Universal Studios President Ron Meyer Admits To Making "Shitty Movies", Yet He Continues To Make Them Anyway

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/04/universal-studios-president-ron-meyer-we-do-make-a-lot-of-shitty-movies_n_1076214.html


Does Ron Meyer not read scripts before the cameras start rolling? Surely this man can read. Why did he wait until "Cowboys & Aliens" was in theaters before admitting to the fact that..."Yeah, it's a shitty movie?" An experienced studio executive would know a movie is shitty just by reading the damn script, long before he would hire and over pay a film crew and cast members to commit the shitty idea to film.

Why does Universal Studios President Ron Meyer not realize a movie is shitty until long after it has been post-produced and distributed to movie theaters? Aren't there warning signs along the way that a movie would be shitty? Long before principal photography would begin?

In the case of "Cowboys & Aliens", I could have told Ron Meyer that the movie would have sucked even with Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard involved. And the primary reason why the movie sucked is because it was an extremely mundane, overused idea.

Let's see now...Where have we seen (before) Science Fiction and fantastic fantasy elements merged together with the wild west? Why...none other than the 1966-1969 television series "The Wild, Wild West" starring Robert Conrad and Ross Martin. In "Cowboys & Aliens"... I kept expecting to see the evil "Dr. Miguelito Lovelace" step out from behind a master control panel that controlled all of the evil alien creatures, and begin having a gunfight with secret agents James West and Artemus Gordon.

And in interviews on camera, both Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard actually thought that the "Wild West + Science Fiction" was a novel idea!! They actually thought that no one had ever thought of it before!! Surely Spielberg and Howard must have caught an episode of the "Wild, Wild West" at some point growing up. And "The Wild Wild West" did all of that Science Fiction / Western stuff a hell of alot better than "Cowboys & Aliens" did. And it did it in a really inspired and entertaining way. Sometimes even downright creepy. And it did it successfully for four straight seasons on television.

What about "The Wolfman?" Did Ron Meyer not learn his lesson from the movie "Van Helsing?" People don't like the Universal Studios monsters. They don't want to see them updated or given a facelift. People (the general public that buys movie tickets) want the Universal Studios monsters to remain on old black and white films being shown late at night on local affiliate stations.

It some studio were to be stupid enough to remake the old Michael Landon movie "I Was a Teenage Werewolf" I guarantee you it would bomb big time at the box office. The original wasn't a box office smash, and the public doesn't want to see some troubled youth with psychological problems turning into a werewolf. If the kid were happy and wealthy and used the werewolf power to his advantage it might work. Other than that...