Not only does Disney have vast studio resources to spin off endless new content from blue chip properties (Marvel, Lucasfilm, Pixar), as we learned from panel discussions with Disney's creative heads Kevin Feige (Marvel president), Kathleen Kennedy (Lucasfilm president) and Disney Studios chief creative officer Alan Horn, the TV series format offers limitless freedom in storytelling that had before been slowed down by the Hollywood
tentpole movie release cycle.
Give us the same privileges as a Hollywood
tentpole movie and we'll give you a big budget epic movie worth your money.
"And to get to do that in the context of a bigger
tentpole movie, I think, is really unique.
This is women being supported by a studio, in a
tentpole movie, for a diverse audience."
It was going to be a really cool
tentpole movie," Contactmusic quoted Alexander, as telling Entertainment Weekly.
It's a great, funny, entertaining
tentpole movie. So I feel like I have hit the jackpot.
Patty Jenkins made Warner Bros $413 million at the box office with Wonder Woman, but Hollywood still can't shake the feeling that women can't be trusted with a
tentpole movie.
Like the summer's other
tentpole movie set inside a fictional theme park, "Vacation" shows us that it understands the burden of expectations that come with resurrecting an iconic franchise.
If the first "Jurassic Park" served as a game-changing harbinger of the CGI-era
tentpole movie (as well as the movieas-theme-park-attraction-as-movie), "Jurassic World" can be seen as a self-aware commentary on the difficulties of sustaining a popular franchise in an age when spectacular event movies are the rule.
"I think dating in advance has led to the expansion of when you can release a
tentpole movie," Blake says.
"Studios have decided to make
tentpole movies about action heroes and they've veered away from serious drama to the detriment of the cinema-going population.
That hasn't historically been a huge deal, because Hollywood tends not to release
tentpole movies during that window, and the Chinese box office has been both financially significant and open to Western filmmakers for only a few years.
"We've learned that these
tentpole movies are most desired all around the world.
"Actors and directors are not working as much as Hollywood is focussing on big
tentpole movies with fewer releases each year.
Surprises are tough to pull off--for very practical reasons ranging from the timing of individual industry trade shows to retail planning and sales cycles to lead times for
tentpole movies, and so on.
