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Slump!

we've got Horton, Tyler Perry, and Superhero Movie coming up. Last year we had Premonition, TMNT, and Blades of Glory and strong holdovers from 300 and Wild Hogs. Like it or not, the slump is here to stay.

[in the distance... David Poland puts on his under-armour, a layer of chain-mail, and some shoulder pads. He is now prepared to fight off any SLUMP talk, and soundly hit Nikki Finke in her head with a mallet. HUZZAH!]

The truth is, I have no problem with slump talk... by any standard, we will have a down year this year... what I have a problem with is the endless effort to make pronouncements about the industry based any one year's numbers, positive or negative.

Fact is that last summer had four (nearly five) $300m movies. That simply can't happen again this year. As Poland says, this'll be a down year. It'll be very interesting to see who in the mainstream media is the first to start pounding the slump drum.

I do agree with you about basing industry expectations on one year, Dave, but last year was buoyed by the Big 3 and a lot of sequels. I think box office grosses are going to plateau over the next few years thanks to the "New Media". Believe, I live on a University campus, and on the campus network, the amount of movies people download is insane. If every college and university is like this one, there has to be a HUGE bite taken out of box office from it, not to mention high school kids downloading shit off torrent websites and regular people buying bootlegs.

Unless 3D takes off, I think studios are going to have to prepare for this and lower their budgets, which they have ample time to do, but probably won't.

I think studios are going to have seriously re-think the way they look at profit margins. The Jerry Maguire less-is-more approach might be the only way for Hollywood can save itself. Budgets need to come down and attention to qualtiy needs to be raised.

There will always be a need and demand for franchises. What I'm talking about is the quality in movies that are going out on their own. Roland Emmerich really revealed himself to be truly brain-dead with his "making movies for crtics is the kiss of death" comment. He doesn't seem to realize that making movies for the opening weekend is the kiss of death for a long career as a filmmaker. Sure, you'll get work, but will anyone remember you?

I'm actually pretty optimistic about this summer. We may not have 3 $300 million grossers in one month, but we could have a surprisingly high number of movies with legs.

MAY 2nd: Iron Man
MAY 9th: Speed Racer
MAY 16th: Narnia
MAY 22nd: Indiana Jones
You also have the Sex and the City movie in May

June brings us Wall-E, Kung Fu Panda, Love Guru, The Dark Knight.

July brings us Hellboy 2, Momma Mia!, X-Files 2.

I know some of these movies could flop. I also know that I'm actually looking forward to this summer more than any other since '04.

One correction, Jimmy: Dark Knight comes out in July, not June.

Personally, I found all this talk of a slump extremely premature. In terms of quality, yes. The past few months this year have seen noticeably more bad releases than last year (where we at least had Zodiac and Breach). According to Box Office Mojo, 2008 is still ahead of the four previous years in terms of total gross. Whether or not that will hold true remains to be seen.

While there may not be 4 300M+ grossers this summer, I can still see a number of the films Jimmy mentioned doing quite well. Let's wait a little before writing summer 2008's obit yet.

Bartholomew: I reside at one of the biggest college campuses in the country (or at least the region)--Ohio State--and I can tell you that the theaters are still thriving around campus. We have the Drexel Gateway across from campus that largely focuses on indie fare with some mainstream releases, and I've seen decent-size crowds there. Furthermore, a few minutes off-campus is a 24-screen AMC theater that plays a whole range of films, and there've been pretty good crowds there too (though I manage to avoid them by seeing afternoon showings). I really don't think "new media" is really making all that much of a difference.

Corran, I agree (though living in NYC, where third-weekend showings of Running with Scissors can sell out at multiple theaters, probably skews my perception a little). I feel like even the most rampant downloaders are grabbing a lot of stuff that they'd wait to see on DVD, or wouldn't see at all.

I do detect a kind of dopey smugness about getting some huge blockbuster via bootlegged download when it's still only a few days old, but even then, if you're downloading something because you feel cool saying that you already watched 10,000 B.C. on your computer (and no one could convince me that's not at least part of it), are you really the type of person who was going to go out and see it opening night? I guess it's hard to say, but I tend to think the downloaders aren't really the big moviegoers anyway.

