Box-office futures: Land of the Lost, for once Hollywood is right to oppose innovation

As Tim and I commented on in an earlier post, there is something going on with the release of films world-wide. Hollywood is indeed, on hard times financially. I realized this recently while seeing a full-screen advertisement for 'Avatar on DVD' after clicking on a link to the box score from the Cincinnati Reds vs. Pittsburgh Pirates stitch-ball game. How on earth does Avatar need to completely consume my computer screen while I'm trying to check RBIs and ERAs? Then it hit me, Hollywood executives had already paid for that advertisement, years ago, back when James Cameron walked in their office with the script of Ferngulley and uttered the words, "Picture this dudes, things floating around in-front of the movie-goers face while shit is being blown up in the background."

I am often really torn while I'm enjoying a 'blockbuster'--and I do enjoy them (I even enjoyed Land of the Lost). I believe in a simple life as a good thing. We probably shouldn't rely on natural resources being processed on the other side of the world for our own consumption. That is, if we believe that our earth is on hard times. As it is, a blockbuster is probably not the most 'sustainable' thing--on many levels. First off, the sheer existance of a blockbuster implies and necessitates a lot of 'not-simple'/'un-sustainable' stuff. Most likely, going to see a movie means that you live in a city. That city probably has a lot of concrete. It probably has fruits and vegetables year round. It probably has internal combustion engines in it. Most likely, you did not walk to the theater. You probably checked movie times on your computer. The theater probably has air conditioning. Depending on if you purchased drinks and food or snuck them in, you are going to throw them away or leave them on the floor for a zitty 16 year-old to pick up after the movie. The theater probably does not sell compostable-only foods. The studio responsible for producing the movie probably are in Los Angeles which is ruled by cars and highways and has no immediate water source for it 17 million inhabitants. In other words, sustenance farmers in Costa Rica are not putting on a community play for you after a hard days work of harvesting fair-trade coffee beans.

So, as one who, in theory (definitely not in practice), supports the idea of sustenance farming and simple agrarian living I have to sqaure my own ridiculousness with enjoying a multi-million dollar movie. Afterall, if I did not pay £16 to see Avatar in 3-D then the movie producers and executives that predicted I would, would not have received funding from the banks and investors that paid for Avatar to be made. And so when I saw this full screen ad for Avatar (which btdub, the DVD will have to be in 2-D because I have not dropped three grand on a 3-D flat screen yet and Avatar in 2-D is just not worth it) I realized that the inter-connectivity of ESPN, ABC, FOX, Ingenious Media, Foreign release dates, my computer, MAC, the internet, Al Gore, Ford, and 3-D comic books; is really complicated.

This being so complicated makes predicting the success (or not) of a movie really interesting. And then today I read this article about America’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). They approved the second of two exchanges that would allow trading of contracts based on films’ box-office takings. What is interesting about this is that trading on the 'risk' of a movie being good or not relies on movie executives like the Weinstein Brothers projecting how good or bad a movie is going to be. If they, or Disney, or Fox, or whomever decides that it is going to be good then it is going to get good press and lots of rights to advertising. And, in theory, the movie will be successful for one of two reasons, either 1) the media told the mass public that this movie is good, or 2) It really was 'good'.

And so this is where I get even more frustrated with the idea of movies being 'good' or not and this is why I started this blog. The indie world and the blockbuster world are often at odds with each other. My point here, and I don't think I made it very well, is that both worlds are kind of ridiculous and rely on one thing that no one can control: talent. And when it comes to 'talent' I think we should be the judge; we being those that make up this blog. It is only in a community of friends that a film should be enjoyed and judged. It is my escape from the extravagance of movie making and Hollywood and all the jumbled mess of our capitalism. And this important, I think. It is worthwhile to me especially as I see my neice and nephew enjoying movies as much as I do. The ability of Disney to make stuff that kids love is as phenomenal as the happy meal. On that note, I recently read about an evangelical christian group that is making films pro-bono as a protest to the ill-values dominating current flims--as they see it that is. But this is really interesting. In a way, it is kind of what we are doing by blogging about movies, we are just doing it as a post-script.

I got nothing.

Here is the link to the Economist article on projected movie revenue trading.