Hollywood box office slump
In recent weeks, the so-called Hollywood box office slump has been widely reported in the media. The topic has been discussed in stories appearing in The Globe and Mail, at CNN.com, in trade magazines like The Hollywood Reporter and in several entertainment blogs. What's all the fuss all about, you may ask?
Well, theater revenues are down about 7 percent compared to last year and if the higher ticket prices are factored in to these figures, the decrease is closer to 10 percent. For nineteen weeks in a row, box office receipts were down substantially from previous years and overall, the past three years have seen a decrease in theatre attendance. This year's summer blockbusters are just not performing up to expectations built on past summer hits like Titanic and Spiderman II. As last Saturday's Globe and Mail reported, "a surprisingly successful release of The Fantastic Four from 20th Century Fox helped propel box office returns for the July 8-10 weekend to $148.9-million (U.S.). That was just a few hundred thousand dollars over the same period in 2004, but enough to cause a collective [corporate] wiping of brows."
Several reasons may explain this trend: poor quality movies (witness the number of tired re-makes and prequels); bad stars (pugnacious Russell Crowe and wacko Tom Cruise); high prices of films and concessions; excessive preshow commercials; annoying movie-theatre "etiquette problems" that detract from the cinematic experience and the popularity of DVDs, videos and (illegal) downloads. Strong attendance at non-Hollywood films like the French documentary March of the Penguins supports the idea that theatre-goers are choosing quality over Hollywood hype and suggests that they may be willing to put up with these negative aspects of going to the movies if the film is good enough.
This week, Advertising Age reveals just how confident advertisers are about their colonization of the movie theatre's "captive audience" and their high hopes to increase this type of commerce in the near future. These days, studios are rushing to get movies to theatres, often inking placement deals and merchandising partnerships before scripts are written. With fewer people going to the theatres, after collectively wiping their brows, studios may be forced to reconsider these practices and to start making films people want to see.
Posted by Lesley at July 25, 2005 12:17 PM | Comments (0)
Call for Papers - SCMS (Vancouver, March 2006)
The Society for Cinema and Media Studies
2006 Conference, March 2-5, 2006, Vancouver, Canada
Panel Proposal: Hollywood and the Hypercommercial Intertext
Chair: Dr. Matt Soar, Department of Communication Studies, Concordia University
This panel proposal frames the contemporary Hollywood movie as both symptom and effect of a vertically integrated, 'hypercommercial' media environment. In this environment, film scripts are increasingly conceived, modified, or manipulated to maximize their amenability to product placement, cross-promotions, tie-ins, merchandising and videogame development. We invite a broad range of critical interventions (including scholarly papers and creative responses) that address these activities, in terms of, for example: script development, narrative, studio ownership, prop-buying, film promotion, and reception.
Proposals (200-300 wds, plus contact info) to Matt Soar (msoar_AT_alcor.concordia.ca) by deadline (August 14, 2005).
Posted by matt at July 12, 2005 08:36 PM | Comments (0)
Saleable Scripts
A story in today's New York Times, titled 'Product placement for the whole family', centres on the new movie Herbie: Fully Loaded, which is indeed loaded - with logos. The article reminds us that scripts are often altered to accommodate the wishes of companies whose brands are booked to appear on screen (in this case, GM and Goodyear). Further, it rightly explains that some placements are the result of having a common parent company: ESPN, which appears prominently, "happens to be owned by the studio's parent, the Walt Disney Company."
The industry sources that are wheeled out to defend the practice of product placement claim, predictably, that the onslaught of logos in Herbie: Fully Loaded is simply about realism. This is, in general terms, a tired and altogether hollow claim, coming from people who are actually in the business of escapism. The excuse here is that the action in this film is embedded in the world of NASCAR and, as we all know, NASCAR itself often appears to be nothing more than the mobile progeny of Times Square, the Ginza, and Piccadilly Circus.
But wait: it is two of the writers on Herbie: Fully Loaded who make this claim for realism ("people who have problems with the [on-screen] 'Herbie' promotions don't understand Nascar") and it these same two writers (Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant) who "came up with the idea of setting the long-delayed 'Herbie' project in the Nascar milieu." So, who's fooling who? Might it be possible - even probable - that the project got the greenlight precisely because the writers found a 'realistic' way to turn it into a placement bonanza? Rest assured they worked hard for their money; as Lennon says: "There's so much product placement in the film that it's really hard to sneak it by."
Posted by matt at July 06, 2005 09:36 PM | Comments (0)
