With recent news that MGM is on the chopping block and the current debate on what the company will head/who it will turn to in the near, dire future, the overall change that seems to be going on in Hollywood (and in the world of film entertainment altogether) shines more and more apparent – that is, what it means (and costs) to make movies these days.
Whether it’s Tom Cruise buying United Artists the same year a Tom Cruise-headlined movie did NOT make $100 million domestic or Paranormal Activity grossing over $100 million domestic with a budget of 15 grand and an ad campaign costing not much more, the tides have seemed to turn over. Big studios continue to go big ($200 million tentpoles) but no longer rely on domestic B.O. numbers. Sure, the $65 million take Sony’s 2012 took in in the States was nice, but it was the $160 million from other countries it was always counting on. Moviegoers overseas are less-jaded with the spectacle of cinema, and the people behind the big desks in Los Angeles know this.
This, however, has not stopped media conglomerates like NBC Universal from a horrible year and rumors of a Vivendi percentage sale (only weeks earlier) and even a possible Comcast takeover of the media giant. Meanwhile, mid-majors like Summit Entertainment find success in the middleground, dishing out a $50 million budget to Alex Proyas’ Knowing , which, despite a poor critical reception and a lukewarm release date (March 20th) made nearly $200 million dollars worldwide. By the way, Summit also owns the Twilight franchise. But then the independent film market (the small films) continues to shrink, with ambitious companies like Think Film and Yari Film Group fading away fast and frequent. It’s, at first glance, the opposite of what’s happening to the American class system – the middle class movie (financially speaking) is soaring right now, i.e. The Hangover, Law Abiding Citizen. But are there enough of them to be made? (More on that in a bit).
These kind of releases rely both on names and frugal spending, two things which, of course, can and do butt heads with each other. After all, you cannot hire Tony Scott, Denzel Washington and John Travolta (at least a $50 million package) to a make a rather simple heist movie without it costing $100 million. And unfortunately, names like Denzel Washington and John Travolta do not mean as much in America as they used to. Luckily, they still sell tickets overseas (the majority of Pelham 123‘s box office).
But what if you’ve got a star but no money to jump the pond? You have Love Happens, starring the financially-overrated Jennifer Aniston. Oh yea, and Two-Face. Whatever. Hey, did you see that Bruce Willis sci-fi movie? No? Don’t worry, neither did anyone else. And why? Because it was poorly made? Maybe. But, most likely, it’s because it cost $80 million, which (much like a $15 million budget for an indie like Away We Go) is the kiss of death. Is it a blockbuster? Not really. So how much print and advertising do you plug into it? Focus Features futtered out on Mendes’ film but Disney tried hard with Surrogates. Both dissapointed.
Reuters’ Alex Dobuzinskis argued as much in the recent piece “Hollywood rethinks use of A-List actors.” Dobuzinski places no-name hits The Hangover, District 9 and Paranormal Activity against big name flops like Adam Sandler’s Funny People, Will Ferrell’s Land of the Lost and Julia Robert’s Duplicity.
If a film doesn’t cost $5 million or $50 million or $200 million, the chances of getting the money back seem slim, let alone making a profit. But there are still movie theaters and (last time I checked) still DVD stores, so there must still be movies to fill them. Don’t forget the Redboxes and Netflix queues.
Even animated movies are a wild card. For every Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs there was an Astro Boy this year. Sure, small animation studios have attempted to break into the fray – a la Delgo and the critically smashed Planet 51 – but have yet to succeed in this post-Pixar world.
$100 million movies are being moved around like pawns. High-profile films like Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island and Joe Johnston’s The Wolfman have all been pushed to February, an ambiguous month usually full of studio mistakes and failed films bastardized by poor test screening results and post-production woes (recall last February 2009 included The International, Killshot and Crossing Over). Even well-received festival darlings, like the Spierig Brothers’ intelligent vampire film Daybreakers and the Jim Carrey/Ewan McGregor indie I Love You, Philip Morris, are coming out in the first two, trash-filled months of the season. Not anymore, apparently.
