Where Have All The Good Movies Gone?

"Where have all the good movies gone?"

It's a question that's asked more every year as the moviegoing public is presented with a surplus of sequels, prequels, remakes, reboots and pretty much every word you can associate with the term 'recycled idea'.

The funny thing is though, these so-called 'good movies' are actually right in front of us, just not on the same screen size we're use to.

I'm of course talking about the booming industry of television, or as many have coined the past decade or so, 'The Golden Age of TV'.

You see, good movies are being made nowadays, just not as actual films.

Great TV shows like Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Homeland, Game of Thrones, House of Cards and Downton Abbey are projects that - 30-40 years ago - all likely would have been made into films instead.

All the great talent in the entertainment business - talent that use to be all over Hollywood - has retreated to the television industry because they are given both the opportunity and creative freedom that movies studios just aren't allowing anymore.

I say all the time that if The Godfather were to be made today, it'd be a 12 episode-a-season drama on HBO.  No film studio would even touch a concept like that because there just isn't money to be made with great films anymore.

The reason for that?  Simple: the digital age of bootlegging films.

There's a new book out right now entitled, Sleepless in Hollywood: Tales from the New Abnormal in the Movie Busiess, where the author Lynda Obst (a Hollywood film producer) discusses the new age of filmmaking and why studios don't make original films any longer.

Twenty years ago, when bootlegging films onto the internet first started, the film industry fought tooth and nail to stop this fearing it would kill the home video/DVD market.  This market is where modestly budgeted dramas made back at least 50% of their profits so studios didn't mind taking risks.  Even if a film didn't do well at the box office, there was always the safety net of home video.

However, because bootlegging films obviously won out, the home video/DVD market is now a tenth of what it use to be.  That put more pressure on film studios to make their money solely at the box office, which is why we are constantly getting recognizable brands and franchises; they sell.

As far as TV goes, they are welcoming great, young talent with open arms as what use to be thought of as 'just TV' is now where quality entertainment projects are being made.

What does this all say about the future of both the film and television industries?  Well unfortunately, it's good news for former and bad news for the latter.

The film industry in the next twenty years is likely to become a luxury where studios crank out movies for pure entertainment.  Television though will be where one will get their great, dramatic fix from.  Why do a drama in two hours when you can get it for close to an hour a week for three months, and then again the following year?

With that said, it's not like the moviegoing public has helped.  When Hollywood has tried to do something original (Cloud Atlas for example) people don't bother going to see it because they want their $10-20 worth of entertainment they paid for a movie ticket.

It is a sad state of affairs for the film indstury, but as what's become the status quo nowadays, 'It is what it is.'