Why do modern movies suck?
Plus, Sydney Sweeney trashes her own movie, why 16-year-old Theo didn’t like “The Godfather”, and why Hollywood makes way too many sequels.
“You might have seen me in Anyone But You or Euphoria. But you definitely did NOT see me in Madame Web!”
That’s how Sydney Sweeney introduced herself on Saturday Night Live. She talked shit about her own movie.
(And she was right to do it. Madame Web was terrible!)
She doubled down later, saying that her role in Madame Web was just a “building block” that “allowed me to build a relationship with Sony.” She also said that “I was just hired as an actor” and that “there’s no outcome I can control on a film like that”.
And it’s not just Madame Web. Pretty much all modern movies are terrible, and no one is going to see them.
My friend in Los Angeles told me that local movie theaters are re-showing old classic films, because no one wants to see new movies anymore. And this is Los Angeles — the movie capital of the world. If people in LA don’t want to see modern movies, who does?
It’s weird because just 10 years ago most movies were pretty good. What happened?
As far as I can tell, there are 5 reasons why modern movies suck. Here they are:
Reason #1: The Oscars
In 2016, Leonardo DiCaprio won his first Oscar. Can you guess what movie he won it for?
You’d probably guess something like The Great Gatsby, or The Wolf Of Wall Street, or Django Unchained — his most famous movies from the 2010’s.
You’d be wrong. He won his Oscar for The Revenant, a movie which I had never even heard of until I discovered it researching another article.
More people saw The Wolf Of Wall Street than The Revenant. People still watch it today. And Wolf Of Wall Street memes are all over the internet.
Plus, Leo’s performance in The Wolf Of Wall Street is sublime. Just tell me this isn’t the finest piece of acting you’ve ever seen:
So why didn’t The Wolf Of Wall Street win an Oscar? Because The Wolf Of Wall Street isn’t a “serious” movie. Who cares that people loved it, and that people are still talking about it today?
(In fairness, Leo did get nominated for best actor that year — but lost it to Matthew McConaughey for his role in Dallas Buyers Club, another movie I had never heard of before.)
Movie-makers know that if you want to entertain people, you make one type of movie. And if you want to win an Oscar, you make another type of movie.
The problem is that lots movie-makers care more about winning Oscars than they care about making good movies. So they make movies that snooty elites pretend to like, not movies that regular people actually like.
If the Oscars were abolished tomorrow, movies would get much, much better.
Reason #2: Attention Spans
When I was 16, I watched The Godfather for the first time — and I didn’t like it. It was hard for me to follow what was going on.
A little while later, I was talking to one of my high school classmates. She mentioned she had watched The Godfather and thought it was great. I told her that I had watched The Godfather and I thought it was hard to follow. Then she admitted to me that she, also, thought it was hard to follow.
Why? Because of our dumb Gen Z brains. We grew up with the internet. We watch minute-long TikToks. We don’t have the attention spans to sit through slow-paced 3 hour movies.
Many modern filmmakers know this. So they put tons of bells and whistles into their films. They make sure they have an explosion or a car chase or a sex scene every 3 minutes, just to keep people paying attention.
Of course, you can’t make a movie by just stitching together a bunch of attention-getters. Movies have to have, you know, plots. And themes. And character development. Otherwise you walk away asking yourself “what the hell did I just watch?”
Reason #3: The Woke Mind Virus
People have an internal sense of what’s right and what’s wrong, what’s heroic and what’s cowardly, what’s honorable and what’s disgraceful. If you show them a movie that agrees with their internal moral compass, they’ll like it. If you show them a movie that disagrees with their internal moral compass, they won’t like it.
Wokeness is basically an attempt to change people’s moral codes. The problem is, we didn’t really evolve to believe in woke morals. They don’t sit right with people. So when you watch a movie with woke values, something just feels off.
(Even if you want to argue that woke morals are better for society than traditional morals, people just aren’t ready for them.)
When you try to shove a new moral code down people’s throats, they reject it. People have an innate need to feel like they’re in control. They hate being told what to do. (Especially Americans.) So make a movie with too many gay couples and trans people and “strong female characters”, and you’re just gonna piss people off.
Reason #4: They Are Making Way Too Many Sequels And Remakes
Today, Frank Herbert’s son, Brian Herbert, is still writing new Dune novels.
The new Dune novels are terrible and a complete waste of time. But some people still buy them, because they’re that obsessed with the Dune universe. They have to know what happens next, even if it means spending hours and hours reading a terrible book.
