The North American Film Industry

and its Problems

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Contents

The Film Industries

The History of Hollywood

Contemporary problems of Hollywood

Possible Solutions

Independent Artists

Conclusion

Sources

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The purpose of this essay is to give a little insight into the problems the movie industry had to face in the

past, and has to face today. I will also explain how the producers try to solve these problems and why their

methods fail to succeed. The essay is also going to cover the short history of filmmaking and the current

situation of the industry. Since there will be a few examples coming up, I’ll try to take no sides or rate the

movies I mention, unless it’s necessary. Although there are numerous film industries, this presentation will

only deal with the most prominent and influential one, Hollywood, seeing that most high-priced movies we

see today (even in Europe) are American made.

The Film Industries

There are currently three major film industries: one in America, one in India, and a third one in Niger.

One would guess that Bollywood is the biggest and Hollywood is the second, but the Nigerian film

industry publishes more films than her American counterpart. However this shouldn't get anyones hopes

high, these movies are direct to DVD copies, they are shot and edited in days, or even hours and usually

have a simple story. Also, these flicks feature sometimes X-rated content, yet they are not classed as adult

movies. Most Nigerian films have little to do with professionally or real actors, numerous times they are shot

with a mobile phone and then published under the name of the film industry. These movies are mainly sold

on spot or somewhere in Africa, and they are hardly ever seen in first world stores or film festivals.

Sometimes the DVD and its case cost more than the production of the movie. (This isn't necessary a bad

thing, since a few indie movies start with a similar budget as well.) As the Nigerian film industry grew, people

begin to call it Nollywood, similar to Bollywood this is a type of word play, its only purpose is to show

resemblance to Hollywood. (Other smaller film studios tend to change the end of their name to "-wood" or "-

ollywood" as well, in order to be more recognizable.) Nollywood had its rise between the nineties and the

beginning of the 21st century. The government, seeing the interest, and money in this sort of entertainment

began to fund film producers and films. It was easier for producers to shot their ideas, because digital

cameras and other equipment became available, and very cheap. The third industrial revolution hand in

hand with globalization made it possible for Nigeria to develop such prominent line of moviemaking. However

cheap doesn't usually mean good, even in the film industry. Apart from a few bigger productions the average

Nollywood movie has a budget of 2 000 dollars. For a comparison Hollywood movies start typically at a cost

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of $60 000 and can even have a total production cost of $200 000. In Nollywood videos are generally not

funded by studios and even their language often varies. However films from this country sell far better than

those from Hollywood, due to their small cost. The Nigerian motion picture industry exports over a thousand

works per year and it's an expanding industry, meaning more and more productions are released.

As for the other two, both Bollywood and Hollywood make movies from a relatively big budget, with

known actors and/or directors. These films have usually a fan base as well as distribution and every once in

a while even a high profit. Yet Bollywood and Hollywood are very different, both in style, storytelling and

production costs.

Bollywood released movies which usually depicted the love of two characters coming from different

background. Motion pictures from India are very traditional. The characters never kiss, and holding hands is

the most stimulating thing they do. Of course, due to globalization traditionalism is fading. Newer Bollywood

blockbusters feature action and less orthodox characters. Bollywood motion pictures are new on this field,

they tend to feature overused, over the top action elements, creating very unique movies. The Indian film

industry slowly starts to resemble Hollywood, mostly because it's audience became bigger.

Hollywood focuses on entertainment and money, not tradition or art. It's number one priority is to keep

the audience glued to their seat. There are numerous ways to achieve that, but they will be discussed later.

Hollywood productions are usually the most expensive films. These films are funded by multiple studios and

feature well-known actors and most likely the best of what the industry can offer. Hollywood is a district of

Los Angeles and the centre of U.S. and the first world's movie making industry. Hollywood combines

hundreds of larger-smaller film studios, but it's usually the three main distributors, who earn the most money.

