Hacker News Reader

Comment by kebman | Hacker News Reader

Why aren't film producers throwing money at Jodorowsky? The visuals and stories he'd tell would surely be mind blowing. (I ofc know these are AI generated images, but it still makes me wonder.) For instance I'm certain that it's his influence that made Nicolas Winding Refn make Neon Demon.

View on HN

It's extremely difficult to make new "cult" cinema deliberately; this kind of thing (especially the psychadelia influences) is simply out of style, and middle-budget pictures are vanishing.

The nearest thing you might find today .. maybe Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets? Luc Besson has some of the same pulp influences.

Maybe we just skip the middle steps and have the AI make the film.

> Maybe we just skip the middle steps and have the AI make the film.

I think we are nearing that in the next 10-12 years, and I imagine forward-thinking media corporations don't want that.

It would be cool if these AI tools ushered in an era of low-budget cult movies that have the visual effects of big budget movies. Think a few college students with a green screen in the garage producing epic sci-fi.

It's only a matter of time before we get there. Models will be built for film. It's a matter of scaling the resources. I'd imagine the computing increase would be mostly proportional to the number of frames to be generated.

> The nearest thing you might find today .. maybe Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets? Luc Besson has some of the same pulp influences.

Yes. Valérian is on the mainstream side of that 1980s sci-fi movement. One of the authors also was an artist for the Fifh Element. And a heavy influence on George Lucas (several Star Wars scenes are straight out of Valérian).

> Maybe we just skip the middle steps and have the AI make the film.

Several of these artists would have loved to have AIs to use back in the day. Very fitting in the whole artistic project.

Maybe because he’s 93?

I mean, I’m no fan of ageism, but let’s be realistic…

Yes, you might be onto something.

He’s been groundbreaking since the 1970s or so. He’s a difficult person to work with and he’s very opinionated and hates Hollywood, though, which probably does not help.

Have you watched any of Jodorowsky’s films? He’s pretty principled and I don’t think he’d make a movie that studios like and would make money.

Holy Mountain made big chunks of money. Jodorowsky is the only alt/psychedelic filmmaker I know of who ever made money. That’s how he got to keep making films.

After the Holy Mountain in 1973, it wasn't until 1989 he made another proper 'Jodorowsky' movie. Then until the 2010s when he was able to make two more films from crowdfunding. I don't think his films have made much money at all, compared to someone like Lynch who was able to get movies made for a long time.

My impression from watching the Dune documentary is he couldn’t get money to get the movies he wanted to make.

So he turned to graphic novels with Moebius, which I believe were successful (leading him to make a lot of them with a variety of artists - Manara, Jimenez).

My impression from the Dune documentary is he could find enough funding to pay for all the pre production work that now is in the book, which including hiring 3-4 artists. So I’m not sure he stop making films because he couldn’t get the funding, since the impression is he got enough to pay for those guys to work for him for a while.

Holy Mountain made $104k on a $750k budget [0].

Definitely not big chunks of money.

I liked Holy Mountain and I like crazy stuff. I’m not sure how he got his projects funded but it’s not based on his box office success.

El Topo also lost money.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holy_Mountain_(1973_film)

Hmmm from the Dune documentary Holy Mountain was a “hit”, particularly in Europe. That’s why he got funding to work on pre production for a Dune film, hired multiple artists to work on it for a period of time etc.

The box office you’re quoting is from a re-issue. It says right there on the page.

Again if you watch the Dune documentary, it’s stated there that: - holy Mountain did relatively well at the box office - that led producers to fund concept stage for his next idea, Dune

If the documentary is innacurate I don’t know. But that’s there, from memory.

It was a critical hit, but not financial. It’s an interesting movie and I’m glad it was made. I would never invest in it. Making Jodorowsky’s movies is like art patronage.

Im not sure how the documentary producers substantiated their claim, so I linked to a pretty reputable source that describes the budget and box office.

As I pointed out already, the Wikipedia page you linked says “re issue” under the profit

I have, and I think they're epic. That's why I think Jodorowsky has a big cult following that would have made it a financially sound idea to give him both money and creative freedom to make more movies.

"Dune, the greatest film that was never made" looked like it could have been incredible. Both casting and asthetic was in place, with the story they had it would have taken that film in a different and some would say more interesting direction.

Still very much a fan of how Villeneuve is handling things now with this established direction.

Jodorowski, Möbius, Giger in the same mix, the art is mind blowing

https://www.iamag.co/the-art-of-jodorowskys-dune/

https://dunebook.wixsite.com/dune

http://www.james-atkinson.co.uk/blog/alejandro_jodorowsky_39...

Giger at least saw his art go somewhere, wonderful work.

Villeneuve's movie as of now lacks some visual ambition and punch, and these "BADASS!" Momoa action scenes lowered its value, and the soundtrack felt generic.

I'd say the Dune 1984 "Alternative Edition Redux" remains the best version, yet. It's available on Youtube and definitely worth a watch,

Because as visually interesting as his films are they are barely watchable. I love how insane they are and I love the imagery but I've never watched one twice.

Maybe because of what happened to Dune

What happened? I was never clear on why he didn't get the nod for that, cast in place etc..

Having had the pleasure of listening to Chris Foss (concept artist for Dune) talk about it, it seems that Jodorosky and his circle were simply too drunk and/or high at that point to actually complete a movie.

Risky investment then. Sad, plenty of other drug fueled films made it.

if you watch the documentary "jodorosky's dune" he goes over it, and basically boiling down to the studios "liking the concept" but "not getting the director" especially that he wanted total creative freedom and to make the movie as long as he saw fit, but studios wanting a smaller budget and 90mins etc

btw, the incredible storyboards for dune are a feast if you can bits that are floating around

It's worth mentioning re: the disagreement on runtime that Jodorosky wanted a 24 hour runtime.

I also seem to recall something about Salvador Dalí wanting a flaming giraffe?

It was going to be around the twenty two hour mark though, you can't pull that out too early.

These days, with streaming, that’s a feature not a bug. 14 episodes with lengths that vary between 90 and 120 minutes and Bob’s your uncle.

> studios "liking the concept" but "not getting the director"

It's funny to think about in context of the film eventually going to David Lynch. "Good thing this Lynch guy's a straight shooter, not a weirdo like that Jodorowsky fellow!" (Different producers/studios, I know, but still...)

"Why aren't film producers throwing money at Jodorowsky?"

Jodorowsky had some gargantuesque approach to managing film budgets. Not saying it's justified but studios at the time were likely scared of financing him. The Dune debacle was a precedent.

My guess would be that he knows what he wants and wouldn't dance to their fiddle, plus his ideas and methods must seem super risky from a producer's perspective.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com