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Star Wars Producer Says Box Office is Doomed
Cutriss writes "Seen at CNN, this article interviews Rick McCallum, longtime producer at LucasFilms. McCallum says that DVDs will be responsible for the downfall of the movie industry *without* taking piracy into account, due to the fact that people think the home theatre experience is just as good, or better than the big screens, and they know that in five months, the DVD will be out on the market. Of course, his claim that "studios are barely breaking even" falls on deaf ears when I hear about 9-digit salaries for individual actors in a big-name film that's just some rehash of an old concept. He also mentions, of course, that DVD piracy and movie "sharing" groups will only speed up the cycle, and that they'll be putting Hollywood out of business, possibly within the next three years."
More propaganda from the big money movie folks. They need to learn to budget better like everyone else.
I could really care less about the box office. Everytime I go to the movies...
1. The food portions are smaller than a few years ago.
2. The price is WAY WAY higher!
3. People's cell phones are going off.
4. Some a**hole is giving comentary to the person sitting next to him/her.
Overall, not a very pleasant experience.
Even considering the worst case scenario - all major studios go out of business - that still leaves a wide open market for people to make movies and sell them for money.
It's completely absurd to think that movies MUST be made by companies named "Paramount Pictures" or "Universal Studios". There's nothing magical about those names. If they can't stay in business, or refuse to change enough to stay in business, then screw them. Time for new blood.
Get your stinking paws off me you damn dirty ape
They said the same thing when VCRs came out, and that certainly wasn't the end of the movie industry.
Don't they always say this? Wasn't it said about videos, CD Video, cable? Who produces the DVD's? OK, so if people stop going to theatres then thats a revenue stream down but more income from DVD rentals, sales, airlines, pay per view, airlines ....
I really wish they'd just see that technology opens up new revenue streams faster than it closes them down.
because people have completely forgotten how to behave in a theater. I can't count the number of times I've had a movie ruined by inconsiderate dolts talking, or ANSWERING THEIR CELLPHONES and having an entire conversaion during the movie. Except for major blockbusters, I wait until I can rent it on DVD.
The most popular movies are gating over $400 dollars in the US alone. (Star Wars, Spider-man, Fellowship of the Ring).
Those same movies will likely make killings in overseas markets.
And then, those movies will make even more on DVD sales around the world.
If Hollywood goes out of business, it'll only be caused by their own incompetence. Maybe Hollywood should drop the $30 million salaries and ridiculous special effects costs and concentrate on writing (or adapting) entertaining storylines for movies.
DVD's aren't going to kill Hollywood any more then VHS did. A big screen TV is not the same as a movie theater screen. However, I'd wager that the quality of movies is declining. For every gem like Fellowship of the Ring, there's 3 or 4 movies with the quality of "Kung Pow".
I'm not sure why someone modded this as Funny because I think zensmile makes good points. It costs a lot to go to the movies and the experience is inferior to what I can have in my home. Here's a few more additions to the list:
5. Sticky floors6. Six or seven trailers before the show starts
7. No control over sound, picture quality, environmental conditions
8. Just too many people in general
If the film industry starts hurting for business, they can start to work on making the theater a more enjoyable experience. Until then, I'm just going to wait a few months and get a better experience at a better price in my own place.
GMD
watch this
The movie industry did basically the same thing to live theater. it still lives as a niche product for those who want it, but it is not nearly as pervasive as it was.
just because you have managed to earn a living doing something in the past, that is no guarantee of being able to do so in the future.
technology changes the rules, and some industries suffer, but other industries prosper.
the movie industry needs to realize that they are not "entitled" to make money from traditional movies, they must provide us a reason to do pay them for the experience.
if they made movies that were worth the extra $5 to see on a big screen vs. my tv, then maybe I they wouldn't have this problem.
The difference between Theory and Practice is greater in Practice than in Theory.
It'll be as dead as...
...movie theatres after TV.
...Live music after radio.
...theatre after movies.
...radio after TV.
There's something that going to the movies can provide that DVDs can't. The movies provide the whole "going out" experience, and the crowd. How many times have you gone to a movie and remarked "when that happened, the whole crowd laughed, yelled, groaned, etc."
Staying at home with a DVD and the microwave is lame. Dinner and a movie is cool.
