Hello Hollywood Meltdown

Recent remarks by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas have been widely reported over the last day or so. The two directors were speaking at a USC film event, and made some predictions about the future of the entertainment business - current trends would result in more projects being produced for television, theatrical films becoming a niche product, cinema visits becoming more expensive, and the internet eating into everything. It's nothing that others haven't been predicting for a while now, but to hear it out of the mouths of two of the most high profile commercial directors working today gave it some extra oomph, particularly the details. Spielberg revealed "Lincoln" was nearly an HBO movie, despite his sterling reputation. Lucas expects to see the rise of high priced movie palaces offering luxury viewing experiences akin to a night out at a Broadway show.

The bit that got my attention was their prediction that there is going to be a "massive implosion" at the studios in the near future. Because the studios are so risk averse, and they've been increasingly reliant on these big, expensive tentpole action pictures, film slates have become less diverse and audiences are eventually going to lose interest. We've already been seeing some signs of superhero fatigue that seem to support this. According to Spielberg, at some point we're going to see a group of these high-priced franchise movies all bomb at once, leading to another paradigm shift for the industry. Think of a half dozen "John Carter" sized failures in the same year, forcing the studios to rethink their strategies. There were some predictions that it might even happen this summer, since we have an extraordinarily crowded slate with seventeen major films that cost over $100 million apiece, but only about half are expected to generate enough profits to justify their cost. Two of the biggest potential bombs with major production woes, "World War Z" and "The Lone Ranger," are still ahead of us.

To some degree I think that this may be wishful thinking, because the creative community is sick and tired of the factory assembly line approach to making these big films. However, the success of this approach has been clearly established. Globally, the top ten films with the highest grosses of 2012 were all franchise films, and they were eight of the top ten domestically. Franchise movies are largely critic proof, have viewers who are remarkably tolerant of bad product, and are easy to market. Some of the most anticipated upcoming films haven't shot a frame, but are being hyped up for simply being part of successful franchises - the new "Star Wars" and Marvel universe films in particular. However, I do see a slowdown coming a couple of years down the line, maybe after 2015 when a few more of these huge projects have been disappointments, and fans will have to adjust their expectations. I don't see the Marvel Universe movies continuing to be successful indefinitely, especially after Robert Downey Jr. inevitably leaves the Iron Man role and we start getting into the Phase Three movies featuring more second stringer superheroes. And while I'm hopeful about the new "Star Wars," it's important to keep in mind that the franchise is aging rapidly, and the hardcore fans have already been burned before.

If the implosion happens, what are the films that are going to be responsible? Well. over the past decade we've seen the studios test the limits of the audience's goodwill over and over again. They've prolonged finite series like "Harry Potter" and "Twilight" with extra installments, shortened the reboot cycle with "The Amazing Spider-Man," and turned out memorably awful cinematic dreck like "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen." How much are people willing to take? Where will they eventually reach a breaking point? It's hard to say, but so far, the biggest bombs have been would-be franchise starters like "John Carter" and "Battleship," and all the big potential bombs of this summer look to fall into the same category. My guess is that this is where we're most likely to see that speculated crash happen. The current major franchises are inevitably going to end, and they'll need replacements. If Hollywood is unable to come up with enough new properties to keep feeding to the tentpole assembly line, the whole thing falls apart. We already saw a small scale version of this in the summer of 2010, when titles like "Prince of Persia," "The Last Airbender," "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," and "Robin Hood" failed to get much traction. These were underperformers rather than outright bombs, but if the budgets had been higher and the competition rougher, the damage could have been much worse. More recently, there's been a trend of giving smaller, cheaper hits like "RED" and "Kick-Ass" the franchise treatment, hoping they'll grow into something bigger.

The other big possibility is the series that people have lost interest in, which isn't easy to discern until the box office totals start dropping, and by that time it may be too late. The third "Transformers" movie and the fourth "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie both made plenty of money, but I worry about the upcoming sequels. They're both bound to be expensive, but nobody I know has much interest in either franchise anymore after too many increasingly lackluster sequels. In trying to squeeze the last bit of interest out of these film series, the studios may be setting themselves up for a fall. Eventually we're going to see somebody miscalculate how many people are actually willing to fork over money to see the next generic franchise superhero movie or the next generic franchise ensemble comedy movie, and have to eat a major loss. Audiences are predictable, except when they're not. Who would have guessed at the beginning of the year that the latest "Hangover" would be trailing "The Great Gatsby" at the box office?

I tend to agree with Spielberg and Lucas that it's exciting watching this all unfold, and considering the wealth of filmmaking possibilities that could be right around the corner. However, right now we're still firmly in the age of the blockbuster behemoths, and they're not going down without a fight. I think their ultimate conquest is far from certain.

But if it does happen, oh what a sight it'll be.
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