# Have writers run out of movie ideas, or is scriptwriting just getting plain ol' bad? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 12, 2005, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-writers-run-out-of-movie-ideas-or-is-scriptwriting-just-getting-plain-ol-bad/312224 "2005-07-12T19:21:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2005, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-writers-run-out-of-movie-ideas-or-is-scriptwriting-just-getting-plain-ol-bad/312224/21 "2005-07-13T17:40:27Z")
> [@](#): > > I’m not talking about the quantity of bad movies (which is constant), but even the successful ones these days leave plot holes that no one in previous times would have been allowed. That I’ll give you. I also think the quality of editing has plummeted like a stone. I’m not sure why, but take a look at the running times of movies these days. Some, like _Batman Begins_, justify it. Most do not. In fact, they’re becoming annoyingly padded, to the point where I want to stand up and ask the director to please hurry up. Most directors seem to have forgotten how to make a short movie. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2005, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-writers-run-out-of-movie-ideas-or-is-scriptwriting-just-getting-plain-ol-bad/312224/22 "2005-07-13T18:02:11Z")
> [@Agent Foxtrot](#): > > I guess my point is, am I alone in thinking that 99% of movies in the past 10 years have just plain sucked? > [@JohnBckWLD](#): > > Though the ratio of ‘sucked/didn’t suck’ will vary depending on the individual > [@Shirley Ujest](#): > > And I have to agree about Nicole Kidman and she sucks. Film criticism has also gone downhill in the last ten years. ---
**Author:** ![vibrotronica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a9a28c/32.png) [@vibrotronica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vibrotronica)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2005, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-writers-run-out-of-movie-ideas-or-is-scriptwriting-just-getting-plain-ol-bad/312224/23 "2005-07-13T18:26:50Z")
**Reality Chuck** , your _Mr. and Mrs. Smith_ example is not an example of bad screenwriting, but rather of a bad directorial choice in the editing phase. The system is profoundly broken. The talent–the writers, the directors, the editors, the actors–is there, just as it always has been. The Hollywood system of making movies is broken. The movies cost so much to make that it is a huge gamble for the investors, so the investors are extremely conservative with what they’ll back. And then, once they back it, they want to do everything they can to make sure people go see it, so they get out the focus groups and second guess everything the creative team wants to do. Hollywood movies are made by bean counters, not artists. ---
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2005, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-writers-run-out-of-movie-ideas-or-is-scriptwriting-just-getting-plain-ol-bad/312224/24 "2005-07-14T02:01:54Z")
I’ve discussed this before with a couple of friends who love movies and we all pretty much agree that it’s the studio and/or the producers who #^¢\* up a movie. Take a few examples from recent movies. **Daredevil** had potential. The beginning had a powerful scene about the sacrifices a “human” superhero would have to make in his life. Mid-way through the movie, it’s obvious that someone or several people with a completely different mindset had started to screw with the script. There are scenes of good stuff interspersed with studio dreck. I really liked the Daredevil comics for some of the same reasons I liked Spiderman. Both are kind of normal guys with problems that mess up their lives. They’ve got relationship problems, their personal life interferes with their work and hero careers, and balancing it all is a royal pain in the ass. Several people involved with **Daredevil** forgot about what makes characters appealing, and ignored the success of the earlier **Spiderman** movie. It wasn’t just the cool swinging scenes that made people want to see it, it was the everyman appeal of Peter Parker and his Mary Jane hangup too. The comics had all the elements in place, all they had to do was follow the basic story and not screw it up. Did they do it? No, they had to interfere with it and add in “market appeal.” **Se7en** was a movie that almost went the buddy-cop route, as David Fincher, Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt relate in the audio commentary. Pitt signed on the strength of the original script and used the script to convince Freeman to join the project. The studio execs got involved and added the usual crap: a “turn in your gun and your badge” scene, a car chase, a couple of “I’m getting too old for this shit” lines. Star power was what got the movie made the way it was. If it hadn’t been for both Freeman and Pitt kicking up a major fuss, **Se7en** would have been turned into just another cop movie. Instead, it’s #44 on IMDB, and took in over $100 million in the US alone with a budget of $30 million. That’s impressive for such a disturbing film. In contrast, the summer “blockbuster” **Armageddon** had a total box office gross of just over $200 million with an outlay of $140 million. It made about the same amount of profit at the box office and sucks so badly that no one will remember it in another decade or so, while I think that **Se7en** will be considered a classic of the 90s in future years. If studio execs look at the bottom line so much, why don’t they see that they’re just screwing themselves a lot of the time? ---
**Author:** ![Danalan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/76d3ee/32.png) [@Danalan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Danalan)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2005, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-writers-run-out-of-movie-ideas-or-is-scriptwriting-just-getting-plain-ol-bad/312224/25 "2005-07-14T02:09:19Z")
> [@](#): > > Have writers run out of movie ideas, or is scriptwriting just getting plain ol’ bad? I’m not sure these two concepts are mutually exclusive. So, to answer the OP, YES! ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2005, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-writers-run-out-of-movie-ideas-or-is-scriptwriting-just-getting-plain-ol-bad/312224/26 "2005-07-14T02:18:27Z")
> [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! > Stranger It’s been done… as a matter of fact, “The Waltons” was inspired by the Henry Fonda/Maureen O’Hara movie [Spencer’s Mountain](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057523/). ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-writers-run-out-of-movie-ideas-or-is-scriptwriting-just-getting-plain-ol-bad/312224/27 "2005-07-18T20:04:03Z")
I had to revive this thread, in light of something horrible I’ve just come across: Somebody went and remade **Zardoz** The mind boggles: > **[Mask Under Mask (2002) - IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0282725/)** > > Mask Under Mask: Directed by Markus Goller. With Anatole Taubman, Rita Lengyel, Götz Otto, Axel Neumann. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-writers-run-out-of-movie-ideas-or-is-scriptwriting-just-getting-plain-ol-bad/312224/28 "2005-07-18T20:21:14Z")
> [@](#): > > Daredevil had potential. I agree. The early scenes when Matt Murdock was meeting “Electra” were actually pretty fun. It really felt like they were possibly interested. It worked pretty well. The actions scenes were pretty dull, though. And Colin Farrel was perfectly, deliciously over-the-top with his Bullseye character. Silly, maybe, but charismaticly bad-arse at the same time. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-writers-run-out-of-movie-ideas-or-is-scriptwriting-just-getting-plain-ol-bad/312224.md?page=1)