Hollywood Bets It All on Stupid

Nowhere is the continual stupidity of Hollywood more visible than in the LAT's section "the Big Picture" by Patrick Goldstein. Goldstein swallows whole the lunacy that Hollywood is following: trying to make money by producing (mostly) American financed/starring movies designed to appeal to foreign audiences. This is self-evidently stupid policy, because "explosive growth" audiences don't have money, don't respect intellectual property (piracy), don't pay for films, and don't really like "American" content much. Meanwhile it is pretty easy for locals to create their own content.

Hollywood is betting it all on stupid, because they simply cannot make movies that appeal to American audiences. Hollywood can't make films that Americans feel like paying for to see in a theater, so the fantasy of magical thinking is that the studios can make movies for foreigners who will lap up anything and everything.


To see how stupid this is, just look at China. China is filled with film piracy, and just recently the ban on "Westernized" entertainment on TV and movies pulled many programs and films off the air or theaters.

When Chinese leader Hu Jintao recently warned his nation's ruling Communist Party of an imminent risk from the West, he wasn't talking about the United States boosting its military capabilities in East Asia. He was alluding to things such as video games.
"International hostile forces" use thought and culture "to Westernize and split" China, Hu stated in a speech publicized in January in the party magazine Seeking Truth..
At least China's embattled youth can strike back at the West come May when Glorious Mission, a civilian version of the Chinese army's first training simulation game, goes on sale, according to the state-run China Daily newspaper. Co-developed by the People's Liberation Army, the online, first-person shooter game allows players to destroy enemies that resemble U.S. forces.
Glorious Mission and other "serious games" supported by Chinese authorities form one front in Beijing's multi-headed cultural offensive, launched last fall. There's been fighting talk from Hu's likely successor, Xi Jinping.
China's universities are "a key ideological front to equip our youth with the core values of socialism," he told the country's deans last week . Xi, 58, is likely to succeed Hu, 69, as party general secretary this year.
Through massive investment, and countless censors, the Communist Party aims to boost China's "soft power," or cultural influence, abroad and shore up "cultural security" at home by reinforcing state control of the sector and guiding audiences back to "socialist core values." Neither goal will come easily.
...
State censors launch regular crackdowns, sometimes with bizarre targets: Last year, authorities restricted time-travel TV dramas and banned downloading of certain foreign pop songs, including The Backstreet Boys' seemingly non-political 1999 hit I Want It That Way.
In recent weeks, the government has stripped two-thirds of entertainment programs, mostly talent, talk and dating shows, from the schedules of China's popular satellite stations. Citing "excessive entertainment and a trend toward low taste," regulators have forced satellite channels to switch to programs promoting "traditional virtues and socialist core values," the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.

I don't know about you. But my money is on China exerting more control over entertainment, and basically banning Western stuff out of Hollywood in favor of their own domestic stuff. What does it take to make movies in China? Not much. China does not care about Hollywood, they don't make money off Kung Fu Panda, so guaranteed they'll close that down, dole out their own movie-making patronage, and be happy to run off pirated copies of Kung Fu Panda 10 like hotcakes.

South Korea, Russia, and Brazil all have their own burgeoning film industry, which will assuredly demand protection from Hollywood. Eager to win patronage and screw over foreigners, local leaders will happily oblige. Already foreign film distributors are taking baths, many exiting, because it is hard to make money distributing Hollywood films. So much piracy, so much theft, so many theaters not paying the full amount of admissions they are supposed to pay. After all, law in most of these places doesn't exist. Unless the distributor has paid off the government and has enough juice to get guys with guns to visit the offices of the distributors, reality is that they will get only what the exhibitor feels like paying.

Goldstein swallows whole the following fantasy:

This focus on foreign markets is clearly changing the way studios assemble their feature film slates. Nowhere is this more evident than at Paramount Pictures, Hollywood's market-share leader in 2011 with 19.2% of the overall business. In 2007, when the studio also had the largest share of the market, Paramount did roughly the same amount of business in the U.S. as it did overseas — $1.5 billion domestic versus $1.6 billion international. In 2011, the studio's films grossed $1.9 billion in the U.S. But they made a whopping $3.2 billion overseas.

If you believe those numbers, let me interest you in an outstanding investment opportunity with John Corzine and MF Global, in European bonds. Does anyone think Paramount ACTUALLY did that amount of business overseas. Or is that just a number "booked" from a distributor, of which they will get something like 30-40%?

Hollywood studios want people to believe (they are called suckers er investors) that they have some magic formula. Don't worry, they say, even though AMERICANS have decided that "the Hangover 2" or "New Year's Eve" can wait till next year as a Redbox or Netflix rental, or streaming, foreigners are stupid, moronic gits who can't tie their own shoes, and will reliably stream into movie houses at full price. Like poor people in India, China, Pakistan, Brazil, and Russia (that's most of the population) will be paying $15 a person (in their local currencies equivalent) to see "Mission Impossible 7" or "Xenu's Revenge" or what have you.

Meanwhile the studios claim, their magic formula involves making movies aimed at hipsters ("Young Adult") and tweens (Justin Bieber's movie) and such. Yep, that's their strategy: stupid foreigners paying full price, and hipsters and Bieber fans.

Does that sound like a plan? Or mutually assisted suicide?

This situation seems to echo the late 1960's and early 70's, when Hollywood could only get people into to see movies like "Towering Inferno" or "Earthquake" or "the Sting" until Star Wars and Jaws came along, and showed how to make movies everyone would enjoy.

Movies are still a MASS medium. To make money off them, lots of people need to enjoy them and pay top dollar to see them. Crummy movies aimed at small slices like tweens or hipsters will never be cheap enough, NEVER to cover Hollywood's fixed costs. Very rapidly now, Hollywood will start to fail. Like GM at the end, there is not enough real payoff to fund their capital needs.

Hollywood's model, like that of Blue States, is one that is self-destructive. As long as there was money being made selling off library/catalog on DVDs, and good times had customers buying, Hollywood could afford the reality that most of their current movies sucked, and badly at that. With little popularity and their few blockbusters requiring hideous amounts of capital, with many failing. Rather than go back to the drawing board, and make movies everyone could enjoy, Hollywood doubled down on stupidity and arrogance, figuring foreigners will bail them out.

Matthew Yglesias on Slate boasts that Hollywood still has more cultural reach than China, while Business Insider notes:

"A recently implemented rule has effectively curbed the ‘excessive entertainment’ trend as two-thirds of the entertainment programs on China's 34 satellite channels have been cut, according to the country's top broadcasting watchdog.  ‘The total number of entertainment shows airing during primetime every week has been reduced to 38 from 126 at the end of 2011, marking a 69 percent plunge as the new rule came into effect on Jan. 1,’ said a statement issued Tuesday (3 January) by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT).
"According to an SARFT directive last October, each of the country's satellite channels would be limited to broadcasting two entertainment programs each week and a maximum of 90 minutes of content defined as entertainment every day during primetime -- 7:30 p.m. to 10 p.m.  The directive also required channels to broadcast at least two hours of news programming. Between 6 p.m. and 11:30 p.m., they must each broadcast at least two 30-minute news programs.
"The restricted programs on the SARFT list include dating shows, talent contests, talk shows as well as emotional stories that were deemed 'excessive entertainment' and of 'low taste.'  However, popular dating shows like ‘If You Are the One,’ produced by Jiangsu Satellite TV, and soap operas, such as ‘Li Yuan Chun,’ presented by Henan Satellite TV, will still be aired during weekend primetime hours, according to the statement.
"It said that the satellite channels have started to broadcast programs that promote traditional virtues and socialist core values.  The newly-added programs among the satellites' revised broadcasting schedules are documentaries as well as cultural and educational programs, it added.  The SARFT believes that the move to cut entertainment programming is crucial in improving cultural services for the public by offering high quality programming."

Contrast that with the fatuous stupidity of Yglesias at Slate:

This is one area where the rise of the Chinese manufacturing juggernaut hasn't impaired America's leading role at all. If anything, the reverse as a more prosperous China serves as an increasingly lucrative market for American firms. But Chinese President Hu Jintao is none too happy about it, kicking off the New Year with a magazine article complaining that "[i]nternational forces are trying to Westernize and divide us by using ideology and culture."
The talk coincides with the implementation of a regulation announced in October that aims to clean up Chinese television by restricting networks to offering no more than two "overly entertaining and vulgar" programs per week. That kind of strategy strikes me as unlikely to succeed, but I would welcome more robust efforts by the PRC to strengthen the quantity of cultural outputs that are up to international standards. I really enjoyed Red Cliff, for example, but we just don't see that many Chinese war epics.

PC makes you stupid. And stupidity kills. Even, eventually in Hollywood.

I believe none other than that great philosopher Charlie Sheen called it "Winning."







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Incredibly Emo and Extremely Effeminate

Pop culture today offers nothing of real value to young boys contemplating what kind of man they wish to become, and even less for young women trying to sort out the straw from the gold amongst young men. Witness, the trailer for the movie "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close"





Emo kid after his father's murder on 9/11 in the Twin Towers goes on an emo quest to find some key. Not avenge his father, not even express anger at those who murdered him. Because above all we can't have a White boy expressing anger or even worse, hatred for those who murdered his father and ruined his life. Instead we get a boy who will grow up Extremely Emo and Incredibly Effeminate.

This is by design. The creative and business people inside Hollywood simply cannot allow the ideas of revenge and hatred to exist. CERTAINLY not among White men, witness Steven Spielberg's "Munich," about the self-loathing of those who were tasked with hunting down the killers of the 1972 Munich Massacre, or the recent film with Helen Mirren, "the Debt." Of course the real hunters of the Munich Massacre, including Ehud Barak, have no such self-loathing. To a man they feel proud and justified of their work, as do the Navy SEALs who shot or helped shoot bin Laden.

