This post is not specifically about Sylvester Stallone, but
it is about a trend I have noticed that has greatly affected the film genre
that Stallone basically created and absolutely perfected.
With the success of Breaking Bad, along with other popular
hour long dramas on TV, it is clear that the action movie genre has taken a
backseat to the new vehicle for driving action, drama, and suspense: TV.
While it can be argued that it started with The Sopranos,
The Wire, or The Shield, it was not until Breaking Bad that TV shows began to
challenge, and ultimately eclipse movies in terms of content and
popularity. This could be a result of
the concurrent rise of social media, smartphones, and Breaking Bad, or it may
be a result of the brilliant mind of Vince Gilligan coupled with the
Outstanding acting of Bryan Cranston.
Either way, it has resulted in a slew of new TV shows gaining
popularity, from Sons of Anarchy to Game of Thrones. These are the new conversation starters at
work, and online, and have likely created a stir in the film industry, as they
truly seem to have had an impact on the action film genre.
For example, if you go on Netflix or to the DVD aisle at Wal-Mart
or Target, you will find several movies of the action genre, starring big,
A-list names, that were released straight to DVD, instead of having a
theatrical release. This is likely due
to the studios not willing to take a gamble on promoting a film theatrically,
only to see a diminished return at the box office. By releasing it on DVD and hardly promoting
it, the studios can release a movie without the PR budget, and still see a
strong sales figure based on DVD sales and rentals through Redbox. This is a sound business strategy, seeing how
the competition of Breaking Bad caliber shows have raised the bar considerably
and provided viewers with a consistent fix of action and drama on a weekly and
seasonal basis, something that takes theatrical vehicles years to accomplish,
even with solid franchises such as The Expendables and the Avengers, though the
studios seem to be able to derive significant revenue based on these franchise
films.
The current trend in both theatrical and TV creative
endeavors seems to be a desire for audiences to see a character or group of
characters develop and grow, whether it be from week to week and season to
season, or from film to film. This works
in that it satiates the audience need for familiarity and continuity, but it
hurts films in the long run by diminishing the popularity of stand alone action
and thriller films, which can be seen in the DVD aisle of major retailers,
rather than the multiplex, where these films truly belong.
This backlash to the
blockbuster franchise epidemic is evidenced by the popularity of films like
Drive and Gravity, which eschew the blockbuster franchise formula for a more
artistic take on the action/thriller genre.
Though these films are hailed as brilliant standalone pieces, there are
others such as Stallone’s Bullet to the Head, or Schwarzenegger’s The Last
Stand, which are brilliant pieces of action cinema with viable, bankable movie
stars, but were not financial windfalls at the box office, as they would have
been in the late 80’s to early 90’s.
The upside to this current trend is films like Drive and
Gravity, which will stand the test of time in regards to brilliant filmmaking. The downside is that solid action films with
tried and true movie stars have fallen by the wayside unless they adhere to the
franchise or ensemble formula. And while
most of these franchise movies are great movies, it seems as though there will
eventually be a backlash to these formulaic, one dimensional characters that
will create a ripple in the film industry that will likely lead to a rise in
independent filmmaking, though not before we have to sit through years of pure
crap at the multiple. Until then, at
least we have Netflix and Wal-Mart to satiate our standalone action needs via DVD.
It is also a sad state of affairs when a movie that has both
Stallone and Schwarzenegger does poorly, and Harry Potter gets a theme park of
its own. Not to take away from the Harry
Potter movies, but when the popularity of a franchise eclipses two of the
biggest stars of the past 30 years, things are definitely askew in Hollywood
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