As the cast of big-budget films like Jurassic World: Dominion grows, screenwriters seem to be having a hard time finding material that works for all the stars. Let’s consider some modern phenomena.
Inflation is an economic phenomenon that means a flat white that once cost £3 now costs more than £5. But a different kind of inflation also seems to be occurring in expensive mainstream movies. The mainstream cast is getting bigger. As a result, filmmakers seem to be trying harder and harder to think of what to make all these characters do.
If none of the above makes sense, see the following example. Over the weekend, your humble writer received the following information. Jurassic World: Dominion (If you were busy when it was released in theaters, it’s currently showing on Netflix). Stars from the previous two films appear in it. Jurassic World The Generic Leading Man trilogy, directed by Bryce Dallas Howard’s Claire Dearing and Chris Pratt, follows a surrogate mother’s daughter Maisie (Isabella Salmon) when she is kidnapped by the shadowy Biosyn Genetics. , embark on a new adventure.
You might think that alone is a solid foundation for a fun summer action thriller. Especially when you throw in a bunch of dinosaurs and a villain who somehow looks like an Apple CEO. Unfortunately, director Colin Trevorrow and his collaborators had a disagreement and decided to keep the main cast from the original. Jurassic Park Maximize your nostalgia.
As a result, Jurassic World: Dominion spends its time reintroducing Sam Neill’s Alan Grant and Laura Dern’s Ellie Sattler, setting up a romantic subplot for them, and then , they should add a scene or two in which smoldering mathematician Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) explains why things are happening now. Resident speaker at Biosyn’s top security headquarters in the Dolomites.
Ensemble casts are nothing new, but they feel particularly 21st century. Jurassic World: Dominion I try to give all characters more or less the same weight. Each must be given their own set piece or moment to shine, and each must be given something incredibly useful to do in the final reel.
Jurassic World: Dominion I’m not alone in this regard. Our own Simon Brew rightly pointed out that there are so many characters in this year’s production. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire In one of those posts,the avengers At the end, we get some stylized shots of heroes old and new, but a bad cinematographer has a hard time keeping them in the frame.
A similar sense of bloat extends to Ghostbusters’ fascinating and awkward basement scene. The entire cast, including Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, and Annie Potts, are tasked with leading the film. very important lever at the same time.
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when this started, partly because my memory is terrible. But what immediately comes to mind is what happened in 2008. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, As much as the title is long, the cast is unnecessarily stuffed.
Not content with just bringing Harrison Ford back as Indy and Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood (a move that sounded very exciting at the time), crystal skull Jones’ estranged son Matt, played by Shia LaBeouf, was also introduced. fair enough. You can work with it. But screenwriter David Koepp added John Hurt as a forgetful sidekick and Ray Winstone as Indy’s old friend who changes allegiances so many times that we end up wondering if we’re meant to like him or not. I gave up trying to understand.
like Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, Crystal Skull I was also trying to cram everyone into one hero shot, but compared to the new one. Ghost Bustershaving five main characters sounds actively restrained in retrospect.
what happened? What is behind the characterflation phenomenon?
Perhaps the answer is that the franchises we’ve discussed so far are very old.flat Jurassic Park, The most recent of the ones mentioned so far started in 1993. As a result, there is a growing desire to combine old and new to appeal to the widest possible audience. And, as we have seen, Spider-Man: No Way Home, This approach has the potential to sell a large number of movie tickets. You probably remember that this movie resurrected his three incarnations of Spider-Man (Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, and the incumbent Tom Holland) and made almost $2 billion in the process. .
But the problem with this crowd-pleasing approach to filmmaking is that it’s typically an idea that comes out in a meeting with executives rather than in a writer’s head. Jurassic World: Dominion, In particular, the traces of decisions made by the producers are felt. Jurassic Park and Jurassic World, “Together at Last” — the screenwriters had to dutifully incorporate that into the script, but the logic and pacing was outrageous.
This overstuffed, IP-first approach sometimes means solid story ideas get lost in the noise. A very touching teenage love story that may once have formed the core of the story. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, reduced to subplots. Jurassic World: Dominion, This might have been fine if it was just a “rescue the kids from the corporate bad guys” adventure, but instead you need enough characters and dozens of locations to fill a phone book. was.
Decades ago, movies paid homage to their lineage with bizarre cameos.Martin Scorsese’s cape fear For example, the 1991 remake starred Gregory Peck, Martin Balsam, and Robert Mitchum in playful bit parts from the 1962 original.
if cape fear If produced in 2024, it would be three hours long and have a budget of $250 million. It would end up giving Robert De Niro, Nick Nolte, and Juliette Lewis the same pay as a new generation of actors (Chris Evans, Zendaya, whoever) and cramming them all into one shot. A very important lever.
—
Thank you for visiting! If you would like to support our efforts to create a clickbait-free movie website:
Follow Movie Stories on Twitter hereclick here on Facebook.
Film Stories and Film Junior print magazines can be purchased here.
Become a patron here.