At least in part, many women today find that open masculinity among average guys threatening. Among other things, it suddenly puts them in a lower place relative to guys working across from them in a cubicle, who 99% of the time are amiable work-mates, by reminding of them of the endless depths of male violence and the capacity for brutal revenge among even the most placid of beta males. There certainly is not much of a market for that sort of thing. The "higher beta male wronged" in NBC's "Life" (played by Damien Lewis) failed to find an audience. Meanwhile, a variation of that character played by Lewis, only as a "bad, damaged" bad guy who is a traitor, finds female viewers aplenty (Showtime's "Homeland.")

A 9/11 movie is made. And the kid whose seminal event in his life is the murder of his father by Osama bin Laden is not allowed a second of anger and hatred for the murder. Instead we get a twee, precocious (not in a good way), "Billy Eliot" sense of total lack of testosterone and masculine behavior. That's not how boys act, or speak (in complete, fully articulated sentences and flowery language). It is a gay man's or a woman's idea of how a boy should speak. Or act. Absent all the messiness, the ugly behavior, the rebellion, the anger, the violence, that are part of every boy's growing up (and indeed the need to control that chaotic energy).

Mark Steyn noted that the War on Christmas is a signature marker of the failure of the West. I'd argue that this movie just as easily fits the bill. But the question is why?

My answer would be a sexiness deficit among men. It is admittedly a just-so story, but my thinking goes like this: the sexual revolution, fueled by technology, rising female income, anonymous urban living, and critically, female-oriented entertainment dominating the culture, led women to untrammeled sexual freedom, never before experienced by any group of women for any sustained length of time (and it is most attractive, Western women who enjoy this total freedom). At the same time, their rise meant that men who would have been considered sexy and attractive, when most women were secretaries (hence the popularity of Mad Men on TV), are now considered beta male drones.

And women began to dial up the asshole desire to unsustainable levels. Desiring ever more asshole behavior and dominance from men. Punishing those (and the culture) that does not deliver. This is why the war on Christmas (which is a secular, social tradition at least as much if not more than a religious one). And why this kid is an emo-kid, devoid of masculine behavior.

Traditional culture, traditional masculinity, don't cut it any more. Instead we've come to a bifurcated sense of masculinity. A few, exempt from all the rules Alphas, can do as they please, as long as the dominance and power are ramped up to unsustainable levels (because eventually they provoke a violent male response). Meanwhile any challengers/interlopers from the old culture are headed off at the pass.

Bottom line, a male dominated audience and movie industry would make a movie, where the kid is angry and crying, over the loss of his father, and then you see him as an adult (fade in) in a helicopter. Gearing up. He shoots various Muslim bad guys. Cut to training missions, and then a top rank general walks in … "it's a go. We're going to get him."

Shoot-outs and bad guys (and some good guys) dying. Voice over (kid's voice): sometimes you wait your whole life to get even. This is for my father, and all the others.

THAT would have been the movie made if Joe Average White Guy and his money dominated the movie industry. That this movie has no testosterone whatsoever is indicative how skewed towards the female audience Hollywood has become.
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What the Help Says About America and Obama

The movie "the Help" has of this writing (Friday, Aug 26, 2011) made approximately $82 million at the box office, against a production budget of only $25 million and a publicity budget quite likely of $30 million. The movie is well on its way to being at least mildly profitable, though nothing like the big-budget winners of say, Iron Man and Iron Man 2 or the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. But still, the movie has been successful. It is worth noting the reasons why the movie (and before it New York Times best-selling novel) has succeeded in what the movie says about America ... and Obama's chances of being re-elected.


Of course, a good deal of the movie's success has to do with counter-programming. It is quite simply the only chick-flick available now. Women like to go to see movies too, and the idea of say, sitting through Cowboys and Aliens or some other action film doesn't appeal to them. In the same way that Jason Statham movies often take advantage of being the only action flick around, this movie benefits from savvy scheduling. The success of the novel, of course is reflective that the bulk of the book-buying public are women. No one would argue that Twilight is a work of great mastery, but women ate up that stuff like crazy. Romance novels from Barbara Cartland on have sold well, and if instead of Fabio on the cover there is the thrill of a hunky, glittery-gay vampire lurking inside the novel, well that's just the market working to serve a hungry readership and audience.

And yes, the "help" even in say, early 1960's Jackson Mississippi was far more likely to be named Frigidaire, or Kitchenmaid, or Hoover, than anything else. Few American housewives had domestic servants of any kind, back then, and even fewer today. Those who do tend to be on the rich side of things. The reality is that Rich and Powerful Black Men employ domestic servants, and these servants tend to be illegal aliens from Mexico. Not downtrodden Black women in the 1960's caring for White babies. The real "help" was automation, and machines, that made domestic life entirely different, in rich countries first and then poor nations. Hans Rosling remembers how in Sweden, his grand-mother cried when she got her first Washing Machine:



Washing machines, dryers, dishwashers, garbage disposals, vacuum cleaners, all made domestic life far easier for the 1950's housewife. Allowing her to work outside the home in the 1960's and onward. The help was not oppressed maids in middle class houses. It was machines, that transformed the brutal work of women in the house to one of manageable chores. Meanwhile Desegregation happened not because of some noble crusade by White women and Black people, but because Whites had already left places like Jackson and New Orleans, for suburban places far from Blacks. The cheap automobile, provided by Ford, GM, and Chrysler, allowed people to move far away from the urban life, including far away from Black people, and live in air-conditioned isolation, away from the hustle and bustle.

This process had begun, first in places like New Orleans, when the St. Charles Streetcar started running in 1835. People moved out to the more genteel, and isolated places along St. Charles (originally where just a few Plantations and houses stood). The same was seen in London, where the commuting process along regional railways started around the same time. If you could avoid living in the city, it was better. Less polluted and stinking (before the advent of modern sewage systems, the city meant chamber pots emptied out onto the street, and of course horse manure everywhere), people moved out to the country the way only Kings and Emperors had before. Technology is wonderful, it allows ordinary people to get wealthier!

In the 1950's, people moved out of cities like New Orleans and Jackson, MS for the suburbs. In New Orleans, the White middle class moved to Jefferson Parish, or Metarie (home of Britney Spears), or even North Shore outposts like Slidell. Air conditioning and television replaced sitting on the front porch, desperately trying to catch any evening breeze, and gossiping with the neighbors. The great roaring White Middle Class withdrawal from public life dates to about that time.

So nope, the picture "the Help" paints of an oppressive domestic serfdom in the South in the Sixties was false. Whatever semi-serfdom operates today, is the province of celebrities and powerful people, any number of which are Black as well as White. Nearly all Americans cook their own food, wash their own cars, care for their own babies, and have no desire to change. Their only wish -- more powerful technology to make each task easier.

Rather, the key to understanding "the Help" is the basic plotline. A young White woman, Eugenia Phelan, nicknamed "Skeeter" returns from College to investigate where the maid who raised her has disappeared to, and discovering a systematic series of racial oppression ... writes a gossip book about the mal-treatment of the maids by her mother's friends, and their scandals and secrets to boot!

Yep, no standing up to violent abuse by police dogs and firehoses on national television. No investigation of secret killings and burials of civil rights workers by police, at the risk of her life. No non-violent resistance to segregation's uglier practices, with predictable violent consequences. Nope. The protagonist ... writes a gossip book. The protagonist avoids "getting married" (her mother's big dream for her) and instead succeeds in being an "important writer."

In the movie, things are even clearer. The heroine is played by the much younger and hotter Emma Stone, while the bad women are played by older actresses. If you wanted a clearer picture of what "Civil Rights" today meant, you could not find one. Civil Rights amounts to a constant status-struggle by hip young women to over-turn the older women's status and seize it for their own. This story is why the book sold so many copies, to female readers, and why the movie was successful, apart from chick-flick scheduling in the middle of "testosterone action Summer."

For a significant portion of the White, professional, and female demographic, it is always 1963. But that 1963 is not the real version, but rather a fantasy construction of place where they and their projections are the heroes, defeating the forces of evil by ... writing a gossip book.

That's pretty thin. True, Obama does well with White College-educated Women, and poorly with all other Whites:

College Educated White women: 56% approval.
College Educated White men: 38% approval.
Non-College White women: 34% approval (lowest).
Non-College White men: 35% approval.

But even White College Educated Women, prone to using Black people in internal dramas over status with other White women (there are few male characters in the movie and book "the Help") ... need to eat. Or buy gas. Or clothes. All of which have gone up in price under Obama while wages and earnings remain stagnant.

Obama benefited from a perfect storm in 2008. An economic collapse and a Republican opponent who wanted to lose to gain the respect of the NYT and his daughter, who HATES HATES HATES Sarah Palin (echo of "the Help" by the way, you can see its power). Now instead of running against the Man, he IS THE MAN. Americans want results, not a symbol. Largely, people have tuned him out. His speeches tend to be followed by yet another drop in popularity or approval. Obama lost White men voters, but gained in White women voters in 2008's Presidential election, to carry the day when adding all non-White votes on top of College Educated White women voters.

Yes, there are plenty of White College Educated women willing to play eternal status games, with "enemies" like Sarah Palin, or Michelle Bachman. But as long as say Republicans avoid nominating women who bear a resemblance to say, Sissy Spacek (one of the villains in "the Help") and focus on economics and Obama's responsibility for the same, status-games will not save Obama. No matter how much women like Meghan McCain want to gossip about Sarah Palin types. "Change begins with a Whisper" (the tagline of the movie "the Help") but Hope and Change have left folks without much change ... in their pockets.

