Monster of the Day #3423

Updated on December 11, 2023 By Ken Begg 12 Comments

Happy Monday, I guess. Thanks to everyone to stopped by the Watch Party. We watched American Ninja 2: The Confrontation, which is the one with the (none too impressive) genetically modified super ninjas. As with most of ’80s Cannon fare, it was quite dumb and quite fun. Next Watch Party is a week from Friday.

Speaking of, Christmas is two weeks from today. Crazy!

Remember when the Japanese auto industry started competing with the American auto industry and forced the latter to stop producing overpriced junk? Well, the number one movie at the box office this week was Miyazaki’s Boy and the Heron, and the number three film at the American box office was the Japanese-language only Godzilla Minus One. Due to the latter’s super cheap budget it will probably achieve the breakeven point just from the American release.

Budget’s a big deal. This year, only one (!) film with a budget of $200 million or more has made a profit. This isn’t just superhero stuff, as artier movies like Killing of the Flower Moon and Napoleon also had $200 million budgets. Bad idea. Admittedly, the fluke success of Oppenheimer means it would have made a lot of money even with a similar budget. However, it was all the more profitable with a comparative modest $100 million budget.

Disney in particular has lost well over a billion dollars at the box office this year due to films like Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, The Marvels and Wish. Admittedly, Boy and the Heron and Godzilla Minus One aren’t going to make hundreds of millions of dollars, but they will return a multiple of their production budgets. Also, you know, they are great films that people will fondly remember all their lives.

We might be heading back to the ’70s, when there will be a mix of moderately expensive ‘blockbuster’ films and more mid and low budget fare in theaters (assuming theaters survive the transition.) This is all to the good, obviously.

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  • Oh no. No, no, no. Not the Seventies. Not with every movie having a mandatory down beat ending. Not that. Anything but that!

    Seriously, though, it’s only to the good if film makers remember that audiences are there to be entertained and not lectured. They can have whatever little moral they want on their flick, so long as they don’t send people out of the theaters wanting their heads.

  • kgb_san_diego

    Not ALL to the good. Sometimes film teams can, with a higher budget, create a film that is just not possible at a lower budget. The problem is, as you say, that it is much riskier.

    I say, vivre la difference. Some high budget, but more mid and low budget. But definitely more good movies!

  • 🐻 bgbear_rnh

    Part of it is that people are the most tolerant, least racist, least sexist, most aware of the environment than any time in history but somehow that is not good enough and they are getting browbeat more than ever and not even in creative and entertaining ways.

  • Ken_Begg

    Yes, it’s not the political drift of the movie–although Heaven knows Hollywood could afford to be a little more diverse in them. However, I guess I would say, whatever moral you’re trying for (assuming you think you need to have one)…subtext, not text.

  • Ken_Begg

    Hey, some people have a constant, insatiable need to be “better” than everyone else. Even if you have to pervert every single political and philosophical standard to get there.

    Remember when agreeing to disagree was a thing. Let’s get back to that, please.

  • Ken_Begg

    Yeah, if you make those movies more rare, they are arguably more likely to make them good. I mean, not the people making the movies now, so much, but the ones who climb from the ashes of the studio system to replace them.

  • zombiewhacker

    The sad irony is that Disney would have had one financial success this year had they chosen to release Sound of Freedom. Instead Disney withheld its release for years, finally electing to sell the distribution rights for a pittance to Angel Studios.

  • 🐻 bgbear_rnh

    How dare you enjoy that movie we made 80 years ago and built our fortunes on.

  • Gamera977

    Frankly I wonder if Hollywood isn’t making bad movies on purpose now. There’s an old interview where Steven Spielberg gripes about Katherine Kennedy being there to bring him coffee and she kept giving awful advice about screenwriting like ‘what if Indy doesn’t get the girl at the end but gets the dog?’ I’m really wondering if Kennedy hasn’t been nursing a grudge for decades and given a chance she leapt at it to burn down everything Spielberg and Lucas created.

    And Russel T. Davies, as far as I know has never created anything other than some comedy series that it seemed very few people watched. He can’t create a popular British institution but by golly he can burn one down.

    Just as the Chinese communists in their Cultural Revolutions sought to destroy all the old culture and history so that there isn’t anywhere to backslide to Hollywood is doing the same. Everything old must be destroyed for the new order. We don’t care if you like our new stuff or not, but you can’t have the old stuff, we’re going to burn it all down.

  • Gamera977

    Seems like you guys had a less event filled evening than I had.

    Our modelbuilding club had reserved a steakhouse for the Christmas party six months ago. When we got there for the party at seven we were informed the group that reserved the room before us had showed up over a half-hour late so they’d just gotten their food. So they wanted us to stand around in the front of the restaurant in everyone’s way for forty-five minutes or so to let the earlier party finish their meal.

    The manager was in the kitchen cooking so he didn’t even come out, he dumped the whole issue on some 20-something year old hostess. Which the guy who made the reservations wife went full Karen on, yelling and chewing the poor girl out.

    Thankfully the steakhouse was in a small strip-mall and there’s a Chinese restaurant across the parking lot. They were happy to take up in without a reservation. So after apologizing to the poor hostess we walked over there. And happy ending, we had a great party. Everyone seemed to leave happy and the Chinese place ended up making over a thousand or so bucks on a slow night.

  • Eric Hinkle

    Ouch, Glad that you all got your meal. Sorry to hear about that poor girl catching hell for something she didn’t even do.

  • Ken_Begg

    Agree with both sentiments. I always hated seeing counter staff and hostesses at restaurants and fast food places being chewed out. Now I want to slug the people yelling at them. We are having trouble just finding people who want to work. STOP YELLING AT THE ONES WHO ARE. Every place has like 60% of the staff it actually needs, so, you know. maybe people shouldn’t chew out the ones who are there and make them quit too. Because chances are they won’t be able to replace them.

    This is why fast food places in particular are trying to close down lobbies and only sell food through drive-through lanes. You need a lot less staff that way. I think McDonald’s plan to remove soda stations from their stores is a covert move in that direction.