The three largest film studios are Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Warner

Brothers, but other smaller, but significant studios like Disney and 20th Century Fox are also making a

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sufficient amount of money. The listed film studios all have smaller daughter companies, Paramount Pictures

bought the well acclaimed animation film studio DreamWorks back in 2005. However these companies are

never fully owned by one company, since the franchises they've created are licensed under different

corporations. For example, in this case, Disney owns the rights of all live action movies and Paramount owns

the rights of all animation movies produced by DreamWorks. Smaller film studios are constantly bought,

sold, reformed, merged or destroyed. If this weren't enough, most movies are funded by multiple studios and

this sometimes results in years of debate about copyright and other ownership issues leading to a so-called

development limbo.

Still Hollywood produces about half a thousand movies annually.

Because it aims to provide entertainment for everyone, the use of clichés and other elements is

inevitable. Hollywood doesn't usually fund smaller productions, such as short films or art films, but of course,

there are some exceptions. Yet there aren't many people, who would visit the cinemas, just to see a single

short film.

Hollywood has many smaller companies and partners all over the world, even in Hungary.

History of Hollywood

The history of the American film industry can be divided into three larger parts: The Golden Age & The

Era of the Studio System and The Era of Blockbusters.

The Silent Era marks the beginning of moviemaking in the U.S. This era started in the first decade of the

20th century. It all began very slowly, "producers" at that time had very limited abilities to form their short film.

During the early years cameras were only able to record short sequences and post production was almost

nonexistent. The term "flick" comes from this decade, it refers to the images flickering across the screen. It is

surprising, but Hollywood produced as much flicks in the twenties as today, but there were more uncut short

films, depicting smaller and simpler stories. The first actual feature length movies were of course silent,

movie houses usually hired a pianist, who would compose and play on spot, providing a sort of background

music. The Silent Era was the birthplace of larger film studios as well, the five major studios (Warner

Brothers, RKO, Paramount Pictures, MGM and 20th Century Fox) were funded at that time. Last but not

least, after countless scandals, Will H. Hays created the Motion Picture Production Code, which was a sort of

censorship and guideline for all movies. The censorship was met with huge criticism and was eventually

lifted almost forty years later. The Production Code is todays MPAA rating system (obviously only in the

U.S.). However Golden Age of Hollywood was not yet over, a major game changer entered the field, talkies

or talking movies were born. Unlike new technology today, this completely reformed the industry, most actors

dropped out, since they couldn't adapt. Soon after partially and fully colored motion pictures followed. Firstly 5

animation shorts and movies very colored frame by frame, just like today. Later even live action movies were

colored this way, but it was neither quick nor convincing. There still are debates about the first fully colored

flick, many believe that it was the 1939 movie, The Wizard of Oz. Before the epic journey of Dorothy,

colorized flicks already existed, but they were very far from todays standards. The Wizard of Oz on the other

hand, uses three color layers (RGB-layers) to depict the Wonderland. This technique was used until

production moved from film to digital after the turn of the century. The tale of Dorothy became a cult film, and

many studios tried to recreate the feeling of the movie with less success. Nevertheless, The Wizard of Oz

spawned more than fifty reboots, remakes, sequels and TV episodes as well as inspiring other media, such

as books, toys or even video games. Although the most lucrative, the 1939 film was not the first adaptation of

Frank Baum's novel, there were two other silent movies before it came out.

During the Golden Age of Hollywood, there were far more advancements than today. Stereoscopic or three

dimensional movies were among these advancements. 3D movies were achieved using red & blue (or

sometimes green & yellow) glasses, which added depth to a move, but also losing and/or changing many of

its original colors. This method was not changed until the 1980s, when IMAX theaters started to focus on

enhancing the colors and reduce the pain of the eye. IMAX hand in hand with James Cameron introduced

the shutter glasses in 2003. Although it is superior than anaglyph (red&blue) glasses, it still faces many

problems like loss of brightness, incompatibility and long recharge time.

