Steven Spielberg predicts film industry implosion

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/steven-spielberg-predicts-implosion-film-567604

Quote :

Steven Spielberg on Wednesday predicted an "implosion" in the film industry is inevitable, whereby a half dozen or so $250 million movies flop at the box office and alter the industry forever. What comes next -- or even before then -- will be price variances at movie theaters, where "you're gonna have to pay $25 for the next Iron Man, you're probably only going to have to pay $7 to see Lincoln." He also said that Lincoln came "this close" to being an HBO movie instead of a theatrical release.

George Lucas agreed that massive changes are afoot, including film exhibition morphing somewhat into a Broadway play model, whereby fewer movies are released, they stay in theaters for a year and ticket prices are much higher. His prediction prompted Spielberg to recall that his 1982 film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial stayed in theaters for a year and four months.

[ . . . ]

Lucas and Spielberg told USC students that they are learning about the industry at an extraordinary time of upheaval, where even proven talents find it difficult to get movies into theaters. Some ideas from young filmmakers "are too fringe-y for the movies," Spielberg said. "That's the big danger, and there's eventually going to be an implosion — or a big meltdown. There's going to be an implosion where three or four or maybe even a half-dozen megabudget movies are going to go crashing into the ground, and that's going to change the paradigm."

Lucas lamented the high cost of marketing movies and the urge to make them for the masses while ignoring niche audiences. He called cable television "much more adventurous" than film nowadays.

"I think eventually the Lincolns will go away and they're going to be on television," Lucas said. "As mine almost was," Spielberg interjected. "This close -- ask HBO -- this close."

"We're talking Lincoln and Red Tails -- we barely got them into theaters. You're talking about Steven Spielberg and George Lucas can't get their movie into a theater," Lucas said. "I got more people into Lincoln than you got into Red Tails," Spielberg joked.

Spielberg added that he had to co-own his own studio in order to get Lincoln into theaters.

They dug their own graves back in the late 70s.

Only if you believe the crap written in Peter Biskind's EASER RIDERS, RAGING BULLS.

Great news for an actor preparing to go back to LA.   Of course that's movies.  TV is changing too, but they will always need good actors.

He's right. The film industry is a big stinking pile of mediocrity right now aside from the occasional Gems and Bond movies of course. I honestly hope it does implode, that was an explosion of Independent films can steal the time of day and rejuvenate the dying film industry with originality and care instead of "Films made for everyone just for money."

I'm not sure if the quarter billion dollar features crashing and burning will be bad for the industry as a whole. Perhaps it will re-open opportunities for directors looking to work with a more modest budget but who cannot get their project financed in the indie circuit?

Too many movies are being released weekly, especially during the summer and Christmas seasons...some will obviously fall short or off the radar, with disastrous results if their budgets were heavy.

Although, I'd be hard-pressed to be convinced to pump $200m into some of these turkeys. I sometimes wonder what some of these mogul heavies are thinking.

They're all thinking their films have a real shot at crossing the billion dollar club, or at least trying to mimic what Brukheimer did with the first PIRATES film by taking on a big gamble (which which didn't pay off for said producer on LONE RANGER). In the end, it's about trying to throw so much money to make it look impressive in the trailers. Every studio has deluded themselves to think they all have a chance.

Makeshift Python wrote:

They're all thinking their films have a real shot at crossing the billion dollar club, or at least trying to mimic what Brukheimer did with the first PIRATES film by taking on a big gamble (which which didn't pay off for said producer on LONE RANGER). In the end, it's about trying to throw so much money to make it look impressive in the trailers. Every studio has deluded themselves to think they all have a chance.

Like Riddick has a shot at a billion...  

Given its low budget, I don't think any studio would have thought it had a shot.

Emma Watson, Anthopy Hopkins and Steven Soderbergh are not very hot any more.

Present movies with them and some other movies not be released on Blu-Ray in my country:

The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Original: Warner Dutch: Paradiso Entertainment)
Hitchcock (Fox)
Side Effects (Warner)

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World  (Original: Warner Dutch: Paradiso Entertainment)
The Host (Warner)


The thing be that Paradiso Entertainment is small Dutch studio, who release moost of time small movies/art house on dvd only.
Transsiberian be possible one of those exeptions.

Warner possible not happy with money numbers of Contagion (Steven Soderbergh) and a lot of times those days studio's make very doubt Dvd/BD releases with (almoost) No extra's or les extra's then dvd, (return to the day of) No subtitels with extra's (The Ides of March),subtitle selection problems on BD (The Ides of March), release problems or Warner let them release by Belgium mother company (The Hunger Games, The Impossible, Taken 2)

Fact be is that Warner Home Entertainment be the studio who moost have to win with BD with uing a lot of times a low audio track on there dvd.