Better yet, we may see more innovation in theatres like the Cinema and Drafthouse. If you've never been to one of those, you don't know what you're missing.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I'll chalk this up to "We only have 10 years left on this planet!" stated by actor Ted Danson about 10 years ago (also from Hollywood).
Look at how piracy has destroyed the software industry! Oh, it hasn't? But people have been pirating software for 10 years, how can software vendors still be making money?!!! Funny, isn't it?
My hope for the future is that we get rid of alot of the "Fame and Fortune" aspect of acting. In the future (thanks to the Internet), I believe that anyone will be able to broadcast anything they want, and may become famous, but not necessarily rich.
Hollywood makes lots of great movies, and a lot of bad ones. But they've only been around for less than 100 years. They may simply be a short-lived 20th century phenomena, with other forms of entertainment eventually taking over. Don't boohoo about it. If they disappear, it will be because nobody wants their stuff, not because everyone wants DVD's...
For the record, I've never put off "going to the movies" with my wife, simply so that I could watch it on DVD/VHS/PPV three months later...
It reminds me of the old joke about the guy who goes in to see his doctor because it hurts every time he bends in a strange way. The doctor tells him to stop bending that way, and the pain will go away.
If it really hurts the box office that the DVD is released just a few months after the theatrical release, why in hell are the doing it? They could always delay the DVD so that it only comes out a year or more after the theatrical release. That preserves the incentive to see the movie on the big screen, while letting the DVD come out close enough to the theatrical release that people can still remember the movie and want to buy it. What is wrong with these people?
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Ticket sales will improve as the economy improves. Theaters will install new technology to make the movie-going experience better. Ticket prices will increase leading to bigger and bigger box-office takes. DVD sales will remain strong. Hollywood will continue to thrive. Piracy will be a secondary factor (as it is now) until fat bandwidth is ubiquitous; after that, it will be controlled by social factors. MPAA will continue to believe that they represent the forces of free speech; people like me will continue to laugh in their faces.
Hollywood will face a major defeat, however, it won't be economic. It will be legal. Copyright extentions will be cut down by the Supreme Court and DMCA will either be stricken down or repealed. Hollywood will then have to resort to marketing (gasp!) to prevent mass piracy.
Finding God in a Dog
young people aren't going to the same movie five or six times a la "Titanic."
Maybe the movie companies aren't making a film as good as Titanic every year. Personally, I didn't care for it, but a lot of people really liked it. I don't see the same kind of passion for "Dude, where's my car?".
Filmmakers love it [DVD] because it more closely resembles the film made
Then maybe the movie studios and theatres should listen more closely to the filmmakers before eviscerating the movie for general release?
I don't think there's a single movie that can survive on box office gross alone; it just doesn't exist anymore. A theatrical gross can't hack it anymore, and the business is barely surviving right now
27 movies so far this year have grossed over $100 million. If you can't put a movie onto film for less than a million dollars a minute I suggest you need to control your costs a little better. Taco suggested paying actors less. That might be a start.
--
E_NOSIG
It's not the "theater experience" that attracts me. It's not the first-viewer opportunity. It's certainly not the overpriced popcorn and soda or the need to drive fifteen minutes across town with my entire family in tow. And it's not, nor will it ever be, the ability to recreate sounds in 6.1 speakers around the entire three-dimensional room.
No, it's the big screen I like. Mitsubishi electronics' best efforts notwithstanding, home theater will never be as impressive as a screen the size of an auditorium wall with all the characters projected in incredible detail. The movies I really love I go to see three, four times on those big screens, just because I prefer to watch a movie "up there" than "down here".
When I can afford to outfit an entire room of my house for darkened projected DVD movie experiences, I may reconsider. For now it's easier just to spend $3 apiece at the cheapie theater.
Not to mention product comercials before a movie you have paid for...
6 or 7 years ago, I'd take my girlfriend to the local 3-screen theatre and we'd watch a first-run movie for about $5 a head, plus a shared $8 combo. Total cost, after taxes, $18. Now, the ticket price at my local 12-screen megaplex is $13 per ticket, and the cheapest popcorn+soda combo runs $9 plus tax. Total cost, after taxes, $38.
Now, at $18 for a night out, it was worth it. But once the cost of the experience exceeds the price of owning the movie on DVD, I get a little hesitant about running out to the theatre every weekend. So now, unless it's a movie that will truly benefit from the big-screen experience (i.e., Clones), I simply wait and buy the DVD. That's right, I buy the DVD, even if I'm not sure I'll like the movie. Know why? Because it's still cheaper than seeing it in the theatre, and plus, I get to keep the movie. So even if the movie sucked, hey, at least I still have something to show for it. If it had sucked on the big screen, all I'd walk out with would be some butter on my fingers.
