Lack Of Intelligent Films From Hollywood

Ive been an avid reader my whole life & am blown away that Hollywood hasn’t made these books into major films :
Crime & Punishment
Blood Meridian
Master & Margarita
Siddhartha
Lionel Asbo
Journey To Ixtlan
The Call of Cthulhu
Steppenwolf
Faust
etc.
Why has Hollywood not tackled these great stories into film ?
What are books you wish were made into film ?

a reply to: psychotrail

If I watch any old movie/series form up until the 80s/90s maybe , they're much better in comparison with the crap from the 2000s. With a few exceptions off course (LOTR ,harry potter etc are great) . I used to be an avid reader but much less the last 10 years, sadly.

I used to chuckle and wag my head at my 98-yr old pop for watching 60's Westerns 60-yrs later,

Now that I'm his caregiver I realize how well-written many of them were compared to the very dumb-downed storylines today.

What's that commercial about turning into your parents?

a reply to: psychotrail

When a really "smart" idea is presented, the Industry, collectively shudders. Then one excuse after another is made.

I hate what the movie The Matrix has become; a short-hand method to deal with philosophical issues that not addressed at all in ensuing conversations! It is all, "red pill or blue pill" and "look at me! I am cool like Neo because I wear leather" (the last is a mental state described through interpretive dance!)

But all of my misgivings aside. The movie contained the philosophical conversation of "what is reality"? and "how can we know if we are inside a fake reality"? The action scenes reinforce this with the "I'm going to learn karate?" and "bullet time" effects. Those are still valid questions thrown around this place whenever someone brings up "we live in a simulation" thread!

The movie Industry did not want to make the movie! First they said, "you directors are untried". Then they said, "the movie is too smart, nobody will understand". So, the bros went of and made a movie, Bound, in 1996! Imagine that The Matrix came out 3 years earlier!! People would have lost their sh!t!!

But a smart movie does not guarantee that it will be made!

Personally, I like the "dumb" movies that get made and become cult classics because they are actually smart movies: Napoleon Dynamite, Idiocracy, and Pee Wee's Big Adventure, for example.

And it does not help when a great book get made wrong! Or dumbed down to the point of having to add a voice over to try and explain why the replicant saved your life or that spice is what allows space travel!!

Find the smart stuff! Part of the fun of being a hunter scavanger!!

a reply to: The GUT

The old shows and movies allowed us to exercise our imagination; now everything is spelled out to the nth detail!

a reply to: psychotrail
"

The ''excuse'' that Hollywood and other centers of entertainment use, and have been using to justify the content of movies and television programming is ''we give the customer what they want''.

And what do the consumers want in a movie. In most cases it's what they know, what they are familiar with. Add that to the cost of making a movie these studios don't want to spend millions and millions for a product that no one wants to pay for.

And that is the only manner in which the producers know ''what the people want'', by what kind of movies they go to see. Did this sell before? Sell it again. Or something like it, Did super hero movies make a bunch of money? Make some more. Did the response to those super hero movies demonstrate a lack of interest in the Asian and black demographic? Simple, make them with Asian and black stars.

It's a vicious cycle.

How well to Shakesphere stories do in theaters? Ha. Can you imagine Siddhartha as a movie? It would close after the first weekend, Well that is unless it had some big big names and used as it's promos cuts of Siddhartha's period of hedonism becore he went back to his river. Lots of naked flesh and stuff, yeah, that might make some people pay to see it.

originally posted by: The GUT
I used to chuckle and wag my head at my 98-yr old pop for watching 60's Westerns 60-yrs later,

Now that I'm his caregiver I realize how well-written many of them were compared to the very dumb-downed storylines today.

What's that commercial about turning into your parents?

Same happened to me recently. Over the winter went back home to visit the parents because my mom's got Alzheimer's. They would get up every morning and watch the H&I channel (Heros & Icons). I haven't even watched TV (as in cable or satellite or off-air ant) in years. My dad would call the show Paladin, but I think that was the name of the protagonist, or at least nickname. The show was Have Gun Will Travel. And then High Chaparral and Gunsmoke. Never watched any of the shows when I was a kid, but came back home kinda missing them. They were good shows and had good story-lines.

I agree with the OP, but when I have seen movies based on great works of fiction, say like Naked Lunch or The Trial (Kafka), that although they are good, they really cannot do the book justice. Also, I think that maybe the message of great works of literature are not welcome by the powers that be as many times the undercurrent of many of these novels is the struggle of the individual.

Hollywood walks hand in hand with government. I think we have seen that the tradgedy of the individual is no longer anything the governments of the world really care about - if they ever did. Of course, if you can benefit them with millions of dollars, then you matter.

Also it is probably really hard to do a good job relaying the message of so many novels. They are so thick with ideas and a film maker would probably say it must be hard to distill the idea of the book that takes considerable time to read and understand down into say 2 hours of film.

