Universal Chief Ron Meyer: ‘We Make A Lot Of S***ty Movies’
Ron Meyer, the head of Universal Pictures, recently spoke at the Savannah Film Festival to speak to students and members of the public at the Savannah College of Art and Design. His comments were very surprising and very candid when it came to the quality of product that Universal has put out over the last few years.
We make a lot of shitty movies, every one of them breaks my heart.
Locked dead in his sights were ‘Land of the Lost,’ ‘The Wolfman,’ ‘Scott Pilgrim vs the World’ and a movie that he flat-out called mediocre, ‘Cowboys and Aliens.’
‘Land of the Lost’
Land of the Lost was just crap. I mean, there was no excuse for it. The best intentions all went wrong.
‘The Wolfman’
“Wolfman” and “Babe 2″ are two of the shittiest movies we put out
‘Scott Pilgram’
“Scott Pilgrim,” I think, was actually kind of a good movie. [Addressing a small section of the audience, cheering.] But none of you guys went! And you didn’t tell your friends to go! But, you know, it happens.
‘Cowboys and Aliens’
Cowboys & Aliens wasn’t good enough. Forget all the smart people involved in it, it wasn’t good enough, all those little creatures bouncing around were crappy. I think it was a mediocre movie, and we all did a mediocre job with it.
While all of these quotes could easily seem like they were taken out of context, Meyer spoke with a very refreshing, albeit surprising, honesty about how he felt about the product under his control. While I can certainly respect and applaud his candor, he unfortunately did not talk about raising the bar and making better films. In fact, he talked about lowering the bar in order to maximise profits.
A critical hit is great when it happens. But we did “A Beautiful Mind,” and I don’t know that we’d do “A Beautiful Mind” again. That’s the sad part. It’s great to win awards and make films that you’re proud of and make money, but your first obligation is to make money and then worry about being proud of what you do.
Meyer also spoke about building more theme parks in the vein of “The Wizarding World of Harry Potter” at Universal Orlando, his opinion of 3D being a gimmick not appropriate for all movies, why the studio turned down “The Dark Tower” and “At the Mountains of Madnees” (small hint… money), and the future of Video on Demand.
You can check out all of Meyer’s comments, from career longevity, quality of movies and more at MovieLine.
Meyer has given his opinions – what are yours?