Then again, the studios and the theaters don't really cater to frequent moviegoers, so maybe it should still worry them.

All the additional delivery options, legal or not, are not having any clear effect on theatrical box office. If we continue to see it drop year to year as we have since video/dvd landed, we will still be having this discussion in 50 years.

Where the pain is being felt is in DVD sales, which have plateaued. And I don't think that Blu-ray will save the day in terms of home delivery. Satellite and Cable will become more important, especially in hi-def. And some internet delivery will increase, though until 10 gigs can be delivered in less than 10 minutes and transfered seemlessly to your TV, it will be as small a niche as Blu-ray.

But yes... the ancillary markets will become long-tailed. And the industry will sell a much wider array of stuff, narrowing the size of the overall revenue stream for blockbusters.

But in the end - which people often forget - people can only consume so much. And hit-driven sales will continue to matter. Movies that cost $300 million will be suicide past the next 5 years. But as we have seen with the "indie sector," the revenues will not drop, but the bigger movies eat the smaller ones... the distribution fallacy of "everyone with a camera will be a director."

Going to the movies is a lot less vulnerable to new technology, since that experience cannot be recreated at home... and never will be able to be.

Just saw the series finale of The Wire. You West Coast motherfuckers will have to wait a few more minutes.

Along with The Sopranos, The Wire stands as one the great achievments of this decade. I wouldn't be suprised if a few movie critics give these two shows special mentions when Best of the '00s lists are being made. I know they'll be on my list.

The Wire is to television what Zodiac is to movies.

The difference between watching a DVD on a laptop and watching downloaded movie on a laptop is minimal. The issue is whether or not a college student would rather watch a film on a laptop or on a big screen. A lot of people would rather go to the theatre to watch Speed Racer, but can I say the same thing about Harold and Kumar? And I live on campus at the biggest University in Canada (University of Toronto), there are many more dollars being saved by downloading midbudget movies than being made b midbudget movies. I think movies will have to polarize soon. There will be expensive films sold as "event" movies and low budget movies that will turn a profit due to their inexpensiveness.

Christ, I need to get my hands on some DVDs of The Wire. How many seasons is it?

Here in Thailand, where pirated DVDs can be easily found, the distributors have lowered the prices for DVDs to compete. The difference now between the 'real' and the 'fake' can be as little as $1. I love this. Just out of curiousity, how much does a pirated DVD cost in the States. Here it's around $3 (that's 100 Baht). I don't think people here download movies yet.

Any single season of "The Wire" belongs on the film festival circuit as much as any other show we've seen come to the U.S. festivals from overseas. And if this were a foreign series, as opposed to a homegrown effort, is there any doubt how legendary it would be?

Don't get me wrong, the show is already a religious experience for television critics and gets the best praise you'll ever see; but I sense a real indifference to it in film circles. For a production that almost literally has SCORES of great performances, it seems kind of odd. If something like this came from a place like Romania or China, I'd want to go straight there and see everything else they're doing RIGHT NOW.

5 seasons, Kamikaze. 4 available on DVD right now. I envy you for being able to watch it fresh for the first time. It's a glorious achievement.

pirated DVD's in North America are around the same price, ployp, while real DVD's are just $20 - $25. However, pirated DVD's are somewhat more difficult to find here, you can only get them in big cities. And I'm sure that if Thai people want to download movies, they can find a website for it, they're all over the place. I don't know what the situation is with high speed internet down there, though.

The Wire is more compelling than any film I can think of. It transcends the medium if you ask me. Closer to a novel than anything else, it's incredibly dense and intelligent. I'm surprised DP never got into it (and I'd be more surprised if he watched and didn't care for it).

Got Seasons 2 & 3 this past Christmas, Season 1 the year before that. Have yet to see 4 or 5. Can't fuckin' wait 'til 5's on DVD. Gonna snatch them both up at once and have a marathon.

