With some recent expensive blockbusters like Will Smith’s After Earth, Johnny Depp’s The Lone Ranger, Jeff Bridges in R.I.P.D. and Jamie Foxx’s White House Down bombing horribly on their opening weekends, the movie industry was reeling from the sudden, shocking news.
It meant the studios and investors could lose over a hundred million dollars on each one. That wasn’t going to help in getting investors for future projects, so some damage control had to happen fast – some way to quickly deflect the blame. Hollywood desperately needed some way to make sense out of it all.
The first tendency in a disaster is to make excuses.
It’s so predictable. No matter if you’re an individual, company, or an industry; when things go terribly wrong, the first instinct is to start making excuses and pointing fingers.
“Excuses are the nails used to build a house of failure.” —Don Wilder
So what happened in this case? Did the producers, directors and studios stand up and say, Our fault – obviously we just made some lousy movies – because they sure didn’t connect with the public? Did they say, We gave it our best shot, and just came up short. We’ll do better next time. We now realize how we could have made them better? No they didn’t.
If you get in this kind of situation, be careful who you talk to.
There is a very destructive tendency that brings many down at this point. Here’s what you want to avoid: talking to other losers. The more you talk to other losers, the further you get off track.
That’s the one thing that can make it all worse, because they’ll be full of excuses, and together you’ll totally convince yourselves there’s no way it’s your fault.
Coming up with excuses may make you feel better, but it’s not going to solve your problem. If you deny why you’re getting beat, you’ll keep getting beat.
Here’s the ridiculous reason they came up with:
They decided it all happened because they released too many blockbusters at the same time. In other words, there was nothing wrong with the movies, there were just too many, at the same time. The implication was that they thought they would have all been runaway successes—if only they hadn’t all been released so close together.
It’s so wrong, it’s embarrassing.
If that were true, then why did so many other movies released during the same time have such runaway success like Heat, Despicable Me 2, World War Z, and Iron Man 3? Obviously, not everyone thinks there were too many blockbusters. I bet if you ask the people behind these movies, if they thought there were too many, they would look at you like you’re out of your mind.
You can’t have too many stars.
All corners of sports and entertainment world explode with interest at the arrival of a bunch of stars.
Do you think the NBA would have lost interest if there were too many Michael Jordans? The reverse is true. Once Magic Johnson and Larry Bird joined the NBA, fan interest exploded. Then it exploded again a few years later when Michael Jordan entered the league.
Too many stars driving fans away?
That’s never been proven true anywhere. You could prove it point by point through every sport and every arena of life. Stars bring excitement and sizzle. The more stars, the bigger the crowds.
