Why you should care about the success of 'Inception'

The summer blockbuster season is a time of high stakes for film studios. It's obvious why this is so. Since Spielberg's Jaws opened to, well, jaw-dropping numbers (hur hur) in 1975, Hollywood has successfully conditioned audiences to to expect high octane, larger than life, 'popcorn' movies during the months May through to August. From Raiders of the Lost Ark to Pirates of the Carribean, these summer blockbusters have budgets that run in the hundreds of millions, but have the potential to rake handsome, Apple-eque profits (ok, maybe not quite. But you get the point). Summer blockbusters define the term, 'high risk, high reward'.

Because of the risk of massive losses if an expensively-produced summer movie flops at the box office, Hollywood typically tries to play safe in choosing to produce movies that appeal to the lowest common denominator, which has often resulted in the criticism that summer is the time of dumb, brainless movies. To be fair, there have been many a great summer blockbuster - the original Star Wars trilogy, many of Spielberg's works like E.T. or Jurassic Park, and Nolan's The Dark Knight are just some of the few that come to mind. However, it seems that Hollywood has become increasingly risk-averse in recent years in terms of summer fare. Because of ever exploding budgets (Spidey 3's reported production budget was over 250 million, for example), movies' return on investment have continually decreased, and studios are less and less willing to greenlight original ideas, choosing to bankroll blockbusters only if they already have a built-in audience.

What does this mean? You guessed it - Sequels! Let's examine this summer's movie line-up for example: There's Shrek 4, Toy Story 3, Iron Man 2, Twilight 3, Sex and the City 2, Predators (I don't know how many there's been). If it's not sequels, it's movies based on a book/comic/TV series/video game - Again, Iron Man, Sex and the City and Twilight, The Last Airbender, The A Team, Jonah Hex, Prince of Persia. Remakes/'Reimaginations' is the latest low Hollywood has hit - See Robin Hood, or The Karate Kid (except now with kung fu, and a black kid!). Even when ideas seem original, they're not - Knight and Day and Killers both feature the shenanigans between a gun-toting dude (Cruise and Kutcher) and his clueless, klutzy paramour (Diaz and Heigl) Basically, studios are afraid of plunking down the cash, unless a big opening weekend based on a built-in audience is guaranteed. 

I'm not saying that sequels, remakes, movies based on other source material cannot be good. The glowing reviews of Toy Story attest to the fact that they can. It's that this trend has lead to an increase dichotomy where big budgets is reserved for dumb summer fare while quality original material has to be 'indie' and made with about 20 bucks.

Additionally, there's a new trend of 3-D movies. Post-Avatar, studios are hastily converting already shot movies into 3-D ones in post production, resulting in shoddy 3-D productions in The Clash of the Titans (remake!) and The Last Airbender, for example. It's a great excuse to charge higher prices for tickets to compensate for declining sales. Now, I have no problems with 3-,D but the film purist in me does not want 3-D movies to become the status quo for blockbusters. Roger Ebert explains why the 3-D trend is not a good thing here.

This is where Inception comes in. Now the film's marketing has likened it to The Matrix meets Bond, but Inception is definitely an original idea. It's a risky one, what with its high-brow dream-within-a-dream concept, and the only reason Warner Bros was willing to produce the cash for it was Christopher Nolan. Thanks to Batman Begins, and more importantly of course, The Dark Knight, Nolan has essentially become the God of WB, which means he has earned the right to obtain the US$200 million shooting budget needed to realise his vision for Inception. Nolan is also a traditionalist, who refused to release Inception in 3-D because he's not willing to compromise on the loss of certain qualities that would result in a 3-D conversion. Inception is one of the rare summer releases that will screen solely on 2-D theatres.

The film is released this coming weekend and advanced reviews have been more than positive overall. It also has a star-studded cast led by Leonardo Dicaprio. Combine those two factors with the fact that Nolan has garnered himself a legion of fanboys post-Batman (I'm one of them) who will unquestionably support his films and you have a recipe for box office success. Or so WB hopes. Because even with the cachet of Nolan, Dicaprio et al, Inception is still quite a risky venture. Rare is the studio that plunks $200 million in an original summer movie, much less an esoteric one about "dreams states".

This is why you should care about its success. Reviews have not all been published, but I'm willing to hazard a guess this will be a good film. It will most probably end up at 80% fresh on RottenTomatoes.  If that, coupled with the "From the Director of the Dark Knight" tagline, does not entice people to the movie, then I don't know what will.

The Dark Knight's success showed studios that dark, serious popcorn fare can make bank at the box office too. But it ultimately was a franchise based on one of the most popular comic book figures in the world. Inception is altogether a different kettle of fish. If it succeeds, Hollywood will perhaps see that it can be worthwhile to take some risks and invest in original scripts for the summer, and not just rely on established franchises. It will perhaps also stem the tide of 3-D films coming our way, and show that a good film done in 2D can and will bring in a large audience.

The future of Hollywood could very well depend on the success of Inception. Hands up those of us who want edgy, challenging and exciting summer extravaganzas! That is why if you love films even just a little bit, it is your duty to go see Inception!



Postscript: I guess if all else fails, we will always have Pixar.