10 Most Annoying Phrases In The Movie Business
7. We Made It For The Fans
What it really means: 'Critics hated our movie'.
Quite possibly the most tired excuse trotted out by filmmakers in response to a critical battering, the 'we made it for the fans, not the critics' defense is bullsh*t on a fundamental level. For the most part, critics are fans and have a lifelong passion for cinema, while in the age of social media anybody can post their opinion about any movie on any platform.
The latest director to claim he 'made it for the fans' is The Mummy's Alex Kurtzman, a statement which just isn't true. A bland uninspiring wannabe franchise-launcher that barely appeals to Tom Cruise fans, and bastardizes its central concept so much that it won't have much sway with fans of action cinema, horror or Universal's classic monsters. Sure, you made it for us.
Adam Sandler of all people has also used this excuse on numerous occasions but when your output generally consists of making fart jokes on a set surrounded by your regular cast of best buddies, there's only one person he's really making them for.
Claiming a disconnect between critics and audiences, and then using it to defend your movie, is just lazy. That implies that the audience ultimately doesn't care about the quality of the movie they are paying to watch and are just happy to see something familiar and fitfully entertaining on the big screen, which is an insult to their intelligence.