MovieChat Forums > Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016) Discussion > How do movies like this get a Greenlight...

How do movies like this get a Greenlight?

posted 9 years ago by Amanni3968
133 replies | jump to latest

I'm asking in all seriousness. I have not seen the film nor do I plan to, as I find the premise absurd, but that's just me. I don't care that someone produces a movie that I find to be ludicrous, I just want to know how this is done? How does this happen? How are decent scripts passed over for movies like this or Jupiter Ascending, and on and on and on (the list is never ending). I can't wrap my head around this. You catch whiffs or hints of potentially great movies and/or plots, then they fade into obscurity and Hollywood fills the dead space with dung like this. Is the magic formula to take a classic book, and rip it apart, add several layers of ridiculousness, and then that makes it a hit? Can I just come up with oh I don't know, " The Count of Monte Cristo meets the Hunchback of Notre Dame all while attending Hogwarts fighting off nargles". (BTW - that's my idea - my idea, no stealing it!) I mean WTF - who picked this up and said - "WOW, a classic stuffy romance set to the back drop of Victorian England with, say what now, Zombies! Shut the front door *nameless genius scratches chin* Hmm The walking dead is doing pretty good right now, so I say let's run with it"! Is that how it goes down?

[–] ilovesnowboarding 9 years ago

It's a shame you feel that your opinion is somehow justified in deciding whether or not this film should have been made. Tell me, what should I have for lunch tomorrow? I mean, you know best, so please continue to tell others what they should and should not want...

[–] YvonneBrennan 9 years ago

Except a movie and your lunch are entirely different.

[–] thunderztorm 8 years ago

Not really, no.

Lunch is a luxury that is not needed. We need sustenance, sure, but there's no reason to make it anything fancy, like most lunches are these days.

Movies are entertainment. Same as going out for lunch is entertainment.

[–] Tara-Salem 9 years ago

I agree Amanni3968. The culprit is the audience. A producer can't produce or fund a film without knowing for sure that it will become a hit. Search this forum and see how many people oppose you and think such scripts are actually an amazing idea. The taste of the majority has become like this.

[–] paul_cowsill 9 years ago

I don't want to watch new movies either, because I might not like them, and especially when I can rewatch my favorites, Brides Maids and Sisters.

I'm sorry the Coen brothers don't direct the porn I watch. They're hard to get ahold of, okay?

[–] nyarlath 9 years ago

Personally I'm looking forward to all the classy books they inflicted on us in high school English Lit being remade. Revenge is a dish best served cold.

The Mummy of Wuthering Heights

Oliver Twist Psycho

Little Women Meet Cthulhu

War and Peace and Piranha

[–] fritz-59 9 years ago

Oh, come on, "War and Peace and Piranha" makes no sense at all! It should be "War and Peace and Werewolves"! And maybe "Little Women of Innsmouth", so the March family wouldn't have to travel to the South Pacific or the Louisiana bayous...

Cum simioli e culo meo volent.

[–] mechajutaro 9 years ago

The Mummy of Wuthering Heights War and Peace and Piranha

Now we're talking!!

[–] gswan 9 years ago

Amanni3968 wrote:

I'm asking in all seriousness. I have not seen the film nor do I plan to, as I find the premise absurd, but that's just me.

In all seriousness, if film producers didn't make films around absurd premises, then they wouldn't make any films based on comic book superheroes.

You catch whiffs or hints of potentially great movies and/or plots, then they fade into obscurity and Hollywood fills the dead space with dung like this.

Is it more heartbreaking when producers choose to make a film based on a really good book, one that you think could be made into a really good movie, only to ruin it? I am looking at you Gorky Park.

Five or six years ago one of the upper channels broadcast an excellent film by Don McKellar, Childstar. I loved that film.

In it there is a film within the film. One of the main supporting actors is a pubescent movie star, cast in a film entitled "First Son", where he plays the son of the POTUS, whose youthful hijinks are a problem - until terrorists capture the White House, and take his dad, the POTUS, hostage, and he uses all the youthful energy and destructiveness that had been getting him in trouble to rescue the POTUS.

There is a production meeting, where one sleazy producer shows the other sleazy producers the story-boards for First Son. The individual drawings are shown quite rapidly, making for an exciting 30 seconds.

Well, fast forward to when I am watching Olympus has fallen. I was struck by how similar Olympus has fallen was to the storyboards for the imaginary film in Childstar.

Have you seen "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure"? The story is that the script was kicked around Hollywood, for over a decade, with no one being prepared to pick it up - presumably because it had an absurd premise. Finally, it was made. I watched it again, recently. It had weak moments, but after a couple of decades I would still recommend it - even though it had an absurd premise.

I suggest to you that B&TEA had a premise more absurd than PPZ.

[–] tommyt739 9 years ago

First of all, it's not Victorian. It's Georgian England. As long as you're not planning to see the movie, maybe go read a book. May i suggest this one - http://www.amazon.com/Historical-Dictionary-British-Dictionaries-Civilizations/dp/0810878011/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1456643300&sr=1-6&keywords=British+eras. Second, how do you, in all seriousness, belittle a movie you haven't seen and . . . etc. As to greenlighting a picture, the process is the same, good or bad. No one knows what might be dung and what might turn out to be the next Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. At least not until they start counting the receipts.

[–] LetThemEatCake01 9 years ago

I haven't read the book but I actually think it's one of the most original ideas in film for at least the past 10 years.

[–] parbon84 9 years ago

That is the hilarious part, every one of these fools has the same objections:

"oh that zombie craze again" Yes, the movie itself is aware of that, don't you get the joke?

"Oh whats next? Godfather + the mummy? " Again, yes, you're meant to think this, that is the joke.

Comedy suffers the worst from amateur critics, because arrogant people don't know how to laugh.

[–] YvonneBrennan 9 years ago

Or maybe they just don't like the joke.

[–] thunderztorm 8 years ago

Then they shouldn't be critics in the first place.

A proper professional can recognize quality even if it's not in the personal taste.

[–] ambeck22 9 years ago

Did you pass on Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, too? Don't judge a movie without seeing it. Same goes with books.

-Dad, who's that?
-Oh, that? One of my patients. He's...sick.
-Will he live?
-It's looking grim.