Hollywood moving away from big budget films
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r.prince18
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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Hollywood — long considered the land of excess— is becoming more cost-conscious, as movie executives rethink what they're willing to pay to make a blockbuster.
After years of beefing up budgets to meet audience expectations, movie studios are cutting back and canceling projects that are too costly. Half-baked, expensive movie ideas that would have received approval a few years ago are now under scrutiny. For movies that are made, producers have to settle for toned-down special effects, cheaper actors and fewer locations for shoots.
In the past five years, major studios have trimmed the annual number of films they release by nearly a third to cut costs and avoid having big movies compete head-to-head on opening weekends.
Blame it on declining DVD sales.
Until recently, studios could afford to churn out movies with heart-pumping action scenes featuring pricey special effects and high-salary actors. Although many of those movies cost more than they garnered in ticket sales, Hollywood could count on overall strong sales of DVDs to make up for excessive expenses.
"The DVD buying boom covered up a lot of sins in the middle part of the last decade," said Tom Adams, principal analyst and director of U.S. media for IHS Screen Digest.
But the curtain is falling on the DVD era. IHS said U.S. video disc sales fell from $10.3 billion in 2004 to $7 billion last year.
The popularity of low-cost rental options, such as Netflix and Redbox, along with the ease of piracy, has cut into DVD sales, making it tougher to profit from the movie business. Blu-ray disc sales and gains in digital purchases haven't made up for the shortfall.
http://news.yahoo.com/hollywood-balks-bi....BHRlc3QD;_ylv=3
Thoughts?
After years of beefing up budgets to meet audience expectations, movie studios are cutting back and canceling projects that are too costly. Half-baked, expensive movie ideas that would have received approval a few years ago are now under scrutiny. For movies that are made, producers have to settle for toned-down special effects, cheaper actors and fewer locations for shoots.
In the past five years, major studios have trimmed the annual number of films they release by nearly a third to cut costs and avoid having big movies compete head-to-head on opening weekends.
Blame it on declining DVD sales.
Until recently, studios could afford to churn out movies with heart-pumping action scenes featuring pricey special effects and high-salary actors. Although many of those movies cost more than they garnered in ticket sales, Hollywood could count on overall strong sales of DVDs to make up for excessive expenses.
"The DVD buying boom covered up a lot of sins in the middle part of the last decade," said Tom Adams, principal analyst and director of U.S. media for IHS Screen Digest.
But the curtain is falling on the DVD era. IHS said U.S. video disc sales fell from $10.3 billion in 2004 to $7 billion last year.
The popularity of low-cost rental options, such as Netflix and Redbox, along with the ease of piracy, has cut into DVD sales, making it tougher to profit from the movie business. Blu-ray disc sales and gains in digital purchases haven't made up for the shortfall.
http://news.yahoo.com/hollywood-balks-bi....BHRlc3QD;_ylv=3
Thoughts?
Comments
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Cool with me, you don't need a ton of money to make a great film or to even make a great action film.
There will still be tons of movies that come out during the summer with huge budgets. -
there are a lot of movies that can be made well for not that much money ....the issue is the balance between the desired profit margin and whether Americans will go see low-budget, thought-provoking cinema (i.e. independent films). If the studios got behind more independent projects they could probably do fairly well with modest expectations.
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there are a lot of movies that can be made well for not that much money ....the issue is the balance between the desired profit margin and whether Americans will go see low-budget, thought-provoking cinema (i.e. independent films). If the studios got behind more independent projects they could probably do fairly well with modest expectations.
I agree...unfortunately the majority do not give independent films a second look...
Hollywood definitely needs to do something differently though...the quality of films being released have been blah...and too many remakes...
