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George Lucas Predicts Death of Big Budget Movies
H_Fisher writes "Before the red carpet had cooled at last night's Academy Awards, George Lucas told the New York Daily News that big-budget movies will soon be history. From the article: "'The market forces that exist today make it unrealistic to spend $200 million on a movie,' said Lucas, a near-billionaire from his feverishly franchised outer-space epics. 'Those movies can't make their money back anymore. Look at what happened with King Kong.'" Lucas' prediction: "In the future, almost everything that gets shown in theaters will be indie movies ... I predict that by 2025 the average movie will cost only $15 million.""
Ok...according to Box Office Mojo: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=kingkong05 .htm/
King Kong cost $217 million to make. And it's made, worldwide, $544 million. Now, only about half of that goes back to the studio, and there were certainly huge marketing costs, but we've still got DVD and Pay Cable and Basic Cable and Broadcast rights and Video Game Licenses and Merchandised Crappola.
Maybe they're not Titanic-happy, but it's hard to see them crying.
On the day after Crash deservedly took the oscar for best film, hollywood needs to consider how many movies like Crash, Sideways, Munich, Serenity, Sin City, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Open Water, and Sean of the Dead are out there waiting to be made, and which could be made for much less money and make a much better return on their investment than utter piss like Mr and Mrs Smith or the latest Pink Panther.
Not all of the above are cheap films, but none of them had a couple of hundred million thrown at them, and every single one of them made a decent return. Hollywood is run by suits who dole out money to what they belive to be the safest option- a small selection of dead horses which the shamelessly flog (market) into turning a profit.
Someone please, please hand Michel Gondry, Charlie Kaufman, Darren Aronofsky, Guy Richie, and Christopher Nolan ( could go on, but am pressed for time) 100 million dollars each (that's $500m - less than the cost of cost two summer blockbusters) and sit back and watch about 15 great movies happen.
What a summer movie that'd be.
When the posters fear their moderators, there is tyranny; when the moderators fears the posters, there is liberty.
How many movies came out last year with King Kong's budget? Just one.
The "average" cost of a movie is already far, far below $200 million... I would say that the "average" cost of movies is already in the $15-20 million range.
One of the biggest expenses of the movies is actors' salaries. Do anybody here actually believe that the studio execs LIKE paying $20 million to an actor for one film? Of course not, but they are paying the market rate for that actor. Actors draw audiences, so how does Lucas propose that the studios force the big name stars to take a lower salary?
The exhibitor (eg Cineplex Odeon) take 50% $5 and pass the rest up the chain.
Unless the chains somehow got more power, this isn't the case.
When I worked for General Cinema in the late 80's, there was a sliding scale for the amount of profit the theater kept. It started out at about 10%, and increased each week the movie ran, and I believe it capped out at 50%. So, a movie had to run 5 weeks to get 50% of the box office ticket.
That's why concession prices are so high...they only made (then) about $0.75 a person for an opening showing. Most movies never stayed running for 5 weeks, so the only place they could recoup costs was to charge a bazillion percent markup on popcorn and soda.