Obama seems to be basing his entire re-election campaign on appealing to the inner "Skeeter" of his White College Educated Female supporters. While it is true that he allows them to play moral superior to those they have rivalries with (again see Meghan McCain and Sarah Palin) that's thin soup these days. "The Help" shows how the Civil Rights struggle ends. In farcical idiocy, akin to the severely retarded and deformed Hapsburg Emperor who cried "I am the Emperor, and I want noodles!" at a state banquet.

The Help won't help Obama.
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It Won't Be a Taxi Driver Summer

One of the seminal films of the 20th Century was Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver." A story of a troubled man (a Vietnam Vet) quite literally driven insane by the insane city around him. The current unrest of a "Long Hot Summer" with outright riots in London and Black "Flash Mobs" in the US is unlikely to produce any reaction other than flight and opt-out from the overwhelming mass of the White middle class public. Because Middle Class people even crazy ones have too much to lose. But opt-out and flight have their own consequences, far more severe than any random act of violence.


Here are a few scenes showing the power of screenwriter Paul Schrader and Director Scorsese's vision:








In the movie, the sick and dysfunctional city makes Travis Bickle even crazier. Only a quirk of fate leads him to kill people who need killing (the pimps, hustlers, and corrupt cops keeping a 12 year old as a prostitute) instead of the Senatorial candidate. In other words, a Breivik who kills say, vicious pimps instead of school kids on a resort island. Bickle like Breivik is of course quite scary in that his insanity is matched by organizational toughness. A corrupt, lawless city has a thriving black market in guns. Bickle is obsessive about working out. His initial idiotic dry run on the Secret Service leads to a change of plans and a sudden Mohawk (completely changing his appearance). Crazy cities create and nurture crazy people.

But that's just a movie. And real life is not a movie. In real life, Morgan Freeman is not the voice of God, but a weird guy aiming to marry his (adopted) Grand-daughter. In real life, Woody Allen is not a charmingly neurotic artist but a guy who married his step-daughter. In real life, Whoopi Goldberg is not the Wise Black Woman but a nutty host on "the View." In real life, we've had about fifty plus years of multicultural, PC-driven, "anti-racist" stuff that tolerates the kind of scum that made Bickle wish for a real rain to wash it all away.

And the type of rampages aimed against PC and Multiculturalism amount to just one: Breivik. That's it. Oh sure there's the "Beta Male Rampage" (probably not the best word for it) of disturbed guys like Cho, Sodini, and others. The killings of various jihadis, probably including the Beltway Snipers, Lee Boyd Malvo and John Mohammed. But the only guy who even approximates Travis Bickle in the last fifty years is some Norwegian guy who was a Freemason, an organic farmer, and a member of the middle class who spoke another language (English) and could write it as well.

There won't be any violence against "the Long Hot Summer" of Black Flash Mobs, and various organized lootings/beatings/robberies/arsons (as in London). Because its a LOT easier to simply run away. Opt out. Stay away.

REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts) are going to pay a heavy price. All those yuppies wanting to move to city centers to find better mates, are going to re-think and move to the suburbs when their leases are up. New leases and sales will be hard to come by, and heavily discounted, hurting cash flow and rates of return. Thus you'll see heavy pressure on mayors and such to do what it takes, to suppress the mobs, but likely far after anything effective short of the National Guard remains.

Meanwhile, Amazon looks to reap rewards from people stopping their mall-shopping habits in favor of online shopping. Netflix, Amazon, and other online video folks will benefit as people seek entertainment at home, and online dating places will gain as people shun city centers as mate-market auctions. Bars and restaurants will hurt, and telecom providers win, as the shift to opt-out becomes easier.

No one wants to live in Travis Bickle's world. Even in the mid 1970's, it was relatively easy to avoid the hell of NYC for suburban places. Now its even easier. Which has several strategic implications.

First, an opt-out White population is going to want specific subsidies aimed at THEM, and have little patience for the populations that in effect cleansed them out of public spaces. This means no money for Black/Hispanic public schools, and lots of money for online education. The same goes for Welfare, TANF, WIC, and so on. Travis Bickle shooting a pimp and some corrupt cops and johns doesn't fix a corrupt to the core NYC. But White flight/opt-out changes the funding completely.

Secondly, the "magic" of the First Black President is over. He's now, Tyrone Willingham. People demand results. A miserable economy, a lost AAA credit rating, a stock market dive, and a "Long Hot Summer" of Black Flash Mobs and possibly, London-style riots/arson/looting won't cut it. People expect results. Obama had about three years to produce results, and considerable good will, all gone now. Hostility and intimidation is likely to produce, not surrender but opt-out. It is not the 1960's any more. People are experiencing hard times themselves, have no sympathy for rioters, and are more likely to agree with the basic desires of a Travis Bickle if not the methods.

Third, the impact of Black Flash Mobs has been to harden racial attitudes (basically, the view that Blacks and Hispanics are dead-weight that White America would do well to shed in a desperate economic struggle). A "Long Hot Summer" won't result in vigilantes, but a ruthless restructuring to regain economic competitiveness and exclusion of non-Whites and non-Asians from most public expenditures and public life. Gone: Affirmative Action (too expensive). Gone: policies investing in urban centers (hostile territory to the White Yuppie/Middle class). Gone: investing in education and in particular physical public schools. Gone: faith in the elite to even tie their own shoelaces, much less order the nation from the food people eat to light bulbs in their homes. Gone: legitimacy or even interest in the media, which has acted to suppress information about the Black Flash Mobs.

The worst thing that would happen for the Liberal Welfare State and the associated NGOs (Ford, Pew, Annenberg, and Gates Foundations), talking heads, permanent governing class, and media hangers on would be a "Long Hot Summer" of most American cities burning down in racially motivated riots. Something like that is impossible to ignore, and will harden attitudes of the pressed White middle and working class immediately. It is not 1968. Whites are not likely to react with buy-off appeasement and guilt. Indeed, 1968 is as distant to us in 2011 as 1925 and the Jazz Age was to 1968 and the original "Long Hot Summer." Flappers and Al Capone were as relevant to the time of the Watts Riots as Martin Luther King's assassination is to us today.

Margaret Thatcher said that the problem with Welfare States is that they eventually run out of other people's money. The problem is far worse, and accelerated, when there is a huge economic dead weight of those with far lower wealth. The Wealth Gap per household is $113,000 for Whites, $6,000 for Hispanics, and $5,000 for Blacks (median net household wealth) according to the Pew Foundation.

Hard pressed White households, watching say Cleveland, Detroit, Philly, and Obama's hometown of Chicago burn, mostly fueled by Black mobs, in a "Long Hot Summer" are likely to conclude that hey, the money would go a LOT further, and be spent on THEM, if say, those people were included out of the disbursements.

People want results. Notre Dame and Washington have not hired another Black coach since Tyrone Willingham. With the great turn-over in college and pro coaches, Willingham is not coaching currently according to Wikipedia. Obama had a long leash to produce results as the First Black President, but even he had to produce results. His likely play of Chicago-style politics (all he knows) of urging the mobs forward, and then posing as "the one man able to turn off the violence" is likely to only further harden attitudes.

It won't be a Taxi Driver Summer. No matter what sort of riots and mobs happen. Bickle is a sad, crazy figure because he's totally alone, and the alienating city only makes that worse (by making nearly impossible any social connections the character wants). But he's just words on a page and a performance by a gifted actor. He wasn't and isn't real. He's just a character. Real life features not White violence in mobs or vigilantes but massive opting out and a reshaping of the social and political and economic life of America. The challenges are just too great.

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Don't Believe the Hype: Why Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Will Be A Dud

Currently, Mike Fleming at Deadline Hollywood Daily is predicting great success for Sony Pictures US version of "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo." Don't believe the hype. The movie is doomed to failure, another "Green Zone" or "Rendition" in the making. Fleming cites Bertelsmann's quarterly report, with Random House (publisher of Larsson) noting sales rose 8% over the prior period, and profit rose around $50 million. Larsson is the first author to sell 1 million e-books on the Kindle, and the Dragon Tattoo trilogy sold a cumulative 6.5 million books in the US and Germany. All true, and therefore Fleming must be right and Whiskey absolutely crazy to contradict him, right?

Here's why Fleming is dead wrong.


First, the sales increase is relatively modest, and any savvy publisher will admit, it is easy to "book" revenue that is not there, by publicity and in particular, Oprah's endorsement. As "A Million Little Pieces" shows, "booked sales" does not translate into revenues. Particularly when books get remaindered, unsold, and thus must be destroyed or sold at huge discounts, eventually finding their way onto balance sheets at times when it is more savvy to "take the medicine" of losses in one quarter.

Tellingly, no break-out of the 6.5 million sales of hardbacks for the trilogy combined is offered by country. When a report fails to break out the numbers, rest assured there is every incentive to hide bad numbers or news. It is a very good bet that most of the sales were in Germany, not the US. If you hit up most people in random US shopping malls, and asked them who Stieg Larsson was, or JK Rowling, or Stephanie Meyer, the latter two would get instant recognition, and the former none. Even given "Dragon Tattoo" most Americans would not have the foggiest notion of what the book was about. Dragons? Jessie James and Kat Von D from "LA Ink?" The phrases "Best-selling," "Swedish author" and "American audience" do not go together.

