Op-Ed: How Blockbuster Producers Mucked Up The Director’s Medium

When the auteur theory of filmmaking became popularized by the French magazine Cahiers du Cinema in the late 1940s and into the ‘50s, it held firm the belief that the director was the author of a film. They had an identifiable visual style and recurring themes and tropes. They corralled all of the other talent involved to produce a singular vision. As cinema evolved, especially the American of the late ‘60s onward, directors developed more power and prestige. In modern terms, they had a brand – Welles, Hitchcock, Truffaut, Kubrick, Scorsese, Spielberg, Nolan, and the like.

The 21st-century movie franchise has diminished much of the director’s might. Blockbuster franchises are increasingly based on literary properties or past source material, are increasingly planned several installments in advance, and have changed the way that Hollywood views authorship of large-scale pictures. With longer narrative arcs and spiraling financial risks, the power of perspective has shifted from the directors to the producers.

With all due respect, that’s not a good thing.

Sequelpalooza

Back in 1980, when George Lucas announced his intention to do three Star Wars trilogies, it sounded both impressive and outlandish. The second film in his iconic series had just come out. Fast forward to the 2010s, and that dream became a reality – although, in the end, not the best one. Sequels happened back in the ‘70s and ‘80s because the original raked in box office gold, and they kept on coming as long as the dollars rolled in. Few creators considered long-term strategies in advance. Genre pieces like slasher movies generally reserved the longer strings of sequels.

A shift occurred at the dawn of the millennium with book adaptations like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Twilight in the 2000s, then Divergent and The Hunger Games in the 2010s. Studios poured more money into developing larger-scale series planned out years in advance. The SAW and Fast and the Furious franchises retconned their narratives to include newer characters, revive older ones, and keep their gravy trains rolling. Each series had a look and vibe that ran consistently through every entry, regardless of who directed or wrote the picture.

The focus became less on what the director could bring to a project and more on how they could maintain consistency in terms of each installment's visual style, effects, and pacing. Audience and studio audience expectations were expected to be met – give the people what they want, and the green will follow. And with major sequels arriving bi-annually and even annually – an exhausting process for everyone involved – directors often had to follow a blueprint rather than put their own stamp on the material. Sequels used to take more time to assemble. These days, studios fear that audiences have short attention spans and want to keep the buzz going as quickly as possible.

The Marvel Factor

This new paradigm has led to new problems. Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige and Avengers director Joss Whedon had a falling out over creative differences on Age Of Ultron. Feige was credited as the glue that kept the 20-movie Infinity Saga story arc of the MCU together, but that has also meant, at times, directing the directors. It’s a double-edged sword creating and overseeing an extended universe. While some Marvel movies have stood out from the pack – like Doctor Strange, Black Panther, and Thor: Ragnarok – many of the films and television series have felt homogenized. Ditto for the DCEU, which chased the formula of the MCU with very mixed results.

Director Zack Snyder and screenwriter David S. Goyer chronicled the intense friction they felt from DC Comics’ parent company, Warner Bros., while making films like Man Of Steel and Justice League. They felt constrained and bullied by executives’ demands. When Snyder bowed out of the latter film for personal reasons, his ironic replacement was Joss Whedon, who made significant changes that the studio demanded. The resulting film met with mixed-to-negative reception, with box office falling far below Warners' hopes. (How telling as well that when Snyder completed the film as he intended, it enjoyed a much better reception.)

The last Star Wars trilogy also suffered from too much producing oversight. While J.J. Abrams directed The Force Awakens, he still had his hands all over the rest of the series. When The Last Jedi raised the ire of some die-hard fans, and with the untimely passing of Carrie Fisher, he took over the reins of the last film, did a creative 180, and steered it into a star destroyer. That contrasts with when George Lucas, after he directed the original film in 1977, kept his producer’s cap on but entrusted subsequent writers and directors with their own artistic input into the next two installments.