What I'd like to see happen is for studios to make less use of expensive, superfluous special effects and quit pandering to the silver-spoon prima donna crybaby megastars like Julia Roberts, and start hiring equally-capable, but far lesser-known (and thus, far cheaper) actors, like Guy Pearce. Of course, now that he's becoming popular, you'd have to opt for someone else, unless he's willing to continue working at his "Memento" salary levels. This way, we'd get more diversity on screen, and the movies would be far cheaper to produce (and dare I dream, far cheaper to watch?).
Am I the only one who, when I see a Tom Hanks movie (and don't get me wrong, Tom is an amazing actor), I have a lot of trouble accepting him in whatever role he's supposed to be? I keep seeing Forrest Gump. Of course, he was great, but he's still got that recognition, and sometimes, that can hurt a movie. I mean, come on, George Clooney as Batman? Sure, he did a great job, but I kept seeing the doctor from "E.R." I think this was one of the reasons I liked "Memento" so much - I'd never seen Guy Pearce before.
By the way, there's no way that the industry will die in a mere 3 years. That's insanely fast. They couldn't die that fast if they tried. It would take nothing short of some extreme economics and a perfect sequence of disastrous coincidences and events to eliminate such a massive industry so quickly.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
I have a $100 stereo hooked to the DVD player. It includes surround sound speakers...
I have a 27" TV (hand me down, about 10-12 years old).
I MUCH prefer this theatre to the one in Maumee, OH which would set me back about $9.00/ea ticket.
My couch is FAR more comfortable than the theatre chairs, I don't get a nose bleed from the stadium seating, and I don't have to listen to the asshole teenagers blabbing the whole time (then who tell someone 10 years older than them to STFU, on a side note: When I was 12 I wouldn't THINK of talking to a 21+ year old, nevermind talking back to them)
Again, 2.99/ea or $6.00/three DVDs rental. $9.00/ea (18.00/total) for movies.
Too easy.
...but theaters. The movie studios will keep making movies, and if they can't make as much on dvd sales then they reduce the cost of making movies (lower pay, increase productivity, the usual etc.). The worst that can happen is that theaters go out of business, and I see no reason why that would really cause movie studios to go down. Heck, with the focus off of getting people into theaters, maybe the number and quality of films released each year could rise. Maybe not to the level of the book industry (production costs too different), but along those lines.
How can one compare movie earnings from a few years ago to today? The economy is the exact opposite today as it was a few years ago. Back in the day we all had a little extra cash to spend on the outrageous 10 bucks a pop price to watch a movie in a theater.
Now that we are in lean times of course I, and many others in a similar situation, are not going to go out to the movies as often as once was.
We're all feeling the crunch McCallum, you are not immune to it.
Insert your own cheap shot about the drop being off due to rather poor story telling and execution for the last two Star Wars movies.
So don't blame the internet and kids with fat pipes. Try looking closer to home for the real reason things are so green right now.
In the 50's and 60's they said TV will kill the film industry.
In the late 70's/early 80's they said the VCR will kill the film industry.
Now Rick McCallum is claiming that DVD will kill the film industry.
He claims that "single movie that can survive on box office gross alone". That may be true, but only because of natural competition. The total revenue for a movie in the day and age is theater release + home release. That TOTAL revenue is what pays salaries and production costs. What, did he think the DVD was going to be just pure profit? Actors aren't making 20 million just based on theater release.
But it is unlikely that theaters are going away anytime soon. Why? Because the studios control the supply and demand for movies (for the most part). You pay $8.00 to go to a movie because you can't see it on tape, even if you had a movie quality home theater. And it is going to be decades before >50% of the public has movie quality home theaters anyway. They release the movie on DVD only after noone is seeing it in the theaters anymore.
Now piracy may be an issue and that is one of the points he seems to be making. However, in order to be all that widespread everyone would need T1 lines to their houses and the total bandwidth of the Internet would have to be tripled. Most people will still be on dialup in 3 years, so mass use of a Napster-clone is unlikely to be feasible. Unless people are willing to stay online for 2 weeks to download a movie.
