‘The Odyssey’ Proves It: Audiences Want Movies Made the Hard Way | This year's breakouts like 'Project Hail Mary' and 'Obsession' were made by filmmakers who sweated. While CG-stuffed franchise disappointments such as 'Supergirl,' 'Moana,' and 'The Mandalorian and Grogu' looked lazy.

[u/ChiefLeef22]

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/odyssey-box-office-2026-practical-effects-1236652219/

[u/feartheoldblood90]

We need to re-enter the era when Hollywood was pumping out big epics with insane amounts of actors and extras on huge sets that they would, like, flood with biblical amounts of water or light on fire or redirect a meteor from space to hit, all while 50 synchronized swimmers danced in a pool the size of Manhattan

[u/droidtron → u/feartheoldblood90]

20 good men died, but we got the shot.

[u/BattledroidE → u/droidtron]

The boom mic was in frame, let's do it again.

[u/PunkPirate56364 → u/BattledroidE]

We are running out of extras so...

We hire more extras and try again tomorrow?

[u/Nachooolo → u/droidtron]

Is it truly cinema if two kids don't die in a horrible helicopter accident?

[u/TenaciousJP → u/droidtron]

You must mean Sir Twenty of House Goodmen, pivotal in Season 5 of Game of Thrones

[u/ltra1n → u/TenaciousJP]

Pissed me off that whatever happened there happened off screen and was completely unexplained. Season 5 was where we knew the series was in freefall.

[u/imnotreallyapenguin → u/feartheoldblood90]

Im still waiting on the film adaptation of Gates of Fire..

Come on hollywood... swords and sandals epics are cool again!

[u/Z0MBIECL0WN → u/imnotreallyapenguin]

Im still waiting on the film adaptation of Gates of Fire

Sorry. Best we can do is a dramatized version of Bill Gates makings Microsoft.

[u/KILLER5196 → u/Z0MBIECL0WN]

Up next, a biopic for an artist that was relevant 30-40 years ago

[u/OakleysnTie → u/imnotreallyapenguin]

Would absolutely kill for this to be made, and made well.

[u/MontyAtWork → u/feartheoldblood90]

I've been watching movies from the 70s-90s and that's something I've noticed happened WAY more: multiple crowd shots and scenes with people moving through crowds.

Those places felt real and inhabited.

[u/TheOnlyBongo → u/MontyAtWork]

Lawrence of Arabia from 1962. When P.T. Lawrence has to cross the Sinai Desert from Aqaba to Cairo to deliver the news of taking Aqaba by land through the Nefud Desert, boldly claiming "Moses did it." When he reaches Cairo he is swarmed by British Officers who tell him to get out of his Arab clothing and get his Arab friend out of the officer's bar. Everyone falls silent when he claims to have taken Aqaba by land of his own authority and he calmly makes his way out of the room as people part away for him, like Moses and the Red Sea.

Much later in the movie when he reaches Damascus and tries to establish an Arab Council rub by the Arabs with no foreign intervention, it is pure pandemonium as multiple tribes do not wish to cooperate and there is much infighting. Lawrence tries to leave the meeting to attend to urgent matters but is swarmed by a bunch of people needing signatures for different areas of government. He fights against the crows but is unable to make his way through, having lost his control of the situation and unable to part the people like before.

Lawrence of Arabia has some of the best cinematography of any movie in my opinion. The shots are gorgeous and many are deliberately done where the frame tells the story.

[u/nope-nik-tesla → u/TheOnlyBongo]

One of the best movies of all time, and the 4K release of it looks fantastic. If you haven't seen the recent 4K release of Ben-Hur, you need to watch that one too.

[u/cherinator → u/feartheoldblood90]

We still have Indian cinema for that at least, and it is glorious.

[u/comrade_batman → u/feartheoldblood90]

After The Odyssey I’d love to see someone (like Villeneuve) make an epic adaption of Virgil’s The Aeneid, connects to both Troy and Rome’s founding myths.

[u/kiwigate → u/feartheoldblood90]

Spectacle aside, those films had good writing. Then Hollywood blacklisted all the good writers because they 'made capitalism look bad' or whatever fascist bullshit era we apparently still live in.

[u/feartheoldblood90 → u/kiwigate]

Very true

[u/exolyrical → u/feartheoldblood90]

With hardware prices these days it might still be cheaper than CGI.

[u/GodsFavoriteDegen → u/feartheoldblood90]

My wife and I watched Wings (1927) a few weeks ago. There are scenes showing thousands of extras, accomplished by having thousands of extras. It was super impressive.

[u/rodryguezzz → u/feartheoldblood90]

That would still be cheaper than some slop filled with videogame CGI.