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Journalism of Courage
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This is an archive article published on January 30, 2012
Playing It Safe
Getting away from sequels,prequels and adaptations.
An iconic film of the 1980s,Ferris Buellers Day Off was playing on a TV channel recently and remains as watchable as when it released almost three decades ago. About a kid who bunks school and his eventful day out in town,this coming-of-age film briefly made actor Matthew Broderick a legend and a hero for teenagers everywhere. Over the years,theres been talk of a sequel,or a remake. Except in the 1980s,a kid breaking the school rules was shocking while today,it can hardly be termed unusual: an entire film based on bunking sounds a little lame and is likely to fall flat.
Still,an entire generation of adults who watched Bueller growing up will likely head to the halls for the remake. Today,its almost hard to find a film from Hollywood or Bollywood that doesnt have a number attached at the end of the title. If its not Mission Impossible 3 or Housefull 2,its an adaptation of an older film,like the just-released Agneepath,a remake of the original Amitabh Bachchan-starrer,which,nostalgia aside,happens to be absolutely ghastly. Considering the amount of money,effort and time that goes into the making of a movie,its completely understandable that producers want to minimise their risk: why invest in an original,untested idea when you can make a sequel or a prequel to a blockbuster,guaranteed to draw in at least the same amount of bucks?
Except that this doesnt leave the discerning viewer with much else to watch,besides yet another hit franchise. Having said that,considering the number of lousy films that come to the halls,at least you know exactly what to expect from a Dhoom 2 or a Batman film. Im all for adaptations and sequels in both books and movies: the films from the Harry Potter series are as good as the books and every film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice has found an audience: fans of Jane Austen. The Descendants,the book,is sure to find many new readers whove watched the beautifully-nuanced film based on it,starring George Clooney.
Statistics suggest that nearly one in four movies produced in Hollywood originates from a book,story or article. Coming by an original idea is only getting tougher. Now,of course,video games,comics and TV shows are also being turned into movies. The TV series Sex in the City was outstanding for its time but both the movies were panned by critics and fans of the TV show. Blame the blockbuster-isation of cinema on social media,where instant online reviews by people in your network are even cutting into the opening weekend ticket sales,making film producers even more averse to developing an original film. No longer are movie-goers logging on to websites like rottentomatoes.com or flixter.com to check out what internet users around the world are saying: all you need to do is check the newsfeed on your own Facebook account. Since every viewer is now an amateur movie critic,you can be sure that if 20 of your friends are saying a film isnt worth watching,it probably isnt.
Predicting how a movie will fare is still an unsolvable mystery. Its easier to look backwards into a film library for a source of ideas and some sort of guarantee. Marketing professionals are only now beginning to collate online data to figure out movie-goers preferences. Keep posting and eventually we might just get the kind of films we want to see.
hutkayfilms@gmail.com
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