Interesting article on Newsweek here about how Hollywood is pondering the future given this summer's huge drop in sales. All kinds of ideas floating about including turning movie theatres into mini-entertainment centers, different food choices, merchandising, simultaneous releases over cable/satellite with film openings, etc...etc....
Here's a hint. Make good movies.
Get rid of the bean counters and marketers who head studios and greenlight projects based on the inevitable testing game. Invest in good talent to make the pictures. Write good stories. Stop repeating the same formulas over and over.
As long as we care about movie grosses more than we care about the movies then Hollywood will continue to turn out drivel and the market will continue to decline. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know it's a business. I'm in that business too on a smaller scale. When I produce a play people care about they come. When I goof and pick one they don't care about they don't come.
Interesting that at the same time DVD's and home viewers are catching the blame for the decline in sales, studios are talking out the other side of their mouths and saying that the big decline in DVD purchases is due to folks having completed their collections. Wrong. No quality product out there. I know my buying has gone down and I'm an avid collector.
Anyone reading this remember when the smart guys/gals who controlled TV schedules decided to play the monkey with the schedule game on TV? Hmmmm? As I remember it happened about the time the last vestigial hint of originality went out the window and they started moving the schedule around.
Put the business of art back in the hands of artists. Yeah, they're dolts and will lose money occasionally. But I wonder if it is as much as some of the brilliant decisions coming out of Hollywood have lost lately?
I'm amazed folks get paid so much money to screw things up so much.
