The summer without movies?

I rarely write about my "day job" but something unnerving is happening in Hollywood, which I feel safe writing about anecdotally.

Next to no movies are being made. There are 5 major studios: Paramount, Warner Bros., Sony, Disney, and 20th Century Fox and a minor major- MGM. Then there are hundreds of smaller production companies that shepherd projects and are co-funded by big studios on individual films. I have it on good authority that one of the majors has exactly one film shooting, another has none, and by the looks of IMDB production charts the others have almost no films actually in production.

My experience tells me that most majors have 4-5 films going at once - most of the time. With smaller companies making films at all time. Certain time lines are always ball parked for a year: Summer tent pole movies (Transformers, Star Trek etc) an "Oscar contender" is in the works to be released in the Fall, a certain number of horror/romantic comedies/farces/family movies to spread throughout the year, and a holiday "feel good" movie. I have to alight on one studio lot every so often for work and the last time I was there it was a ghost town. Which is not normal. "Down time" for film production is traditionally December and January.

Though, it has not gotten national press, large layoffs have occurred at the major studios,in some cases entire departments have been eliminated. Box office has been good this summer- and yet layoffs continue and films are not being "green lit" - green lit means cash flows to start production.

(I also have it from a good, direct source that DVD sales have collapsed. )

As a "worker" in this town, I am directly or indirectly connected to many other "workers" (We - the unglamourous...often anti-glamorous...) and I keep hearing the same thing - no one is working.

This is odd. The myth in Hollywood is that it is not affected by recessions. This may have been true at one point. This downturn is different. I can give no surefire reason. But I do have a hunch. Movies are made on credit and credit is still tight or nonexistent. The banks, that we, the people, recapitalized, are still not lending. Certainly not to high risk ventures like a major film.

Unless things pick up soon - next summer could be "the summer without movies".

(FYI- The usual snark that "Hollywood should make better movies" doesn't hold water with me. Hollywood is capitalism in pure form. "Good" movies rarely make money. People pay for crap. Hollywood responds to this market. Transformers, possibly the worst piece of cinema since Ed Wood was a director, has grossed 700 million dollars. On the other hand, Imagine That an Eddie Murphy vehicle that I KNOW was sweet, charming, family fare full of "values" - bombed. It was not great - but it was exactly the kind of film the Hollywood detractors moan doesn't get made. They do get made - and they often fail. )

This may not seem all that important to many. Yet, the film business employs thousands - most free lance - and none of these people show up in unemployment statistics. I wonder - how many millions of others in other industries. are unemployed - and yet not counted as "unemployed"? I suspect the unemployment and underemployment rate is much higher than 9.6%.






Addendum:

The television business is fine. TV production is in full swing ensuring that we will be distracted this fall and well into the future....snark....

Actually, my real opinion is that we are in a golden age of television. Eliminate "reality tv" and much TV is astoundingly good. Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Closer, In Plain Sight, and some others tell compelling stories, are tightly written, well acted, humane and honest. The Closer and In Plain Sight have 2 of the strongest female lead characters in memory. Mary McDonnell is on The Closer this season acting as a nemesis to Kyra Sedgewick - and...well...these are two women know their craft. There is some goooooooood acting going on....

Mad Men's rendering of sexism in American culture circa the early 60s occasionally takes my breath away. As does the remarkable precision of the entire show.

South Park, though not for everyone, is the best comedy about American culture since Norman Lear was working.

So the good news is that as the Depression goes on - we'll always have television....at least cable television...if we can afford it...