Back in the thirties the studio system was formed. Although it sounds a little boring, the studio system

is one of the main pillars of today's movie production. The new system meant that the Motion Picture

Association of America controlled the American movie distribution and most of the production. The MPAA

was the association that unified the previously mentioned big fives and three other big studios, thereby

taking control over the US production and distribution. They owned a notable percentage of theaters in the

country. The distribution system the MPAA used was called block booking. This way the MPAA could produce

and distribute cheaper films and than send them in package with a single A-list movie, usually three out of

five film were cheap B-list movies. The association typically sent three to ten films to a theatre. The cinemas

couldn't choose which package to buy, because there was no screening before the transfer. This wasn't very

profitable for the theaters, but very beneficial for the big studios. The term "blockbuster" appeared.

(Interestingly the word "blockbuster" doesn't originate from block booking, it referred to a WWII bomb that

could destroy an entire city block. This meaning was later morphed into "something that makes a public

impact". This is when hit films got the name blockbuster.)

Other smaller motion picture industries were crushed by the laws of the MPAA, some of them even

moved to Europe. Even though it was formed at the time of the Great Depression, the studio system was

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surprisingly quite successful and the movies made a lot more money than before. The moral and the price of

the tickets could make this possible. Firstly a single ticket costed less than a quarter, making this form of

entertainment affordable to many if not all. Even with today's inflation rate, the price comes out to $2,50,

which is currently less than the price of a popcorn and a soda. Secondly there were a lot more movies

produced than today. Cinemas were in fact really popular at that time. This went on until the end of World

War II, the time when television devices became cheaper.

In 1958 the studio system collapsed, because of a law suite against the very thing that made it rich,

the block booking. The US then forbid block booking and blind buying. The film studios were forced to sell

their theaters. This collapse drastically reformed the industry. The big studios could no longer produce cheap

movies, because the theaters would not buy them. Therefore the number of films dropped, which again

resulted higher ticket prices.

This was a complete disaster for producers, because this was also the birth of TVs. The number of

cinema-goers dropped significantly, and two out of the eight biggest film studios went bankrupt. At that time

actors were the main reason people watched a movie, and as actors began appearing on the TV the

audience moved from the silver screen to the television screen. The Golden Age of Hollywood was officially

over. The film industry eventually recovered from this adversity, by making movies specially for TV and

lending their equipment and locations to TV studios.

The collapse of the studio system was only profitable for the actors, since producers had to hire

famous stars in order to sell their film. This way even smaller roles and not so famous actors could get a

higher salary. Because of the new medium, the television, the number of actors had to grow anyway.

The eventual recovery was in the seventies, with the first blockbusters, namely Godfather and Star

Wars as well as the sequels of these films. One of these movies soon became one of the biggest and best

selling franchises spawning multiple TV shows, movies and other forms of media. The second major game

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changer was the "revolutionary" VHS. This way movies that didn't sell well in the theaters could retain their

budget through the newly introduced home video market. VHS tapes were replaced in 2000 by DVDs and

DVDs are being superseded right now by BluRay Discs, which are also being replaced by network or internet

streaming. Today only 29% of the revenue originates from cinemas, a third comes from the home video

sales and the rest either from TV channels and online streaming sites or from selling other products which

are affiliated with the franchise, such as toys, books and other collectables. About seventy years ago a film

was only able to collect its budget through cinema screenings, today only a fraction of the sum comes from

cinemas. The third reason Hollywood became prominent again was a new system, the roadshow system,

that presented movies similarly to a world famous musical or circus show. They were only available in limited

theaters and their price was incredibly high. The screening of a single movie sometimes lasted as long as a

year. Many believe that this would solve the problems of today's film industries, by making movies look like

something extraordinary, but others just like me think that this would only minimize audience.

The number of cinema goers rose quickly only to once again decrease in the 21st century.

Interestingly the revenue Hollywood makes on movies didn't decrease with the declining audience, moreover

it's the highest at the moment. The reason behind this, is the constantly rising ticket prices. Because of the

declining audience, the 21st century only has a single movie in the top 10 highest grossing movie chart.

