(Source: http://moki.tv/blog/visual-evidence-mov ... ting-worse)If you look at the movies coming out of Hollywood these days, it seems obvious that they're getting worse. Cynics have gone as far as to proclaim the death of storytelling.
Movie studios, they say, are taking the easy way out: recycling old ideas that are a sure bet to attract audiences, regardless of quality. Comic book sequels for the geeks. Twilight adaptations for the teenage girls.
We process a lot of movie data here at Moki.tv, so we wondered whether this trend would be observable.
We looked at the 20 most popular movies each year, for the past 20 years. The key, we think, is to look for movies that some love and some hate, which is the likely profile of a bad movie that's "safely" manufactured for an existing fanbase. In other words, movies that are polarizing.
We looked at how polarizing each movie is by measuring the standard deviation of the ratings for each movie.
What We Noticed:
A recent spike in highly polarizing movies.
Movies like the 3 Twilight movies, the Transformers sequel, Fast and the Furious, and others all have really wide ratings distributions. These are all adaptations or sequels that appeal to an existing fanbase.
Sequels are (almost) always more polarizing.
You can filter the graph below by specific series, like Star Wars, Twilight, and Spiderman. Almost consistently, the sequels are more polarizing than the original. Studios can depend on sequels to reel in audiences, whether or not they make good movies. The one exception is the Batman series.
A fantastic article and a good read. I now can finally point people to something when I give my thoughtful opinions on why film today sucks.
