Posted on 11/06/2006 4:03:24 AM PST by abb
On a recent trip to New York City, Russell Crowe was asked by reporters why he had dropped out of negotiations to star in a new movie being directed by Baz Luhrmann and produced by 20th Century Fox.
The Academy Award winner, never one to mince words, suggested it was, in part, the money. “I do charity work, but I don’t do charity work for major studios,” Mr. Crowe said.
It seems the needy are not the only ones in Hollywood with their hands out. Movie and television studios, facing escalating budgets, rampant piracy and the uncertain future of new media, are demanding concessions from talent. But as actors, directors and writers feel the squeeze, many are not happy about it.
Worse, the tension is not likely to ease soon. As studios are set to begin contract negotiations with talent in January, all sides are girding for battle.
Hollywood is in the midst of a strategic shift. The average cost to make and market a movie has skyrocketed — to $96.2 million last year, from $54.1 million in 1995 — while lucrative DVD sales have flattened. Major film studios are fending off illegal piracy, which industry executives say accounted for $1.3 billion in lost revenue in the United States last year.
The growth of new media threatens to undermine traditional businesses, while studios are flummoxed about how to take advantage of the new opportunities they represent. And movies and TV also face tough new competition from video games and online social networking sites. Even cellphones have become a favorite diversion among the young.
As in so many other show business debates, money and control are at the heart of the matter. And without solutions to these problems in sight, relations between talent and the studios are more strained than ever.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Please, Monica L. was in that at her high school.
They call those songs novelty songs, like How Much Is That Doggie in the Window. Perry Como said his novelty songs sold much better than his serious ones. And he could sing.
They can take their movies and shove 'em where the sun don't...
Actually the digital is probably going to trend down. CG movies haven't made as much money this year as in the past, they've over saturated the market. And as for CG replacing actors not until CG becomes much much faster, full CG takes a lot longer than live action, and with all that time of expensive programmers and animators the CG films are actually one of the big driving factors to the cost of a movie going up (Monster House was the cheapest CG movie this year at 75 mil). CG is probably going to roll back as fewer of these movies are paying for themselves, even CG special effects are probably going to be rolling back.
What's going to happen is the guys like Kevin Smith who can bring in a movie for 6 mil that makes 30 mil in domestic are going to gain more power in Hollywood. The cost conscious directors will be the ones that studios seek, while to Coppolas and Lucases struggle for funding. And the actors will learn to follow, as the cheaper directors usually have shorter shooting schedules, geting paid less is more acceptable when they spend less time on set.
"Chicago" was completely over-rated. In every respect.
We had the same problem all summer long. They hardly made a decent movie last year and there is so many "stars" I refuse to support it really narrows the field. Like the newsroom editors, Hollywood doesn't get the reason they are all going into the toilet.
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