If you don’t believe it, just look back two and a half years ago and consider this short list of 2007 January-February releases: Primeval, Code Name: The Cleaner, Alpha Dog, Catch and Release, Epic Movie, Smokin Aces, Because I Said So, The Astronaut Farmer, The Number 23. To be fair, there were a couple of critical darlings in those first two months (i.e. Breach, Bridge to Terabithia), but nothing filmgoers could really sit there teeth into, aside from Oscar-contending carry-overs.
And, for the most part, the recent years have followed this trend of early-year excretion. For the films that didn’t test well, didn’t end well and never had a reason to make money in the first place. Last year (2008), we saw anti-gems like One Missed Call and The Eye. But, January 2008 also brought us Cloverfield, a cheap, well-made, intelligently though-out monster movie by the J.J. Abrams people. And then, in February, we saw Adam Brooks’ underrated rom-com Definitely, Maybe starring Ryan Reynolds. However, these remained exceptions to rule of dumpage.
2010 is a different beast. There’s Martin Campbell’s Edge of Darkness starring Mel Gibson on January 29th (taking a rule out of the Taken playbook) and a Michael Cera film (Youth in Revolt ) and Amy Adams rom-com (Leap Year) coming out the SECOND week in January. What’s going on here? Youth in Revolt has received generally positive reactions and Amy Adams is on a hot streak right now (Julie and Julia did unexpectedly well last summer) yet both films open in early January, which last year consisted of Bride Wars and The Unborn?
Remember that now-a-days Zack Snyder movies open, and open well, in March, as do cheap, smart comedies (I Love You, Man) and non-tentpole animated films (Horton Hears A Who! , 2010’s How To Train Your Dragon). The competitive of the BIG summer movies is nearly non-existent – studios are more than willing to get out of the other studios’ way, thereby getting out of there own way – what if they do, in fact, have the better product? Why take a risk? The last time a big movie, big time head-on match occurred in recent times was when Mike Myers’ The Love Guru went up against Steve Carell’s Get Smart. Carell won. Studio films have opened unopposed this year, with literally no wide-release competition, including Couples Retreat and 2012.
Risk in general has subsided in the world of the big movies. This is why the risky, big movies are getting thrown to the early months of next year. Paramount went so far as to cite the reason for pushing Shutter Island back their unwillingness to spend the required amount of money to promote the film during awards season. 20th Century Fox, which is taking perhaps the biggest risk in its history with James Cameron’s $500 million Avatar, is covering its bases with an Alvin and the Chipmunks sequel opening a week later.
Risk assessment has become the most important part of this business. And unfortunately, the movie’s that have the least risk right now (the ones that cost $50 million) are the hardest to make and make well. People want to see BIG things with BIG stories, and that costs BIG money. And to get BIG names to sell small movies cost a lot too.
Maybe Dobuzinski is right. The big movies are starting to feel like the parodies satirical Hollywood films like The Player mocked years backed (see Transformers 2) and the small movies disappear quicker than ever. Even without the stars, these tentpoles films will still cost an arm and a leg, so why not throw a Shia LeBeouf or John Cusack or Christian Bale in there, just to be sure.
Risk assessments and calculations run through the lines and effects of each frame of BIG film, while the people who make the BIG films calculate the risk of buying the small films. There are not enough story ideas and screenplays that work as $50 million projects and not enough movie stars who cost little enough to star in them. Meanwhile, the BIG movies most continue because they remaining the lifeblood of the waning movie theater and its slowly fading attendance. Perhaps, more than ever (regrettably), small films belong on the small screen. After all, there are so many versions of small screens these days. But then how will anyone make their money back?
Hollywood is trapping itself and does not seem to know how to get out. And neither do I. Perhaps the studios can hire enough people to write their way out of this mess with cheap, good stories that movie stars will be willing to make for far less money than they usually get. They don’t deserve that much anymore anyway.