Next, the very fact that Larsson is the e-book champion, is telling. Who has e-readers, and thus can purchase e-books? Tween girls and their mothers, who flocked to Twilight? Kids under 14, who made JK Rowling the richest woman in England, more wealthy than the Queen? Nope. It is the glitteratti and wealthy, who are globally mobile, who crave e-books because the convenience and status-symbol dovetail nicely with finding it hard to get books in say, Dubai, or Singapore. The Kindle is $189 to $139, still a luxury to most hard-pressed consumers. While the Kindle has gotten better, and cheaper, it is still a niche market.

Mobile Opportunity, an excellent blog (go there and read the whole post) notes that:

Ebook usage is growing fast, but it's still small. Roughly 2% of American book buyers over age 13 are active ebook users, meaning they obtained an ebook or a reader device in the last year. About half of those were first-time ebook buyers, so the usage of ebooks has probably roughly doubled in the last year. BISG is doing multiple waves in the survey, and says it found a 25% increase in ebook usage just over the holiday season, so it was a pretty good Christmas (and Hanukah) for ebooks.

The most-used device for reading an ebook is a personal computer (47%). Amazon Kindle is number two (32%), followed by Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch (21%).

The other notes are that PC users still dwarf the dedicated e-readers, Apple is gaining share rapidly, but most of the sales seem casual, the best-selling e-book of all time is the Bible (don't expect Hollywood to remake the Ten Commandments any time soon), Apple users are younger and more male, Kindle users older and more female.

How many Kindles are really in use? As far as I can tell, Amazon hasn't released any Kindle device sales figures, other than a quote referring to "millions" of users. Several analysts have jumped on the use of the plural as evidence that at least two million Kindles have been sold. But I think the BISG survey doesn't support that. Here's my math:

--About 2% of book buyers have ebooks and/or ebook devices.

--About a third of them have Kindles (that's 0.67% of active book buyers).

--If 0.67% of book buyers in the US is two million people, then there are 300 million active book buyers in the US. That is the entire US population, including infants and people who don't like books. I don't know what the base of active book buyers is in the US, but my guess is it's not over 200 million, meaning the installed base of Kindles would be about 1.3 million.

It's tricky to play with survey results when the percentages are this small -- the margins of error become very significant. But for now I think the BISG survey raises some questions, and I'm not willing to accept the two million figure for the Kindle installed base without some more rigorous evidence to support it.

Go read the whole thing. But e-book readers and sales are still marginal. Over time they will become far more important, but they are not, unlike hardcover and paperback book sales in the US, indicators of massive popularity.

The long lines and midnight events for the release of the Harry Potter and Twilight novels made making them into films a no-brainer. EVERYONE knew what they were, and merely reaching the existing fans of the books guaranteed success, as long as the movies did not run gargantuan budgets.

As noted by the AP, Bertelsmann's success was driven mostly by advertising, the RTL and Gruner + Jahr divisions, and by Random House's general publishing activities including traditional publishing and e-books. Recall that e-books do indeed, cannibalize sales of hardcovers, and paperbacks, and offer lower margins and revenues. Remember what we are NOT seeing, the kind of near-hysteria among fans for the novels, and characters, associated with the Harry Potter and Twilight novels.

Then there is the source material, questionable at best in its appeal to anyone beyond the self-loathing literati and feminized Euro elite. Twilight's appeal is easy to understand. A doll-like stand in for any woman, is fought over by two superpowered, hunky eternal men. For Harry Potter, a boy becomes a powerful wizard, with soap opera relationships for girls and the "magical" boarding school out of a never-was English past.

In the novel, a middle aged failure and drunken journalist, Blomkvist, teams up with a damaged, abused, Asperger-y young woman with tattoos, a fairly icky and sordid sexual past, who is a hacker genius and the ass-kicker of the two. Blomkvist is basically a castrated, asexual creature, who does not even "get the girl." Who is not worth getting in and of herself. Little appeal to men, Larsson's book (and trilogy) centers around "Daddy was a monster" and "everyone is a victim" standard for the Communist Party to which Larsson was a lifelong member, in Sweden the book was titled "Men Who Hate Women." Ignoring of course the very real hatred dished out (to Swedish women) by Muslim immigrants inside Sweden.

For women, there is even less appeal. There is no man for the central female character to "win." She remains a bisexual freak, unable to form any close relationship, a loner, socially isolated, intent on revenge, with the only male in her life a much older man made into a castrato. The appeal is pretty narrow, basically wealthy, upscale lesbians. And no other women. None of the things that interest women, such as marriage, family, children, winning the "right" man while avoiding the "wrong" one, and of course, consumption porn, are present in the book (or the trilogy). Larsson's major theme is the "strain of Nazi-ism still festering away in Swedish society." Yes, those Swedish Nazis are a major threat, as Sweden becomes rapidly, Muslim majority, and ruled by an alien people. Needless to say, the vast majority of American women are not really interested or concerned about fighting Swedish Nazis. They'd rather follow a story in which the girl gets the really, really hunky guy! And lives young and beautiful forever! With mind-blowing sex, that literally breaks bones! The end!

Hollywood literally has no clue. Dragon Tattoo will be a massive, colossal failure for Sony Pictures, and cement Daniel Craig as Box Office Poison. The movie will be a massive hit among American Communists, and Lesbians intent on wiping out the menace of Swedish Nazis. In a nation so feminized, that boys (never MUSLIM boys mind you) are made to wear dresses in Kindergarten to make them less masculine, and there are laws against peeing standing up (again, never enforced against MUSLIM men).

Massive jeremiads against how "awful Daddy was" might work in Hollywood treatment readings, but audiences crave something else. For men, its action and adventure where manly courage gets a girl worth getting. For women, it is traditional romance and female friendship. "Margot at the Wedding" did a fraction of the box office business of say, "27 Dresses" or "Sex and the City." But Hollywood is desperate.

Hollywood LITERALLY cannot write stories appealing to either men or women. They must outsource that to long dead comic book writers, who created characters in some cases 70 years ago, or popular novelists who are proven successes. It is a measure of Hollywood's executive stupidity that they are chasing stuff like "Dragon Tattoo," which will make Sony long for the box office success of "Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World." It is worth noting that the few successes not based on existing comic books ("300," "Batman Begins / Dark Knight," "Iron Man") or books/TV series ("Sex and the City," the Twilight and Potter movies) come from outsiders like Luc Besson ("Taken") that play to traditional material Hollywood long ago abandoned in decadence. What does it say when a movie-maker from FRANCE makes a more rousing affirmation of traditional male values than Hollywood can make?

Don't believe the hype. This movie is "Scott Pilgrim" all over again.



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Scott Pilgrim Vs. The Movie Goer: Failure of the Fan-Boy Comic Movie and the Gender-Less Movie Star

Failure is more interesting, often, than success. Success can happen for many reasons. A superior plan. Violent execution of a mediocre plan. Pure luck. Pathetic opponents. But failure, and failure repeated, can teach valuable lessons about the world. About what ... doesn't work. For this reason, the latest fan-boy comic book movie, "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" is pretty instructive about what does not work. Genderless leading men, devoid of masculinity, like Michael Cera, and fan-boy comic book movies.


"Scott Pilgrim" cost $60 million dollars to make (though some in Deadline Hollywood Daily have alleged it cost $90 million). Star Michael Cera earned reportedly, $9 million for the movie. The advertising campaign likely cost $40 million, ads were all over the place. The take? $10 million in the opening weekend, $21 million domestic, and $1 million world-wide. "Jonah Hex" cost $47 million, another $30 million or so to promote, and raked in ... $5 million dollars opening weekend, $10 million domestic. There has been no foreign release. "Kick-Ass" cost $30 million, another $40 million to promote. It pulled in $19 million opening weekend, $48 million domestic, and $47 million foreign. Even "Kick-Ass" is likely still in a loss, and probably will remain in a loss (recall that studios get 75% of the opening weekend, about 50% of the domestic gross, and who knows for the foreign gross). Some studios simply sell their entire yearly slate of movies to foreign distributors, for up-front cash payments, before the movies are even made. In that case, nearly all the foreign grosses go to the distributor, not the studio. This makes sense —the markets of China and India are only 3% or so of total box office revenue, globally. Not even the biggest studio has enough arms and legs to go out world-wide collecting from local distributors.

Clearly, the verdict is in. Fan-boy comic books, of limited, geeky appeal, don't do well as movies. The characters are not well known, don't have much of a hook, and are not very likable. In the original, comic version of "Kick-Ass," the girl the hero is interested in, is revolted when he tells her he's in love with her, gets her new boyfriend to beat him up, and sends him a picture of her performing oral sex on the new boyfriend. A girl to fight for, she's not. While that was changed, in the movie, there was enough total futility to the character (which was the point of the comic book) that audiences recognized it and stayed away. "Jonah Hex," an old-line DC comic book character, also failed. Josh Brolin did not play a girly-man, but the character was obscure and weird. Dealing with magic in the Old West. Not particularly compelling for audiences hungry for traditional, leading man bravery and independence. "Scott Pilgrim" got very positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes (a review aggregator), with ratings of nearly 90%. Yet it did very poorly, the movie having no real appeal, mimicking the comic books structure of a video game.

Here again, the leading female character is a problem. The point of the movie is the hero (who is a 22 year old man dating a High School girl) "winning" the love and devotion of some rock star chick two years younger. Who has seven former lovers the hero must battle, including a woman. Scott Pilgrim is merely fighting to be "number eight." There is no point to the movie, it is as meaningless as a video game. No wonder audiences stayed away. Why is this? Because for the current comic book writers, women are an abstract theory, rather than a concrete reality.

