Bad Movies to Blame for Box Office Slump

macklin01 writes "The LA Times is reporting that box office executives are finally fessing up and taking the blame. Poor box office receipts over the summer weren't caused by surging fuel costs, changes in audience preferences, or anything else. As Slashdot readers might have put it (and as it comes out in the article), 'It's the movies, stupid.'"

sure buddy

[bariswheel]

no it wasn't! It was those damn hurricanes, how much clearer can it get?? silly...

Next on Slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

...Fire is hot!

Shocking

[TimTheFoolMan]

It's not because of Steve Job's $.99 price model?

Tim

It's not too late!!!

[Frac]

At least they're no longer in denial, and they're now willing to produce movies their customers will want to see.

Hopefully that means "Naked and Petrified" starring Natalie Portman will finally hit the big screen in 2006.

One can only dream...

Serenity

[bryan1945]

At least Serenity came out yesterday. The wife and I are seeing it on Sunday! Stupid goram MPAA.

Next up on Slashdot:

[TooMuchEspressoGuy]

"Crappy Music - Not Teenage Kids Using Kazaa - To Blame For Decline in Sales of Music."

"Overabundance of Commercials and Tons of Bad Reality Shows - Not TiVo - To Blame For Decline in Television Audience."

Slashdot - News for Nerds, Stuff you Already Knew.

Record companies

[programmerar]

If only the record companies could come to such an enlightened conclusion...

How about more inspiration and less specualtion? More perspiration and less litigation... what else rhymes with this...?

Re:DUPE

[WIAKywbfatw]

Duh, that was The New York Times coverage, this is The LA Times coverage. Everyone knows that PST is behind EST, don't they? The first story was for people on the US's Atlantic seaboard, this one is for people on the US's Pacific seaboard, nothing more, nothing less.

Of course, people inbetween the US's east and west coasts mainly voted for Bush, so their version, linking to Fox News, will follow later with a suitable spin ("It's the fault of those damn terrorists!"). Meanwhile, people outside the US will get their own frontpage story too, citing news sources such as the BBC, that will point out that it's the American film industry that's in decline, not the global one...

I know the answer!

[grumpygrodyguy]

It's all George Lucas' fault, Seriously! That guy redefined movie-making in the 70s and 80s, and then single-handedly destroyed it in the 90s and 00s!

Episode I) Fool us once, shame on you.

Episode II) Fool us twice, shame on us...

Episode III) Fool us three times, screw this shit.

Simple answer, really.

[lheal]

It's all George Bush's fault.

He doesn't care about movies.

I know he's too busy with his bicycling career and all to go to movies. I just want to know that he cares.

No, NO.

[game kid]

The problem was all those altruistic producers, with their Lord of the GNU/Rings, KAlien and OpenMatrix trilogies!

Moviegoers should support our plotless, $2.00-worth--I mean, Oscar® worthy movies! All the people that we entice and underpay^W^W^W^Wwork on our movies deserve nothing less.

--Dr. Random RIAA Spokes-Person

P.S. Encourage your local movie studio to use CSS (and I don't mean standard Web technology--besides, what's better than protecting official-movie-site IP with Flash?)

Re:I know the answer!

[benna]

No no, you have it all wrong. Fool me once shame on.. shame on you...... a fooled man can't get fooled again."

Re:Shocking

[JrbM689]

I hope you don't work for Apple, because Steve "Job's" may see to it you don't ever get any other "Jobs" in the tech industry again. For you home-gamers, his name is Steve Jobs. The possessive is Steve Jobs'. A friend note from your neighborhood Grammar Nazi. Sleep well.

In other news...

[zappepcs]

The MPAA has set in motion litigation against makers of big screen televisions. According to one industry insider, these home entertainment people have to be stopped, their evil must be undone. If G*d wanted us to watch movies in our homes, he would have made television... oh wait

Re:sure buddy

[13bPower]

Kerry would have stopped those hurricanes!

Re:Simple answer, really.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you liberals blame Bush and the Republicans for everything? Everybody knows, if they would just think about it putting aside preconceived assumptions, that much of today's ills can be laid at the foot of Clinton. He messed up the economy and showed our children that it's OK to screw around sexually.

Re:The "bad movies" fallacy

[Khaed]

You're using the IMDB as a source? Next you're going to cite a slashdot poll...

Bad Movies + $10.50 highway robbery cost of ticket

[layer3switch]

!= profit

To prove that today's movies are so bad, bootleggers on the street are bootlegging old classics such as "Gone with the Wind" and "North by Northwest".

When P2P networks don't even bother distributing new movie titles, you know it's true...

Re:The "bad movies" fallacy

[Blakey Rat]

What the... actual data? What are you doing here? With actual data we can't mindlessly just repeat the same old "movies are worse than they used to be" ranting you see in every Slashdot story!

Bootleggers

[HermanAB]

I think you identified the reason for the bad movies. The MPAA is trying to put the bootleggers out of business, by making movies that are so bad, nobody wants to watch them.

Well *I* feel vindicated!

[Anonymous Coward]

It wasn't t3h pirates? Whew!!!

Goes back to watching downloaded cam-capture of Corpse Bride.

Re:I'm not completely sure about this

[Zangief]

I really miss some original plots, like "The Incredibles" where ALL of characters are completely unknown.

Unknown only if you never read The Fantastic Four or Watchmen.

Ok, I'm being a dick here, but it had to be said.