James Cameron's Avatar (2009} takes the second place on the list, but the reason this movie became

number two was a technological advancement and enhancement and not good storytelling. Avatar was in

fact the first full length interlaced 3D movie, which was picked up and distributed worldwide (other 3D movies

created with the same technique preceded this movie, but most of them were only shown occasionally in

special IMAX cinemas), which meant that the audience had to buy special (shutter) glasses and the cinemas

had to pay for newer digital projectors and equipment. In the US the ticket prices for Avatar increased by an

average of $3. Same goes for other less successful 3D releases.

In the fourth quarter of the twentieth century - aka the blockbuster era - with help of home media and

talented directors Hollywood became once again one of the most popular form of entertainment. Still, less

people visited cinemas than during the Golden Age, however the attendance did rise. The film industry

realized that it's easier to make a few expensive blockbusters, which attract a bigger audience than many

eclectic low-budget movies, as they saw the fame and successfulness of high-priced movies. Steven

Spielberg and George Lucas were pioneers at this form of cinema, they both produced three out of the ten

highest grossing movies. Hollywood saw its chance and reformed the industry in order to abandon lesser

known artists and focus on big budget hits. So far this has been a lucrative plan, yet many estimate that the

system will eventually collapse, when many movies fail at once in the box office. Some blockbusters did fail

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to even return their production costs, but most of them have been financially rewarding. This raises

questions, like "How can Hollywood produce only a handful of movies, but profit at the end?" or "What was

the cause for some blockbusters to fail while others succeeded?"

Contemporary problems of Hollywood

However in the 90s and after the turn of the century new problems materialized and the American film

studios began to loose their audience. First of all a new medium popped up and became relatively popular

among the younger generations, the generation that visited cinemas more often than any other. Video

games hit the market. At first these games had almost no impact on films or the box office, but as computers

became part of everyday life in the nineties, newer and more attractive games began hitting the market.

Later as technology advanced games began to feature multiple story lines as well as appealing graphics and

deeper content. Games became more than just mindless shooters, they became something a group can play

together. Some featured award winning designs and interesting characters. There are many types of games

and consoles, but on average they usually cost as much as the average movie disk. Yet games released in

the last four to eight years feature multiple hours of story, occasionally an open interactive world to explore

and realistic situations. One of the major advantages games feature is interactivity, in most games the player

can choose how he or she wants to continue the story or how he or she should destroy an enemy or

complete a mission. Games are also lot longer than any other form of media. The average video game can

be finished between 8 to 40 hours, some RPG and building games can even last "forever", if the player

wants to gather and/or upgrade every collectible not to mention downloadable there is.

(The game with the longest main story, combined with side stories and missions takes approximately 280

hours to fully complete.)9

Movie Tickets sold per Year

As said, games cost about as much as a Double DVD Disk. The before mentioned features seem to

make video games superior to films. However not all games have perfect quality, many are generic or

completely unrealistic and require the players control and complete focus at all times. Also, in order to enjoy

a certain video game, one must first buy a plausible computer, which does not tend to come cheap. Yes, for

a movie a TV or a digital screen is necessary, but compared to computers TVs are much more economical.

In the meantime video games became easy to develop by basically anyone who has access to a PC, making

it even harder for the film industry to compete against.

The internet is an other major competitor, providing numerous alternatives to movie watching for all

ages. Piracy must be added to this topic as well. Hollywood studios often state that the reason behind the

failure of a movie is piracy. It is true that because of the internet piracy has increased and in the last time,

some TV episodes had more viewers on Piratebay (the most popular file-sharing site) than on TV. For

example, the most watched TV-show today, is Game of Thrones. Each episodes aires on Sunday around 8

pm in the US. This means that by monday morning the new episode is already available for download,

therefore someone who doesn't live in the US only has to wait one night, for a particular episode. It is

speculated that close to six million people watched the season finale of Game of Thrones by downloading it

from various torrent sites. According to Wikipedia the show was watched by only 4,2 million viewers on HBO

on sunday night. (Since then the second season has been downloaded over 25 million times and the show

became the most pirated show of all time.) Many would think that piracy kills the TV, but actually all these

downloads only bought fame for this series, and after its increasing popularity HBO received more users.

