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What I mean is that period accurate dialog, or at least a respectable pastiche of such, has become a part of Eggers' brand. It's expected of his work, and is a bullet point used to drum up interest in his projects, as indicated by the fact that they included it as a feature of note in its announcement to the public (and potential investors, depending on how early in development the project is).
My argument is that, in this particular case, I feel like writing "period accurate" dialog will make an inferior film to one which approximated it without slavish devotion to authenticity at all costs.
My rationale for that position is that it's not very immersive to require annotations which explain key things in modern parlance. I understand folks that saw the Witch and came away from that thinking that the antiquated dialog helped immerse them in that film. I felt the same way. Ditto for the Lighthouse. I would not have felt that way if more than half the dialog sounded Shakespeare ran through a couple rounds of Google Translate, and then spoken through a mouthful of oatmeal. On top of which, every now and again the movie stopped to read Wikipedia at me about colonial life in Puritan New England. I like to do that on my own, after the movie, for embarrassing lengths of time, thank you very much.
As for the contradiction on using period accurate dialog to drum up interest despite its potential to actually shut the audience out, well, clearly Hollywood does not share my qualms, so I don't think it's a contradiction at all. Not all marketing is good marketing. Sometimes, people will try to sell you something using features that you actively dislike, and, when you indicate your rejection, their response is to double down on what was prepared because you are clearly wrong about what you want.
All of that being said, I want emphasize that Eggers has earned the benefit of the doubt, and its ridiculous to write off a project based on the few scraps of information they had ready to share at the time of its announcement. I'll be very curious to see how he approaches the problem, I'm just saying I very much consider "the film will be written in Middle English" to be a problem to be solved, not an automatic gateway to immersion.
The core of my argument is that I think, on its face, the idea of using period accurate Middle English in your werewolf movie is a bad idea that will likely result in an inscrutable film, and if Eggers insists upon it, he is letting his "brand" interfere with his creative judgment. I did not mean to imply I ever thought it was the studio's idea that he emulate period language. It's clearly a passion of his, and he's deployed it to good effect in other movies, but I don't believe it's going to be right in this particular case, the same way it wasn't right for The Northmen or Nosferatu.
I am not against the use of period language as a rule. I have stated why I believe its use in this film will have a different effect than it had in the Witch, and provided illustrative examples. You may disagree with me on that front, and that's okay, but I feel like I laid out my argument decently on this subject, and thats the root of this whole thing.
Marketers doubling down on selling points which their audience have rejected was an oblique reference to American politics that I couldn't stop myself from including. It was low hanging fruit, and I almost regret it. However, I will defend myself by saying your argument was, essentially, "it's a contradiction for something to be both bad and one of the primary selling points", and that's readily disproven.
ETA: and, again, I can't emphasize enough that I'm willing to wait and see what he does with it. It's a bad idea, in my estimation, in the sense that there are a million ways it can not work, and very few ways in which it does. However, Eggers is, as mentioned, a talented guy who clearly thinks he's got a way to pull it off. I'll be happy to eat an extra helping of humble pie if he succeeds and does not have to compromise on this point.
Yes, I probably didn't emphasize enough exactly what I was referring to by "marketing" initially, and it's confusing when talking about an industry in which that term usually refers to the studio advertising strategy. I still don't know what else you would call it, necessarily, but I can see where my phrasing was misleading. My bad.
I appreciate your optimism and willingness to let Eggers do Eggers, and what's incomprehensible to some person is going to be fine for another. I just think your optimism (and Eggers') crosses into delusion if you think you're going to be able to follow dialog like this, subtitled or not. The point I'm arguing, that I don't think you've responded to other than to say you're not concerned, is that we aren't talking about writing a movie in "Ye Olde English", we are talking about writing movie in a fundamentally different language than what is spoken today, and then, presumably, not subtitling the dialog (I would imagine that would be mentioned in the press release if that was the plan at this point).
I understand that my argument relies upon an assumption that the film Eggers' is planning is mostly conventional, just written in Middle English. I stand by my assertion that that is a bad idea, even if it comes from a place of artistic purity. I don't share your view that a creative idea which breaks the norms of storytelling is good based solely on its being different. It can make a film interesting, to be sure, but it doesn't make it good. By way of example: The Last Jedi is a very interesting movie to me, in the sense that I'm flabbergasted Disney let Rian Johnson come into their multi-billion dollar franchise with the attitude of "this is all dumb and if you take it seriously, fuck you". That level of anarchic glee in a Star Wars movie of all things is fascinating. I still think it's a bad movie in the sense that it's a slog to watch. I believe Johnson was so preoccupied with deconstructing the mythos that he sacrificed telling a good story in service of that idea. Much as I was arguing that Eggers would be sacrificing good storytelling sense in service of period authenticity.
However, to tie a bow on this whole thing, since I've taken up a lot of your time and I appreciate you patiently hearing me out, I acknowledge that my assumption does not give Eggers the benefit of the doubt. If he commits to the bit, I'm sure he will try to find other means of conveying information to the audience than spoken dialog. Its a visual medium, after all, and Eggers is a talented filmmaker. Until we know more about his execution of this idea it's all much ado about nothing, I just have trepidations.