Brian Ellenberger
When TV came out (circa 1950s), people from the movie studios claimed it would be the death of the big screen cinema. They adapted and survived and made more money than before.
When VCRs came out (circa 1980), people from the movie studios claimed it would be the death of the big screen cinema. They adapted and survived and made more money than before.
When so-called piracy came out (circa 1980s), people from the movie studios claimed it would be the death of the big screen cinema. They adapted and survived and made more money than before.
Now that DVDs and overly expensive home theaters are out, someone from the movie studios is claiming it will be the death of the big screen cinema.
These people really have no clue what they're talking about, do they?
Come on, people. Yeah, cinemas are grossly overpriced, but people keep going to them in droves. There's a very heavy social aspect there that no one seems to realize. Your family isn't "going out together" if you rent a movie (or stream it from a server) onto your own 30" screen. It's not really a date with your girlfriend if you're not paying for her rip-off slime popcorn at a theater.
Yeah, I'm sure this guy is speaking for himself, not for the company. That doesn't make him any less of a short-sighted dork for saying it.
I have full faith and confidence in the ability of American business to figure out how to make a buck no matter what the technology is.
--GrouchoMarx
Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?
And they're not making money from DVD sales? I'm sorry, what does it cost... $.05 per disc? Probably less? The movie makers will continue to make money irregardless. And if the movie theatres can't stay open well that's just too bad. They should have figured out a way to make us want to come and put up with their ridiculous prices and all the annoying patrons that you have to sit with. I'm sorry, I'm still paying, I'm not going to feel sorry for them.
People like to Go Out. As strange as it seems to us normal folk, going out to the movies is a pleasant experience for a large number of people. Somehow you're a loser if you stay home and watch the same movie that you could see at a theater. People like to make phone calls, dress up, go to the movies, go to dinner.
The box office isn't going away anytime soon. That guy is a fool to even say it; look at the damn box office gross figures.
Before they start delaying DVD releases, they need to start making better movies again instead of simply trying to feed you the next big catchphrase to utter around the water cooler.
.. how many of the folks that bought Austin Powers 2 on DVD would have bought it had they had to wait another year or two? Nobody gives a shit about most of these movies once they've faded from the pop culture venacular; a process that only takes 4 or 5 months after the movies runs in theatres.
.. the faster you get into the cultural conciouness (with exploitive or cheap advertising), the faster you fall out of it. The feedback loop between the producer and the consumer *can* get too tight, and the movie industry as it stands today is a very good example of this. Watch for the pendulum to start going the other way; hopefully with a neo-Hollywood instead of the one we're stuck with today.
Cause lets face it
Entertainment today is more expoitive than it ever has been. They ploy on your material and cultural associations, but rarely have anything to say that is applicable beyond the cultural microsecond in which they are released and promoted.
In fact, this is part of a bigger problem in the whole 'Business at the speed of light' goal we got caught up in
"Old man yells at systemd"
About 3 years ago in Canada we had a projectionists' union strike. It didn't end well. The frequency of fuckups in my moviegoing experience has at least tripled. They are constantly threading the film up - especially first releases - with the wrong lens (i.e. anamorphic vs. standard). Film breaks are more common, and apparently unrepairable now.
They run innumerable ads before movies now. When I hear the voice say 'and now a word from our sponsor...' I feel like standing up and spouting off for 10 minutes because I am their goddam sponsor.
The popcorn prices are laughable. The soda/pop prices are fucking astronomical.
Mobile phones. Laser pointers. Hell, GameBoys.
The waits have gotten longer.
First-run movies often get cycled 24-7 so the prints fall apart faster. Which means you need to see it earlier (see previous point).
I liked the theatre experience before; there's a certain crowd-vibe that is really enjoyable, sometimes even saving you from a bad film (the complete derision shown in the last Godzilla remake was spectacular. I've never seen a whole movie openly, loudly mocked by the entire audience before. And it was fun.)
These days though... being able to control the lighting and sound perfectly, being able to pause to go to the can, eating my own sensibly-priced junk food... like most, I make a judgement call when a movie comes out. If I'm dying to see it, I'll go. Those movies are rare these days.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
...when they STOP showing commercials to a captive audience before the movie. The excuse that the commercials are buffering increasing ticket prices is, IMO, bunk. Tickets here in Cinci have risen about 20% in the last couple of years. I used to go to about 10 movies a year, now it's down to about 3 and those are *matinees*.
