Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Who's making a kids movie???

I have a nine-year-old son. So we see a lot of the animated movies that come out. For the most part, they're really good. The occasional stinkard comes out and we pass it up. But once in awhile a kid's movie comes out and it's directed/produced/written by the last person on earth that should be directing a kid's movie. Now I know, if you have power in Hollywood you can do anything you want. But I really do think someone needs to tell these people, "You can't direct this movie! You don't understand kids!" For instance, Speed Racer. Yes, I love the Wachowski team. I was mesmerized by the Matrix and left the theater in awe of them. But Speed Racer? I took my son when he was six years old. It was rated PG so I thought, how bad can it be??? There was nothing resembling the Speed Racer TV show I loved. It was all CGI effects with not much of a story line that was worth following. I'm sure in their mind it was exactly what they had hoped for. But the fact that it was aimed at kids too. Really??? The amount of cursing. The amount of violence. Please, make it a PG 13! My son was bored out of his mind and asked to leave 20 minutes into it. I was more than happy as no way did I want to subject my son to this. And if the story line was good, if the effects at all resembled my favorite childhood cartoon and not some futuristic race car world, then yes, I would have kept him and covered his eyes. Now this year is the holiday movie Rise of the Guardians, directed by Guillermo del Toro. He wrote Pan's Labyrinth which was one of my favorite dark movies of all time! Brilliant from start to finish. But Rise of the Guardians? Taken from the article written on deadline.com "$32.6M domestic box office for the five-day Thanksgiving holiday made it, in Janney Capital Markets’ Tony Wible’s words, “one of the most disappointing releases in the company’s history.”" Okay, my son could have predicted this. And in fact, did. When he saw the previews he said, "We are not going to see that. That does not look good." And when I saw the animation for it, I agreed. I could tell it was not geared toward any children I knew. So what gives? Yes Guillermo also worked on Kung Fu Panda 2 which my son and I loved. But maybe because it was already a strong franchise, he handled that well. But he also did Puss And Boots which again, my son had no desire to see! So what gives Hollywood? Why do you allow people like Guillermo and Wachowski to do children's movies when there are obviously so many other talented folks in Hollywood that will know how to appeal to kids? I'm not sure what the answer is. Other than to have Hollywood stand up to these successful powerhouses and say, "Nope! You don't get to work on this film!" Or if they can't do that, they just invite a room full of your target audience to see the storyboards and see if it even interests them! I guarantee you'll save the studio millions of dollars. If you're not sure who to find, I have a 9-year-old that so far has never been wrong. Luckily my latest holiday script I want to write he's given a thumbs up.

2 comments:

  1. We are in development on www.singletrack-themovie.com. Take a look and let me know if there is interest.

    Art Thomas
    www.mainmanfilms.com
    art@singletrack-themovie.com

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    1. Good luck with your project Art. Keep me updated! Looks like a cool idea!

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