Some comic book movies, that were based on obscure characters, like Hellboy, have done decently. So too, Spawn. It is not the obscurity that is the main issue, rather it is the writing that suffuses fan-boy coolness, of these comic books and movies. Instead of the genuine love for comic book heroes and stories, that Hellboy or even Spawn have, in spades. Superman is loved and known around the world, because he was created by two guys who loved the idea of a weird and wonderful pulp hero. They were not out to make art, or "kewl!" and edgy statements of ultimate hipness. They were not ultra-ironic, instead they were pulp energy fed entertainment without an agenda.

Meanwhile, gender-less Michael Cera, has proven to be a dud as a leading man. "Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist," or "Year One," or "Youth in Revolt," have been failures. As much as Hollywood's agencies push Cera as the new type of leading man, audiences are not buying. Guys don't see him as a model to emulate, and women don't swoon over him. Surely whoever represents Cera has made a tidy profit for the films he has been in. But audiences remain unimpressed.

Nor have Hollywood's other gender-less leading men, such as Ashton Kutcher, eternal man-boy post thirty, or Jonah Hill, or Seth Rogen, or Christopher Mintz-Plasse (McLovin), from the Apatow factory, nor Russell Brand, phony bad boy, or the crop of guys like Jake Gyllenhall, seen much success. Not even Brand, playing the rock star type, can muster up the danger and excitement of Mickey Rourke now, much less back in the 1980's, or for that matter, Don Johnson. No matter how many deals pushed through, how many magazine covers, interviews with various talk show hosts, audiences still demand their leading men have ... manliness. A bit of testosterone, danger, excitement, and independence.

It is inconceivable that an actor like Gene Hackman, or Paul Newman, or John Wayne, or James Garner, or Charlton Heston, could succeed in today's Hollywood. The very idea of manliness, particularly that of independence and no possibility of control and domination, is anathema to today's Hollywood. Filled as it is with development people, in TV and in movies, that are mostly female or gay. Both finding men who exhibit independence, ruggedness, and spirit, to be threatening. Better a pretty boy like Gyllenhall, or Matt Damon, who does not present any problems in independence and masculine stubbornness, than someone who can play tough.

Thus the failure of the traditional action movie, as Bruce Willis got too old, Arnold Schwarzenegger moved into politics, Harrison Ford stopped bothering to act, and audiences have been given ... Matt Damon. Or Jake Gyllenhall. Thus the need for comic book movies, which use well known characters to make heroics plausible. Even then, the winners have been men who whatever their acting gifts, at least play men: Robert Downey Jr, Christian Bale, Nicolas Cage.

The only actors keeping the traditional action movie fires burning, have been Jet Li and Jason Statham. Li is limited in his English, getting a bit old, and never really caught on with US audiences (he's surpassed Jackie Chan in Asia ages ago though). Statham, is not going to be doing Shakespeare any time soon. But he works hard, takes his roles very seriously, tries to learn every thing there is to know about action movies and get better each time. Vin Diesel, tries action movies from time to time, but has mostly moved out of them. The biggest action hit in ages, came out of France ("Taken") with Liam Neeson (not anyone's idea of an action hero, but definitely playing a man). The "Transporter" of course was written and produced by Luc Besson (writer/producer of "Taken") and filmed outside the US.

Simply put, the US studios have a masculinity gap. The leading men they produce, don't have any. The studios don't seem to be able to cast actors with masculine attributes, and the few that wiggle through the cracks (mostly foreign actors) are not snapped up. Damien Lewis had perhaps the most interesting and masculine performances by a lead actor in years, in "Band of Brothers" and "Life" yet no studio saw how effective he was and paid him to stick around in Hollywood to make Action movies.

Masculinity is a profound threat. At the core of Action Movies, are men who cannot be tamed, or made to submit. They may die (as Russell Crowe does in "Gladiator" or Gerard Butler in "300") but they die fighting, often beating their foes in the end. Hollywood finds that an ugly threat as much as audiences love that message.

The flip side of course to the gender-less leading man is the eternal girl-woman. Jennifer Aniston, in "the Switch" raked in ... $8 million the opening weekend, and another $2 million thereafter at the time of this writing. Audiences did not flock to see her character get pregnant by a turkey baster, artificial insemination, and form a "family" with the "nerdy best friend who loved her" instead of the masculine, socially dominant guy she pines for. After all, if Aniston's character tells the Bateman character (the nerdy best friend) that he's not "good enough genetically" to provide the sperm, why should female audiences root for her to succeed with him? But the larger issue, is what kind of woman lets her biological clock run out, not figuring out years earlier what kind of man she wants to marry and have kids with?

As much as female audiences turn out for Twilight, with an actual teen girl being fought over by two hunky guys, they don't turn out for a woman acting like a girl, without consumption porn (Sex and the City) and status-jockeying to round out the story, and a hunky Master of the Universe "Mr. Big" aka Chris Noth to be the prize. Jason Bateman is no one's idea of a dominant leading man. Nerdy is not sexy to women. Unless, apropos of Spider-Man, its matched with odd bouts of physical dominance and fighting to literally demonstrate the character is more dominant and thus a better mate. This is particularly true in drama, where fantasy instead of messy reality compromises reign supreme.

Hollywood will of course, go on cranking out Jennifer Aniston movie after movie, nearly all destined to failure. And Michael Cera, Jonah Hill, Jake Gyllenhall, and Matt Damon will be Hollywood's idea of leading men, despite repeated box office failure, because making the deal and taking a percentage (for the agencies that rule modern Hollywood) is the entire point. Not actually making movies that people will pay to see.

Hollywood has become more and more like Goldman Sachs. Focused on a deal (where agencies get their cut, of lucrative paydays) all bundled up. Hence the shoving down the audience throat of a guy with no appeal, like Michael Cera. Who may be personally admirable or not, who knows (or cares) but lacks the masculine presence audiences want.

It was not always this way. Once upon a time (1980) there was a little film called "My Bodyguard" with Chris Makepeace and Adam Baldwin. The latter certainly not lacking in masculine presence (he anchors the male-skewing "Chuck" one of only three TV series not a gross-out animated comedy skewing male) or independence or authority. Or, perfect comic timing.

It is a measure of how feminized Hollywood has become, that Adam Baldwin is the anchor of the TV show "Chuck" (and it took Joss Whedon's "Firefly" to revive his career) instead of the movie star he should have been (check out his performance in "Full Metal Jacket.") That Damien Lewis is back in England acting on the stage, instead of making movies as the lead.

Why is this important? Because people get their ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, masculine and feminine, from movies and TV. With the collapse of religious attendance, highly mobile and fractured families, there is nothing else. A common culture that tells people, through stories, on how to behave, is how societies survive.

Right now, women attending movies have a flawed idea of masculinity. Men are either slobby idiots, gender-less nothings, or hunky-tragic bad boys who will be indeed, "all about them." Instead of messy, independent, stubborn, funny, flippant, often atagonistic, but capable of enormous efforts and suffering to protect the innocent or helpless, and do what is right. That message has been lost in the fear that a deeply feminized (and gay) Hollywood has produced with androgynous leading men and girl-woman leading ladies.

Young men have if anything, a worse time, being given false messages about what women like (androgyny) instead of what (most) women crave: masculine guys, not super-macho chest beaters, but men who are in fact men, not genderless clones, or pretty boy nothings, devoted entirely to some woman, under her control. This only guarantees for most, bitter failure when it must be avoided, and a pattern of resenting any and all cultural messages on the principle of being lied to the first time.

America, Hollywood, and the movies does not HAVE to be like this. As recently as 1980, a little youth film could be made about standing up for one's self, and what is right. Even if it means a fight is in the offing.
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More Hollywood Economics: the Folly of World Box Office, Diversity, and Film Libraries

Several recent events show how Hollywood is both afflicted with deep stupidity, and chasing bubbles about to burst. The Miramax sale puts a dollar amount on what films are worth past their recent release. Which is not much. The Television Critics Association revealed deeply stupid broadcasting networks more concerned about "diversity" than finding an audience and making money. And finally, the Wall Street Journal reports on the folly, of chasing foreign box office.


First, the Miramax sale to private investors, which the Hollywood Reporter notes is $660 million, by Disney to a consortium of private investors. Including, bizarrely, actor Rob Lowe, best known for his TV role in "the West Wing" and a sex scandal involving a threesome during the 1988 Democratic Convention, which included a 16-year old girl. The deal, includes the 700 odd films in the Miramax library. Which puts a dollar amount on the films, including "Chicago," and "Pulp Fiction," and "Shakespeare in Love" at roughly $942,000 per film. That is how much the rental revenue, including DVD, TV rights, foreign DVD, and foreign TV rights, are worth. Taking, say, "Shakespeare in Love" and the running time of 123 minutes per average, that amounts to about $7,600 per minute. For an equivalent TV series, running at a nominal 42 minutes per episode, that would amount to $321,000 per episode, or roughly $7 million for each 22 episode season. That's back of the envelope calculations, but interesting. Since this was how the deal was valued, it is the best guess for what movies (and likely TV as well) are worth, globally, into the future, discounted back to the present (i.e. the deal represents in aggregate about the expected value of all future revenues from the film library, which are the only assets Miramax has).

Its interesting that Disney chose to sell off the company and the library, instead of simply keeping them for its own use. The answer is of course, that Disney is choosing to make expensive toy commercials, rather than movies, because that is one of the few reliable ways to make money (and as astute commenters noted in the post Toy Story Economics, revenues don't have to be shared for product placement OR toy / licensing dollars). Meaning Robert Downey Jr. does not get a cut of Iron Man toys, nor will Tom Hanks get any money from Toy Story 3D bedsheets, despite voicing the character of "Woody."