Actually, a couple of theaters in the east bay area where I live are addressing just these issues and doing a gangbusters job of it. The Parkway theater is a small brewpub/theater environment that carefully crafts their movie schedule to theme nights and provides special nights for things like people with small children and they do boffo business at $5.00 a ticket.
The Paramount Theater, in Oakland, CA provides a great old-time experience, including prize giva-aways, live organ music and a ton of other fun extras, again for a low ticket price, and they are packed for every show I have atteneded there.
Theaters that keep cramming in more seats and charging higher ticket prices for the same sub-standard experience SHOULD start to die, but specialty houses that cater to their clientelle will be able to keep picking up the slack and hopefully spread out from their hardcore urban niche to the rest of the country. Which for me would be a good thing.
And the death of the blockbuster would just be icing on the cake for me.
7. What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.
It costs about $8-9 USD for a ticket for one person. If a couple is going, that's $16-18 just to get in the door, and there are a rather large number of DVDs that sell for that price (including new releases.)
Anyone with kids is hopelessly punished by the ticket prices, not to mention the confectionary stand. (Suuuure you can convince the kids to skip that $2 medium drink and those $3.50 candies!)
And for what? To have your feet stick to the floor? To listen to the idiot with the cell phone, or the couple/group that spend more time talking than watching? Perhaps for the joy of screaming "Focus! Focus!" when the monkey upstairs in the projection booth lets everything go fuzzy?
As to "going bankrupt", maybe Hollywood's big money directors and stars will be forced to do what many of us in the tech industry did last year -- take a pay cut in order to keep working. I realize 10-15% cuts for them amount to a few million dollars a year in some cases, but they can afford it far better than "normal" people can.
And if I hear another MPAA or RIAA exec trying to justify the prices as being necessary to cover the costs of producing the "failures", I think I'm going to puke. No other industry I know of tries to justify their costs by pointing to perpetual mis-management, poor marketing, and poor salary negotiation skills. It's called "ROI" people, and if you can't grasp that basic concept and deal with it you should be out of business!
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
For instance, I used to go to movies a lot. I used to have a main stream movie theaters close to me. That theater is now closed and I have to go much farther to another theater where i have to pay for parking, where they have several concesion stands but even on busy weekends they only have one open, usually with only two staff, to serve the entire 30 screens, and where they clean up the during the credits. And don't get me started on the five minutes of unrelated product commericals. I never had these problems at my old theater.
Going to a movie is no longer a pleasent experience, and it has nothing to do with cell phones, or people talking, or babies. It has to do with the number of screens and the number of seats that is necceary to show a main stream movie. Movie going should not be something that has to be scheduled, planned, and carried out in a careful operation. It is supposed to be fun.
So, I mostly go to the occasional art flick where I can drop in, buy a ticket, and enjoy the show without having the experience ruined by excessive lines, cleaning staff, or overt commercials.
And, in time, I may get a home theater, and more DVDs. Of course, if the DVDs continue to become increasing draconian, I may just abandon the whole movie going expereince
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
What I don't understand is why no one has ever filed a suit against theaters, especially the big ones like AMC and Showcase for price gouging at the consession stands.
Since they say you can't bring in your own stuff, forcing someone who say, is hypoglycemic or has a bunch of kids who will make noise unless they have something to shove into their mouths to pay those prices to keep their blood surgar up is tantamount to extortion.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
Hollywood accounting is designed so that movies just barely break even. If any movie makes a 'net profit', then they have to pay money to people who have 'net points' royalties. It is similar to the contracts that musicians sign with music studios.
Most of the money for a movie goes to affiliated companies that make huge profits for the moneymen while the accounting ledgers for the movie itself rack up negative numbers.
What's the difference, experience-wise, between watching a movie in a theatre and renting/buying one?
Going to a theatre is immersive. There are (ideally - screaming children and cells aside) no distractions at a movie. You're completely involved with what's going on on-screen. Same thing happens in a play - they darken the theatre for a reason, and it's not to see the actors better.
Watching a movie in your typical living-room is completely different. You know you're watching a movie, you don't become as involved in it.
I think $10 for a movie is ludicrous (I grew up with a $4 second-run moviehouse on the corner of my street). I can't really afford it, but I go anyway. Why? Because it's a change of scenery, it's a night out, it's not sitting in my living-room. And because, for any given movie, I have a better shot of enjoying it in the theatre's immersive environment.