Hell, the few dabbles I have taken in trying to create even short 10 minute films with a buddy of mine have always been difficult and very time consuming.

a reply to: psychotrail

Not to ignore your question but I just saw that To Kill a Mockingbird is on yt. Great book and a magical movie. I know it's time for me to watch it again.

a reply to: psychotrail

i know guillermo del toro is still trying to make At the mountains of madness and they did try to do an adaptation of Color Out of Space

I want to see more Philip K Dick movies that are NOT blade runner and total recall

Martian Time Slip and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

a reply to: psychotrail

Yet their Barbie film raked in the bucks. Maybe intelligence has nothing to do with it. But, hey, we are in a learning curve.

originally posted by: ancientlight
a reply to: psychotrail

If I watch any old movie/series form up until the 80s/90s maybe , they're much better in comparison with the crap from the 2000s. With a few exceptions off course (LOTR ,harry potter etc are great) . I used to be an avid reader but much less the last 10 years, sadly.

Pick up a book

originally posted by: The GUT
I used to chuckle and wag my head at my 98-yr old pop for watching 60's Westerns 60-yrs later,

Now that I'm his caregiver I realize how well-written many of them were compared to the very dumb-downed storylines today.

What's that commercial about turning into your parents?

Those commercials are the best . I love Night Stalker series & The Twilight Zone for my nostalgia.
50s-80s gave us the best film & tv hands down.

It's not a lack of intel per se, it's rather honing in what's happening now in society...so film will reflect that.

It's not a lack of intel per se, it's rather honing in what's happening now in society...so film will reflect that.

originally posted by: TEOTWAWKIAIFF
a reply to: psychotrail

When a really "smart" idea is presented, the Industry, collectively shudders. Then one excuse after another is made.

I hate what the movie The Matrix has become; a short-hand method to deal with philosophical issues that not addressed at all in ensuing conversations! It is all, "red pill or blue pill" and "look at me! I am cool like Neo because I wear leather" (the last is a mental state described through interpretive dance!)

But all of my misgivings aside. The movie contained the philosophical conversation of "what is reality"? and "how can we know if we are inside a fake reality"? The action scenes reinforce this with the "I'm going to learn karate?" and "bullet time" effects. Those are still valid questions thrown around this place whenever someone brings up "we live in a simulation" thread!

The movie Industry did not want to make the movie! First they said, "you directors are untried". Then they said, "the movie is too smart, nobody will understand". So, the bros went of and made a movie, Bound, in 1996! Imagine that The Matrix came out 3 years earlier!! People would have lost their sh!t!!

But a smart movie does not guarantee that it will be made!

Personally, I like the "dumb" movies that get made and become cult classics because they are actually smart movies: Napoleon Dynamite, Idiocracy, and Pee Wee's Big Adventure, for example.

And it does not help when a great book get made wrong! Or dumbed down to the point of having to add a voice over to try and explain why the replicant saved your life or that spice is what allows space travel!!

Find the smart stuff! Part of the fun of being a hunter scavanger!!

I love dumb movies as well , but the rank & file films out of HW sold as thought provoking is just crap imo .
The Joker movie is special & you forgot one of my favorite dumb movies Nacho Libre
“ Ramses is the best “ lol

originally posted by: TEOTWAWKIAIFF
a reply to: psychotrail

When a really "smart" idea is presented, the Industry, collectively shudders. Then one excuse after another is made.

I hate what the movie The Matrix has become; a short-hand method to deal with philosophical issues that not addressed at all in ensuing conversations! It is all, "red pill or blue pill" and "look at me! I am cool like Neo because I wear leather" (the last is a mental state described through interpretive dance!)

But all of my misgivings aside. The movie contained the philosophical conversation of "what is reality"? and "how can we know if we are inside a fake reality"? The action scenes reinforce this with the "I'm going to learn karate?" and "bullet time" effects. Those are still valid questions thrown around this place whenever someone brings up "we live in a simulation" thread!

The movie Industry did not want to make the movie! First they said, "you directors are untried". Then they said, "the movie is too smart, nobody will understand". So, the bros went of and made a movie, Bound, in 1996! Imagine that The Matrix came out 3 years earlier!! People would have lost their sh!t!!

But a smart movie does not guarantee that it will be made!

Personally, I like the "dumb" movies that get made and become cult classics because they are actually smart movies: Napoleon Dynamite, Idiocracy, and Pee Wee's Big Adventure, for example.

And it does not help when a great book get made wrong! Or dumbed down to the point of having to add a voice over to try and explain why the replicant saved your life or that spice is what allows space travel!!

Find the smart stuff! Part of the fun of being a hunter scavanger!!

Or just play Stalker in theaters across America

a reply to: psychotrail

Stalking it out. Let's move this forward.

originally posted by: nugget1
a reply to: The GUT

The old shows and movies allowed us to exercise our imagination; now everything is spelled out to the nth detail!

I agree , thinking freely is no longer encouraged via instant knowledge in our phones .
Im guilty of lazy thinking due to technology , but I have a hard coat of the 60s-80s on my chassis.
We need to hand down analogue, film & printed word to the youth like some old wizards lol

a reply to: TheToastmanCometh

I was crushed when he died in the early 80s. Looking at his work that was turned into film, way most of them were his earlier stuff, and short stories to boot. Big entertainment wouldn't touch his later work from the seventies because to do it right would expose the population to the brutal unmasking of modern society and, well, you know, big business just cant' ahve that. The only way they would present more Dick would be to water it down and turn it into tasteless pablum