These file sharing (also called torrent) sites are indeed very popular, despite countless attacks from

governments and copyright agencies all over the world. File sharing is also very rewarding for indie musician

and movie makers, it provides a free platform to share works of art with millions.

Not surprisingly, torrenting is sometimes very damaging for studios, for instance if an early cinema

release gets out, the movie will instantly loose a small percentage of the audience. However hardly any

Hollywood blockbusters failed, because of piracy. They failed, because people refused to go to the cinemas.

Torrenting does have its downsides, but several statistics reveal the most people, who download illegally are

doing it because that movie or TV-series is not available in their country. Does this mean, that studios don't

distribute their productions well? Today, with the ever growing online streaming sites like Netflix, we will soon

have an answer for that question.

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An other enemy of cinema is of course the TV. First of all, TV shows and movies are in no way

comparable. They are two different means of storytelling. Same goes for video games, books or even

graphic novels, although they are probably the closest to movies, because of their storyboard like layout. TV

shows and series usually demand a moderate budget, a smaller audience and provide a much personal

story, sometimes using cliffhangers and other TV tricks, thereby never letting the audience click away.

However unlike movies, they don't require the constant attention of the viewer and their timing is much more

appealing. TVs will always be present, however cinemas are disappearing and the next thing we know there

are only a few cinemas in big supermarkets and a few smaller theaters for universities and art schools. If the

number of audience doesn't increase the situation will be like this in a few decades. Hollywood even made

movies only for the small screen. Such productions are usually sold to bigger TV channels, like HBO, to

return some profit. These "made for TV" or "direct to video" movies are always 90 or 120 minutes long and

they're usually experimental works for a smaller audience. They tend to carry lower technical and artistic

quality as well. Interestingly most family movies are "direct to video", since children do not visit theaters as

often as the remote of the TV.

Cinemas are getting expensive every year, which means less people visit them, which results in even

fewer movies. As said, Hollywood typically works with blockbusters and as we can see this strategy is longer

profitable. What worked in the seventies and eighties doesn't seem to works today, and Hollywood can no

longer rely on the domestic box office, since only one third of the profit comes from the decreasing number of

US cinema-goers.

Possible Solutions

I've listed some of todays major problems Hollywood has to deal with, and now I'll give a little insight

what the American film industry does to remain profitable. To that I’ll talk about the target audience first.

Most of the cinema goers are young people, aged between 14 and 35 years old. As mentioned before,

during the Golden Age of Hollywood every second American visited cinemas at least once annually. This

meant two things:

-A lot more movies have been produced to fulfill the needs of the audience.

-Different kinds of movies have been produced since the taste of the audience was (and still is) eclectic.

Apart from the time during the World War II the audience was usually divided. Each cultural and age group

required a different movie. This was still the case about thirty years ago. Yet today with limited viewers one

would assume, that Hollywood only has to focus on a smaller age group, making movie making easier. It

indeed makes movie making easier, but the spectators demand for more, and the number of people visiting

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cinemas continued to decrease. Hollywood remembered that thirty years ago the movies had about three

times as many viewers as today and concluded that some of todays films should draw the previous

generation of cinema-goers back to their movie theatre seats. There is no problem with that, such a strategy

was efficient at other fields as well. But instead of focusing on creating original ideas, the film studios

decided that new installments of older franchises (f. e. the Indiana Jones series) should be able to get the

fans back and even gain a few new followers. These movies certainly earned Hollywood enough money to

create a few other movies of this kind.