I've been a huge "Wire" fan since season one, but the current season feels a tad anti-climactic to me. I'm not sure whether it's because the previous season was a series-high (if it had been a theatrical release, it would have catapulted to the top of my '06 10-best list),
or because I know the end is nigh, casting a gloomy pall over the final 10 episodes.
Gotta say that HBO does a lot of great work, even if some of their newer series lack the "heat" factor of watershed series like "The Sopranos," Sex in the City" and "Six Feet Under."
The current "In Treatment" has been largely ignored by TV critics (and the HBO audience) despite boasting some of the finest performances and writing you'll see anywhere these days.
It's doubtful that we'll ever see a second season, so check it out on HBO-on-Demand or DVD.
I'm personally more excited about HBO's upcoming "John Adams" than any soon-to-be-released theatrical feature(s).
And don't forget AMC. "Mad Men" was killer last summer, and their recently concluded "Breaking Bad" was nearly as good.
I'd love to see the absurdly underrated Bryan Cranston ("Malcolm in the Middle") cop an Emmy and/or Golden Globe for his amazing work.

Surprised there's no love here for Breaking Bad on AMC. Bryan Cranston is AMAZING.

I'd like to second all the love for The Wire. I found this season to be a bit anti-climatic as well but I appreciate that the producers decided to respect their loyal audience and provide a wrap-up of most of the story lines. This made the final season a bit less interesting than the other seasons but it is still far better than anything currently on TV.

Special kudos to Season 4 which focused mostly on the kids. That was the best TV I have ever seen, better even than any season of The Sopranos. Just brilliant stuff all the way around.

Hey there, recognize a few of the names here from Hollywood-Elsewhere. I got banned from there after very diplomatically asking Wells to refocus his efforts on the movie business instead of his bizarrely reasoned and divisive political postings.

OK, I might have called him some names :)

About the Wire: I thought this last season was probably one of the two weakest, which still makes it better than anything else that ever was and ever will be :)

Last night's finale was incredible. The scene with Slim Charles and Cheese had everyone I watched it with cheering. Sentimental Mutherf**ker indeed...

Hallick, I know AO Scott wrote an article on The Wire after the second season and that Nathan Lee had the 4 Season in his list of Best DVD releases of 2007, it's the only two times I can think of film critics writing about The Wire, than it's not like we had a lot of film critics praising the UK version of The Office either.

In that spirit, the late, great Vincent Canby wrote about "The Sopranos" in the NYT back in '99.
I remember that piece very well because Canby said essentially the same thing--that it was the "Berlin Alexanderplatz" of American television-- I did a month or so earlier when I reviewed it in an Ohio newspaper.
I reviewed "The Wire" when it first came on the air back in 2002, too. But I'm a rare case of a movie critic who reviews the occasional television (usually HBO) series.
Richard Corliss loved including "Simpsons" episodes on his 10-best list in Time Magazine--at least he did back when the series was still good.

Wells seems to have been on a banning streak lately over Elsewhere.

"Wells seems to have been on a banning streak lately over Elsewhere."

Wells seems to have gone off the deep end over there. His posts pretty much paint anyone who isn't a frothing-at-the-mouth diehard Obama supporter into as an idiot. Just a real turnoff. Very insulting stuff. For that reason I am not visiting that site until the primary is over, if ever.

Anyway, back to the Wire. I honestly think that the writers and producers (but probably not the actors, who could use more exposuer) have always taken some perverse pride in America's almost complete lack of interest in the show.

To quote David Simon: "...there was a notion that they could almost put anything over, that if it was good enough they could sell it to everybody. And I think there was a little hubris in that, because 'Check me out, dog. My cast is 60 percent black and my story is all this dysfunction and I'm filmed in Baltimore and nothing makes sense until episode 4. Come get me.' I think I disproved the theory that HBO could sell anything to everybody! I taught them a lesson, didn't I?"

I'm not sure it's so much pride as resignation. The show was very much about how most of America doesn't care about the people it presents, so why should it be any different if it's on a TV show? I'm just glad they got five seasons out of it. On network, it wouldn't have made it past half of its first season.

And, yes, the cast should be working from here on out, but I'm not sure that will happen after watching Hollywood misuse Andre Braugher and a lot of the great actors from HOMICIDE. I'm sure Dominic West and Amy Ryan and some others are on their way and it's nice to see Idris Elba and Michael K. Williams popping up in more things. But I have a fear that the majority of that phenominal cast will be criminally under-utilized. I hope I'm wrong.

