The Proof That Movies Won't Get Made Any More Is That... More Movies Are Being Made Today

from the consistency-is-all-I-ask dept

The Hollywood Reporter recently had an article which is pretty much all doom and gloom about the movie industry, based on a conference at USC about the "Entertainment Law and Business." Seeing as it's an LA event, it's not surprising that much of the story took the typical Hollywood line about how terrible things are these days. But what's amazing is that it seems to treat the success stories as if they're failures. It quotes YouTube star Sam Tsui, who points out that "you can't become complacent as a content creator -- you need to do new, exciting stuff" and turns that into the complaint that artists have to spend all their time running "to keep in the same place." Most of us call that "a job."

But the really stunning bit is that right after three paragraphs moaning about the state of the indie film business today, there's this:

Even when the indy news is good, it isn’t: Wilson said she saw more films on offer at the Cannes Film Market in May than she’d seen in a decade. That bountiful crop translates to an oversupply of product, a point Zimmer emphasized when he noted that there are only three key buyers of arthouse product remaining, Focus, Fox Searchlight and The Weinstein Company.

Er. Wait. That is good news. More films at Cannes than in a decade? Seems like lots of people are still making movies, and still have tremendous incentive to create, even if some of the old guard haven't quite figured out the business model just yet. Even more hilarious is the "explanation" for this "oversupply":

Panelists spoke ominously of films getting made "that shouldn't have gotten made."

Remember, these are basically the same people who are complaining all the time that movies won't get made if they don't get extra special protections. These are the same folks who say that the film business is collapsing and it's all a disaster. And then... when the evidence to the contrary is shown -- with more movies showing up at Cannes than any year in a decade -- that too is suddenly incorporated into the "disaster narrative" even though it goes directly against their claims. So, apparently, the movie business is collapsing and movies won't get made any more, and the evidence of this is that a ton of new movies got made last year.

Filed Under: business models, good news, hollywood, movies