Sasha Stone at AwardsDaily.com wrote a piece yesterday headlined “Where the Oscars Go when Television Starts to Lead” and it’s an interesting, if not exactly a narrowly focused piece. It largely stems from the success of HBO’s “True Detective” that ultimately makes a connection with the the rise in tent pole films in Hollywood and what she perceives to be a defection of great storytellers from feature films to cable programming.
Here’s a paragraph I found interesting:
What will become of the Oscars now that television is doing what movies used to do back in the 1970s? Television is where the artistic courage is happening when it comes to American film narrative. With this, the fourth consecutive year that Best Director went to a man born and educated outside America, one has to start to wonder about what kind of a ship we’re building here. Of the nine Best Picture nominees, only three were directed by Americans. Many of the films that were Oscar bound, at the top of that list Joel and Ethan Coen, were supplanted by films that appeal more to voters.
I wish she’d gone deeper into what television is doing now compared to what movies were doing back in the ’70s because I don’t think a blanket “artistic courage” really makes much of a point. I’m also not entirely sure why she chose to focus largely on Americans, but it soon unravels into an argument for a new category at the Oscars recognizing effects driven films and tent poles, writing: “American film is moving away from good, quality storytelling and towards branded tent poles.” As a results she seems to see American filmmakers looking for a more creative outlet…
I thought Hugo was far the more accomplished film than The Artist but you see where this is going, right? The American went daring and challenging while the Frenchman went the traditional route. Tom Hooper, Michel Hazanavicius and now Steve McQueen told traditional dramas that any old American director might be too disinterested to tell.
Her message here is to, from what I can tell, lay all the blame at the doorstep of American studios, suggesting American filmmakers will turn to cable television to tell their stories rather than tell “traditional” stories on the big screen. Okay, but who are we really talking about? Who’s defecting? Martin Scorsese and David Fincher? Guys that have dipped their toes into television with shows such as “Boardwalk Empire” and “House of Cards” but have primarily remained filmmakers? Certainly a congrats goes to Cary Joji Fukunaga for “True Detective”, but he isn’t coming back to direct season two as he heads back to film to make Beasts of No Nation about a child soldier fighting in the civil war of an unnamed African country. Is that traditional or risky?
The fact of the matter is television is not the only place to find quality nowadays, not from Americans or any other region of the world. Mvies still dominate that market and I’m tired of hearing how television is taking all the risks while movies are merely junk, even if we boil it down to just the major studios.
To begin, the two mediums are consumed in drastically different ways, a television episode is consumed at once. “True Detective” is on HBO at 9 PM, we’re tuning in at 9 PM to watch it. Movies are consumed over a period of time, and at random times within that period.
Television viewership gets ratings such as the 3.5 million viewers that tuned in for the “True Detective” finale, but the 2010 “American Idol” finale generated 24 million viewers, which is to say there is quality and crap on both mediums and crap is always going to float to the top. I know what you’re going to say, “But ‘American Idol’ isn’t scripted!” Fine, CBS’ “NCIS” pulled in 19.3 million viewers back on February 4. Did you watch it? Everybody else did… right? Is “NCIS” any less disposable than 300: Rise of an Empire just because it’s targeted at your mother?
Similar comparisons can be made for movies. Let’s just say 2012’s Moonrise Kingdom (a small, quality film a majority of people loved) is to that year’s top grossing domestic release, The Avengers. According to Box Office Mojo, Moonrise sold an estimated 5,777,100 tickets compared to 76,768,200 tickets sold for The Avengers. Nevermind the fact the amount of money grossed by The Avengers had 3D and IMAX price inflation to consider, not to mention the fact people were likely to go see it multiple times compared to Moonrise, but just by these numbers Moonrise pulled in 7.5% of the number of people Avengers did. “True Detective’s” finale could only muster 1.8% of the audience size generated by a random episode of “NCIS”.
HBO has several great shows, but just as much as they have hits, they also have misses, or at least shows that don’t rise to the same fame as “True Detective” or “Game of Thrones”. The new show “Looking” ended its first season with a finale audience of only 425,000 and what’s even more interesting when it comes to these shows is when you add in results from other networks.
For example, AMC, which is just expanded cable, not premium cable such as HBO, saw 10.3 million viewers tune in for the “Breaking Bad” series finale. Now that’s a real success, especially when compared to the 13.5 million that tuned in to see the “Lost” finale, which in movie terms would probably be considered a flop.
ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox, these are the television equivalents to your major studios, they churn out the blockbusters, the junk, the shows like “S.H.I.E.L.D.“, “Revenge“, “The Blacklist“, “Scandal“, ten thousand different cop dramas and countless sitcoms with occasional highlights, such as, speaking for myself, “Hannibal”. Stations like FX and AMC are attempting to rise above that fray, find a middle ground, a la Focus Features and Fox Searchlight, and then HBO and Showtime are beginning to deliver what are essentially shows comparable to independent cinema, with your subscription the equivalent to a ticket fee, and they get just about as many eyeballs if not fewer (by comparison) than the most highly acclaimed, independent features.
Lets take a look at the estimated number of tickets sold for this year’s Best Picture crop:
- Gravity – 32,581,000 Estimated Tickets
- American Hustle – 17,803,200 Estimated Tickets
- The Wolf of Wall Street – 13,877,100 Estimated Tickets
- Captain Phillips – 12,826,400 Estimated Tickets
- 12 Years a Slave – 6,427,900 Estimated Tickets
- Philomena – 4,329,200 Estimated Tickets
- Dallas Buyers Club – 3,155,700 Estimated Tickets
- Her – 3,002,200 Estimated Tickets
- Nebraska – 2,098,300 Estimated Tickets
Numbers via Box Office Mojo
I see some quality cinema in there and the numbers could be manipulated to fit whatever argument you may like, but while some of those numbers are impressive and others not so much, I’d point to a film not on the list, the estimated 1,585,100 million tickets sold to see Inside Llewyn Davis and place just as much of the blame on what American movies are made on the audience as much as the studios. If a new Coen film can only generate 1.5 million ticket sales, something is definitely wrong with American priorities in entertainment consumption. Don’t even get me started on the estimated 127,200 tickets sold to see Short Term 12, but also don’t say television has a growing monopoly on great storytelling when only 3.6% of the people that watched the “True Detective” finale saw Short Term 12.
Just because everyone tunes in at once and bloggers obsess over a television show because they know it will generate traffic doesn’t mean it is any better, or more successful, than a great piece of independent cinema, or even films such as Her, 12 Years a Slave or the other great major studio releases that seem to be ignored just because Fox is making Star Wars: Episode VII.
Was The Counselor not a risk? A failed risk or not, no matter how you look at it, it definitely wasn’t traditional and major studios are likely to take more of these risks than any of your major television networks.
You want to see quality movies? Go see them, studios will likely release just as many quality movies as networks will feature quality television shows. Just because a quality television show may have 8-12 episodes while a movie is only two hours long doesn’t make one any better than the other.
Now if you want to talk about the communal aspect of television shows compared to venturing to the theater for a new feature film release, then you may have something, but that’s why we go to the theater, for the experience, not to live tweet it.
The biggest issue in this instance are the ridiculous comparisons people make, “‘True Detective’ was great! Why can’t studios make movies like that instead of The Avengers 23?” Well, why are you choosing to compare a psychological crime thriller to a superhero movie? How about “‘True Detective’ was great! Though I also love the movie The Hunt! Wish we could get more movies and TV shows like those instead of shows like ‘S.H.I.E.L.D.’ and movies like Thor: The Dark World.” See, now that’s a comparison that makes sense.