You're right, L.B.
If "The Wire" had been on one of the networks, it would've been lucky to air five episodes before cancellation.
Remember what NBC did to "Boomtown" a few years back?
That was one of the most ambitious and intelligent cop shows on network TV in recent years, and it didn't even make it through an entire first season before getting yanked.
All power to HBO for having the chutzpah to keep "The Wire" on the air as long as they did: despite an obvious lack of interest among the hoi polloi.
Too bad they didn't go to bat for "Deadwood" in the same way. It doesn't look like we're ever going to see that "Deadwood" movie they promised, does it?

"But I have a fear that the majority of that phenomenal cast will be criminally under-utilized. I hope I'm wrong."

If history's any guide, you couldn't be more right. Which I kind of find unbelievably stupid on the part of filmmakers. Casting these actors would be like shooting fish in a barrel and still nobody seems to notice that. What were they thinking when they put Sonja Sohn in "Step Up 2"? I actually LIKED "Step Up 2", but my heart was sinking through the earth's crust for the crappy scrap of a part she got. It's just wrong to see how many facets these people have going to waste after a showcase like "The Wire". Or "Oz", or "Buffy The Vampire Slayer", or "The Practice", or "Deadwood" or on and on and on. When it comes to seeing what actors can do, EVERYTHING they can do, the best of television beats the best of film without a debate.

Actually, Boomtown made it to the 2nd season but only had a few episodes aired during its 2nd season. I can't believe the NBC execs are still employed because they've really tarnished the network's image.

It is very strange and slightly depressing to see actors from The Wire slumming elswhere. Lt. Daniels in a Cadillac commercial, Maurice Levy (the scummy lawyer) in some fast food commercial), and my favorite, Cutty the boxer "gellin' like Magellan" in a Dr. Scholls commercial.

That said, there are some actors for whom the Wire was a one in a million perfect fit. Does anyone here see the actress who plays Snoop doing anything else?

Last, sorry, but I don't think Boomtown was all that incredible. Way too glossy and high concept. I did at least it tried to do something different, but in the end it just ended being "pretty good" television.

Though white people have a natural aversion to television, there are some exceptions. For white people to like a TV show it helps if it is: critically acclaimed, low-rated, shown on premium cable, and available as a DVD box set.

The latter is important so that white people can order it from Netflix and tell their friends “they are really into and I watched ten episodes in a row in the weekend. I’m almost caught up.”

If you attempt to talk about an episode they have not seen yet, they will scream and cover their ears. In white culture, giving away information about a film or TV series is considered as rude as spitting on your mothers grave. It is an unforgivable offense.

Recent series that have fallen into this category include The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, and most recently The Wire.

For the past three years, whenever you say “The Wire” white people are required to respond by saying “it’s the best show on television.” Try it the next time you see a white person! Though now they might say “it WAS the best show on television.”

So why do they love it so much? It all comes down to authenticity. A long time ago, someone started a rumor that when The Wire is on TV, actual police wires go quiet because all the dealers are watching the show. Though this is not true, it seems plausible enough to white people and has imbued the show with the needed authenticity to be deemed acceptable.

The popularity of this show among white people has create a unique opportunity for personal gain.

If you need to impress a white person, tell them you are from Baltimore. They will immediately ask you about The Wire and how accurate it is. You should confirm that it is “like a documentary of the streets,” the white person will then slowly shake their head and say “man” or “wow.” You will be seen in an entirely new light.

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/2008/03/09/85-the-wire/

Yes I only started watching The Wire after I heard it was on HBO, critics loved it and the ratings were low. Oh, wait, that's not true. Nevermind.

"If you need to impress a white person, tell them you are from Baltimore. They will immediately ask you about The Wire and how accurate it is."

Yep. I asked a black person one time if they really have cameras and actors and big lighting rigs in various areas where they shoot the show, and he said yeah, they do. I immediately bought every box set I could get my hands on.

White people like very well-written dramas performed by great actors who otherwise might not be headlining a prestigious show? Well, good for white people. Now if we could just get them to stop paying money to see Roland Emmerich movies and voting Republican we might get somewhere.

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