Hollywood's New Politics

Image credit: Good Night and Good Luck: Melinda Sue Gordon

Politics and ticket sales

It's people like Horn who are saying yes to movies that deal with 9/11 directly, or examine its causes and aftermath in ways that are guaranteed to offend a portion of the audience — and that's what's different about what's going on in Hollywood at the moment. What's changed? There are several theories. The one typically advanced by conservative groups is that the entertainment industry has always been a hotbed of liberal activism and that it is now seizing a perceived opportunity to influence audiences with antiwar propaganda (Horn, for one, is a well-known fund-raiser for the Democratic Party).

Another theory, often promoted by Hollywood itself, is that studios are merely responding to market demands by making movies that reflect the mood of the nation, which has lately been shifting toward doubt and dismay. ''There's a lot of blood being spilled in the real world these days,'' offers Stacey Snider, chairman of Universal Pictures, which will be releasing Spielberg's Munich Dec. 23 (and which released Jarhead last month). ''So people don't want to see blood being spilled on the screen for no good reason. If you're going to make a violent film, you need to give it a serious context.'' Put another way: Hollywood now believes there's money to be made from making serious and thoughtful films about politics. And they may be right. Good Night, and Good Luck, which cost only $7 million, has so far grossed more than $16 million.

''When we started [Good Night, and Good Luck and Syriana], nobody was encouraging us,'' says Clooney. ''We jumped in on our own. And there was no reason to think it was going to get any easier. But people in Hollywood do seem to be getting more comfortable with making these sorts of movies now. People are becoming braver.''

Hollywood will get a lot less brave if audiences fail to show up for these films in large numbers — especially for the ones with the bigger budgets (like Munich, which is rumored to have cost upwards of $70 million). But for now, hot topics are finding a home at the movies, engaging the real world with real issues up on the screen. Whatever your own personal politics, that can't be a bad thing. (Additional reporting by Raymond Fiore, Joshua Rich, and Missy Schwartz)