ISTM that the “Red Storm Rising” genre is very heavily represented in fiction literature - that is, near-future, fictional, large-scale conventional conflict between real-life nations - but pretty much nowhere to be found in movie cinema.
My guess is that film studios and directors are much more afraid of the backlash that would ensue from depicting a real-life adversary (not just weak non-state actors such as Taliban or ISIS, but rather, a real, big, country with influence, such as Russia vs. NATO.) I imagine that there would be tremendous interest among viewing audiences in seeing such a movie, so it can’t be lack of commercial draw - there would be plenty of $$$ at the box office - it would be more of the backlash issue. Whereas a fiction writer, who needs little to no budget to write a novel, has far less inhibition.
It’s not about being averse to portraying war, either - we have plenty of movies about World War II, Vietnam, etc. But no Hollywood studio seems willing or interested in making movies about potential near-future wars between Russia and NATO, or China and its neighbors, or Israel vs. Iran, etc.
Any other reason why we don’t regularly see Hollywood blockbusters of this sort?
The US military is presently so much more powerful than any other, it would be difficult to portray America as the plucky underdog in real life, or in any danger at all.
It works in those Cussler/Clancy type books because they appeal to the self-pitying war nerd who was paranoid about being betrayed from within > Obama giving the keys to whomever was enemy de jour — the UN being a plot by the Ford Foundation to take over America — UHC meant to weaken the American system so that Mexican-Chinese march into the homeland; but the average American film-going teenager is rather more sophisticated and canny than they.
There is also the fact that in order to succeed these days a film not only has to make money in the US but internationally as well. Including in the country likely to be cast as the heavy in your hypothetical film.
Well, there was “Red Dawn.” Two of them, technically.
I imagine there might be a potential problem with audience engagement if you’re doing a movie—unless you cram an entire, major conventional war into one epic movie, you’re going to be presenting just a chunk of one, a few battles, with the audience deprived of the historical context, stakes, motivations, or even the knowledge of who would win, compared to a story about a real life war.
Then again, maybe this is just a genre that’s untapped, with a lot of growth potential. I mean, forty years ago—or even twenty years ago—you might not have thought that superhero movies would be as big a phenomenon as they are now. Maybe someone should email Harold Coyle and see about starting a Kickstarter…
It’s also heavily represented in video games, with the US fighting the Soviets, non-Commie Russians, Red Chinese, the European Union, or even giant mercenary armies.
It’s probably the reason why we will never see a Call of Duty movie ever (at least any that’s remotely accurate to the games plots) since pretty much every one of those (outside the WW2 ones) revolves around a giant war between super powers.
Movies may LOOK more epic, but a war is just so epic in scope that it’s hard for a movie to work with it. Movies about war tend to involve a few characters and a single major event. A book can go that route, or like Red Storm Rising, it can attempt to look at an entire conflict and many, many characters and locations. Movies can’t do that. Perhaps a Game of Thrones style HBO series lasting several seasons could do it, but the budget needed would be prohibitive. It would probably have to be a lot more popular than Game of Thrones, which is unlikely to happen.
And even books tend to chicken out on future wars by making them very short. Very few books or book series have been willing to take a guess at what a long WWIII would look like. Ian Slater tried it in the 80s/early 90s, but gave up on it pretty quickly to make the books basically about one awesome general. Plus he just wasn’t in the Clancy/Bond/Cussler class so he couldn’t really pull it off.
Movies like Red Dawn used a Soviet-US war more as a background than anything else. The movie wasn’t about huge tank battles or even modern warfare, it was just a band of kids trying to be guerillas.
I don’t think the countries likely to be portrayed as heavies by Hollywood figure very largely in Hollywood’s audience/box office. The Russian or Iranian audience for this sort of movie wouldn’t dent the box office much, and the Russian one in particular might be offset by high interest in all NATO-European nations. China might - but then again China has already banned a lot of movies for a lot less provocation anyway.
And in post-production on the second one Chinese soldiers were changed to North Koreans — uniforms digitally altered, etc. — for exactly the reason E-DUB mentioned.
See above. American movies play in China and in Russia.
Australia had “Tomorrow when the War Began” which was based on books. It was largely just Red Dawn in Australia. The book kept the invading nation intentionally vague (if you added up all the scant details about the invaders they were supposed to not add up to any real world nation) but the movies went with an Asian invader IIRC only implied to be North Korea.
I loved the book but I don’t think it would make a good movie. I’ve read the book at least 50 times. But, much of the book is focused on the fighting in Iceland, not exactly blockbuster material. Even the maskirova is pretty much inside baseball stuff. It’s a great book for foreign affairs wonks like myself, regardless of which party you vote for. In fact, I watched Alexander Nevsky because of the book and quite enjoyed it.
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Ah? :dubious: That’s perhaps less than 10% of it. The rest is about missile attacks on NATO convoys, the movements of Warsaw Pact armored forces, NATO using stealth fighters, air-to-air dogfighting, the use of ASAT missiles to hit satellites, etc.
Realistically, any conventional invasion of Australia would pretty much have to come from somewhere in Asia. In the Second World War, the Japanese did come disturbingly close to Australia and discussed invading the continent, but the operation was quickly rejected as impractical.