Has Hollywood lost its edge?

Despite there being a called crisis in cinema as supposedly less people are going to the cinema than ever, box office takings are higher than ever at the moment mainly because ticket prices keep rising. There is crisis in film industry but it has nothing to do with ticket prices or cinema attendance the true crisis lies within the studios and their inability to risks anymore. In the last few years the box office top ten has been filled with sequels and re-booting of the old franchises and everything else that is released tends to be very by the books. The issue is not a lack of creative minds, it is the fact that they are constantly restrained by producers who unwilling to take any real risks that would alienate their audiences. They also allow themselves to be influenced by political and cultural pressures far too easily.

One example of this is the 'The Interview' that was pulled from release very quickly after North Korea claimed that they were offended by the film. The pulled release shows a genuine lack of artistic integrity that they are willing to bin a film because a few people find the film a bit offencive. The reality is that 'The Interview' was no where near as offencive as 'Team America: World Police', which left no stone unturned in terms of offending people of the time. 'The Interview' was just a typical Rogan/Franco film that happened the to be set in North Korea and there was no real political edge to the film, which left me wondering how this film was able to cause such chaos in Hollywood. Another example is 'Selma', which was a very gripping film that contained some fantastic performances but it didn't break any ground and just told everyone that Martin Luther King was good person who stood up for his oppressed people, which isn't exactly a new and groundbreaking idea. Although on the surface and in the background of the events in Ferguson many saw 'Selma' as a film that was breaking new ground, but in reality it was a very by the books Hollywood film that didn't really bring any new ideas it just told you what you knew already.

There are moments when studios throw a curve ball and really surprise you. Marvels 'Guardians of the Galxey' could be seen as one of these moments, the studio took a risk with a film that wasn't exactly in line with what they had been making. They even allowed writer and director James Gunn to use his own creative styles to give the film a unique feel. The risk paid of for them and Marvel were praised for finally breaking some new ground. However it wasn't long until they went back to their old ways after they gave Edgar Wright  the sack on the 'Antman' project over creative differences, because he wasn't willing to let the studio to dictate his every move.

We are currently being littered with reboots and imaginations of old franchises as studios seem very unwilling to realease anything new that could upset audiences, and if something new does become successful they just milk the success with as many sequels as possible. There are some opportunities for some film makers to be creative and bring new ideas to the table. For example Christopher Nolan has been able to do this with his recent films 'Interstellar' and 'Inception'. However some of the older film makers who made their name with exciting new ideas that hadn't been seen before like Steven Spielberg and James Cameron find themselves trapped creatively as studios are no longer happy to take a risk and are quite happy to make a new Jurassic Park or Star Wars if it keeps the viewers happy.

There is no real sign of a real end to this creative rut as studio life in Hollywood is becoming more and more political. Many of the Oscar nominated films this year were very by the books dramas that didn't really break any new ground. The only film to have taken a real risk was 'Boyhood', but the story itself was quite bland and didn't offer anything new. There is a real risk that all the politics around making a film could risk sucking the creativity out of Hollywood and it could be long time till we some true classics again.