The Hollywood blockbuster was born in the late 1970s with Jaws and Star Wars . Will we see it die in our lifetimes ?
It seems silly to talk about the death of the big - budget movie spectacular now , when we ’re about to have the most ludicrously overstuffed movie summertime ever . Jon Favreaudescribed summer 2011 as a “ bloodbath,”with massive , challenging motion picture coming out almost every weekend from May to August .
Is summer 2011 proceed to be your ultimate film nerdgasm ?
There were just seven movies with budgets over $ 100 million in 2000 . In 2005 , there were 13 , and in 2010 , there were 20,according to this chart . ( I ’m pretty sure it ’s not inflation - adjust though . )
But actually , the coming mega - movie overload is a symptom . picture show are selling fewer tickets than they used to , and it seems like the oversupply of jumbo moving picture is an attempt to goose studio ’ bottom lines and increase the chances of get an Avatar - expressive style family run . After talking to a short ton of corner - office psychoanalyst a few daylight ago forour feature article about how you could distinguish if a film ’s been profitable , it seems clearer than ever that the motion-picture show diligence is in trouble .
How much money does a picture need to make to be profitable ?
Hollywood has tried to use 3 - 500 to bump up tag revenue , but it has n’t really helped . And the theme that film would make their genuine money on videodisk has reverse out not to be a sustainable fashion model either .
U.S. tag sales have actually been anemic for a while , consort to Box Office Mojo’syear - to - year comparability chart . In 2010 , Hollywood sold only 1.339 billion tickets , down from 1.412 billion the twelvemonth before . Number of ticket sell appear to peak in 2004 with just over 1.5 billion tickets deal , and since then the trend has been flat or downwards . ( Asthis articlepoints out , if you line up U.S. box office receipts for pomposity , it ’s been going down for years . )
And the figure of actual hoi polloi go to movies has been declining for decades . As Hollywood byplay expert Edward Jay Epstein write in Slate back in 2005 :
In 1948 , 90 million Americans-65 pct of the universe - move to a movie household in an medium workweek ; in 2004 , 30 million Americans - roughly 10 percent of the universe - went to see a movie in an average week . What changed in the interval was that virtually every American family buy a TV stage set , and home amusement largely replaced theater entertainment .
As Epstein explains , or else of counting on people to go to the pic every week without fail , studios were forced to blitz consumers with advertising , trying to twist every movie into an “ consequence . ” The hope was that tons of hoi polloi would show up opening weekend , lured by omnipresent goggle box ads , and then these passel of movie - goers would sire word - of - mouth . The Brobdingnagian opening weekend would wrick into “ legs ” in the come weeks , so the motion-picture show would become a monumental smash . But this seldom happens with most motion-picture show — they omit like safes in their following weeks .
The huge blockbuster picture is only a few decades old — the phenomenon really begin with Star Wars and Jaws . Star Wars was the movie that everybody had to see 100 fourth dimension , in the house . hoi polloi pretty much stood in line to see Star Wars , went in and saw it , and then come out of the theatre and got in line again .
Ever since then , Hollywood has been like a blow nut tail the same rush but the charge is shorter each prison term . Except that , of grade , every now and then you get an Avatar . And the main deterrent example that the entertainment industry thought it learned from Avatar — you could make money if the film is in 3 - D — turn out not to be rightful for all that many films .
But the rush is literally puzzle shorter — because the studios have been pushing to get movies out on DVD faster and faster , shortening a movie ’s theatrical life span . It used to be that a movie would give in theaters , and then months by and by it would turn up on cable television , and sometime after that , there ’d be a DVD . Now , the lag between theatrical acquittance and videodisk dismission is getting shorter and shorter , which in effect cuts abruptly a movie ’s life in field of operations .
type in point : Last year , Disney told theatre it wanted to release Alice in Wonderland on DVDjust 13 weeks after the picture hit house , so the DVD would n’t come out in the midsection of summer . The usual DVD “ departure window ” was more like 17 weeks .
According to an article in Variety yesterday :
Traditionally , pics were turn on videodisc four months after their theatrical outpouring ; on VOD 45 solar day later ; on give TV channels 18 months after that ; and then shown for liberal on ad - supported broadcasters two to three yr later . studio apartment have already been experiment . Last year Disney made “ Alice in Wonderland ” available 88 days after its theatrical run . Paramount had previously made “ G.I. Joe : The raise of Cobra ” and “ The good : Live firmly , Sell intemperately ” available after 88 days in theaters .
It ’s not hard to see why Hollywood wants to crowd out pic on DVD earlier and before — these days , as Epstein explain here , only about 20 percent of studio apartment ’ revenue comes from theaters . Releasing a movie in theatre is just a way of “ launch ” it so that it can make money later on DVD , video on demand , pay - per - purview and broadcast television . Even if a movie in the end makes a profit in dramatics , the material money is afterwards , in the place viewing marketplace .
Which piss it really really bad tidings that DVD sales event have been plummet . Disney was skip that Toy Story 3 would be its huge seller last Christmas , but instead DVD sales of Toy Story 3fell off a cliff . Today , Viacomblamed fall videodisc salesfor reducing its tax revenue by 5 percentage and its net income by 14 pct . Sonylaid off 450 workersdue to refuse DVD sales .
According to thisNew York Times article :
In the peak twelvemonth of 2004 , according to the group , consumers spend about $ 21.8 billion to rent and buy DVDs , Blu - ray discs , digital downloads and other shape of dwelling house entertainment . Under pressure from piracy , competing entertainment and economical weakness , the number has lessen every year since , for a full drop curtain of about 13.8 percent , to $ 18.8 billion in 2010 .
And those numbers expect much worse once you adapt them for pomposity .
The big gainer from the dropping videodisk sales is Netflix , whose income has been shooting up . In fact , studio are so freak out by Netflix cannibalise DVD sales , they ’re consider make Netflix wait 45 days , or else of the current 28 days , between a DVD remove memory and its availability for rental . This whole article in Variety is a portrait of raw desperation . The studios are also play with other lucre - spinning idea like putting movies out on Video On requirement services just 60 days after they strike theaters , and charging people a whopping $ 30 to look out them .
The thought of spending $ 300 million to make a two - hour fantasy is kind of weird if you mean about it . That kind of spending only makes good sense if you’re able to convince meg of people to expend between $ 10 and $ 20 each to see the resultant . This is one lawsuit where the formatting is the content — there ’s no other format in which you could pass such an raunchy amount of money on just two hours ’ amusement . It ’s not go to happen on television , it ’s not going to happen with direct - to - DVD movies . There ’s really no other formatting I can mean of that would apologise that form of sumptuousness .
Back in the 16th and 17th century , people put onmasques . These were lavish plays , put on at royal court , or in wealthy blue blood ’ house , and they necessitate architecturally ambitious readiness and fancy costumes . Often the whole point of these entertainments was how cool they looked — if you say their scripts today , they ’re kind of dull , because you ’re not see the amazing costume , scenery — and yes , special force . The masque was a vast spectacular that dominated culture for roughly a century — and then it was extinct .
Nobody expects moving-picture show field to go off this yr . The Hollywood blockbuster , as a formatting , will probably keep existing for yr . But eventually , the unsustainable business framework that push back these thing will descend aside , and the movie as we get it on it will transform into something more suited to home viewing , and maybe more integrated with web content . So it ’s a good matter they ’re gain scores of immense Hollywood moving picture right now , so we ’ll have plenty of example of them to attend at once they ’re go .
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