The movie business works the same way. Making a brand new movie franchise is a risk — people might like it, they might not. But making a sequel to an existing movie franchise is pretty much cash in your pocket. (People who loved the first movie will almost always see the second… and the third, and the fourth, et cetera — even if the sequels are terrible.)
Guaranteed hits are extra valuable in the movie business because the movie business is so volatile. Movie studios only put out a dozen or so films per year. Many of those movies will flop and lose money. If you’re a movie studio, you need to have a few big hits to make up for your losers, otherwise you could post a loss for the year. Enter sequels.
Unfortunately, sequels almost always suck. They’re almost never as good as the original movie.
Why do sequels suck? Because of regression to the mean. If the first movie sold well, it’s probably because it got lucky — the writer wrote an unusually good script, or the director did an unusually good job.
(And the same principle applies to re-making old movies. Why write something new when you can just make a new version of Ghostbusters? After all, everybody loves Ghostbusters!)
Reason #5: Hollywood Is Out Of Touch With Reality
Rich people, especially Hollywood elites, are out of touch with reality. They don’t understand the problems that average people face.
This has always been true in American history, but it’s probably more true today than it’s ever been in the past.
If you want proof that Hollywood elites have lost their minds, just look at the state they live in. California refuses to prosecute small thefts for ideological reasons. They allow homeless people to shoot heroin in the street. They just raised the minimum wage at fast food restaurants to $20 an hour (except Panera Bread; coincidentally, Gavin Newsom is buddies with a major investor in Panera Bread). This is evidence that the people in charge have lost their minds.
When you’re out of touch with reality, it’s pretty much impossible to make good movies. Your characters don’t feel like real people. Your plots feel contrived. Your moral lessons feel unrelatable. Et cetera.
How To Make Good Movies
Big tech companies like Google and Apple have pretty much accepted that they’re not gonna be creative anymore. They’re too big, and big companies don’t innovate. So when Google or Apple wants to make an innovative new thing, they don’t launch something internally — they buy a startup.
Movie studios should do the same thing. They should let small external creative studios pitch them on movie ideas. Then they buy & fund the ones they like.
(This is essentially how Toy Story was made: Pixar started out as an animation studio, but Disney told them they wanted Pixar to write their first film. It turned out to be much better than anything Disney could come up with themselves.)
Alternatively, they could just make movies out of really good novels. They made a movie of Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, and it was one of the greatest movies ever. There are tons of great novels with great stories that have never been turned into films — including Mario Puzo’s The Last Don (arguably a better book than The Godfather).
If you don’t want to wait for movie studios to get their heads out of their asses, consider making your own movie! You don’t need millions of dollars anymore. Today, with AI, you can do the animation and the voices yourself, without breaking the bank. You could do it by yourself, without teaming up with anyone — you just have to be willing to work your butt off for a few years.
How To Save Movie Night
If you want to save your movie night, don’t watch modern movies. Instead, watch classic American films. A couple weeks ago I watched the original 12 Angry Men (the one with Henry Fonda) — and it was fantastic. Far better than anything coming out of Hollywood today.
You don’t have to go see a sequel just because you’re a fan of the first movie. If you’re a big fan of the original Star Wars trilogy but you hate the Disney Star Wars films, guess what? You have every right not to see the new movies. You can even refuse to recognize them as canon, the same way that China refuses to recognize Taiwan as a sovereign nation.
Better yet, skip the movies and read a fuckin’ book instead. Books will teach you far more than movies. Plus, TV rots your brain. (If you’re too tired to read, or if you want to enjoy a book with others, you can play an audiobook.)
Hey! Thanks for reading.
My name’s Theo and every Monday I publish an article about whatever was on my mind the week before. Usually that’s related to how people work or long-term social trends.
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Happy trails!
Following on your sequel comment...
There is another overwhelming reason who today's films suck and it goes to the sequel-seeding-mentality. By that I mean writing the storyline in such a way that it will support an easy-to-structure sequel. What this has done is totally remove storyline resolution from scripts. Now you can't fully resolve a film because it wouldn't leave the hook upon which a sequel can be hung. This leaves audiences disappointed and all movies kind of unfinished...
Mid to late 60s was also a time that movies kinda sucked. Films were a split between the upbeat but socially dated (Dr Dolittle, Oliver, Sound of Music), and the smaller socially ambitious material (Heat of the Night, Who's Afraid of Virgina Wolf). Like today the 60's was a time of social strife. Half of society was pushing new values and ways of thinking, and the other half trying to ignore it all.
Eventually we hit the 70's and really great movies again. Maybe because the directors were somehow incubated and born with the energy to forge something new and brilliant from that turbulent decade.