Disney didn't think Miramax was worth keeping around, and the valuation of the library is instructive. Under a million per movie, and using the same metrics, about $7 million per TV season. This despite an explosion of Satellite TV channels and services aimed at the Middle East, India, China, Latin America, including Brazil. Which are some of the fastest growing parts of the world.

As the story in the Hollywood Reporter notes:

A number of earlier potential buyers valued Miramax at only $550 million to $600 million, so the $660 million value is seen as top of the market. Investor Ron Burkle, working with brothers Harvey and Bob Weinstein, who first created Miramax and built it into a force in film, earlier this year lost out on Miramax when a bid of $565 million was rejected by Disney, which had indicated that it wanted $700 million.

So the top of the market valuation may be a bit optimistic. Prices may be indeed lower, as we will see later on.

Meanwhile, Deadline Hollywood Daily reports on the Television Critics Association presentations by the Networks. Diversity is first and foremost in critics and executives minds. Not enough gay characters, in shows aimed at families. Not enough Black characters, and self-satisfied boasting by "Undercovers" star Boris Kodjoe that his series is the "first" to feature two Black leads. As if "Sanford and Son," "Tenafly," "Good Times," "Franks Place," "the Jeffersons," "In Living Color," "Gabriel's Fire," never existed. Redd Foxx was making White audiences laugh in 1972, and the show during its six seasons was always a top 30 show, for the first five a top 10, often ranking #2.

America just a few years out of the Civil Rights era had made Black actors among its TV favorites. Americans of all backgrounds could repeat catch phrases, and comic bits. More recently, Dennis Haysbert, has played the lead in CBS's "the Unit" for a number of seasons before that show's cancellation. But the bizarre focus on "diversity" guarantees the failure of shows like "Undercover" or whatever clone of "Glee" is being cooked up.

First, in 1972, America was a lot different than it is today. For example, America in 1970 was 87% White, with Whites far more open to adopt non-Whites as cultural icons. It is striking that "I'm so pretty," and "Dyno-mite!" and "I'm coming to join you, honey," and "What you talkin bout Willis?" all stem from the 1970's to 1980's. Quick, what was George Lopez's catchphrase on his sitcom? Moreover, with only three television networks, Blacks were not able to watch Black-only television as they can now with BET. Making Blacks as small but significant portion of the audience, as opposed to today where their impact is mostly on Cable.

But the biggest change in TV from the 1970's to today is the total absence of men as a core audience. TV back as recently as the 1970's, was a mostly male affair, on network TV. Today, it is a female-gay ghetto, with shows from "Glee" to "American Idol" featuring singing, dancing, and other female and gay obsessions. While non-Whites do play a role in that, it is a minor role, to the glittery princess fantasies that TV serves up, from Desperate Housewives to "Real Housewives of New Jersey." Making broadcast TV a narrow audience, mostly upscale women in the End of the Brandon Tartikoff Strategy.

Diversity as such may make Maxine Waters, soon to be irrelevant one way or another, given her corruption and ethics trial in the House of Representatives, and upcoming Republican take-over of the House, happy but it will not gain viewers. The only way to gain viewers is an ever-more "shocking" and "Twilight" based appeal to various Princess fantasies, a losing bet, or a concerted effort to win back male viewers, and families, as "cheap but good" entertainment that is not a waste of time, and a good alternative to cable fare and repeat viewing of DVDs. There is no evidence that "diversity" puts people in front of TV screens, and the WB's ill-fated "Want Blacks" strategy of "Black-coms" such as "Moesha" failed miserably compared to the #2 ranking of "Sanford and Son" during most of its run. Somewhere, Redd Foxx is laughing, along with Fred G. Sanford. So too did some of UPN's more ill-conceived sitcoms, including "Homeboys in Outer Space" (as bad as it sounds) and "Secret Diary of Desmond Pffeifer" (a "comedy" about a slave in the White House during the early days of the Civil War). Even well regarded dramas such as UPN series "Kevin Hill" (starring perhaps one of Hollywood's most handsome men) have not fared well in the "diversity era."

And just as notably, "Diversity" does not sell well overseas. Buried in the Wall Street Journal article about Hollywood Foreign Box Office, is the gem that:

Fox Searchlight was recently developing "Baggage Claim," which chronicles a young flight attendant's search for Mr. Right and stars an ensemble of African-American actors, including Oscar nominee Taraji P. Henson.

But that film ended up in "turnaround," the Hollywood term for when a studio abandons the rights to a project and allows others to acquire it. It was heavily targeted to an African-American audience, a factor that often means the film won't play well abroad.

Indian, Chinese, Middle Eastern, European, Japanese, and Latin American audiences do not like Black actors and characters. Will Smith is not an international draw, he remains an American only movie star, while Brad Pitt, with questionable US appeal, is an international star whose presence has up till recently meant good paydays for films abroad.

Emphasizing "Diversity" may make TV critics (who are irrelevant) and Maxine Waters (who is also irrelevant) happy. It is likely to make sales of "Undercovers" assuming it makes it to a full season which is doubtful, far less than $7 million (for combined DVD profits, foreign rights fees, etc.) as revenue from abroad is likely to be very low. I doubt Indian broadcast or satellite networks will be keen to pick up on it.

Finally, we have the meat of the Wall Street Journal article. Which states, that the bulk of film revenues and profits now come from foreign sources, as DVD revenues have dried up drastically:

Decades ago, a movie's foreign box office barely registered with studio executives. Now, foreign ticket sales represent nearly 68% of the roughly $32 billion global film market, up from roughly 58% a decade ago, according to Screen Digest Cinema Intelligence Service.
...
The rise of the international box office has as much to do with a shifting global economy as with the evolution of the movie business. For years, Hollywood's bottom line was propped up by double-digit growth in DVD sales. From 2000 to 2005, for example, home-video sales increased by 91% in the U.S. But during the tough economy of the past two years, home video—which used to account for the bulk of a film's profits—fell more than 20%, according to Screen Digest U.S. Video Intelligence Service. Dwindling in-theater audiences in North America also have contributed to the shift.

Another factor: Regions from Asia to Eastern Europe went on a credit-fueled building boom, erecting shopping malls—often with multiplexes attached.

Hollywood is in panic mode. The easy money off DVD sales, which were easy and did not require much overhead, or back-office staff to track and hound for payment, is over. So too, domestic box office, with relatively honest reporting and revenue sharing.

Now Hollywood is betting on credit fueled, rather than organically grown, foreign theater growth. Built by dice-rolling cheap credit, instead of savvy and experienced theater managers with their own money in the game, who expect to make money. It is the equivalent, globally, of Dubai's Palm Island or other boondoggles characterizing a wild, out of control bubble.

Hollywood faces four main challenges in emphasizing foreign box office over domestic. None of which it is equipped to face.

The first, is that by "de-Americanizing" films, it makes them repellent or simply not interesting to US moviegoers, particularly those willing to buy toys, bedsheets, and the rest. Superman standing for "Truth, Justice, and … all that" means disappointing US box office, lackluster DVD sales, and not much in the way of toy sales and bedsheets sold to 11 year old boys because the Euro-Asian friendly global product had as much appeal as a lecture from "South Park's" guidance counselor. M'kay. In other words, the commercial for the toys will suck, making the toy sales pretty low.

The second, is that foreign markets are developing their own, sophisticated movie industries, notably in South Korea, and existing industries are riding increased domestic demand. Who can make movies that appeal to Mexicans the most, Americans or Mexican movie-makers? This challenge is already eating into Hollywood "global" exports.

The third, is that piracy is rampant in the movie industry, made easier by "digital" projection which is an open invitation to piracy. As noted in the post Life on the Blue Line, DVDs of "Iron Man 2" which was playing in theaters, were being sold openly for $5. They are probably considerably cheaper in places like Beijing, or Shanghai, or Bombay. Precisely the places Hollywood plans to make a lot of money at, by box office and DVD sales. Warners has closed its Korean and Spanish language DVD operations due to piracy. Eli Roth found his (loathsome) "Hostel" torture-porn series sold in Mexico City on the streets for the equivalent of 25 cents US.

The fourth major problem for Hollywood is the sheer overhead, required, to manage a "global" presence and the constant effort to ride herd on non-Western concepts of accounting, contracts, and enforcement. While places like Japan, the UK, Denmark, and Canada are likely to be fairly scrupulous in their accounting of receipts and honest profit-sharing, the same is unlikely in the extreme in the projected growth centers: China, India, Latin America, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. None of which are exactly open, transparent societies dedicated to the rule of law, enforcement of contracts (much less with distant and unpopular foreigners), or honest accounting. Plus there is the sheer size of the effort. AVATAR, for example, made 27% of its gross box office ($749 million) in the US, compared to $1.98 billion overseas (73%). That makes revenues extraordinarily dependent on honest accounting from overseas exhibitors and actual payments, from many, many countries [see WSJ's article for the interactive graphic]:



Not even Honda Motorcycles is this ambitious. Honda, Toyota, GM, Ford, all have local partnerships in major countries they operate in, with manufacturing often done locally, providing jobs and patronage/protection, as well as a robust local dealership network that again provides incentives to locals to grow sales not cannibalize them. Global car and truck companies can act globally, because a sale of vehicle is just the beginning of a relationship with the nation, local business partner, and end-customer. Repair, service, parts, will all be required by the global manufacturer. Ongoing business with future sales of the same type of vehicle is expected. Meanwhile, Hollywood depends on basically, "one-off" cooperation from folks all over the world, far more nations than where the global manufacturers do business.


