Is The Economy To Blame?

A more.. educated view on the current Hollywood (churning out sequels left and right, focusing on grossing revenue instead of the craft, etc.)

Interesting excerpts:

"As power has become overly concentrated in six corporations that control everything that we read and see and hear, writers and talent are being strangled not just economically but creatively." David Young.

The pre-corporate Hollywood kingmakers of old may have been vulgar and egomaniacal, but at least they had passion for their product. That passion is absent in today's ruling congloms.

Passion has come to be in short supply not only in the selling of movies but also in their development.

Today's filmmakers come equipped with data on how their movies might do overseas, on DVD, or on the Internet. Decisions on whether to green-light a project, they realize, are based on research, and they come prepared to deal with demographic realities.

Ask why and the distributors will tell you that there are fewer good movies out there. And some will also admit they're simply becoming more risk-averse in making their acquisitions.

The principal focus of the major studios is to manufacture tent-pole pictures, most of them based on comic books and video games, and to connect these projects to a maze of ancillary promotion - toys, car tie-ins, etc.

Craft services = industry talk for food.

So here's the discomfiting reality that makes studio executives squirm: It's cable television, not film, that's generating audience excitement today. Tune in to the typical watercooler chatter and the titles you hear are more often Entourage, Weeds, Dexter, or Mad Men, not Doubt or The Reader.

"It's my ardent wish that I could create more movies that I'd actually want to see," confessed the production chief.

Vanity Fair (March 2009), Beware Falling Stars.