Compare And Contrast The Cost Of Blockbuster Movies

External – content, consumer income, marketing of movies relies on studio production companies, split sales with distributors

With this short but very interesting and informative class I have just scratched the surface of the what it takes to make a full fleged film. It takes much more than I had presumed to make a movie in Hollywood. The number of people that it takes to make a minute of a movie let alone the entire movie was astonishing to me. There are many things that it takes to start making a movie but without an idea of some sort there is no movie to be made.

Talent and a good storyline are generally worth more to movie audiences than an expensive look. If you can just get a good story committed to film and submitted to film festivals, then people will take notice. If a buzz is created about your movie, it can lead to a distribution deal that is worth many times more than the money you

The development of the motion picture industry was brought to you by many directors and writers through out history. Movies are a very important part of American culture, people went to the movies to escape the humdrum of their everyday lives. They were a way for people to put themselves into the lives of others and in situations they would usually never find themselves in. Simply put movies were a way to escape into a new more exciting world, even if just for a little bit. In the beginning there were a few production companies that would put out movies in an almost factory setting and manner. There were hundreds of workers, set designers, camera men, and other crews. With this amount of man power, companies would come out with hundreds of films a month. This is were directing and writing began to develop a style and narrative that would be carried into today's movies.

Movie marketing is a tricky thing. A movie could be a complete disaster, but if the marketing is done right, the movie will do well. If the movie a delightful, but the marketing is done badly, the movie could bomb and cost the studio a lot of money. I’ve seen it happen a lot over the years. Remember that movie John Carter? That movie cost a LOT of money to produce. I saw the movie since I already read the books and knew from what I saw that it was going to be a fun film to watch, but from a marketing standpoint, and having been a marketing major in college, I knew the movie was going to bomb. Why? No one knew what the hell it was about or who the hell John Carter was.

The coveted low-budget horror movie script is the holy grail of Hollywood. These movies are cheap to make and come with a with a built-in fan base making these scripts some of the most sought after properties in the industry. Examine the profit margins for movies like Paranormal Activity, Halloween, or The Blair Witch Project and you’ll see I’m speaking the truth here. Paranormal Activity raked in over $193 million dollars in profit worldwide. But did you know it only cost a mere $15,000 to make? This type of net profit generally doesn’t happen in other genres.

Even though there are so many positives that Hollywood and the film industry were able to produce for the American people, it did not come without its own hardships for the film industry itself. The cost of a movie, which in itself is not just the movie, it is the building and materials to screen the movie, the food to give to people there, the production costs to even film the movie that has some liveliness to it that is required in a short number of time- it is so many things! During this time, the phrase ‘time is money and money is time’ could not be more true than ever before. Consider this, today, the cost of producing a movie can range from one million dollars, to easily well over $100 million… it is a lot of money! During a time when money was scarce, funders were few, and resources were expensive, creates a difficult time and space for the creation and full production and deliverance of a movie.

Today the film industry is booming. The film industry also makes more than 200 movies a year so they can usually film within the country. However both today and in the sixties film was in color and both decades targeted younger audiences. Movie ticket prices have also increased. An average movie ticket in the sixties cost about thirty-eight cents, whereas today tickets cost between five and eight dollars.

While the indirect cost is made up of things, such as, making release prints from the negatives, marketing, advertising, and distributing the film. Present day studios have two major costs. The first is the above-the-line cost, such as, hiring the director, cast, and writers. The second cost is the below-the-line cost; this is the cost for hiring noncreative elements, such as, the film crew. While larger studios may have the money to invest in big budget productions independent studios may try and save money by hiring unknown actors or directors, shooting in an inexpensive location, and/or film the movie with commercially available

Analyzing the studio system simplistically we see basic capitalism. In the 1920’s movies became more popular, so fulfilling the rules of basic supply and demand, studios were formed to profit from the insatiable public desire to see more films (in

is growing outside of the USA. This kind of growth includes the large countries that previously specialised in film production. For countries such as China and India, the annual release of films has grown progressively for the past decade, followed by a forced growing purchase power and investments in cinemas (Lorenzen, M. 2008). The American film industry must, in a way, watch its back. Especially when the amount of small film countries, such as Denmark and Switzerland, has grown. The smaller countries have attracted attention by not only up-scaling their production, but also winning market shares from Hollywood. Other new filmmaking countries are also on the rise, with Korea, Mexico etc. joining the market, who bring cheaper production technologies to their advantage (Lorenzen, M. 2008).

Everything essential was created and paid for by the production studio from start to finish. In order to make this happen all movies had to make a profit to ensure these production companies required movie theaters to buy a set of their movies for customers to view. After United States v. Paramount decision production studio was divided into sectors and no longer operated as monopolies. The movie industry today differs from Old Hollywood due to its many avenues of revenue. Movies, once done being shown at the movie theatre maybe shown on TV and bought on DVD. For example, according to Variety Magazine, Girls Trip brought in 137,348,394 at the worldwide box office and has now been released for DVD sale as of October 17, 2017. Another way Hollywood contrast sharply between old and the new age is the distribution method. Hollywood now sales the rights the distribute and or show the product typically done through a contract which states of the amount sold they get X amount of profits. The distributor in addition to being able to sell the product must then also provide an adequate advertisement to promote the sale of the

No longer is box-office the main source of revenue for studios as it was in the early days of Hollywood. Today only 6 conglomerates are responsible for almost all of the world's filmmaking. Lucrative licensing deals, merchandising, spin-offs, television shows and so forth have become more important than the actual box-office generated. According to Jay Epstein "Even though today's system of filmed entertainment shares much of the same physical geography, nomenclature, and mythology as the studio system that preceded it, it did not evolve out of it… it appeared with surprising suddenness, and replaced it." He argues that a handful of aspiring businessmen took the reins of the industry and steered it to where it is today. These 6 conglomerates hold 72% of the total market share and have an average of $26.5 billion revenue, while the total box-office revenue in the U.S. in 2000 was only $7.6 billion8. Film production today is not the expression of the director, writer or producer but more their attempt to capitalize on the medium. Modern films cost an average if $100 million in advertising and production cost, while the average box-office of

When we think of the film industry in Hollywood, we often picture it in our mind as an ideal industry full of fame and money. What makes the production process of films in Hollywood so successful? The answer is the studio system. According to Hollywoodlexicon.com, the studio system is a business model adopted by five major Hollywood studios - Paramount Pictures, Metro Goldwyn Mayer, Warner Brothers Pictures, 20th Century Fox and RKO - that combined all facets of film production with studio-owned distribution chains. In fact, The Big Five Studios possessed 17% of the theaters that owned 45% of domestic film rentals by 1945.

To make a film, resources is required and a financial backer is involved (i.e. the producer) who is responsible for getting the film made. The artistic and creative input lies with the director and is separate from the financial responsibilities that lie with the producer. If it is the big budgeting films, many temporary crews may be needed. A film company employs all its workers just like other companies did. The producer and director use both their social networks and work networks to locate the necessary skills as well as appoint leading players responsible for appointing all the necessary crews required.