Blockbuster cinema has morphed into a soulless, clanging gallery of CGI, thin characters and endless marketing tie-ins that just make cynics of us all. When studios invest more in animation software than stories and writers, try to spread the cost by enlisting armies of licensing partners and product placement, no wonder the results are getting blander. … Continue readingHow Hollywood Murdered the Blockbuster

The franchise is 30 years old so there are a lot of assumptions that people brought to the table when this whole idea came up. I think part of the whole marketing campaign and what we tried to do right there in the first five minutes of the movie is just put those assumptions away and say ‘we’re doing our own thing here, it’s in the world of the Griswold’s and it’s a continuation of that world but this is a totally fresh, original movie’. … Continue readingEd Helms