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[AceofKnaves]

Now, whether any of his films are good art is a separate conversation.

This.

“Well you can’t argue with box office receipts!!”

I assure you: I can, and I will.

For the most part, I see an inverse of quality art to money made, not a correlation.

And I think the American public generally like their entertainment like they like their politicians: loud, obnoxious, and thoroughly mediocre.

 

[Ru1977]

I remember around Aliens or so, there was a lot of talk of Cameron being the 'new Spielberg ' as far as being a good filmmaker who also can gauge what the audience will respond to well. I dunno, maybe Abyss screwed him up because then he went back to the well, made a safe bet Arnold action movie, then I guess what some would seem sell out pictures ever since.

 

[Damien]

This is a tough one. I hate to be pedantic, but the guy made six $150 million movies. Three of them made more than $2 billion. Is it talent? Luck? An understanding of what your average movie-goer wants? Probably all of the above. Without looking it up, I'm sure Cameron is basically alone in those accolades. If it were easy, everyone would do it.

I don't like to equate 'box office numbers' with 'made good movies.' To me there's a huge gulf between the two. So I also don't like to say someone is talented because they made money. That way madness lies. And gets you Donald Trump for president because he has money and therefore must be good at things.

LOTR might be the best movie trilogy of all time, it's a shame what happened to the Hobbit movie(s). I really have no desire to watch them again. But if if were just ONE movie, it would be a whole different story. "Like butter scraped over too much bread" indeed.

If you can ever find it (sail the high seas, but sometimes it pops up on YT) look for "There and Back Again; The Hobbit Fan-Edit." Talented guy edited The Hobbit films into a single movie by removing all the extraneous garbage that was never in the book anyway, and it's 1000% a significantly better film. To the point of maybe even calling it a -good- film.

 

[AceofKnaves]

don't like to equate 'box office numbers' with 'made good movies.' To me there's a huge gulf between the two. So I also don't like to say someone is talented because they made money. That way madness lies. And gets you Donald Trump for president because he has money and therefore must be good at things.

Exactly.