As she promotes her now movie Materialists, 35-year-old Dakota Johnson had a few scathing remarks for Hollywood, criticizing the way movies are made nowadays in a recent appearance on the YouTube show Hot Ones.
She was asked about decisions in Hollywood
On the YouTube interview show Hot Ones, host Sean Evans asked Dakota Johnson why ‘Hollywood is risk-averese’.
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To that, Johnson replied, “I think it’s hard when creative decisions are made by committee and it’s hard when creative decisions are made by people who don’t even really watch movies or know anything about them, and that tends to be what’s occurring a lot.”
Studios want money, audiences want fresh stories
The actress explained that studios want to keep making money using fail-safe methods as they remake things they know people once loved, but audiences want new material.
“When something does well, studios want to keep that going so they remake the same things, but humans don’t want that. They want fresh, they want to feel new things, experience new things, see new things,” Johnson said.
Johnson called Hollywood ‘a mess’
“So I don’t know,” the 50 Shades of Gray actress added. “I guess it’s all just a bit of a mess right now, isn’t it?”
Last year, when Johnson’s Marvel movie Madame Web did badly at the box office, she called out the “committee” behind the movie for it flopping.
She believes those who took the decisions weren’t creatives
The actress told the Los Angeles TImes earlier this month, “It wasn’t my fault.”
“There’s this thing that happens now where a lot of creative decisions are made by committee. Or made by people who don’t have a creative bone in their body. And it’s really hard to make art that way. Or to make something entertaining that way,” she added.
She was in too deep when things changed
Johnson went on, “And I think unfortunately with Madame Web, it started out as something and turned into something else. And I was just sort of along for the ride at that point. But that happens. Bigger-budget movies fail all the time.”
She also blames the studio system
Johnson also told Bustle in an interview in March 2024 that she finds the studio system to blame for the ways movies are produced nowadays.
“Films are made by a filmmaker and a team of artists around them. You cannot make art based on numbers and algorithms,” she said.
Johnson feels that studios underestimate audiences
“My feeling has been for a long time that audiences are extremely smart, and executives have started to believe that they’re not,” the actress added.
“Audiences will always be able to sniff out bulls**t,” she pointed out. “Even if films start to be made with AI, humans aren’t going to f***ing want to see those.”
