They cast Scarlett first and foremost for her starpower. Big stars are often cast because they have a marketable name, one that can draw in huge audiences. A movie studio wouldn't allow an unknown asian actress to be cast. They need for people without prior knowledge of GITS (most people in the west) to know that this movie is a BIG DEAL: Enter Hollywood superstar Scarlett Johansson.
..not Rinko Kikuchi
This is a sad reality, but it's just the way it is right now.
..not Rinko Kikuchi
This is a sad reality, but it's just the way it is right now.
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Of course they did, but even they can't get everything wrong!
And as long as Hollywood stays Hollywood it always will be.
Why I often find I like films done by independents or smaller studios more then those done by mainstream ones.
But this is an opportunity for the movie. GITS is not the stuff for typical Hollywood blockbuster movies. I well known name helps to get attention for the movie that otherwise won't be noticed by many people. Of course the movie can also be done bad (in the view of people who know GITS) and then it doesn't matter which actress played the mayor.
To some extent stars might pull in the audience, and I guess that has been something pretty true for the past 5+ decades.
But there is a slight trend that has been seeming to grow during the last handfull or two of years... where it seems like the starpower of those actors names might not actually pull in people as much as Hollywood think it does, not anymore anyway. Exactly how big this trend is at the moment is hard to say, obviously, but it does seem like people are getting less and less impressed by who the actors are in the movies.
I think the easiest place to find the evidence of this is in the current superhero film genre (you can see it elsewhere as well with certain other actors who have not been in superhero movies), where many of the actors in them become really well known, almost universaly loved by the audience, etc. So naturally Hollywood will think "Oh man... these actors are getting a huge buzz right now! Put them in THESE movies as well and we will get filthry ritch!"... so they cast these actors in what ever other movies they have... and the audience goes... "...meh..." and do not watch those films. So Hollywood scratch their head a little in confusion as to what happend... those actors come back to their superhero movies, and suddenly the buzz is there again with those actors... so Hollywood thinks... "Well... it did not work that first time, but maybe this time it will! What could possibly go wrong?" and they cast those actors again in their next set of movies which are not superhero movies... and once again those movies barelly make it, if not bombs horribly, and Hollywood once again scratch their head in bewilderment about what is going on.
What Hollywood is having trouble figuring out as a whole, it seems, is that yes star actors can draw people... to a degree... but the absolut biggest draw for people is the movies them selves. Yes, Robert Downey Jr is probably the right guy to play Tony Stark, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine (even if many people where sceptical about him when he was announced back in the day), Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool, etc... they definetly helped the whole super hero movie franchise to find it's footing. But go back and pick almost any other good actor to play those roles instead of RDJ or HJ or RR, and you would probably have felt almost exactly the same about those actors and their portrayal of those characters as we have for the ones who have played those roles today.
It's hard to think that anyone else could play those characters now after we have seen them being played by those actors... but the truth is probably that as long as you cast talent for roles, it does not compleatly matter that much who it is, they just have to be capable of playing the character they are cast for. And in the end the movie it's self is what will, or will not, pull people in to watch it.
Make a good movie, put good actors in it... and you will probably be rewarded for your efforts. Since things will usually sort them selves out in the end. Because in this day and age of social media the word will usually get out quick enough, and if that word is "it sucks"... then you will end up with one of the world largest drop offs between week 1 and 2 in the history of box office... 81% - Batman vs Superman.
I still liked BvS sort of, but mostly because the things that I liked in the movie was really good and managed to outweigh the bad parts of the movie... for me atleast. But that is partly due to that I am a very forgiving person with things, and the range of quality I can find acceptable is much larger then most peoples, especially within the genres and styles of things which I like.
But there is a slight trend that has been seeming to grow during the last handfull or two of years... where it seems like the starpower of those actors names might not actually pull in people as much as Hollywood think it does, not anymore anyway. Exactly how big this trend is at the moment is hard to say, obviously, but it does seem like people are getting less and less impressed by who the actors are in the movies.
I think the easiest place to find the evidence of this is in the current superhero film genre (you can see it elsewhere as well with certain other actors who have not been in superhero movies), where many of the actors in them become really well known, almost universaly loved by the audience, etc. So naturally Hollywood will think "Oh man... these actors are getting a huge buzz right now! Put them in THESE movies as well and we will get filthry ritch!"... so they cast these actors in what ever other movies they have... and the audience goes... "...meh..." and do not watch those films. So Hollywood scratch their head a little in confusion as to what happend... those actors come back to their superhero movies, and suddenly the buzz is there again with those actors... so Hollywood thinks... "Well... it did not work that first time, but maybe this time it will! What could possibly go wrong?" and they cast those actors again in their next set of movies which are not superhero movies... and once again those movies barelly make it, if not bombs horribly, and Hollywood once again scratch their head in bewilderment about what is going on.
