Or It’s Hard Out There For Film Pimps; The Sky Continues To Fall
Are you as depressed as we are? [ed. Or I am?] The entertainment media landscape continues to shrink and every facet of it surely affects us, directly or indirectly. All of it is bad for the movie business and therefore movie lovers.
Earlier this week Paramount had another major shake up, closed down their NY Lit office that scouted for good books and properties to adapt, finally putting the nail in the coffin of the excellent Paramount Vantage (RIP, seriously and to all their staff, they released some great films including, “No Country For Old Men,” and “There Will Be Blood”). Specialty divisions — i.e. the arthouse studios within major studios are going the way of the dodo bird. And of course, all this just days after “Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen” — a Paramount picture of course– raked in $400 million. Apparently nothing can stop the bleeding.
Paramount’s also apparently thinking about merging their DVD operation with News Corp. or Sony Corp. in order to cut costs. Then Spin magazine laid off almost what’s left of its staff (meaning, there’s barely anyone left, cause it was a tiny operation as it was) and Vibe magazine folded. The last two are film world, obviously, but they are related as there basically is no major film magazine in this country anymore (remember when Premiere was in print?). Other bad news, VNU Media is arranging a deal to halve its $280M debt as part of a restructuring, which could be really bad news for the properties it owns, The Hollywood Reporter and Billboard. And THR is a film trade that has gone through a lot of cuts already. Notice how there’s not a lot of great film news out there lately? The trades are slowing down. They’re understaffed and with less people to report news, the less chum blogs have to work with {there’s a hint for you studios, maybe try reaching out to other places aside from just V and THR, some of us do strong original reporting when given the opportunity}.
A smaller blow globally, but big to the film community is the loss of round-up master David Hudson at the IFC blog. Word is he was cut and even though he’ll likely be back in a month in some new form (or this is what he’s alluded to in his goodbye post), it’s discouraging to see someone that comprehensive and good at what they do get yanked.
Making it all feel a bit more bleak is this article from Variety that basically says Studios are doing their best to shy away from indie pictures as there’s basically no profit in them (or least not the major ones they want). They point out that one of the biggest (and really one of the left) mini majors like Fox Searchlight have only bought one movie, the Sundance film, “Adam,” since acquiring “The Wrestler” last fall and note that poor Terry Gilliam’s “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,” still does not have a U.S. distrib buyer.
The more the bottom dollar matters means the more uninteresting the film to be offered, frankly. It pains us to write something negative about Michael Mann’s “Public Enemies,” because if that film’s unsuccessful in this climate (it cost north of $100 million, shot on the, uh… apparently cost-saving digital format), what are the chances of a bold filmmaker like that getting another chance at something this grand in scope?
As Jeff Wells says, “the thrust of this Kim Masters/Daily Beast hit piece (“The Knives Are Out for Michael Mann“) is that if and when Public Enemies tanks with Mr. and Mrs. Joe Schmoe and their kids over the July 4th holiday then it’s curtains for Mann in terms of getting any kind of heavy funding for his next film.” [ed. though would vehemently disagree that anyone has it out for Mann. It’s just that the ambitious and stylish ‘Enemies’ is frustratingly uninvolving].
IndieWire’s Eugene Hernadez seems to be feeling a similar pain and started a new Cinemadaily column to essentially ponder the state we’re in. “Are we fighting to preserve a business or an artform?” is the headline of his first article and he seems just as concerned about the “increasingly striking tension” between the art of films and the business of making money in films. The two goals seem more and more mutually exclusive these days. It’s all troublesome to say the least. How much worse is it going to get? And how bad does it have to all get before it gets better? Will there be some kind of cinematic rebellion? Cool, but will it pay the bills and keep any of us afloat?