World-Wide Ticket Sales % by Nation:

Nation	1999	2009
U.S.	40.8	33.0
Japan	9.5	7.5
France	5.3	5.9
U.K.	6.2	5.0
India	2.6	4.8
Germany	5.1	4.6
Spain	3.1	3.2
China	0.7	3.1
South Korea	1.8	3.1
Canada	2.6	3.0
Italy	3.4	2.9
Australia	2.7	2.9
Russia	0.1	2.4
Mexico	1.8	2.0
Brazil	1.2	1.6
Netherlands	0.7	0.9
Poland	0.5	0.7
Switzerland	0.8	0.7
Sweden	0.8	0.7
Ireland	0.3	0.7
Turkey	0.4	0.7
Denmark	0.5	0.7
Belgium	0.7	0.6
Norway	0.4	0.6
Austria	0.6	0.6
Taiwan	0.8	0.6
Greece	0.4	0.5
Hong Kong	0.7	0.5
Colombia	0.1	0.4
Argentina	0.9	0.4
Venezuela	0.2	0.4
Philippines	0.5	0.4
Singapore	0.4	0.4
Malaysia	0.1	0.4
Israel	0.5	0.4
New Zealand	0.4	0.4
Portugal	0.3	0.3
Indonesia	0.3	0.3
Thailand	0.4	0.3
UAE	0.1	0.3
Finland	0.3	0.3
South Africa	0.4	0.2
Chile	0.2	0.2
Czech Republic	0.1	0.2
Egypt	0.1	0.2
Hungary	0.2	0.2
Ukraine	0.1	0.2
Romania	0.0	0.1
Slovakia	0.0	0.1
Bulgaria	0.0	0.1
Croatia	0.0	0.1
Slovenia	0.0	0.1
Lithuania	0.0	0.1
Iceland	0.1	0.0

China and India, for all their vaunted population growth, and GDP growth, still account for less than 5% of Global Box office, each. There is no way Hollywood can make off global distribution like this, because the amount of people to manage the box office receipts, actually getting back to the studio, is simply too large. There is too much of a requirement for people on the ground, going to theaters personally, and building relationships with theater owners so the temptation to simply screw say, Fox and say "I got only this much from AVATAR showings" when the real number is five times that quoted, to make money. Because the order of effort will be too large for the payoff. Even in China and India, the "future" of global movie-going, the amount of tickets sold in dollar amounts is still too small.

How in the heck can anyone look at that table and think there is any way to make money with each nation being such a small part of ticket revenue? Each requiring its own unique advertising campaign, its own marketing materials, and accounting procedures? Without the dealership network model, which has extensive parts/service revenue (often shared) to build profitable cross-border relationships with global manufacturers and local dealers?

It makes no sense other than Hollywood is simply too stupid to read the numbers and realize that global business is not for everyone.

So how will this play out?

Already, with the sale of Miramax, and the planned sale of MGM, several "studios in name only" but with substantial libraries are being sold, likely to be shut down as failures, as is likely with Guy Hands and the ill-fated Terra Firma leveraged buyout of EMI. [Creditors want the company sold at auction piece by piece, artist catalog by artist catalog.] The studios that avoid "global" product and stick to American-driven toy commercials will do the best (that is, survive the longest under the current model of least stupid sticks around). That means probably Disney/Marvel, with princess fantasies and now, boy superheroes, if they can avoid screwing things up with Marvel which is probably a faint hope. Probably also Time-Warner, with massive corporate receipts and the ability to show re-runs of Law and Order into the next millenium. Not looking good are Comcast-NBC/Universal, and Sony, with its parent under earnings pressure from lack of good products, and lack of quality (almost everything is now manufactured in China, under fairly shoddy standards). Paramount is also questionable, with parent Viacom looking shaky.

Stupidity kills. In Hollywood, it just takes longer.
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Toy Story Economics: Death of the Movies

The biggest thriller in Hollywood is not the Angelina Jolie movie "Salt" (Domestic Box office as of July 26, 2010, of $36 million, production budget of $110 million and likely promotional/marketing budget of $30 million). Nope. It is the changing economics that have killed the movies. Making them into mere advertising for the real profits: toys and merchandising, while Hollywood makes unprofitable movie after movie to amuse themselves and win awards. Nothing better shows the change in how the money flows than Toy Story 3D.


Disney has high hopes for Toy Story 3D. The Financial Times on Monday, July 19, on P. 16 (Dead Tree Edition, sorry no link) wrote that Disney hoped to beat "Finding Nemo" which at $868 million was Disney's highest grossing (worldwide) animated film. Dreamworks "Shrek 2" posting slightly higher gains. But ABC News reports that Disney expects to gain $2.4 billion in gross retail sales worldwide. That's 2.8 times the gross worldwide box office. The story from ABC also notes that "Cars" has posted $2 billion in retail sales and merchandising since its release in 2006. As Reuters notes in its story, the figure of $2.4 billion is roughly comparable to the entire turnover of Disney's Consumer Division every year.

This means power, slowly but surely, will shift from movie stars and directors, to writers-creators, and folks like Pixar's John Lasseter (CEO and creative force behind all its movies). While this might seem a good thing, it is more akin to Ford, GM, and Chrysler relying solely on gigantic pickup trucks for profits in the 1980's and 1990's and 2000's. After finding it could not build cars consumers wanted and make a profit. Just as striking as the money made on merchandising is the troubles Hollywood has in what should be its core business — making movies and collecting the ticket sales and DVD sales and rentals.

Consider a movie like say, "Salt." It cost a lot, $110 million. Perhaps Jolie took $20 million or so, probably less, but lets just assume she did. Absent a "star" like Jolie the movie would still cost $90 million or so. That's a lot. The budget for 1999's "the Limey" according to Box Office Mojo was a measly $10 million. It only grossed $3 million in limited box office release, but was a magnificent movie that belied its tiny budget. It had stars like Terence Stamp and Peter Fonda, and well known character actors like Luis Guzman. Soderbergh proved you could make a movie that had some action (not a lot, but enough), well-written plot and character development and tension, and have something that looked great on screen. John Carpenter once estimated that for most movies, about $30 million or so was about the lowest you could go, for any type of action film, consistently and not be skin of the teeth. Part of Hollywood's problem is just like Detroit's Big 3 — spiraling costs moving upwards every year with no way to control them. For Ford, GM, and Chrysler, it was unions and the reluctance to engage in a political fight with them (since they had powerful Capitol Hill allies who regulated heavily the Big 3), for Hollywood it is the habit of finding work for cronies, the in-crowd, and so on that make film budgets bloated.

But even worse are the films that are made just to make films. A movie like "Salt" is not even remotely possible to make a decent profit for the studio. Nor is it the kind of Oscar-bait, self-congratulatory bit of idiocy such as "the Reader" or "the Ghost Writer" (the latter by Roman Polanski starring Pierce Brosnan and Ewan McGregor). Made solely to pat Hollywood insiders on the back. A movie like "Salt" is not even that. It was made to keep cronies busy and employed, instead of making a profit for the studio.

Hollywood has turned into a really, really debased and freaky version of NPR. Most of the films don't make money, any more than NPR's radio shows make money (or PBS's broadcasts make money). Unlike PBS, which at least broadcasts Opera, Symphonies, and educational programming, Hollywood does not even function as a fine-arts institution keeping alive the works of Mozart or Beethoven or more obscure folks like Bartok. Of course, the most tame night at the most tame Hollywood star would beat the wildest night at the wildest NPR or PBS executive. Garrison Keilor's idea of going a little crazy is two trips to the salad bar. Lindsay Lohan's involves commandeering an SUV, jail time and custom tattoos.

Hollywood is faced with five problems. First, a significant portion, roughly half the country at least, despises its politics and the personal behavior and character of most of Hollywood. This is different. For a long time, Hollywood's actors have been pretty liberal. Dating back to Humphrey Bogart, and Kirk Douglas, liberalism ruled Hollywood and conservatives like John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart and John Ford were tolerated but did not set the tone. But conservative movie-goers did not care. Neither Douglas, nor Burt Lancaster, nor the late and lamented Paul Newman took to lecturing Americans on their original sins of … whatever. While living hypocritical lives of Nero-like debauchery and indulgence. They may have been plenty liberal, and they were, but they kept their personal lives private, did a lot of work for charity that drew respect, and never came out like a WWE "heel" to tell their audience how much "better they are than you."

Now their successors, Alec Baldwin, Jeanine Garofalo, Whoopi Goldberg, and Ellen Page, find it necessary to opine on the inherent racism, sexism, "anti-greenism" and many more sins held by most Americans. Even bimbo of the moment Megan Fox hoped one of her films villains would destroy Middle America. Only hemp-touter Woody Harrelson has refrained from constantly insulting the conservative side of the audience. Meanwhile conservatives have to "hide" their opinions just to get work, save for a few powerful and late-career enough who don't care or need to care, such as Adam Baldwin. Its notable that conservative actors and directors and writers take care not to insult the audience on the left, a practice not found on the other side.

This means "movie stars" cannot and will not be able to put butts in seats since they alienated half the audience. The conservative side just is not big enough. Tom Selleck is older, and past leading man status. Jon Voight was a leading man in the 1960's, not today. Only Adam Sandler, who is carefully apolitical, has been able to put butts in seats, and then only for "Adam Sandler Comedies" with lots of fart jokes. His "arty" movies are bombs. Hollywood pissed away good will just like Detroit did with cars like the Gremlin, the Pacer, and the Pinto.

Next, Hollywood cannot make films at a lower cost. Alienating half the potential audience, and as we will see later, not being able to connect with ordinary people, means Hollywood's current creative folks have to make movies a lot cheaper. Which they cannot do. Like Detroit, they are trapped in a high cost production environment. All the deals with Bollywood or moving production overseas will fix things only on the margins. A production might shave about 10-20% of the production cost, but Hollywood makes still, far too many movies, nearly all of them destined for financial losses. Making the loss making marginally less expensive will only delay the bleed-out.

