Creative Young Filmmakers Missing from Hollywood?
What has happened to the creativity coming out in the film industry? It feels like there has been a downturn in originality for a while and up until now in 2017. So many Hollywood reboots of old films or even old stories. While I love films going where they have not gone before, like Deadpool, where are the film makers with originality? It seems younger generations are just not as creative as older generations. Is this just an observation by me or am I flat wrong? The last creative filmmaker I can think of, from idea to the screen, is Kevin Smith. I think the Duffer Brothers have done an awesome job with Stranger Things, but can they keep pumping out original creative content? Time will tell. I grew up in the 80's and damn there was originality and creativity was running wild! Crazy movies were thought up, thrown on the screen. Since 2010, what has really come out that was innovative and creative? Let's look at Mad Max: Fury Road. First off it is written by someone in the older generation. The creative generation in my eyes. But it was written by 2003. George Miller, the writer, was 58 at the time!
Some recent films that come to mind as creative are Wolf of Wallstreet, Lincoln, Chappie, American Hustle, The Martian, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Wrestler, The Dark Knight, No Country for Old Men, Inception and The Hurt Locker. Of all those movies only two directors are under 50. Where is the younger generation in the movie making business? Even James Gunn of the wonderful Guardians of the Galaxy movies is 50! The Legend of Tarzan's director, David Yates, is 53. All the writers on Kong: Skull Island are over 40 (Although the director, Jordan Vogt-Roberts, is 32). Wonder Woman's director and writers are all over 45. Are younger people incapable in today's world with running films compared to the past?
Let's look at some well known directors/creators and their age when they hit the screen with well known movies. Quentin Tarantino was 31 when he release Pulp Fiction. Steven Speilberg was 28 when he directed Jaws in 1975, George Lucas was 29 when he wrote and directed American Graffiti in 1973, Francis Ford Coppala was 33 when he wrote and directed The Godfather, John Singelton was 23 when he wrote and directed Boyz n the Hood, Mike Judge was 30 when he wrote and directed Beavis and Butt-Head in 1993 and 36 when he wrote and directed Office Space in 1999, The Wachowski Brothers were 31 and 33 when they wrote and directed The Matrix in 1999, Spike Lee was 35 when he wrote and directed Malcolm X in 1992, Tim Burton was 31 when we wrote and directed Edward Scissorhands and Matt Damon was 26 and Ben Affleck was 24 when they wrote Good Will Hunting in 1997. These were all very young individuals who with each of these films and series made a mark. They were all under the age of 33. Not to say that there isn't the rare case of young film makers that are not making great work. Sam Esmail created Mr. Robot when he was in his mid 30's.
Maybe I am missing some younger people, but where is the vast number of young filmmakers like in the past? There seems to be a drop off. So what could be attributed to this? Who knows. It just seems like creativity in our younger generation is really lacking. Where are the 28, 31, 29 and 30 year old filmmakers? Anyone? Have Hollywood executives lost confidence in younger filmmakers, or have younger filmmakers disappeared?
