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By Aldous Verditte
HOLLYWOOD- With box office receipts sagging around the
globe, presidents of Hollywood’s major movie studios met to discuss the reasons
for their falling popularity and ideas to get out of the rut. While many fans
have complained that repetitive and predictable movie franchises have stifled
creativity, these experts determined that the flaw was in the marketing of the
products rather than the products themselves. As a result of the meeting, the
studio executives have decided that their best strategy to rebound in the
summer of 2014 is to redouble their efforts from the summer of 2013, reboot
their reboots, and invest even more in well-known movie franchises.
One of the notions that arose out of this meeting of the
minds was the idea that established franchises are being undervalued. While the
process of developing a script, casting a movie, shooting it, and producing it
can take 2-3 years to complete, the studios figure that they can fast track the
process by using the same script, cast, and director year after year. “We know
that movie fans like the Fast and the Furious name,” said Universal Pictures
Chairman Ronald Meyer. “What we want to do is take the three years between Fast
and Furious movies and reduce it down to one year. That’s why next summer we
will be release a shot-for-shot remake of Fast and Furious 6 using the same
script and cast. It will be titled Fast and Furious 6 2 and will get to the
audience much faster than our other projects. In the movie industry, nothing is
better than a proven name.”
| Vin Diesel and The Rock intend to continue making Fast and Furious movies until they run out of arm butter |
One of the chief drivers of this double-down strategy is the
studio executives’ desire to avoid admitting that their lack of creativity and
worn out ideas are to blame for the slump in revenue. If studios keep making
the same movies over and over, they can point to the longevity of their
established commodities while ignoring the fact that they are not interesting
and do not make any money. On the other hand, some of the summer blockbusters
released by major studios have been so boring that they would have entertained
more people by literally lighting 250 million dollar bills on fire and letting
people watch them burn.
For all of their ample hubris, the studio heads did admit
some mistakes and offered ideas for how to improve in those areas. For example,
Walt Disney Studios has resolved to talk to Johnny Depp about the damage his
has done to his career with his last several movies. Rumors persist that the
mercurial Depp reacted to becoming an A-list celebrity by vowing to drive all
of his fans away. Most recently, he discouraged viewers from seeing The Lone
Ranger by starring as an unrecognizable, monosyllabic, and probably racist
version of Tonto. Unfortunately, Depp has already signed on to make seven more
Pirates of the Caribbean movies before he can move on to other projects.
In addition to Fast and Furious 6 2, fans can look forward
to Despicable Me 2 2 and White House Blowed Up Again next summer. Studios have
also taken a lesson from Marvel’s The Avengers and decided to start pairing
mismatched franchises with each other to create audience crossover. For
example, this summer’s climactic scene from Star Trek Into Darkness featured
Spock brawling with Sherlock Holmes atop a flying car. In coming years, we can
expect to see James Bond teaming up with Shrek to stop ogre spies, a romantic
comedy in which Jason Bourne falls for Bella from the Twilight series, and The
Hangover IV, in which the gang gets mercifully wiped out by a SharNado.
While it has been a difficult year for movie studios, fans
of the silver screen can be encouraged that the heads of Hollywood’s major
studios are working diligently to deliver the best content possible to their
audiences. Judging by their recent work, it appears that the product of this diligent
work will be more of exactly the same movies that people have already grown to
hate.