The New Studio System

Movies have seen a variation of this kind of picture before. In the so-called Golden Age Of Hollywood of the mid-20th century, actors were on contract with one of the Big Five studios and were occasionally lent out to a competitor’s production. Like the actors, the directors were also employees of the studios. Movies came packaged with combinations of writing, acting, and directing talent that gelled well together and appealed to the public. Of course, the financial stakes back then weren’t as high as they are now, and sometimes unusual films broke through. However, due to the “moral” restrictions of the Motion Picture Production Code and the studios' control over movie theater distribution, they utilized a system that worked consistently even if it did not often produce edgy cinema.

Once the studios' theatrical monopoly dissolved, the Code was abolished in the late ‘60s, and the Motion Picture Associations’ ratings system emerged, a Pandora’s Box of more adult content poured into the cinema. Young filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Francis Ford Coppola rose in the ranks from film schools and brought their own unique visions to mainstream cinema. The indie film revolution of the ‘80s and ‘90s brought in new maverick talent that made their mark with low-budget and solid-grossing films. Directors and stars worked as free agents who could shop around their productions. Some started their own production companies and cut deals with studios. The “final cut” of a movie–a director’s dream–became attainable for some.

Today, the producer of a major franchise is just as likely, or perhaps more so, to have final-cut authority over a picture. If you’re James Cameron doing the Avatar series, that’s another matter. But he’s also the co-producer. Ditto for Christopher Nolan, who co-produces his films with his partner Emma Thomas, and Steven Spielberg with his own Amblin Entertainment. A revered director can add clout to a major project, but when attached to a franchise or series, the whims of the studio and the producers trump even the most lauded of filmmakers. Again, the stakes are much higher. No one wants to invest $200 or $300 million in a picture and take major risks.

Some movies have more executive producers and producers than have ever been seen in movies before. This isn’t limited to just franchises. Lee Daniels’ The Butler had 42 producers, the Mark Wahlberg actioner Lone Survivor had 30 producers, The Simpsons Movie had 22, Olympus Has Fallen had 20, and Avengers: Endgame had 16. None of those people work for free. These numbers result from any combination of financiers, on-set producers, consultants, and people included for contractual reasons or due to agency negotiations. Fun fact: Avatar, one of the most ambitious films ever made, needed only eight producers.

Fast Food Cinema

Obviously, not all movies should be like fast food. Often, people like something high in calories and low in nutrients, but great movies require solid ingredients and time to cook. The fine dining experience is defined by the actual skill and originality that chefs bring to their meals – a different mixture of tastes and a refreshing twist here and there. Actors, writers, and directors also provide different flavors to bring into a picture – but bury them in salt and it dulls the experience. That explains why many have jumped into streaming and television, originally known as a producer’s rather than a director’s medium.

Some directors can buck the trend of corporate interference. Nolan certainly is like Stanley Kubrick in his ability to get bolder movies greenlit without a lot of interference, and he makes bank. Despite intense Warner Bros. and Mattel scrutiny, Greta Gerwig made Barbie her way and turned it into a billion-dollar baby. She stated that the studio and toy company appreciated the script because it was irreverent but written with love. This kind of directorial autonomy has become rare, especially at the blockbuster level.

Studios might want to look at the horror movie model that has worked so well for a director and producer like James Wan (maestro of the Conjuring series) – spend $10 to $15 million on your budget, then rake in $150 to $200 million at the box office. Artistic license is a little freer with less at stake upfront. Naturally, the studios will spend more than that, but they certainly made high-quality pictures on far fewer movies in the past. They seem to have gotten too enamored with pouring huge loads of cash into “high concept” pictures, but money rarely solves the problem; creative decisions do.

The other solution to this equation is to stop making so many sequels. There are plenty of scripts out there. Usually, one does not need a sequel to a hit (hard pass on Barbie 2, please), and a fresh variation on a theme is better than regurgitating the same material with minimal tweaks. The problem with insistently beating long-running series to death is that the only way to keep things going is to just be more outlandish the next time.

Therein lies the ultimate problem – with many franchises these days, moviegoers get the same meal over and over again. The cliche says that variety is the spice of life. And right now, mainstream audiences could certainly use some more spice.