“No primeiro dia, Kotler disse: faça-se o Marketing. E o Marketing se fez. E Ele viu que era bom. No segundo dia Kotler ordenou : Que haja terras, mares, mercado e concorrência. No terceiro dia Ele terceirizou tudo. No Quarto dia ele foi Top de Marketing segundo a publicação Marketing Sagrado.”
I knew that day would come, the day when a test audience would abort a movie. Spike Jonze is near to rewrite, reshoot, recast, restart an entire 70m-budget movie because the screening said that Where the Wild Things Are will not be another Harry Potter.
Kubrick hated screenings but acknowledged that they are necessary, that you only understand the real impact with a audience. But what's happening to Jonze is unreal, to remake a movie he just shot?! Screenings should be used to map distribution, to create communication strategy, to define a public for the film, and not... to define a movie for the public.
Under contract, Clint Eastwood doesn’t allow test screenings for his movies. And I don't think that's because he disagrees Kubrick, but because he must know the hysterical bubbles of speculation that arise and burst from these screenings.
The critical review from a screening is something like: the movie is slow (47%), confusing (35%) and depressing (18%), fix it. And there is more stupidity yet, a marketing paradox in the screenings: the generic test audience doesn't know what they are going to get. Is something like 'close your eyes and open your mouth' to test a cheesy puff when the girl thought in a bubblegum. She will hate it, it can be Prima Donna, she'll spit it. Is not by chance that only bubblegums survive the screenings (80/20 Law).
But aside this paradox, a test screening tries to give the generic audience what they want. And this leaves everyone that isn't 'generic audience' outside of the game. "Oh, my balls" is the future of the mainstream cinema if this lack of freedom continues. Cinema will not be special for anyone, it will be just... generic.
Jonze probably will not use Jim Henson puppets into his movie anymore. It will be a friendly CG like a cartoon to taste more like a bubblegum. Kids in this ridiculous endless protection to not be scared, depressed, with doubts or pain will be defenseless in a hostile environment (aka school), it's when their fathers decide to say 'he's not a kid anymore'. Jonze is the right guy to give us a movie about losing the innocence, because only nixon can go to china. No other director is more cynical than him to do this.
Here's an old test Jonze made with a Jim Henson puppet for the movie ∇
The Oscars should be aspiring, oh well, it depresses me; each year its resemblance of a funeral grows. Is Hollywood dying? Movie business is not bigger than life anymore? Is just a business like any other now? The Ceremony looks like a motivation award for the best salesman.
The american cinema is shrinking in me; it’s the size of a bean and it once was time the size of the moon. They projected some scenes from past ceremonies that made me miss the time that I cared. Is easy to tell why’s different; I watched most of their movies and none hooked me. The same last year, and the year before that. Since American Beauty I stopped caring. American Beauty and Matrix were the last whisper before the long way down.
There is no risk today, no new real talent, no breakthrough. Everything we have now in the Oscar we already had before 9/11; from Pixar, Cohens, George Clooney to PT Anderson, there is nothing new. Nothing refreshing. Nothing. Today I regret that I cursed Titanic and Gladiator.
The lack of passion disturbs. It should be ‘Surprise me, astonish me’, but in the first frame the hope of it vanishes. My bored soul makes me watch The Office instead. Or Arrested Development… the TV series have so more heart than movies these days, but still, they can’t fulfill the hole left by Hollywood.
I want to blame the marketing. Movie MKT kills its art. Because all that 4 Ps, 7 Ps, new 4 Ps in MKT theory use an underlying principle: mapping consumer behavior. And survey after survey they seek what we want to have at what price. AVP anyone? The Survey said yes.
Art became one byproduct of MKT. Spielberg knows it, and he’s the last samurai, the only one who can fight a mass marketeer. And more the MKT becomes the universal reason to make movies, more frustrated will be the viewers. Because all you need is a big opening day, it can be garbage, all you need is a brainfuck trailer. And that’s why the telly has more heart than Hollywood, TV must deliver its promise, they need to hook us episode after episode. Studio heads don’t care if a movie fulfills any promise, the ticket is already bought. They are poisoned by this short-term thinking.