Triv
Claiming that it's the consumer's fault they're in trouble is bullshit. The can easily save their own asses.
1. Stop charging more than the DVD costs for two people to see the movie in the theatre. And I don't mean raise DVD prices either. There is no reason it should cost more than 10$ for two people to see a movie, or more than 8 for that matter.
2. Stop paying Julia Roberts and Arnold Schwartzniger 40 million to be in a movie. Easy.
3. Make movies worth seeing and not these overhyped pieces of garbage like the last two star wars have been. In most cases a movie CAN wait, I've got better things to do.
For now I'm more than happy to watch DVD's on my 53" widescreen in the privacy of my own house. I don't have to worry about people moving past me because they bought the 72oz soda, or a bawling child. If Hollywood doesn't like that, fix their problems, don't make it out like this is my fault.
Anyone notice how this is similar to what's going on right now with the video games industry? I mean, the current generation of consoles we have now can easily render the stuff we find in the arcades. This is a problem for many arcade-owners and developers alike--because since the games at home are just as good graphically, it's less of a reason for Joe Gamer to go to the arcade. (Of course, developers are getting more clever with this by using special controllers, etc.) So, like with DVDs and the theaters, people have less of a reason to leave their houses.
Not to mention, it will only cost 100-150 million to make Episode 3. They could release it for free and have enough money left over to make several more movies with the profits from the last two movies.
According to a recent article in the Washington Post, "In today's Hollywood, box office revenue makes up less than a quarter of a film's total take. The largest piece of a movie's money pie comes from sales and rentals of its DVDs." It goes on to note that while "Monster's Inc." grossed $255 million at the box office it is expected to generate $380 million+ from DVDs (DVD sales have already topped $140 million). Seems like hollywood will be running pretty strong even if box office sales do decline.
In general, it seems unlikely that an industry could destory itself economically when the products in competition both generate revenue for the same industry. Of course, it might have some effect on quality. The low overhead for DVD production relative to theater releases allow crappy films to generate profits. Something akin to what video did to the porn industry a la "Boogie Nights." Of course, this also means good things for indy films and pieces that appeal only a cross-section of society, which could yield some high quality pictures.
The funny thing is, people have bemoaned the impending death of the box office since time immemorial. The first thing that was going to kill movies was television. And true, it did (along with the busting-up of the vertical monopolies held by movie studios) fundamentally change the movie-going experience, turning what had been a whole evening's worth of entertainment (newsreel, shorts, B movie, feature) into a single movie presentation. On the other hand, it also improved movie presentations dramatically, as the studios went to panoramic widescreen and more use of color to draw audiences back out of the home.
And then there was Valenti's prediction that VHS would kill movies. As you can see, it hasn't.
I don't think that DVDs necessarily mean the end of movies, either. Though if it means studios start to concentrate on quality, putting an end to the sort of crap movies that seem to dominate the box office these days, that could be a blessing. (No more Adam Sandler, please! No more Tom Green!) There are some films that you just have to see on the big screen, and I've been known to drive all the way from Springfield, Missouri to Kansas City to see films that may not make it down here. (I'm considering such an expedition to see Spirited Away, for instance, even though I've already seen it on a DIVX ripped from the Japanese DVD.) But I could be an exception to the general rule...
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Didn't we hear this about videos about 20 years ago? It's not DVD that's killing movies, it's the stupid studios. If using big stars kills budgets, then don't use them. There are thousands of unknowns who are far better actors than the big names anyway. Learn how to budget. Don't waste money. The daily catering isn't necessary on the set, is it? My father-in-law was a purchasing manager for Fox studios. The excess, waste, extravagance and beaurocracy is dusgusting, if half of his stories are true.
I don't know jack about economics. My only education on the subject was Econ 101 in school. They drew a little graph for us - the theoretical supply/demand curve. The goal, they explained was to find the sweet spot where the supply and demand curves crossed. That is where profit is maximized. Perhaps the studios haven't taken Econ 101 or perhaps they think that moviegoing is an inelastic market and the price of the movie won't affect demand. Perhaps they need to go back to school. For the $10 a pop (or more) we're paying these days, I'm mighty choosy about what I go to see.
Which leads me to the next point. Movies suck. They all suck. They're so over-Hollywoodized that I just can't stand going any more. And it's getting harder to find places to see indy films, as the smaller theaters get crushed by the megaplexes. Perhaps this has something to do with Hollywood's plight?
