The point is, Hollywood today seems bent on trashing the very traditions that once made it great. For 70 years the studios have been able to mix a little art with their commerce, balancing big-budget spectacles with less expensive quality dramas. Just about every important American film ever made--from Casablanca to Taxi Driver, from It's a Wonderful Life to The Godfather--was made on their dollar. But lately, with the invasion of the $100 million B movies, those sorts of mid-priced (now about $30-40 million), plot-based stories are becoming harder and harder to sell in Hollywood. Today's studio executives believe that any movie worth making is worth making only for an obscene amount of money. They believe that bigger isn't just better--it's financially essential.
And the really scary part: They could be right.
Here's how one former studio head does the math: "It's less risky to make an $80 million Event Movie, because you can sell it globally and merchandise it with consumer products. You're better off making two or three $80 million movies than 15 movies for $20 million."
Indie mogul Harvey Weinstein, cochairman of Miramax, the company responsible for The English Patient, crunches the numbers with the same cold logic--not to mention a truckload of self-interest: "The studios are making Event Movies because it's good strategy," he says. "Even if you make a bad Event Movie, you can make money. With all the offshoots--the CD-ROMs, the records, the publishing divisions, and the overseas sales--it feeds the whole conglomerate. If I was in the studios' position, I'd do the same thing." (Instead, he's in the position of making millions by providing audiences what the studios won't--smart, well-marketed mid-priced movies.)
The theory works this way: Take a hypothetical worst-case scenario--an $80 million Event Movie we'll call, oh, say, Daylight. Pretend it tanks domestically, earning only $33 million. But since foreign audiences are still wild about beefy American superstars with monosyllabic delivery, it earns another $111 million overseas. And because big dumb action movies tend to rent smartly at video stores, chuck another projected $20-30 million into the pot. Add a few more potential millions for TV rights, fast-food tie-ins, and merchandising, if any (Daylight CD-ROM, anyone?), and before you can say Sly Stallone, you've turned a profit.
Now take a brainy mid-priced period piece like The Crucible. It costs only about $25 million but grosses a meager $7.3 million domestically. It'll probably do about the same overseas. And since a Crucible CD-ROM is about as marketable as a John Proctor action figure or an Arthur Miller Happy Meal, forget about ancillary profits. In short, you take a bath.
Of course, the numbers don't always add up this way. Some recent Event Movies have been spectacular disasters. Cutthroat Island, MGM's $92 million lady-pirate adventure, was such a colossal dud (earning less than $10 million domestically and even less overseas) it helped to bankrupt Carolco, one of its backers. And some mid-priced studio movies have done boffo box office. Jerry Maguire cost a relatively modest $50 million and has so far grossed $135.1 million domestically. Paramount's First Wives Club cost even less and grossed $105 million domestically and another $46 million overseas. And when one of these lower-priced flicks does click, its makers end up pocketing a much bigger profit percentage, since the films cost so much less to make in the first place. For instance, Universal had to spend $175 million on Waterworld to eventually eke out a worldwide gross of $255 million, but the studio had to invest only $23 million in Babe to make $204.8 million.
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