Patrick Stoner ...
welcomes your questions about movies andthe people who make them. Send your
questions to pstoner@whyy.org.
Here's the current question and answer:
Q: How long can this avalanche of new films continue?
A: Not much longer.
The studios are losing money -- not losing money in the sense that you and I lose money, not even in the normal sense of businesses losing money (that is, that they fear going out of business).
No, they are losing money in the sense that they aren't making quite as much as they would like to make. When the last superpower on Earth's (that's us in America, of course) most successful export wants to make more money, you can safely bet that they will do it.
First, let's look at the current situation: This past summer, a handful of films made huge bucks (over $100 million domestically), and many others made what most of us would consider a profit (about twice what they cost to make). Many others in this movie-mobbed summer made their money back, but just barely or not quite. Then, there were the bombs, of course.
Forget the actual figures. Just consider the significance of that breakdown. When you have so many films dividing the box office, you're splitting the potential pool of money among many different movies -- each with its own expenses and people with a cut. Suppose you could take the same basic "nut" of total box office receipts and divide it among fewer film projects. Clearly, each one would gross more, and that would mean more for the power brokers once the little people got theirs.
That's basically what the studios will now begin to do. Disney is leading the way -- cutting back on its production. They also want to aim at the really big moneymakers -- what Hollywood likes to call an "event film" -- like MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, TWISTER, THE ROCK, THE NUTTY PROFESSOR, and, of course, INDEPENDENCE DAY. That means smaller films, even ones that made a profit [in normal terms, not in the Hollywood sense that no films ever make profits -- see an earlier question] will not get made. If you want them to greenlight your movie concept, you had better use the term "event film" somewhere in your pitch.
But, there's a problem. Although we tend to think of Hollywood as a monolith, it's actually composed of a lot of different, highly competitive power centers. You can't just send out a memo -- even from Disney -- and get everyone to play the same game. So, there will be different strategies followed by different groups.
It's not hard to see what could happen in that case: Suppose your studio cuts back production but the rest of Hollywood keeps churning out product; then, your films get a smaller percentage of the total box office take, even if they're making more money individually. What is the happy medium? Nobody knows, and so some people will wait and watch.
In any event, Hollywood is like a big ship. It doesn't change direction quickly. We still have the biggest fall release schedule in history to get through and there are many films already beyond the point of no return that have 1997 release dates set. I was on the set of one of them yesterday (THE FLOOD, starring Christian Slater, Morgan Freeman and Randy Quaid), and it will be one of those "event films" of next summer that may or may not be Hollywood's future in the closing years of this century.
So, there will be fewer films in the next few years, but I predict the pendulum will not swing as far as most people expect. There are just too many competing elements in this very successful American enterprise called Hollywood.