FUN FRIDAY: How bad movies get made

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Friends, if you’re looking for the real answer to that question, I’m afraid you’ll need to keep looking. But, if you’re looking for a thoughtful essay on the idea of bad movies, keep reading. I’m here for you, and I hope you’re ready to take the ride with me.

Have you returned to the movie theater this year? The age of “day-and-date” streaming releases is over, and it looks like if you want to see a summer blockbuster while it’s still summer, you’re going to head over to the movie theater. That’s not a terribly bad thing. You’ll pay more, but even I admit there’s something to seeing a movie in a darkened room with a really big screen.

This is the year that summer movies need to prove themselves again. So far we’ve seen one success — Top Gun: Maverick seems to have hit the sweet spot even better than its 1986 predecessor. We’ve also seen one of the more disappointing turkeys of the year in Jurassic World: Dominion. Critically panned even before it hit theaters, the overall feeling is that this latest entry in the series squanders both the goodwill of the 1993 original and the surprisingly resurgent Jurassic World. It may make back most or all of its big budget, but it certainly won’t be a runaway hit. So how does this happen?

How does someone not know how bad something is?

When it comes to movies, there are a lot of ways that bad ones get made. In some cases, it’s a paycheck. The filmmakers and cast get paid, and they don’t care what kind of trash they’re making. In other cases, it’s part of a package. Want a Chris for your new movie? You might have to agree to let them make their vanity project regardless of whether or not it seems like a bad idea.

And then there are the cases where producers just don’t see it for themselves. It’s called “the Pygmalion effect,” where you as a creator fall in love with your own creation. I don’t judge, because I’ve done it myself. I think the most likely issue with Jurassic Park: Dominion is that they really thought they were making a good movie. After all, it should have been a good movie, combining the classic cast with the new cast as well an established director and top-notch CGI. But somewhere along the way, the whole just wasn’t better than the sum of the parts. And everyone was just too close to the project to know better.

The most likely reason bad movies get made

The truth is, a bad movie doesn’t mean a movie that loses money. The critics may moan, and even the average person may roll their eyes, but there are plenty of movies that make tons of money anyway. Sometimes a movie comes around at the right time and captures a certain something. Sometimes people are just looking for a thrill ride. And, sometimes, the critics get it wrong. I think back to Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. By any conventional measure, this is a dumb movie. It should have been forgotten by now. But there’s something infectiously fun about it, and it’s become a classic. On the other hand, there was a movie in the late 1990s called Dancing at Lughnasa. Never heard of it? I don’t blame you. It was a critical darling and even starred the amazing Meryl Streep. But it barely made $3 million at the box office.

The point is we’ve seen over and over that critic’s reviews don’t translate to dollar signs at all. Regular folks prefer known commodities and that’s why you see so many sequels. People’s own fear of missing out mean that, just like me they’ll see every Marvel movie even though they’re over the whole thing.

And also because, let’s be honest…

I know one thing for sure. I know that I couldn’t make a good movie if my life depended on it. Let’s be honest, I wouldn’t even know how to start. There’s a real talent to making any movie, even the bad ones. It’s hard work. Making movies takes vision. It takes talent. It takes connections. And it takes a lot of money. I’m not sure I have enough of any of those things. The big studios and big producers who do… well they get it wrong sometimes. Plain and simple. I mean, even the most expensive athletes sometimes drop the ball, and the same is true of film.

There’s really only one way to make sure you’re not ensnared by bad movies… don’t pay to see them. It’s just that simple.

About the Author

Stuart Sweet
Stuart Sweet is the editor-in-chief of The Solid Signal Blog and a "master plumber" at Signal Group, LLC. He is the author of over 10,000 articles and longform tutorials including many posted here. Reach him by clicking on "Contact the Editor" at the bottom of this page.