"Wire" star will play the god Heimdall in Marvel pic.
Lack of Movie Production Has Hollywood Scrounging
Not even a booming box office can offset the credit crunch and suffering DVD and foreign sales markets.
Slideshow
Disney released a triptych of posters for this spring's "Alice in Wonderland" on Thursday. The posters give audiences a look at Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter, Helena Bonham Carter's Red Queen, Anne Hathaway's White Queen, and Mia Wasikowska's Alice. Take a look at the avant-garde art for Tim Burton's upcoming 3D fantasy flick.
It’s smart economics.”
The Wall Street investors that Hollywood depended on are long gone.
“A year ago there were plenty of hedge funds that were investing money. Money was cheap then. Money is very expensive now,” a studio executive, who requested anonymity, told TheWrap. “Steven Spielberg is the biggest sure bet in our industry. Even he had problems with his financing when DreamWorks left Paramount and went to Disney. It’s not about him. It’s about the financial markets.”
The exec said studios are investing in big tentpole movies that will generate profits and small arthouse films that don’t require huge investments. But the films in between -- in the $60- $80-million range -- are too much of a gamble.
But another senior studio executive said that there is an upside to the lack of production -- fewer films means less competition. "There's less jockeying for positions, and that always benefits us in the long run," the executive told TheWrap.
One thing that’s for sure: Production won’t increase until the economy recovers. “As the economy picks up there will be more money available to make pictures,” the A-list agent said. “There will be more instances of Summits and Relativities that will come up -- that will be the impetus for more production,” he said.
“We are making deals. It’s just that much more competitive and that much harder. Just like everyone else, we’re sucking it up.”
For Ryan Bust, sucking it up has become a way of life. "This has never happened before. We're just hanging in until things get better."
Comments
fifi11 Says
Michigan Film continues to expand with more films coming daily. The film commission is not tracking all films working to launch this spring.games
luis Says
Here are some interesting calls that could be made...see what answers you'd get....
To the unions: How many members and what percentage of the membership are currently on the books as out of a job and looking for employment.
To the majors: How many films do you currently have in production in Southern California and how many are waiting to be greenlit?
Don't fall for the economy answer from the studios. Aren't they in the business of making movies? What do they plan to say to their stockholders when 2010 rolls around??
Michigan Film Says
Michigan Film continues to expand with more films coming daily. The film commission is not tracking all films working to launch this spring.
Michigan Film is the Michigan Film Production Company with 25 years Producing feature films and quality television.
http://www.michiganfilm.com
lb Says
Good article Lauren... However, I would take issue with the agent who says that a lot of the studios have their release schedules set for 2010. Take an objective look at them and they presently suck. There are the same number of multi-screen complexes in this country and they have to be fed. The current release schedules just can't support them as presently outlined. What's worse, we're heading into the 5th month of 2009 and you just can't make every show is 6 mos from pre-production through post.
There has been a trend that began most noticeably in 2007, in particular with sequels which is based on a broken formula. The equation says let's make this one bigger, faster, and cheaper. Something has got to give in that equation. Is it greed that drives this approach?...possibly...but at the very least, as a philosophy of management, it has huge flaws.
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