Tom Hanks thinks Hollywood is "doomed" if people don’t like ‘La La Land’.
The Oscar-winning actor was promoting his own new movie ‘Sully’ at the Telluride Film Festival when he interrupted the Q & A to extol the virtues of the new musical, which stars Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling and was directed by Damien Chazelle.
He said: "This is not a movie that falls into some sort of trend. I think it is going to be a test of the broader national audience, because it has none of the things that major studios want.
"Pre-awareness is a big thing they want, which is why a lot of remakes are going on. [‘La La Land’] is not a sequel, nobody knows who the characters are…But if the audience doesn’t go and embrace something as wonderful as this then we are all doomed."
The 60-year-old actor admits he is impressed the project got made because it is so different to anything else around and he is thankful studio bosses ignored trends to green light the movie.
He said: "I like to think we approach movies the same way we approach being members of the audience in that you just want to see something you have never seen before. It’s funny. ‘Who saw ‘La La Land’ yesterday?
"When you see something that is brand new, that you can’t imagine, and you think ‘Well thank God this landed’, because I think a movie like ‘La La Land’ would be anethema to studios. Number one, it is a musical and no one knows the songs…
"We all understand the business aspects of it. It’s cruel and it’s backbreaking and take-no-prisoners. But there’s always that chance where the audience sees something that is brand new, that they never expected, and embraces it, and celebrates it.
"We might be in the luxurious position that we can say we don’t have to pay attention to the trends, but there are other people whose parking spaces with their names on them are paid to follow these trends.
"I don’t take anything away from them and there are some good movies that come out of that. But we all go to the cinema for the same thing, that is to be transported to someplace we have never been before."
Tom Hanks praises La La Land