What Hollywood is having trouble figuring out as a whole, it seems, is that yes star actors can draw people... to a degree... but the absolut biggest draw for people is the movies them selves. Yes, Robert Downey Jr is probably the right guy to play Tony Stark, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine (even if many people where sceptical about him when he was announced back in the day), Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool, etc... they definetly helped the whole super hero movie franchise to find it's footing. But go back and pick almost any other good actor to play those roles instead of RDJ or HJ or RR, and you would probably have felt almost exactly the same about those actors and their portrayal of those characters as we have for the ones who have played those roles today.
It's hard to think that anyone else could play those characters now after we have seen them being played by those actors... but the truth is probably that as long as you cast talent for roles, it does not compleatly matter that much who it is, they just have to be capable of playing the character they are cast for. And in the end the movie it's self is what will, or will not, pull people in to watch it.
Make a good movie, put good actors in it... and you will probably be rewarded for your efforts. Since things will usually sort them selves out in the end. Because in this day and age of social media the word will usually get out quick enough, and if that word is "it sucks"... then you will end up with one of the world largest drop offs between week 1 and 2 in the history of box office... 81% - Batman vs Superman.
I still liked BvS sort of, but mostly because the things that I liked in the movie was really good and managed to outweigh the bad parts of the movie... for me atleast. But that is partly due to that I am a very forgiving person with things, and the range of quality I can find acceptable is much larger then most peoples, especially within the genres and styles of things which I like.
*chuckles*
Naaah... I don't really.
The way I look at Hollywood when it comes to things like this is that it is one huge freakin boat, an oil tanker, or massive cargoship or something... anyway, it is something huge and lumbering which takes a long time to turn and shift with the tide and current of the oceans it sails on. So when things start to shift in the current it will take Hollywood years, if not decades in some cases, befor they have managed to steer them selfs in the right direction again. Befor it is time to start turning again on to follow another current.
Either that, or someone forgot to man the wheel... XD
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Time for some positive news:
Karl Urban Says Conversations About A DREDD Series Are Happening
About a week or so ago, Karl Urban tweeted that he’d definitely be down to do a Dredd series for Amazon or Netflix. The response has been massive, which should tell you just how much of a following the cult film has built since its initial release back in 2012.
Well, apparently, at the Calgary Expo this past weekend, Karl Urban said that “conversations are happening” regarding a potential series for the character:
Christopher Edwards
On @netflix or @amazon Dredd series @KarlUrban says "conversations are happening"
The petition for a Dredd series has already gotten to about 200,000 signatures and the Facebook page for the campaign sits at 103,000 likes. I’ve also noticed that when any major page or website posts about the idea of more Dredd, the response is overwhelmingly positive.
I realize the film flopped in its initial theatrical release but that can almost certainly be blamed on the marketing and the stigma of the Stallone Judge Dredd film. With the buzz growing, companies definitely have to be at least looking at the prospect of a series.
Dredd series? That sounds promising. Though I don't like any of the current major distributors. All of them are sick with DRM. Whether it's HBO, Netflix or Amazon.
Yesssssssssssssssssssssss! Dredd is my favorite movie of all time! I've been checking the Wikipedia page for news, every week, for the last four years. I was so disheartened that they didn't make a sequel. I hope the show is exactly like the movie.
Thank you, good man. You have brought a giant smile to my face.
I adore you. Managed to keep it on-topic and STILL slide a DRM reference in! Gilrond, you could give classes.
Oh yeah. Have you followed the comic much? It's a strip format, mostly, been running for years. Dredd is just the primary facet, but the world and stories are by the hundred. No exaggeration.
Given the budget of the movie, this seems quite possible. Dredd is one of my favourite movies as well - check out Adi Shankar's youtube page for more of his stuff, including a pretty cool Dredd animated feature.
I hope everyone signed the petition.
Dude, of course. The only thing stopping me from signing it a million more times as "different" people is time.
It's not a matter of lack of material, it's more would TV do that material justice. I suspect we'd get yet another TV series so watered down it bears little resemblance to the source material.
Actually... I think most comicbooks would actually work better as a tv-series rather than films. Because most of the comicbooks are serialized, which followes a story through out a large numbers of issues.
It just gives a much larger opertunity to really flesh out the characters, give you time to invest in them and the story, give you time to see these characters grow and/or crumble down as characters, gices you time to invest in the show and characters, etc.
