James Gray Says Cinema In ‘Utterly Perilous State’

Following James Gray airing his concerns surrounding modern day cinema in a revealing interview with Deadline, in which the headline statement had Gray stating mainstream cinema is in an “Utterly perilous state”. Are we possibly in a sustained period of non-risk-taking cinema? And has the business of cinema completely taken over?

In yet another year in which the domestic and global box-offices have been dominated by remakes, re-boots, and sequels, and in which the top four grossers have all come from the Galactus of the industry, Disney (soon to be five with the December release of ‘The Rise of Skywalker’, Gray and no doubt many film-makers are worried that major studios will simply stop funding any projects that don’t minimize the risk of losses and guarantee at least some degree of success.

Let’s take a look at 2019’s current top ten grossers, from ‘Avengers: Endgame’ (now the biggest film of all time), down to Universal’s animated sequel ‘The Secret life of Pets 2’. Of the entire top ten, only one is an original feature, Jordan Peele’s excellent, smash-hit horror ‘Us’, with his film taking $175m domestic, and over $300m worldwide. On the face of it, a clear win for original cinema, as a look back through recent years shows that an original hasn’t finished a year in the top ten (providing ‘Us’ doesn’t drop out) since the animated pair of ‘Sing’ and ‘Zootopia’ in 2016.

However, is it fair to compare Peele’s mere $20M production to the $75M budget of ‘Sing’ or the Disney made $100m+ ‘Zootopia’? And in production budgets is where the issue may lye. With not only production budgets, but marketing, advertising, and promotion budgets clearly on a decline for original films, is it really possible that the major studios will feel they are unnecessary and surplus to requirements? Take Gray’s last feature for example, the highly underrated and widely underseen ‘The Lost City of Z’ which, despite extremely positive reviews (and places in some yearly top ten lists) the film amassed a mere $8M domestic run, even with the slight star power of Charlie Hunnam, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, and Sienna Miller. Arguably down to the lack of promotion and lack of the widest possible release, only opening in 614 locations despite having the highest critical scores of the films released that week.

But can this change?

Jordan Peele’s unrivalled success in recent years is no doubt a major win for original movies, whilst Quentin Tarantino’s recent offering, ‘Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood’ proved that audiences are still around for auteur directors with original projects, as his ode to Hollywood became (after ‘Us’) only the second original movie to break $100m domestic in 2019.

And with Gray’s own ‘Ad Astra’, a Sci-Fi epic starring Brad Pitt debuting today in Venice, and with a mid-September release date on the horizon, let’s hope it performs above expectations and increases the ongoing conversations about original Hollywood movies. Though it is ultimately down to the studios to take risks with their money.