Bruce Campbell is exactly where he wants to be (Exclusive Interview)

A Horrible Collision

1428 Elm: Well, it’s a cast to be excited for. I think its going to be a hit.

Bruce Campbell : Okay, let’s go with that. I don’t guess anymore. Its too impossible. Its not worth anyone’s time and effort sweating about it. The mysterious stuff makes money, the tried and true stuff bombs. Go figure?

1428 Elm: I agree. That’s why I have a love/hate relationship with Hollywood.

Bruce Campbell: That’s because Hollywood is a horrible collision of art and commerce. The two of them really should not go together because commerce should not deal with artists because artists shouldn’t be treated like lab animals.

We tend to push against it, yet, ironically, artists would be broke if they didn’t have a company funding what they do. Hollywood is a horrible mish mash of commerce trying to disguise itself as art.

Often, good stuff comes out of it but the recipe is dubious. You know what I mean?

If you spend $100M on a movie, guess what? Your characters are going to be likeable; you’re going to defeat the bad guy and little Billy’s going to get his medicine.

It’s going to be a situation where you’re not going to do anything that interesting. Because its too risky. The movies I feel are always the coolest and the craziest are the ones $5M and under. They can be a lot freer, which is part of the reason I will always be a champion of B movies.

They tend to do something a little more outside of the box that they don’t feel obliged to appeal to everybody. I feel the best art shouldn’t appeal to everybody because if it does then you’re a Peanuts cartoon, I don’t know, whatever. There’s nothing wrong with that either.

1428 Elm: I agree. Part of me wishes that we could go back to the 90’s where independent film was something that was sought after.

Bruce Campbell: You have to wait though and watch how the current gyrations end because you have Disney pulling out of Netflix, they have their own live streaming, everybody’s starting the live streaming thing, no one knows how to pay for it yet.

Netflix is leveraged up to their eyeballs but God love them, they’re leading the pack in the new order of things. Look, a little independent filmmaker can get a movie on Netflix.

Not everyone could get Paramount to distribute their movie. Unless your film is a total piece of s***, you can eventually get it on these live streaming services. So, that’s a little crack in the door, if you ask me for indie filmmakers.

People don’t have to leave their house; they can get everything live streaming and can get any movie made. They’re going to start looking for weird stuff too because if you really put everything available, they can go, “I want to see a really stupid movie tonight or I want to see Pink Flamingos tonight or whatever.”

I think it will open up the door more for the obscure and the low budget. Because blockbusters will always be blockbusters. They have always had to have certain elements. Don’t expect anything different.

If you go to see a Star Wars movie, it will be just like the one you saw before. It will never change. Its a hero’s journey.

However, watch when the “Superhero Bubble” pops, you better duck.

1428 Elm: I think it is popping.

Bruce Campbell: We’ll see. We need about 3 healthy bombs in a row. Ones where they thought, “Why did Guardians of the Galaxy 9 bomb?” You know? Here’s the deal. I just don’t think its sustainable fiscally.

It puts studios at tremendous risk financially, because if you have to make your $200B movie succeed then you have to spend $60M promoting it. So, I think the streaming thing is going to be good for the art form.

The Blumhouse Effect

1428 Elm: Then conversely, you have this happening. You have Blumhouse making Halloween for $10M and then it goes on to gross over $255M worldwide. John Carpenter is out there talking more Halloween sequels beyond what they are doing now, do you think that will burn out at some point too?

Bruce Campbell: Blumhouse? No. He’s the smartest guy in the room. He’s containing his budget. Look at Roger Corman, you may or may not like his movies, the guy probably had the best track record in all of Hollywood.

He would say, “Here is what I’m spending on my movies. I don’t care if its sci-fi, horror, fantasy or a love story. This is how much I’m spending. If you’re over budget, I’m tearing pages out of your script. I don’t care.”

You know if Hollywood had a little more of that attitude, you would have a more successful track record. These movies are made so inefficiently.

I have had long conversations with people who are more in the Hollywood industry than me and I kind of laugh at them because they don’t know how to make a low budget movie. They’ve never learned.

So, I don’t know. If they were more fiscally responsible, they could do better entertainment for people. I have said this a million times. Take $100M. $2M per movie, you know? There, I just did 50 movies. Not bad.

Most are going to suck but 10 of them will be good, 5 of them will be classics and 1 will make enough money to pay for the rest of them.

1428 Elm: Why do you think Hollywood isn’t following that business model?

Bruce Campbell: Because its sort of like a drug that you can’t get off of. Movies keep getting bigger and bigger so why would you get smaller and smaller? I have to think streaming will help the small movies.

I don’t expect small movies to return to theaters. I expect small movies to flourish on streaming.