had a great time.

  • kgb_san_diego

    Madness was certainly done this way. It was indeed a bit of a mess.

  • Eric Hinkle

    I’ve read one bizarre criticism of that movie that went to the effect that its doing better than Indiana at the box office means nothing, because ‘the box office is just a popularity contest’. Then they said in the very next breath that Indy 5 is the best-selling movie internationally which means it’s a better film. So, the box office means nothing and everything at the same time?

  • KeithB

    Whatever happened to “the good story men”?

    But Tim Powers has a secret insight into Hollywood board rooms in his newest novella:

    “World Fantasy Award winner Powers (Stolen Skies) is a master at turning gonzo concepts into mystical thrill rides, and this latest novella is no exception, setting a mummified head as the ransom in the kidnapping of Belgian heiress Arielle. This severed head speaks prophesies, and the kidnappers are Hollywood executives desperate to keep their sinking studio afloat by using the head’s predictions to only back hits. Assisting them is Conrad, a down-and-out screenwriter promised a big payment for an old script if he can get the head; the windfall might help reunite him with his estranged family. But Conrad’s scruples and a series of strange time loops get in the way, giving him a chance to rethink his decisions”

  • Eric Hinkle

    Wait, seriously? That’s the blurb for the story?

    That sounds like one wild setup even for Powers. I’ll have to keep en eye open for it.

  • KeithB

    That’s the story, it is called “After many a Summer”. I love these Novellas because I have been to many of the places he describes in Southern California.

  • Ken_Begg

    Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

  • Ken_Begg

    And that was with a real, veteran director at the helm.

  • 7armedman

    Written and directed by old white guys, it was.