Excerpt
SUMMARY: So far this year, ticket sales for Hollywood blockbusters have underperformed. But that could all change with the opening of “Jurassic World,” a much anticipated reboot. What else do this season’s “popcorn movies” have in store for audiences? Jeffrey Brown reports.
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” “Mad Max: Fury Road,” and “Furious 7.”
ACTOR: Lock it up.
JEFFREY BROWN: In theaters near you this summer, Hollywood is heating up, and looking for a hero, a familiar hero, to entertain the masses, and boost its own bottom line.
Film critic Mike Sargent of Pacifica Radio.
MIKE SARGENT, Pacifica Radio: You’re seeing a lot of sequels, reboots, reimaginings, things that have some sort of following.
JEFFREY BROWN: An emphasis, that is, on films Hollywood and we, the consumers, already know, or at least knew, a remake of an old ’80s film, like “Poltergeist,” or a riff on a once-popular TV series like “Entourage.”
ACTOR: Like I told you 15 years ago, the next level is coming.
JEFFREY BROWN: Sargent calls these popcorn movies.
MIKE SARGENT: I think the audience for a popcorn movie is an audience that wants to go into to — in the heat of summer, go into an air conditioner and kind of check out.
You’re going because you’re either visiting characters you know before, in the case of something like “Entourage,” “Mission: Impossible 5,” where you know it’s going to be fun. You know it’s not about anything. There’s no message. There’s no exploration of the human condition, but you’re just going to forget your troubles.
JEFFREY BROWN: And superheroes remain all the rage. Studios have announced plans to release nearly 30 more superhero films between this summer and 2020.
No comments:
Post a Comment