Jeff Goldblum Needs To Teach Hollywood Honchos About Chaos
from the better-betting dept
As the movie studios continue to struggle, there's been a lot of discussion about what they can do to assert their relevance in the digital age. However, before they can chart their path, it's important to appreciate the challenges they face. As we've expressed before, a key component of studio economics is randomness. A few down years aren't enough to mark a trend; in fact this year the studios are doing better than they were last year. Overall ticket sales aren't up by a whole lot, but there's been a noticeable absence of major bombs so far. Now, more people are discussing the role of luck and randomness in the film industry and how the studios' failure to understand this has harmed them strategically. For example, executives with a hot hand are promoted, while those whose films have performed badly are shown the door. This may seem logical in the short run, but if you view them as roulette players on hot or cold streaks, it doesn't make sense to assume that one is necessarily better than the other.But just because there's a large element of chance, it doesn't follow that the studios can't do anything to improve their performance. For example, instead of looking for studio heads who put out hot pictures, they should look for executives who -- like executives in any other business -- push cost cutting. Remember, films don't need to cost $200 million to produce anymore. New technology allows for films to be produced with a much smaller initial buy-in. Much of the costs are, of course, for actor pay, but randomness applies to them too. You can't buy a hit just be hiring a hot actor, so the studios should press against their high prices. Importantly, appreciating the consequences of chaos should also help them deal with the changing media landscape. The current system of theatrical releases lends itself to winner-take-all releases. When a film like the Da Vinci Code comes out it dominates the available screens, leaving the other works unlucky enough to be released the same week to fight for the scraps. By embracing the multi-channel approach, something the studios are currently in fear of, they can avoid the consequences of a bad release window. Investing money into a new project will never be a sure thing, but it's clear that Hollywood can improve its fortunes by pushing back against some of the ways it's always been done.
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Wrong!
First!
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Re: Wrong!
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Piracy my left ball!
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yo
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I don't know about the rest of you, but I see fewer movies. I'm not pirating more movies, I'm just not watching them. I would quite honestly derive more pleasure and a bigger wallet by sitting in a wooden chair listening to news radio for 2 hours than do the "theater experience" and watch a lousy movie.
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Go live!
The more Hollywood tries to bore us to death, the more community theaters benefit.
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I Agree
The indistry has lost touch with that people want. Get rid of the multiplex. Go to the big single cimascope screens. And give me something worth watching on it. 40 screens of crap is just crap.
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2 dollar movies
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Baen books is distributing books in multiple formats, with no DRM, and doing very nicely out of it, thank you very much. And the authors get better royalties from digital sales to reflect the lack of printing costs.
I see no reason this couldn't be moved into the TV/Movie industry.
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A. Insurance, the cost is higher then every for everything and everybody has to be insured or the film is a no go.
B. CGI. Think of it as you want but alot of the studios are in tough negotions with CGI unions because the costs have gone up in HUGE folds.
I will have to disagree that it is now cheaper to make them. Is it cheaper to make small budget stuff? Yes because you can buy a few PMG5 Macs and get some HD camera's and go about it but if you mean true theatrical release, then no.
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Re: Sohrab
I accept your thanks.
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Re: Everything
Other than that I agree that Hollywood needs to actually make some movies that are good. More original ideas. For instance I'm sorry if nobody else agrees but Napoleon Dynamite was one of the best movies ever and there was only 1 actor that I've ever heard of in it (Rex-Quan-Do guy... can't remember the name). Also there is no way that NapDyn took 200 Mil. to make.
The video game industry is heading this way very soon. Games are now taking too much time and money to produce so companies are sticking to "safe" money makers and not going out on a limb the way designers would like to.
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For starters, they could stop paying $20 million a movie. If Tom Cruise won't do any more movies, that is fine with me. I am sure there are plenty of talented lesser known actors/actresses who would do a movie for $1 million or less.
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As such, the movie industry has to rely on popular fiction/non-fiction books and adapt them for the screen. Then a movie budget has to be made. Production costs include: props, studio rental, staff hiring, casting of actors and extras, special effects, sound effects, etc...
There used to be a time where more funds went into special effects than hiring the actors. They don't make movies like they did in the good old days, mainly because there aren't any good ideas anymore and special effects have lost their wow factor.
So, let's revisit the good old themes of old crazed super-geniuses attempting to enslave all of humanity while combating anti-heroes with huge mega-robots. Theres alot of japanese manga with good ideas waiting to be exploited. That's why everyone's turning to japanese anime for their kicks nowadays.
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