Sales of DVDs, particularly libraries, won't help. The Financial Times on Saturday, July 24, "Life and Arts, page 1, Who Killed James Bond" noted (again dead tree edition, no link sorry) [note to readers — the Financial Times limits views on articles to one per month for those who don't register, and three per month for those who do, perhaps clearing cookies and such will allow you to read any Google search] reports that MGM, had revenues from its film library of more than 4,000 films, fall from $500 million to less than $250 million for the last fiscal year. Studio wide, DVD revenues have fallen (rentals and sales) by an average of 25% year on for the last three years, as consumers find shelves saturated and paychecks stressed. DVD sales for a while in the late 1990's and early 2000's, like the video tape revolution of the mid 1980's and early 1990's, had propped up Hollywood's failing business model. The way big profits on SUVs and trucks did for the Detroit Big 3. Clearly, with consumers strapped that support is at an end.

Third, Hollywood cannot make, reliably, films that make money by connecting to people. Hollywood has always had the problem that stardom, fame, enormous amounts of money, people telling creative folks they are like God, sycophantic behavior in the extreme, and so on removing any notion of reality or ability to understand and connect to ordinary people and the concerns in their lives. During the Golden Age, hard-bitten entrepreneurs like Mayer and Goldwyn and Warner kept Hollywood's creative people on a short leash. These men at least had enough memory to understand what ordinary people were like, and the famous "butt detector" (if they wriggled around in their seat during a screening the film was no good) acted to short-circuit stupid ideas. This is why Ed Wood was a laughable outcast figure, instead of say … the Wachowski brother who got the full sex change operation and looks like a melted wax candle. Jack Warner and Louis B. Mayer and Sam Goldwyn prevented a "Boxing Helena" or the world's most boring orgy (Matrix Reloaded) from being made in their era. Today's Hollywood, bloated by money and isolated, and filled with contempt for, its audience, finds those movies classics. From "Plan 9 from Outer Space" to the Wachowski's latest film, about a gay soldier in Iran in love with a gay Jihadi, the weird and debauched came from the fringes to center stage. In the same fashion that GM, Ford, and Chrysler stopped caring about making reliable, dependable cars of the highest quality, and focused on pushing out cheap, junk, because they didn't care much. People would buy anything, they figured, and who could figure out the consumer.

William Goldman once said, reportedly, that in Hollywood, no one knows anything. Nothing more stunning its indictment of Hollywood has ever been said. Sam Goldwyn knew something. So did Louis B. Mayer. And Jack Warner. The films they presided over remain classics and are loved to this day. No one knows anything in Hollywood, because to borrow "Big Hollywood" Editor John Nolte's words, they are too busy doing lines of coke off the backside of an underage hooker. Exhibit A: Oliver Stone wants to put Hitler and Context and says the Holocaust wasn't that bad.

No one knows anything because they hire a known whack-job, like Stone (or the Wachowskis) and expect to make money. Stone has various rumors floating around his life, which may or may not be true, but his films outside Platoon and Wall Street have never made money. This includes: W, Alexander, World Trade Center (who thought having Stone direct this would make money?), Commandante, Any Given Sunday, U Turn, Nixon, Natural Born Killers, JFK, Born on the Fourth of July, Talk Radio, and the Doors. No one knows anything because no one wants to know anything. Instead they'd rather believe that a trans-sexual is the best person to film a kids movie (Speed Racer) or that Oliver Stone can remake one of the two movies he made money at, thirty years later, at a profit. Already a boycott Showtime movement (over Stone's "Lighter side of Hitler" documentary) is in the offing, with the ADL coming down hard on Stone. Forget Mel Gibson, Stone's views and beliefs are mainstream in Hollywood. And anathema in middle America.

If personnel is policy, Hollywood's policy is to choose the people with the least ability to connect to the audience (but the most like them) to make movies and then wonder why most of them fail. They'd be better off hiring Democratic Senatorial Candidate from South Carolina, Alvin Green, to make their movies. The failure rate would be less (since at least Green hasn't had a sex change nor played Kenneth Mars neo-Nazi, Hitler loving character in Mel Brooks "the Producers" for real instead of laughs). "I tell you, the Fuhrer could dance the pants off Churchill!"

Fourth, Hollywood cannot rely on the world box office for salvation. World box office is fairly new, as an obsession. Movie makers in the 1930's, 1950's, 1960's, 1970's, 1980's, did not obsess over it. World box office requires, essentially, foreign exhibitors to faithfully record box office receipts, and faithfully and truly give Hollywood studios their fair share of the receipts. Anyone see a problem here? Exhibitors in the UK, Australia, Canada, and parts of Europe such as the Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, are probably pretty faithful and accurate. Japan may or may not be accurate. Studios will be lucky to get much of anything back from places like China (where Walt Disney has complained for decades about piracy and illegal showings of Disney films to no avail). Much less South East Asia, Korea (notorious for piracy), Mexico, South America as a whole, or the Middle East. Warners has shut down its Korean and Spanish language DVD divisions due to piracy. As noted, the Blue Line story in the post previous, reported on the open sale of pirated DVDs of Iron Man 2, with vendors showing the copies on portable DVD players to show the quality of the copy. Prices were $5 each, with discounts for multiple purchases. At home and abroad, pirating is easy and profitable, eating into box office receipts, most of which in places lacking rule of law, a tradition of honest business, and the like, are iffy at best on how much significant box office revenue properly goes back to studios. After all, a savvy operator can simply screw the studio, and open up for business under a new name. Studio heads half a world away, speaking no Korean, or Spanish, or Cantonese, are not likely to squawk, and if they do, well the local powerful are paid off anyway.

Which brings us to the fifth problem. Hollywood's near total dependence on merchandising for the core of its profits. With merchandising, though illicit copies in the factories in China where toys and bedsheets and other items are made remain a fact of business life, the toy is sold or not. Hollywood takes its cut, first. The Distributor then has to sell the toys, or Buzz Lightyear bedsheets, or Woody lunchboxes, or not. A big hit with kids and families, like Toy Story 3D, can tide over a company like Disney for a couple of years. The revenue equal to selling toys from the Lion King, the Little Mermaid, Cars, Finding Nemo, Up, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Mickey, Pluto, Goofy, and the like in a non-hit year. That's pretty astonishing, the level of money, and the much lower level of risk (remember, unlike foreign box office, Disney takes the cut from the manufacturer/distributor, and then its up to them to shoulder the rest of the risk).

And it all rests on families. Or more precisely, the few non-debauched, non-corrupt, non-weird Hollywood creative people to make stories appealing to families. Then make those stories using computer animation. Which should, in theory, offer much lower costs, since the entire movie is created on cheap (compared to cast and crew on location or sound stage) render farms. Skilled animators still need to create "living" (and not "undead" ala Polar Express or other scary/icky animation jobs where the characters look like undead zombies) characters that express emotion in ways to evoke it in the audience. But that’s still cheaper than paying a big crew to film, even say Amber Tamblyn instead of Angelina Jolie (btw, Tamblyn's a better actor) in an action film.

But there is a risk. The barrier to entry is so cheap — anyone can do it. Leaving Hollywood vulnerable to say, Game companies looking to branch out or keep studios without a current hit employed, or effects houses such as New Zealand's WETA studios, or Lucas's Industrial Light and Magic, or any number of similar firms in the UK or Italy or France. All you would need is a story, a good script, and skilled animators. The render farms are cheap and can be constructed as needed. Game and effects companies already have them. Voice actors can be hired, easily. No one cares if the voice is done by say, Adam Baldwin versus Tom Cruise, or Christian Bale versus Kevin Conroy (the animated Batman voice actor). People are still looking at animation.

Then the next Toy Story 3D can generate all those licensing and merchandising revenues for someone else. Game companies, of course, probably lack the creative people able to make stories appealing to families with kids, as opposed to blowing stuff up. Effects people probably lack that too. But John Lasseter or someone like him could come in with the skills and emotional connection to ordinary people to provide that missing piece.

The other part of the risk is that aside from Lasseter, Brad Bird, and a few other writer/creator/director types, Hollywood is not over-run with normal people who would not be a freak or freak show among middle America. The few people able to make films that connect and do not offend ordinary people are Hollywood's vulnerable point. The movie "Fantastic Mr. Fox" directed and written by Wes Anderson, voiced by George Clooney and Meryl Streep, failed miserably at the Box office. It cost $40 million, with another $30 or so for marketing, and pulled in $21 million domestically and $25 million in foreign box office (grosses, the studio likely saw far less than that net). The movie just did not connect.

Kids don't care about George Clooney. Or Streep. They care about story, characters, an affirmation of their own, very middle class lives (that's also who buys toys and bedsheets and lunchboxes). If you wondered why the local mega-mart did not carry Fantastic Mr. Fox lunchboxes, well that's why. The movie tanked.

Hollywood probably hopes for a bail-out, at some point. "Don't let your favorite director lose his Malibu mansion!" "Keep hope alive, and the cocaine flowing!" Given the depth of disdain for Hollywood, and the lack of any credible reason to bail them out (few people will lose their jobs), that is probably only a coke induced daydream. The integrated mega-companies can run deep and lasting deficits for years, and probably will. They are very big. It took the Roman Empire, GM, and Chrysler a very long time to fall. For the latter two, about thirty years or so. Hollywood might have another ten to fifteen years left. But eventually, it too will fall.

Because Hollywood can no longer make movies cheaply enough, that people want to see.
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