In any case, so long as movies continue to be made, people will see them in theaters. Not everyone has a home theater with THX and Dolby 5.1. And not everyone's home is quieter or less distracting than a theater. And some of us like to get out of the house once in a while. And I certainly don't have a 40 foot high screen in my living room. And I don't like to wait for good movies to appear on DVD - I want to see them right away. Maybe that's why McCallum's upset. They botched the last two Star Wars movies so badly that maybe they're afraid everyone's just going to wait for DVD next round. I know I will.
That's the funny thing. DVD's are cheaper for the movie stuidios to produce, as they can have several language tracks on the same DVD master. They can run a hundred thousand discs without changing a thing. With VHS tapes they'd have to have different runs for each language
Just as with VHS, the movie industry will have to be force-fed all the money they make on DVD sales and they'll be crying all the way to the bank.
that they'll be putting Hollywood out of business, possibly within the next three years.
This is the first good news I've heard on Slashdot this week!
Although I think he's being a little bit optimistic on how soon this will happen. Have a look on IMDB at how much money even the worst recent movies have made vs. their production cost.. That's a disgusting profit margin for any industry.
Protect our freedoms! Fight DMCA / CBDTPA / SDMI / SSSSA / Palladium / etc. Boycott Big Media!
Ok, so you aren't an MPAA or RIAA exec.... *g*
The problem with your R&D analogy is that the only R&D occurs with companies producing SFX, film stock, cameras, etc. The movies and albums themselves are "art" or "expression."
The MPAA and RIAA don't produce anything, but they speak on behalf of their industries, and are a means of referring to their members as a whole (The "A" at the end of the acronyms refers to "Association".)
They are bad at marketing. All they market is their biggest budget efforts, with little to no regard for quality. The only exception I can recall was "The Blair Witch Project", which was done on a very low budget compared to movies or records that usually get the push.
When is the last time you saw an ad for a movie that didn't have at least one multi-million dollar star involved? When was the last time you saw a band that didn't fit a top-40 profile for a non-major genre get promoted? How many times now have we found out that a "band" was actually a fraud that was lip-synching or so heavily processed that the singer in concert sounds nothing like the album?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Actually, I just read a very interesting message posted by a guy who did accounting for movie theaters.
He claims he has never once seen a theater that would have been profitable if it wasn't for selling concessions!
Apparently, Hollywood screws over the theaters pretty bad on their cost to show new films. (Typically, they do a 90/10 deal. Hollywood gets 90% of whatever a new movie earns in ticket sales, and the theater keeps the other 10%. After the film runs for so many weeks, the amount drops on a sliding scale. So after a few weeks, it might be 70/30 instead of 90/10 - but lots of people already saw the movie by then.)
Furthermore, Hollywood often forces the theaters to enter a contract guaranteeing they'll show the movie for no fewer than a set number of weeks. (That partially explains why so many of the mom and pop theaters, and maybe even some of the drive-thrus, have closed down. To offer a decent selection of movies all showing at once, you have to have a large number of screens.)
For old movies, they sometimes offer a deal where a theater can simply buy it, instead of renting it - and then can make 100% of the profit showing it whenever they like. This is rarely done, however. (Hollywood makes exceptions to this rule for perennial favorites like "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", where a theater would obviously rather just buy it outright if they could.)
So what you really have is a business model of selling people food and drinks, not making money showing movies. That's why the stuff seems like such a rip-off.
Why is it automatically OUR fault when someone's previously successfull business starts to fail? That's business. When you find something that works you stick with it until it stops working. At that point you have to change. If you've invested to much in the old way to be able to adapt to new circumstances, someone new will come along and steal away your business. If the current Hollywood has to be brought to the ground for a new succesfull business model so be it. They stopped listening to consumers a long time ago.
If the studios would lengthen the time between releasing a movie to theatres and releasing it to DVD, then they could get more people into the theatre. Unfortunately, you need to train people to expect a 1+ year (or 2 year?) delay for your blockbusters before this is effective, as you want them to go see it while it is still in theatres.
It seems that these days they want to milk the movie in the theatre and rush it to DVD - if they weren't so anxious to release the DVDs and beat out the other studios, then maybe we'd go see them in theatres while they're fresh. But for now, I'll just wait the 4 months until it's on DVD.