As for the "younger" audience, most new movies are produced for them. Nowadays if a movie does

well in the box office it is certain that the studio will make another movie in the series, regardless of possible

inconsistencies with the original plot. This is why the best selling movies by 2011 were either sequels or

remakes and reboots.

We can look ahead, and search for the most anticipated movies of 2015, namely Jurassic World (a

Jurassic Park sequel), The Avengers 2, Star Wars 7, Assassin's Creed, Batman vs Superman (Man of Steel

sequel) and James Bond 24 (a Casino Royal sequel). It is easy to notice a pattern here. All these movies are

sequels except for one which happens to be a video game adaptation. It is understandable that these feature

films are popular, some of the greatest movie franchises are going to have their return in a that year, but the

film industry doesn't plan to offer anything else or anything new. Of course they are offering other movies, but

these are their most important productions. I like to call this "a safe way to make money in Hollywood". Even

if the movie fails to deliver a meaningful story or a unique atmosphere, fans are going to watch it no matter

what.

We are still living in the blockbuster-era, therefore Hollywood cannot stop producing big budget hits

and focus on many smaller works. Something like this would far to risky, so they have to continue producing

high-priced films that everyone would want to watch. It would destroy their already unstable system, which -

as I’ve learned through history - would result in an even bigger chaos.

The question is given: What kind of blockbusters sell well?

Hollywood's answer is adaptations. It is true that if money-grabbing film studios produce movies about

already existing franchises, such as superhero portrayals from Marvel Comics or even best selling books,

the movie will most likely return profit. This is mainly the reason, why most Hollywood movies are

adaptations. There are all sorts of adaptations, the most common are of course, books, but graphic novels

aren't far behind. Other sources include musicals, songs, catastrophes, famous people or even internet sites.

Some films even went as far as producing films about a popular board game. According to Hollywood,

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everything can be adapted, but the source material has to be something well-known. With this strategy in

mind, Universal Pictures produced a few movies based on video games, they thought that because of their

popularity fans will enjoy them. The director wanted to be faithful to the source material by recreating as

many elements and story arcs as possible. This was however a big mistake, because even a two and a half

hour long action filled flick couldn't recreate the feeling of a dissimilar and more complex computer game.

These video-game films usually receive negative ratings from both critiques and fans. Hollywood also tried to

make feature films about popular TV shows, but that wasn't a good move either. Although these movies

returned the production costs, they were heavily criticized. A single movie simply could not reconstruct the

atmosphere of a lengthy TV show. So, apparently the strategy does not always work, not even at movies

blessed with a huge fan-base. Every now and then a movie is just not picked up by the general public,

possibly because of bad marketing or because the previous installments haven't been well received. It has

been proven that in the eighties the audience still visited movie theaters regardless of the quality of the film.

Today even this is changing, and not for the better.

Nowadays, out of all the adaptations, it’s generally the comic book adaptations that profit the most.

Because of their storyboard-like format and shorter, less detailed story these are the most adaptable pieces

of media. Some comic book films occasionally copied entire scenes from their source material, thereby

pleasing fans and reducing the budget at the same time. Creating a movie from a book is a much harder

task, it requires the director to create a new world and fill it with some of his ideas, but still focus on the main

story. Graphic novels already provide the setting leaving less for the imagination of the moviemaker.

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These forms of literature often deal with the supernatural, such as heroes, monsters and other common

fantasy elements. For the younger generation of cinema goers fantasy movies are quite prominent. This is

the reason, why last years' highest grossing productions have been comic book adaptations. Seeing the

huge profit behind this, Hollywood immediately started the pre-production of a few movies loosely based on

comics.

An other usual best seller is catastrophe film genre. King Kong, aliens, a vulcan, a meteor, no matter

what the danger is, producers can always show massive destruction and a happy ending side by side. Also

these to are more like opposites of each other. For the excitement however they can be easily combined.

The story is usually not important at these films, since most of the budget goes to the special effects team,

and not the actors or screenwriters. Especially in the summer, it is amusing to see (only American) cities

getting destroyed under the hands of a seemingly undefeatable beast. These movies usually return profit,

even though they don’t provide anything else besides the visuals.