With films you have to make all that happend within the span of maybe 2 hours. And trying to cram 50 hours worth of story down into 2 hours is not easy... you lose a lot of the finer details I feel. I mean heck, even many tv-series which are based on pre-existing material can have a hard time not cutting out certain aspects of the material they worked with due to the limitation of time given to the tv-show. Granted, the upside of movies is that it is that much shorter, and you might lose a lot of the unneccesary filler stuff that you might get in tv-series... and the downside to tv-series is usually the budget that they have to work with is massicly smaller then with movies, which means they might not be able to pull off certain things that movies can (especially the large special effects, be they real or cgi stuff)... but to me the sheer quantity when it comes to tv-series usually outweighs all that stuff. Funny thing is that sometimes the reason I decide to watch an episode of a tv-series, rather than watching a movie, is because the movie is "to long" compared to an episode of a tv-series... XD With the movie you would be "stuck" there having to spend anywhere from 1.5 to 3 hours befor it's done, where as with tv-series your only "stuck" for somewhere around 20-50 minuts.
Don't get me wrong, I love that we are getting all of these superhero/comicbook movies etc, because I feel that right now I am living in an age where I am actually getting the kinds of movies and tv-series I dreamed about getting to watch some 25 years ago as I got into reading Marvel comics. So I would not trade that for anything really... but if I got to choice in which video format all of these things where being shown in... movies or tv-series... I would choice tv-series 95% of the time (there are after all some stories which are short enough to work in a movie format I feel, or a series of movies).
But I have always prefered TV-series over movies. A huge reason as to why I for most of my life mostly prefered Star Trek over Star Wars was not because of what kind of show and what kind of sci-fi each is (in that sence I like both just about equally), no it was compleatly because Star Wars gave you just over 6 hours of material (then later something like 13 hours) where as with Star Trek you had hundreds of hours. Star Wars have been working on uping those numbers though, with all of the animated SW tv-series, so in that sence Star Wars has managed to catch up... but I hear Star Trek might get another tv-series, so maybe Star Trek might be on top once again in a few years.
Part of this comes from the fact that I am not really the kind of person who constantly keeps rewatching something I liked. It usually takes me years, and in some occations decades, befor I might actually rewatch something I liked again (sometimes never again even). More often then not I would prefer watching something new, then watching something I have seen befor... even if that "new" thing is actually very simmilar to something I have seen and liked befor. I am in many ways the same when it comes to games as well.
It just gives a much larger opertunity to really flesh out the characters, give you time to invest in them and the story, give you time to see these characters grow and/or crumble down as characters, gices you time to invest in the show and characters, etc.
With films you have to make all that happend within the span of maybe 2 hours. And trying to cram 50 hours worth of story down into 2 hours is not easy... you lose a lot of the finer details I feel. I mean heck, even many tv-series which are based on pre-existing material can have a hard time not cutting out certain aspects of the material they worked with due to the limitation of time given to the tv-show. Granted, the upside of movies is that it is that much shorter, and you might lose a lot of the unneccesary filler stuff that you might get in tv-series... and the downside to tv-series is usually the budget that they have to work with is massicly smaller then with movies, which means they might not be able to pull off certain things that movies can (especially the large special effects, be they real or cgi stuff)... but to me the sheer quantity when it comes to tv-series usually outweighs all that stuff. Funny thing is that sometimes the reason I decide to watch an episode of a tv-series, rather than watching a movie, is because the movie is "to long" compared to an episode of a tv-series... XD With the movie you would be "stuck" there having to spend anywhere from 1.5 to 3 hours befor it's done, where as with tv-series your only "stuck" for somewhere around 20-50 minuts.
Don't get me wrong, I love that we are getting all of these superhero/comicbook movies etc, because I feel that right now I am living in an age where I am actually getting the kinds of movies and tv-series I dreamed about getting to watch some 25 years ago as I got into reading Marvel comics. So I would not trade that for anything really... but if I got to choice in which video format all of these things where being shown in... movies or tv-series... I would choice tv-series 95% of the time (there are after all some stories which are short enough to work in a movie format I feel, or a series of movies).
But I have always prefered TV-series over movies. A huge reason as to why I for most of my life mostly prefered Star Trek over Star Wars was not because of what kind of show and what kind of sci-fi each is (in that sence I like both just about equally), no it was compleatly because Star Wars gave you just over 6 hours of material (then later something like 13 hours) where as with Star Trek you had hundreds of hours. Star Wars have been working on uping those numbers though, with all of the animated SW tv-series, so in that sence Star Wars has managed to catch up... but I hear Star Trek might get another tv-series, so maybe Star Trek might be on top once again in a few years.
Part of this comes from the fact that I am not really the kind of person who constantly keeps rewatching something I liked. It usually takes me years, and in some occations decades, befor I might actually rewatch something I liked again (sometimes never again even). More often then not I would prefer watching something new, then watching something I have seen befor... even if that "new" thing is actually very simmilar to something I have seen and liked befor. I am in many ways the same when it comes to games as well.
