10 Trends That Are Killing Movies

7. Market-Targeted Filmmaking

Here's a blatantly obvious trend that sticks out like a sore thumb every time we see it. Primarily in action blockbusters, filmmakers are setting their adventures - or at least parts of them - in foreign countries in the attempt to appeal to burgeoning movie markets. Take last year, where Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol featured a lengthy opening act set in Russia, and the dire The Darkest Hour was set in the country for its entirety. There's absolutely no need for it, especially in the latter case, and it's clearly just a token attempt to appeal to a market that's been on the rise for the last few years. And going by what we're hearing, it's not something that's going to be leaving us any time soon; the current rumour doing the rounds is that Transformers 4 is going to possibly be set, at least in part in China, and given that this is the other big target market at the moment, we're none too surprised. In fact, expect to see a lot more action films taking a needless detour abroad in the next year or so. Sure, it's not the worst thing filmmakers can be doing, but when it feels so forced and unnecessary to the fabric of the story, it is a bit distracting.