As for the visuals, lately blockbusters tend to make every set piece in CG (via computer, CG means

Computer Generated) and adding it later in post production. It is much cheaper this way, going out to a cliff to

shoot a scene is both time consuming and costly, creating it later in post production is much easier. As the

technology advanced some films do not even have to leave a studio to shoot most of their scenes. Probably

the best example would be the film 300, which focuses on a handful of Spartans, who endlessly battle

against the Persian army. Only one single shot of the film was shot outside the studio and almost every other

scene took place in front of a green screen. It is true, only this way could the artist fully control the look of his/

her movie, but adding every element later to a film can sometimes look too artificial.

As said before there are way too many sequels and prequels, but the audience does pays to see

these movies, even though they rely on the same scheme. Without an example this reasoning would not be

accountable. Universal Studio's most successful movie franchise is the Fast and Furious series, which

generally received bad reviews. The series focuses on street car races, close combat fights and an endless

combination of these two. The six installments of the series grossed altogether $2,380,084,668, which isn't

bad, if we take into account that the average Hollywood flick makes less than $100,000. Every two or three

years the studio releases yet an other sequel, interquel or prequel for this franchise, with little to no

modifications. It seems filmmakers in a certain areas are not even trying to bring something original to us. Of

course, making a movie for the thinking man is a risky operation, since the target audience greatly reduces,

but at least a believable story would have been nice. Even second-rate video games can connect two action

sequences with meaningful dialogue.

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Throughout the Golden Age of North American Cinema the main priority of Hollywood studios was to

own as many theaters as possible. This meant people living around a particular theater had to watch movies

made by the owner of the movie house. It's only a little different today. As of now, a fan base is one if not the

most important asset of film studios. The previously mentioned movie franchise already has a few million

followers, who would enjoy nothing more, than watching the next installment of mindless car racing mambo-

jumbo, which means it is unlikely they are concluding the series in the near future. A fan base means stability

and stability has become on of the crucial points of our fast-moving life.

If we look at this way, Hollywood didn't change much. The only thing that changed is the price of a movie

ticket, in the forties it was around 30 cents, while in the 21st century it stands between 6 and 8 dollars on

average.

Nevertheless it is interesting, that this safe way of filmmaking is mostly exercised by American film

studios. Bollywood for example rarely works with sequels or prequels, same goes for smaller European

industries. Independent directors however sometimes produce new installments of their previous films.

As the years go by the American film industry starts to realize that many of its productions flop. To

compensate that, producers release three or four types of DVDs hoping to redeem at least some of the

production budget on the small screen. A double disk copy, a BluRay, an extended/director's cut edition and

if possible a 3D Double Disk. There are, of course many other types of formats, but these are the most

common ones. Selling almost the same movie in three different formats, is an easy way to confuse simple

buyers and attract fans, who would buy every version there is.

But there are other ways Hollywood tries to squeeze even more money out of a certain film. The

movie studios sometimes rerelease older, but still famous works in 3D on the big screen. This was the case

with Titanic two years ago. The director, James Cameron converted, and rereleased it in third dimension, in

order to squeeze even more money out of the film. (Also, it was the one hundredth anniversary of the

catastrophe and popular culture was an excellent advertising method for the film.) This way Titanic became

the forth highest grossing film of all time.

Other, older films, like the Metropolis and Star Wars have also been digitally enhanced and rereleased

at some theaters. The quality of these movies does improve, but adding an other dimension to the film is

usually unnecessary and unconvincing, owing to the fact that it is converted and not true 3D.

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The current blockbuster system is a carefully planned system, where the current Big Five (Paramount,

Universal, 20th Century Fox, Disney and Sony) set up a formula, which includes all the possible blockbuster

movies and their likely release date in the near future. They do this to see which types of movies are going to

be popular, and what types of movies they should insert in order to fulfill the needs of the vast majority. This

also helps visualize what types of movies are going to sell regardless of the taste of the current audience.

