The Death of Hollywood

It's been going on for a long time, and I've been posting about it for a long time.  Ten years, in this case.  The only thing really left to add is the crooked accounting that Hollywood loves to use, which is an outstanding way to hide losses (and an even more outstanding way to hide profits).

Originally posted 16 March 2010.

Hollywood goes out of business, episode MCMXLIII

Via Bob at The Drawn Cutlass, we find that Hollywood thinks that there's no market for war films.

If Matt Damon can't sell an Iraq war film, perhaps this is a lost cause for Hollywood.

...

"We're disappointed," says Nikki Rocco, Universal's head of distribution. "And to tell you the truth, I'm puzzled. You've got the same great director and actor, in same style of film they did in the Bourne movies, just in a different place."

But that place has been merciless on Hollywood, which continues to try to make a hit out of the Mideast conflict. Other Iraq war films, including The Kingdom ($48 million), Body of Lies ($39 million) and Brothers ($29 million) featured big stars and little box-office returns.

"It didn't help that the big kahuna (Alice) was zapping business from everyone," Rocco says. "But maybe (war) is something that's in our face so much every day, people aren't wanting more of it in their movies."

People just don't want war stuff, at least enough to invest their time and their entertainment dollar? Is there a way that we could empirically test this? If only someone could come up with a measure of how valuable the market thinks something is.

Oh, wait - we call that "money". OK, so can we have an example of an entertainment franchise based on a war situation? How about Call Of Duty?

So what has the franchise grossed?

The Call Of Duty series has surpassed 55 million unit sales to date worldwide, taking a whopping $3 billion in retail sales in the process.

Is there a Hollywood movie franchise that we can compare, to see how much more (or less) the game has made? There is indeed:


Here's the lifetime gross of the six Star Wars films:

• Star Wars, $460,998,007
• The Empire Strikes Back, $290,475,067
• Return of the Jedi, $309,306,177
• Episode I - The Phantom Menace, $431,088,301
• Episode II - Attack of the Clones, $310,676,740
• Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, $380,270,577

Add 'em up, and you get a bit over $2.1B. The Star Wars franchise is about two thirds as lucrative as one of the first person shooter War simulations.

"Alice" was in theaters? "You've got the same great director and actor, in same style of film they did in the Bourne movies, just in a different place."

Yeah, but you have a blame America, blame the troops downer of a film that has all the nuance of a shovel hitting you in the back of the head. Those other films are also just like this. You think your audience are a bunch of idiots, who need you to lead them to Enlightenment (but can't make it too hard, or they won't Get It).

And you wonder why nobody goes to see your lousy film?