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Movies:
Creativity? No thanks, this is Hollywood
August 07, 2006
Source:
Creativity? No thanks, this is Hollywood
By Patrick Goldstein
Los Angeles Times
HOLLYWOOD — If Hollywood had a suicide prevention hotline for despondent agents, managers and producers, the switchboard would be swamped. In the past few weeks every industry insider I've had lunch with has been morose, sullen or depressed.
To hear the talk, the dark ages are upon us. Producers are glum because studios are killing their deals left and right. The agents and managers are bummed because after untold years of actor and filmmaker salaries heading in only one direction — up — studios are putting the squeeze on talent, having recently killed a series of costly star-driven movies in favor of more manageable genre pictures and family films.
With Jim Carrey essentially out of work (having seen two consecutive projects fall apart), Tom Cruise's Paramount production deal in jeopardy and Brad Pitt taking steep pay cuts to get a pair of ambitious films made, you know we're in a new man-overboard stage of the business. U.S. movie attendance has been flat for a decade (grosses are up largely because of increased ticket prices), while DVD sales are leveling off after a lengthy boom.
So the media conglomerates that own today's studios are demanding less risk and more return. Everyone is doing some sort of cost cutting, reacting to Hollywood's core inconvenient truth: At most media companies, the movie studio is the least-profitable, slowest-growing and most cash-intensive division, making it a drag on corporate profits, not to mention a tempting target for job slashing.
The big news has been at Disney, which to save up to 0 million a year in overhead costs has axed 650 employees, most notably Nina Jacobson, its respected head of production. Her replacement, Oren Aviv, the studio's marketing chief, was given the job by studio chief Dick Cook because, as Cook told The New York Times, Aviv "knows how to sell something. He knows what works and what doesn't."
Disney has essentially gone from being a movie studio to a family entertainment company, making 10 Disney-branded films a year, all pictures that will be easily exploitable by one of Disney's other businesses.
It's commerce, not art
In the New Hollywood, the power has shifted from production to marketing. And why not? When your aim is to make a franchise picture aimed at the whole family, the person you want at the helm is a brand-management expert, not a filmmaker-friendly production chief.
Next summer is already jammed with another slew of sequels, including new installments in the "Harry Potter," "Spider-Man," "Pirates of the Caribbean," "Shrek," "Fantastic Four," "Rush Hour," "Bourne" and "Ocean's Eleven" series. These are consumer products, not cinema.
At studio after studio, the production chief who used to say "We're going to make this film" now has to share clout with an ever-expanding greenlight committee, with the studio marketing guru having the biggest vote. The mantra is: Don't make a movie you don't know how to sell.
For someone who's made a living as a creative filmmaker, this marketing-driven approach is maddening. "It's folly for studios to say we're only going to make a movie we know how to market," says producer Michael Shamberg, who made the Oscar-nominated "Erin Brockovich" as well as the new Oliver Stone film "World Trade Center." "The problem with marketing is that it's based on what's worked in the past. But audiences want freshness and new ideas, which is all about the future. If a studio is unwilling to be a home for fresh ideas or daring films, they're ultimately not going to be competitive, because the top talent is going to go somewhere else."
Lost in the hoopla over Jacobson's departure was the news that Disney also let go of J.J. Abrams, creator of "Lost," director of "Mission: Impossible III" and perhaps today's hottest writer-producer. It's telling that Abrams didn't walk away from Disney. Disney walked away from him. To hear the agents talk, the studios have declared war on talent, intent on grinding down their fees after years of free-market spending.
Oscars or profit?
On the other hand, in today's franchise-crazed world, the last place a serious actor would go for good material is to a studio. With development slates being slashed everywhere, most studios have little to offer top stars, unless they want to be in a broad comedy or action-filled thriller. All the movies featuring best-actor nominees at last year's Oscars were either independently financed or made by studio specialty divisions. Likewise for virtually all of the movies that spawned best-actress and supporting-role nominations.
Top filmmakers can always get a job at a big studio — if they're willing to sex up some franchise material, as Steven Soderbergh has done with the "Ocean's Eleven" series and Michael Mann has done with "Miami Vice." This is the new Hollywood: Everyone works for peanuts on Oscar fare such as "Crash" while the cash spigot is wide open for "Rush Hour 3."
Playing an increasingly minor role at most media conglomerates, movie studios have had to adapt to the culture of their corporate parents.
The rub, of course, is that movies aren't just a piece of product. If there is one immutable law in the film business, it's that only risk brings reward. From "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "The Godfather" to "Lord of the Rings," "Crash" and "March of the Penguins," movies that seemed like longshot gambles ended up helping to transform the culture, thanks to a bold risk-taker saying, "Count me in."
Maybe I'm too much of an optimist, but I'm betting that Hollywood's latest effort to bean-count its way to profit will be short-lived.
Hollywood needs great artists to survive. Give the public more sequels with cheap talent and maybe you'll improve your profit margin. But you'll take even more of the magic and surprise out of the business, turning it into one giant, suffocating rerun machine, driving fans to more involving entertainment alternatives.
Magic and surprise may not add up to much on a corporate balance sheet, but on a movie screen they mean just about everything.
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