Quote:
Originally Posted by murg
My original comment was in reply to someone saying that the PBH were moving to a Hollywood-style market (relying on blockbusters, etc.).
I was pointing out that the markets are different, especially cost/effort to produce/release.
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You are looking at the mechanics instead of the business model.
The actual business models, and the way they've evolved is very similar.
Hollywood used to produce movies by the thousands. Those movies used to circulate through theaters for months and even years. That allowed even quickie low budget movies with b-list actors and directors to turn a profit over time. Movies stayed "in print" for years.
Every once in a while, the studio would release a high profile movie that would bring in millions and the studio would enjoy a windfalls from the Blockbuster so they would always be on the lookout for potential "bestsellers" but their business was not built solely around the DeMille's of the business. Even the biggest of studios had a diversified release schedule of high profile projects, regular A-list movies, b-list projects, shorts, cartoons, and serials.
Over time, the high profile projects grew bigger and swallowed more studio resources and all the other classes were slowly deprecated and eventually killed.
Then JAWS and STAR WARS hit. RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and ET...
Better communications and marketing, and the emergence of the multiplex theaters, allowed much bigger attendances over a short time. Pay TV and later, Video sales and rentals emerged, all providing big money outside of theaters, and over time theaters evolved into a new release business almost exclusively. Theater runs became shorter, even for blockusters (STAR WARS' ran for almost two years in theaters, TITANIC and AVATAR were anomalies at six months), and windowing emerged.
With the increased focus on blockbusters, B-list movies were replaced by TV movies, then died. (A limited version has returned in the firm of Indie movies and cable only movies but the numbers are much lower than the heyday of the old studios.) More recently, entire genres have pretty much vanished from the big studio release schedule. Projects that might have gone to the studios are going to HBO, SHOWTIME, STARZ, Lifetime, Hallmark, Amazon... or Indie. Some, like DR HORRIBLE'S SINGALONG BLOG and CAPER (among others) have gone online-first.
The big studios' focus on the big blockbusters has allowed new studios to pop up to fill the gaps in family-friendly fare and viewership to shift to new formats. And it has caused a lot of creators to simply take their projects elsewhere. If you have a cute romcom you take it to Lifetime, you don't waste time trying to sell it to UNIVERSAL or DISNEY unless you have a name actor pre-attached.
More recently, even blockbusters have come under pressure by the focus on big bucks quick. Where RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and ET were released with marketing plans based on getting good word of mouth and long theater runs, by now even *good* blockbuster movies saddled with bad marketing get tagged as failures on the very first day of release. (C.F., Disney's JOHN CARTER.)
Entire books have been written on how the big Hollywood studios have become slaves to blockbuster movies and in the process lost control of vast swaths of the audience they once dominated.
The 5 BPHs are not that far gone but they are pretty deep down that road and heading deeper.
The parallels abound, from resource allocation to the obsession with quick cash from short release windows, even to gimmick accounting. Lessons to be learned are there, but only for those willing to actually see the perils of the blockbuster addiction. Short term gain vs long term relevance.
MGM, United Artists, and RKO Radio loom as very likely futures for at least some of the BPHs.