Posted on 12/24/2005 4:09:09 PM PST by Daralundy
The slump, now three years running, prompts the industry to ask: 'What's wrong with the movies?'
LOS ANGELES - Hollywood's year-ending good news is that moviegoers are opening hearts and pocketbooks for "King Kong" - more than $60 million on its debut weekend and counting.
The bad news is that audiences did not exactly go ape over the rest of 2005's cinema offerings, making this the third straight year of decline in Hollywood ticket sales - the first such stretch of bad news in 40 years. Because of the continued falloff - sales are down 12.6 percent from 2002 - a growing number of analysts wonder if America's movie habits are changing permanently.
"The industry has to consider whether or not American audiences are sending a message about the quality of the movies they are getting - or just the way and the place in which they get them," says Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations, a firm that analyzes box-office trends. "You can bet that producers, writers, directors, and studio heads are all huddling intensely to consider what this means and change their behavior to keep it from continuing."
It could just be a continued shift away from multiplexes toward Blockbuster, Netflix, and other home-viewing options, Mr. Dergarabedian and others say.
In this scenario, consumers are changing their movie-viewing habits because of multiple complaints related to theater-going: soaring ticket costs, high parking and candy-concession prices, and, perhaps, decreased enjoyment of the movie-house experience because of unruly audiences and growing numbers of on-screen ads.
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
I found Hitch delightful.
cry me a river... not.
I liked Eva Mendes in it too...
Bingo!
When you already have more money than you can spend, it all becomes about changing the world.
Now that's one movie I have to say looks spellbinding...Memoirs of a Geisha. I wanna see it too.
You are 100% correct... These little guys are 'little immature boys' and have a long way to go before they grow up.
Great book. Couldn't put it down.
How about a "Mr. Bush goes to Baghdad" comedy where they make fun of the President for 2 hours? And only release it in the cities that voted BLUE last election. Then they could rave about how well it was received.
Of course they wouldn't be smart enough to figure out how to make a red state movie. Custom movies tailored to fit different states and cities. Probably too expensive.
(Dammit! I want blue, not red for us. Who was the weasels who decided it would not be good to give the dems RED?)
King Kong was completely unbelievable ... except for the huge bugs that ate the sailors.
I like Colin Farrell. He was good in Daredevil which I absolutely loved.
Yeah... saw it on one of the pay channels the other day. Don't own it on DVD.
Great book. Couldn't put it down.
And .. in case you haven't heard, the movie "Syriana" is about showing the terrorists as GOOD GUYS. They don't want to kill people - they just want to destroy property!
I wonder of the families of the dead from the WTC, the Pentagon and Flight 93 believe that .. I know I sure don't!
Hollywood has always been left-wing in socio-political ideology and always mogol-capitalist in practice.
Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner!
Excuse me for asking, but what is LOTR?
Hollywood Sees Biggest Box Office Decline in 20 Years, Blames Bush
Domestic revenues at movie theaters may fall below $9 billion for the first time since 2001 after averaging $9.3 billion over the last three years. Factoring in higher admission prices, the number of tickets sold is expected to finish at about 1.4 billion, the lowest since 1997. That marks the largest drop since admissions fell 12 percent in 1985.
Some studio executives are blaming President Bush.
“If Bush hadn’t been such a distraction for so many of us, maybe we could’ve made better movies,” said Pinky Sfinktir, press secretary for the Screen Actors’ Guild. “Bush is doing all this governing stuff we don’t approve of.”
Sfinktir’s list of complaints included the war, tax cuts and a general “uncoolness” about the president, especially compared to his immediate predecessor.
Sfinktir suggested that President Bush resign for the good of the nation. “If Bush would step aside so the Supreme Court could appoint someone cool to replace him, we’d all be better off,” said Sfinktir. “We’ve got some great movies in the pipeline, though.”
Upcoming films touted by Sfinktir include “Under the President’s Desk” -- a musical based on an affair between a president and an intern, “Omaha Bitch” -- a homosexual romance between two soldiers during the Normandy landings, and “Meet the Crips” -- a comedy based on the street gang founded by recently-executed murderer, Tookis Williams. All are rated “R.”
Sfinktir chuckled when he mention that last one. “Doesn’t the name ‘Tookis’ just make you want to laugh?” asked Sfinktir. “We feel movies like these will bring people back to the theaters. I mean, who wouldn’t want to see films like these?”
http://www.azconservative.org/Semmens25.htm
According to our newspaper TV guide, the soap opera General Hospital has a young male character "coming out." Hopefully this show will find it's "target" audience and lose longtime viewers who are appalled at the new storyline. The gay agenda IS being forcefully set upon us.
I've begun to buy books - LOTS of books Maybe the people who make movies should read books - it takes imagination - something they seem to have lost.
Maybe the FORTH version of King Kong will end differently than the first THREE?
Duh!
Here is a snippet from an interesting article:
"First, the reported "grosses" are not those of the studios but those of the movie houses. The movie houses take these sums and keep their share (or what they claim is their share)—which can amount to more than 50 percent of the original box-office total. Consider, for example, Touchstone's Gone in 60 Seconds, which had a $242 million box-office gross. From this impressive haul, the theaters kept $129.8 million and remitted the balance to Disney's distribution arm, Buena Vista. After paying mandatory trade dues to the MPAA, Buena Vista was left with $101.6 million. From this amount, it repaid the marketing expenses that had been advanced—$13 million for prints so the film could open in thousands of theatres; $10.2 million for the insurance, local taxes, custom clearances, and other logistical expenses; and $67.4 million for advertising. What remained of the nearly quarter-billion-dollar "gross" was a paltry $11 million. (And that figure does not account for the $103.3 million that Disney had paid to make the movie in the first place.)"
http://www.slate.com/id/2118819
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