#1 Hire and keep talented writers
It makes me angry how many movies have bad storylines. There is no reason for any movie to be made without a good story. There are so many good writers on this planet that I don’t understand why so many bad movies are made. Great writers come from everywhere! Movies, comic books, novels, TV series, anime, and even video games have better storylines than Transformers. Someone had to write all those. A good writer should not be hard to find!
Think of how much better Transformers would be if there was a writer actually adding good, relatable, traits to those characters. Sure the movie made money and people saw it, but nobody really cared did they? How much more money could they have made if there were a few real characters along with all the mindless action and special effects. Transformers (or even worse, Battleship) could have lasted a lot longer than the opening weekend if it had a real story to tell.
Harold and Kumar’s Christmas did it right. It was supposedly a mindless comedy about stoners who go on wacky adventures. Sounds like something just as dumb as Transformers right? Wrong. There were a lot of jokes and some bad humor, sure, that’s what the audience wanted. But it was so much more than that. Harold and Kumar were real characters we could relate to, real people who had problems and motivations and had to deal with their real life situations. I cared more about what Harold and Kumar went through than anyone from the all Transformers films.
A good writer can create bad jokes, stupid situations, mindless action, and still have good characters who go through all that. Unlike Transformers, Harold and Kumars’ Christmas is a perfect example of mixing lame comedy and good characters to make a fun movie.
#2 Good Publicity
Watching previews for Wreck-it-Ralph the audience knew immediately that the movie was going to be good. The previews showed us who the characters were, their motivations, and what kind of journey Ralph was going to go on. We knew what to expect and we wanted to go on that journey with those characters. The audience was relating to Ralph even before the movie was released. Wreck-it-Ralph did not disappoint.
Compare that to the previews and trailers of Battleship. They were so bad I didn’t even want to see the movie. The previews for Battleship were played and overplayed so often that I didn’t even want to see the preview anymore. Their ads made it obvious that the movie had no storyline, no characters, and proved that they just wanted to make the same money that Transformers already had. They make it look like a movie about killing red shirts with special effects stolen from Transformers. Making a copy of a film that made lots of money is always a bad way to go. Even worse, they wasted way too much money on marketing the film. They could have spent that money on a good writer!
Learn from Wreck-It-Ralph. They had characters that nobody had seen before, from games that nobody had played before. The audience still related to those new characters, new games, and new situations.
Wreck-it-Ralph proved that you could still make something new and the audience will buy into that world.
It worked because the characters were relatable, and the previews showed the audience who those characters were and what they were going to go through.
If a preview doesn’t show the audience what the movie is about or who the movie is about, no one is going to see it. Don’t spend millions of dollars to play a preview everywhere if the preview doesn’t show us what to expect.
#3 Get the audience to care.
The entire plot of the Hunger Games movie was hinged on Katniss volunteering for the games so her sister, Prim, didn’t have to be forced to participate.
There was not a single thing in the movie that showed me why Katniss loved her little sister, Prim. Or why Katniss would risk her life to save her. They didn’t show the audience who Prim was, and why she was important to Katniss. The film didn’t give us an emotional core from any of the characters. If you didn’t read the Hunger Games books, and knew the characters beforehand, you would never know who these characters were.
The Hunger Games film didn’t give us any of the character that we loved so much in the books. It just felt like the actors were going through the motions, like robots who were programmed by the Cliff notes based off the book. All the characters in the movie were reduced to stereotypes. Haymicth became the explainer, Effie became the mindless government puppet, Katniss was reduced to just a strong woman, Peeta was the guy with a crush, and Gale became just the best friend. There was no emotional core for any of those characters in the movie.
I didn’t connect or relate to any character in that movie. I really wanted to care because I loved the books. I loved Katniss and what she went through, and I was disappointed that the movie didn’t show us any of that. I didn’t see any of the emotional turmoil that Katniss went through.
Are you seeing a theme here? If you can create a good character that the audience can relate to, you have a lot better chance of success.
The only reason the Hunger Games movie made money was because it already had an audience that loved the books. It was a world we were familiar with and it was easy to escape into it. If there wasn’t a popular book that the Hunger Games movie was based on, it would have failed.
#4 If the filmmakers care, then the audience will care.
If the producers and crew don’t care about what they are making, then you will get crap like Battleship, and the Last Airbender.
M. Night Shamalan, director of The Last Aribender, took characters from the cartoon, ripped out their souls and anything else resembling human and replaced them with carbon copies of sock puppet actors. It’s a really sad day when characters from a cartoon TV series are more human and lovable than their wooden replacements in the film. The audience knew right away that there were no characters or anything to connect to in the film so they just stopped thinking about it. Same horrible thing happened to Eragon, and John Carter of Mars, Great books, but lame movie replacements.
Avatar the Last Airbender, animated show, worked so well because the creators and writers actually cared about what they were making! They loved those characters, they loved the world they created and it was obvious how much work they put into it. That work pays off. Fans loved that cartoon. The series was loved so much they made a sequel, The Legend of Korra. The audience can tell if the writing or directing work is half-assed. Viewers are not as stupid as a filmmaker would like to think.
Make sure the story is as good as it can be. Spend money on getting the right writers and directors. Spend money only on the special effects that are needed for the story to progress or for a character to learn and grow.
Character, plot, and story arcs are vital.
Don’t spend millions of dollars to play a preview everywhere if the preview doesn’t show the audience what to expect.
Don’t make something you think other people will like. It will never be as good as a movie you would actually want to see, or a movie you care about because there is a better chance that if you like it, other people will too.
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