OUT ON A LIMB: Jerry Seinfeld Believes Hollywood Is Done, Movies Won’t Be As Important.
They say that the best type of joke is one that has some truth to it.
However, there’s nothing funny about Jerry Seinfeld’s latest take in which he declares that ‘Hollywood is Dead,’ and that the filmmakers and the upper echelon, holier-than-thou elites in charge pathetically refuse to acknowledge it.
“They’re so dead serious! They don’t have any idea that the movie business is over. They have no idea,” the 69-year-old Seinfeld told GQ Magazine “Film doesn’t occupy the pinnacle in the social and cultural hierarchy that it did for most of our lives.”
“When a movie came out, if it was good, we all went to see it. We all discussed it,” Seinfeld continued, before adding, “We quoted lines and scenes we liked. Now we’re walking through a fire hose of water, just trying to see.”
The fabled comedian does have a point. I can’t think of any significant pop culture trends that have come from movies in recent years – hell not even lame movie lines like Scary Movie’s “Wassssupppp?!” that teenagers were doing all over America when I was growing up!
That’s not to say that there haven’t been good movies – of course there have been, but Seinfeld says the significant impact of the modern film isn’t nearly what it once was.
“Depression? Malaise? I would say confusion. Disorientation replaced the movie business. Everyone I know in show business, every day, is going, ‘What’s going on? How do you do this? What are we supposed to do now?’”
Not having a unified “What are we supposed to do now plan” coming out of the pandemic, coupled with some pretty awful pre-pandemic product such as the last two of the Daisy Ridley Star Wars sequels, did nothing to restore the American public’s habit of seeing a new movie each weekend, particularly in the summertime.
As Steve noted on Tuesday, the formula for success, while expensive, isn’t especially difficult to write: “Give audiences flawed but admirable heroes they can identify with, and then put them through hell on the way to victory. It seems impossible that Hollywood can’t — or won’t — remember that simple lesson, but here we are.”
Hollywood went woke prior to 2020, and now risks going broke, instead of dialing all of that back with the simple goal of maximizing butts in seats to rebuild the industry by regaining the trust of viewers. Or as Samuel Goldwyn may or may not have actually told his directors, “If you want to send a message, use Western Union.”