I think they do...... They have been so conditioned and dumbed down they think crap is good!!!

Its very sad...

Re: Do movie audiences today have lower expectations?
 

no, I think with the cinema being as expensive as it is, people have higher expectations, especially when it comes to special effects in big hollywood blockbusters.

if it's a thriller, or courtroom drama, I think a lot of people are less likely to see that at cinema, with home systems being so good, and films being available at home so good, but they expect the high caliber of acting you see in films and TV.

Comedies as well, ppl want to be entertained and made to laugh.

I think you're asking the wrong question:

Do film companies take less risks and just churn out lots of similar films knowing that's what sells, and have low expectations of their audiences?

With so much quality content out there, ppl are more choosy I think about what they watch.

Ya you could be right......I dont like the sound in cinemas now! (That digital sound is loud and aweful)

Re: Do movie audiences today have lower expectations?
 

I havent been to the cinema in a while but the cost is incredible and when you have kids who want food as well it ends up costing a lot of money!


Prices need to go down.

Re: Do movie audiences today have lower expectations?
 

Although dated I do remember cinema in South Africa in the 70's. (In the late 60's some people would dress up to go to the cinema).
Apart from from some really odd censorship ratings there was more of an experience with news reels (one bilingual), shorts and maybe even a second movie.

Re: Do movie audiences today have lower expectations?
 

Yep, which is one of the reasons I don't go to the cinema any more. That and covid and selfish morons who can't stay off their phones for more than a minute at a time.

Re: Do movie audiences today have lower expectations?
 

Have you seen the 'Carry on ' films? Crap is good :)

Ah man!!

No I havent seen those.........

Re: Do movie audiences today have lower expectations?
 

I think almost certainly audiences accept less. A flashy reboot rather than something new, or a spin-off so character development doesn’t need to start from scratch.

Re: Do movie audiences today have lower expectations?
 

Too expensive,too loud and there's only so much comic book crap I can take.

Re: Do movie audiences today have lower expectations?
 

I agree with you

I hear ya about TOO LOUD Maggy,not good at all!!

Re: Do movie audiences today have lower expectations?
 

In the 70's in South Africa one central Joburg complex had different size auditoriums for different films. So new, big budget films went to the 1,000 seat room and as time passed it would get pushed to 750, 500 and eventually out of the complex. If a film in one of the smaller auditoriums suddenly did better than one in a bigger they could swap on so on.


Once we were taken on a school trip to see a film about Eugène Marais, a poet who spent time with baboons. It's a quiet film and we were in the 250 (or maybe smaller) theatre. Next door they were showing some big film about an orca and it was a tad distracting during intimate moments to hear the music and sound effects intruding.

Re: Do movie audiences today have lower expectations?
 

They have higher expectations for logical consistency, special effects and fast pacing. They have lower expectations for depth of narrative and meaning.

Re: Do movie audiences today have lower expectations?
 

My expectations for any blockbuster movie is super low these days and I'm still disappointed to the point I would rather re-watch old movies now.

Its all woke gender politics, diversity and misandry shoe-horned in to tv and film with decent writing and plots nowhere to be seen.

Re: Do movie audiences today have lower expectations?
 

There are still many good films released every year. Blockbusters are still blockbusters but that is never where the best writing or depth was found, almost by definition blockbusters are meant to be lighter and appeal to a large audience. Marvel have proved the blockbuster can still be a huge success.

What has happened is that the traditional market for drama bottomed out. The mid-range film that wasn't a blockbuster but still would perform at the box office is far less common now. Instead I think these have gone to steaming or actually the television mini-series. Severance this year for example might have been a film 10 years ago. Same with Chernobyl the year before last.

Re: Do movie audiences today have lower expectations?
 

I agree and I do like the shift to mini-series or even series instead of long films because they can go more in to developing characters and everything a bit better. My short attention span prefers them too tbh.

But even blockbusters used to have have decent plots, be fairly unique and well written and cast perfectly. The original Matrix, Avatar, The harry potter movies, Lord of the Rings etc had great directing but its the story, pacing and perfect casting that made them greats. I would even go so far to say the same for films like Jurassic park, Guardians of the Galaxy and many others.

Now its diversity first, so the first part of a good movie is out the window because they use a quota to force a percentage of black/white/green/purple in to a movie while trying to keep male to female ratio as close to 50% as they can. The extreme cases are these remakes of movies with all female cast like ghostbusters (that flopped) or the Lesbian catwoman who was white in the first season and the replaced with a black woman (now cancelled) just for the sake of they think its cool to do so. Im surprised the now female cast Equalizer is still going.

On top of this diversity casting first, they also change the stories to incorporate gender politics and make a character LBQTXYZ+ and literally every movie has some element of this. They also are making all the male characters seem weak and the female characters strong, for no reason other than this diversity thing.

Take Dr strange for example, this movie was more about the girl in it than Dr Strange. She happens to be lesbian and they shoe-horned in the first minutes that she has 2 mothers rather than the traditional family makeup. Without giving proper spoilers, fights later in the movie have women defeating men with one punch but women who fight are made very long, again to do the strong powerful woman type thing and emasculate men. Some previously male superheroes are now women too.

Its all so forced and does nothing for the story and the movie suffers from all these things added together. Marvel/Disney has tried to ride the wave of fans will watch anything if they like the brand or franchise but I think that ride will end at some point.

The matrix, which is one of my all time top movies had strong female characters and lots of diversity (incidentally the wonderful Wachowski Brothers who made it are now the Wachowski Sisters) but they cast the right people for the roles, had a great original story and none of the forced stuff we see today.

I can't imagine another of my favourite films, the Shawshank Redemption being made today or if it was, it just wouldn't be so good because of the forced diversity and gender quotas.

Despite it being a Dailymail link and a long read, there are lots of facts in this piece which explains a lot of why all the movies are woke and naff these days: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-SAVODNIK.html