Hollywood Loves Bad Business Models
Hollywood made record box office revenue this summer but had the lowest attendance since 2005. If I remember correctly that was the year of the so-called “slump”. The higher take comes from inflated ticket prices for now ubiquitous 3-D and IMAX screenings. Unfortunately, the quality of movies just sucks and no one’s interested in paying more for Marmaduke 3-D.
I’ve noticed a distinct slide in movie quality over the last 5 years too. While I used to spend entire weekends catching up on new releases, these days I’m barely motivated to leave the house. Shrek Ever After isn’t worth the 25 cents of gas I’d spend driving to see it. It’s disappointing that the Hollywood business model boils down to this:
Pay more, get less!
This should be economics 101 for the studios. There are quality scripts out there. I know this because I used to read them for internships and 20% of the stuff out there wasn’t all that bad. A small percentage of it was actually pretty great. That may seem like a small number but there’s thousands and thousands of scripts, so there’s more than enough decent material to fill up a year’s worth of releases. The studios seem to be eschewing quality original material to invest in known franchises however. These days, only a proven director like Chris Nolan can get good original material greenlit, and in a way that’s sticking to a franchise (Chris Nolan being the “franchise”).
The box office will go in one of two ways from here: 1) Same bad movies, ticket prices come down. As 3-D becomes less of a novelty audiences will not want to pay more for the technology and start to shrink. Eventually audiences bottom out and Hollywood adjusts ticket prices to bring people in again. Audiences will return, but not enough to sustain the industry in the long-term. Hollywood hits a financial crisis.
2) Better movies, ticket prices come down. 3-D is poised to go widespread at this point and no matter what the cost will have to come down. If Hollywood isn’t there to meet audiences with better movies, the concept of spending an evening at the movies won’t return. But deliver people movies they’d want to see, and suddenly you’re bringing in even those consumers who were avoiding 3-D because of the higher ticket prices.
There’s a lot more too it of course. It wouldn’t hurt to expand audiences and release tent pole movies that aren’t all animated fart jokes for kidz. New media and internet distribution models are something of a question mark and will probably end up factoring in. But at the end of the summer it all boils down to one thing: make better movies.
Glenn Beck Adopts African Child
After two days of scouring every video clip and photo of the Beck rally 4 Jesus, the rightwing media has finally found black gold– i.e. the sole black person in attendance:
Never mind the 48-hour Where’s Waldo-like hunt that it took to find her. She’s black and she was there, therefore the rally now qualifies as “racially diverse.”
After this weekend’s shenanigans, I’m beginning to notice a consuming messianic shift infecting Beck’s flop-sweat marinated brain. He’s truly positioning himself as a savoir of souls, as long as you’re American and agree with him politically, and intensifying his efforts to widen and galvanize his audience. It’s kinda spooky.
The aspect of this movement to Christianize America that goes overlooked is the plight this will have on Atheists. Other religions will undoubtedly suffer discrimination from the intense whitewashing of history, as is already happening to Islam, but they are at least capable of joining in the framework of the debate and pushing back under the notion of a shared deity. Atheists however are the queerest of the queers in this new era of fire and brimstone. As an Atheist, I fully respect other people’s beliefs and am frankly highly apathetic. Whatever Beck will say (who ought to know something about the dangers of religious persecution being a Mormon and all), the founders of this country were Deists who held a similar conviction in respecting and ignoring religion in the public debate. Once this whitewash is complete and we become a country “rooted in Judeo-Christian beliefs,” the ultimate persecuted minority in the new social order are the Atheists. Polls already show that we’re more likely to elect a gay president than an atheist. None of that is right to begin with, for gays and atheists, and none of that is actually getting better.
30 Rock Making Headlines
Lawsuit says Berks priest fathered teen’s child
Written by Tracy Jordan!
Probably not what you expected, but shut up and let me enjoy this.
The First CNN Opinion Column That Isn’t Complete Garbage
There must be a calamity at CNN headquarters because they managed to publish someone who’s not a complete loon jackass.
Glenn Beck rewrites civil rights history by Will Bunch
About time someone pointed this out. The whole reclaiming of the civil rights movement as if it was the Republicans who marched for equal rights is just laughable to anyone who isn’t a complete loon jackass, and it needs to stop. That was a different era and the political parties weren’t on the same platforms as they are today. Southern Democrats opposed civil rights, and when the various rights acts passed, the Republican party invited them to their side with the implementation of Nixon’s Southern Strategy. It’s just history and facts, and has nothing to do with today. The people who should get credit for restoring civil rights to black Americans are black Americans themselves. They were the ones who marched and fought dogs and fire hoses.
Glenn’s strategy here is to strip Obama of his special status as the first black president, because once bigoted white Americans feel they were responsible for granting civil rights to blacks, they are no longer perceived as racist for attacking Obama. It’s all a racist attempt to bring down Obama by honing in on his blackness as a political weakness. Obama is a strong politician with few real weaknesses to his credit. Great speaker, interesting personality, visionary initiatives, super-intelligent. Really the only thing he can’t control is the color of his skin. It’s just sick and politics needs to get past this.
Poster For My New Short: THE PANTY SNIPER
Debuting Sunday at IO West. Free Admission if you RSVP on Facebook here!
Wow Justin Bieber’s Dad Looks Like A Huge Douche
Damn. He looks more like a douchey community college student than a father.
Here’s A Book I Edited
My friend Michael Gelbart’s new book THE OTHER OPRAHS launches today. I’ve been helping to edit it and build the website over the last 8 months, and I’m very proud of what we’ve accomplished so far.
Check out The Other Oprah’s website to learn more about the book. I also built Michael Gelbart’s website. It’s not finished yet, but close enough. Michael’s a nationally touring headliner from Canada who’s written and acted in several features. It wouldn’t hurt you to watch his stand-up videos if you haven’t seen him yet.
Sarah Palin Tweets N-Word
…Or she came pretty damn close.
Dr.Laura:don’t retreat…reload! (Steps aside bc her 1st Amend.rights ceased 2exist thx 2activists trying 2silence”isn’t American,not fair”
Why not tweet it 11 times and still have 74 characters to bitch about the First Amendment?
You know, for those of us who wish Sarah Palin a mortifying public death, there is a perverse kind of satisfaction at the thought of her wading cluelessly into another n-word scandal like a pig with lipstick on the conveyor belt to the slaughter house.
As for Dr. Laura, I’ve thought it over, and I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s just no way all these old white millionaires would not understand the consequences of dropping n-bombs on a live broadcast. There’re too many examples in recent memory of people making fools of themselves, many of which come from Laura’s own social circle (old > white > millionaires). With this in mind, I theorized she was secretly sick of her job and made a snap decision to flame out. Then I saw this in the LA Times:
Laura Schlessinger says she was already considering leaving radio
And I felt just a little bit smarter.
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