For example every two or three years Pixar has to produce yet an other animation film for usually younger

boys. Disney has to produce an animation film about every two years, its target audience are younger girls.

The premise of these movies is only secondary. A similar case involves Marvel and DC comic book

superhero movies. Once a particular genre (f.e. zombie-horror movies) becomes popular, studios tend to

plan movies in this genre in the following years. Although such planning was also exercised before, today

companies go much further in developing the scheme for their intended flicks.

However sometimes even planning doesn't help, especially during the summer, when statistically more

people visit the cinemas. During this time of the year, Hollywood releases the most blockbusters. Yet, for

some reason the audience is often not interested in some of the movies, and the summer blockbusters fail to

return their production costs. This is why usually the films released during the summer flop.

An other scripted season is the fall, this is the time for the Oscar nominees to come out. It is surprising, but

it's typical for movies nominated for an Academy Awards to be released at that time of the year, because this

allows these films to stay fresh until the meaningless, overblown ceremony held in the first quarter of the

next year. The spectacle only shows the opinion of a few elderly white men sitting behind closed doors, it

shouldn't be taken seriously by any moviegoer.

To my mind award shows are only good for one thing: Promoting younger artists and talents. With the

help a few prizes unknown artists have the chance to ask middle-class studios for funding their future films.

This helps both the artist and the industry, since it provides new minds to moviemaking and a new movie for

the industry.

Independent Artists

Hollywood almost stopped funding independent studios and directors as soon as they realized they

were in a crisis. It’s understandable that blockbusters aren’t created with unexperienced filmmakers, but

before the turn of the century there were a few middle-priced independent movies. This was very practical,

Hollywood could choose which indie artist to fund later on, by looking at these films. Today, it is pretty certain

that the American film industry wouldn’t hire someone with only a few films.

So instead of making feature films, independent directors typically create a short, which presents most of

their ideas. The big directors then watch these productions and integrate it into their films or - if they find it

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good enough - produce a feature length film about it with the help of the original director. Sadly such films

are very uncommon.

Conclusion

To cease the case, I would once again point out the how profit-oriented mainstream Hollywood

producers have become and how Hollywood refuses to change its plans in order to reform the cinema. The

financial collapse is upon them, at one point their unsteady system will probably fall, due to their ignorance to

reality.

This might have been a little too dark or too negative, but many (fans, critics and directors) predict something

like this. Of course not all Hollywood movies are like this, some directors did manage to get funding for their

original work. Still, high priced non-continuations of franchises are getting rarer every year.

As advice, I would recommend that people also visit smaller local theaters or watch non-American movies

every once in a while. Although not all foreign films are worth the money or effort, they can provide a great

alternative to their American counterparts. Visiting a film competition or a festival can also be quite delightful.

Also it might be interesting to think about how Hollywood should handle films. Should they once again

introduce a type of block booking? That would certainly increase the number of films, but it is possible that

the quality would also drop. Or should Hollywood produce masses of movies, sell them cheap and hope for

the audience to increase dramatically? This is very unlikely, since going to the cinema is more like a habit.

Therefore there wouldn’t be more people visiting movie houses simply because they aren’t used to it. Maybe

five to ten years later, the majority would once again return to their cinema seats, but by that time Hollywood

would already fall. According to some directors, movies should eventually replace theatrical plays and

musicals, and adapt their ways of moneymaking. For example they should be showed for an entire year for

overpriced tickets. There would also be no DVD releases. To my mind, this would be the worst case

scenario. The number of movies would drop instantly and they would turn into something only prosperous

people can afford. Only the popularity of TVs would increase.

These are just a few possibilities America already tried. None of these were practical long term, but they did

bring millions of dollars to the pockets of the producers. It is unlikely that a new technological advancement

would reform the industry, so it is evident that something should be done in this matter.

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