Contextual Studies: How Hollywood Needs to Move With The Times
In the following paragraphs I will be talking about how the institutional context of creative media production might influence or constrain its production. 20th Century Fox, Time Warner and The Walt Disney Company are the institutions this essay will examine, focussing on their film and media properties. The subjects of discussion will be; Control: How these large corporations use their wealth and power to control and influence trends in Hollywood to their own advantage such as remakes of older films, the explosion of superhero/comic book films in the early 2000’s and the use and misuse of 3D. Distribution Models: Modern models of distribution such as Netflix and Hulu (online distribution, video on demand) Vs the older models of distribution such as the cinema and home video and how they work in a modern world of home computers and internet. Big studios subsidiary production companies such as Disney's ownership of Marvel Studios and Pixar Animation. 20th Century Fox’s independent Searchlight Pictures and their animation studio Blue Sky Studios. Marketing: I will look at how big studios use marketing techniques, focusing specifically on viral marketing, I will look at examples of good and bad viral marketing and how this affects the studios image and how they deal with bad marketing. Films I will look at are The Dark Knight and John Carter.
Control: The current state of the Hollywood studio system would suggest a certain rot has taken place within the creative minds of writers and directors alike. The rate of release for remakes of older films of the golden age of Cinema circa 1950’s at first seemed to be running out, at first it seemed like Hollywood had got its creative brain back and stopped thinking in numbers, but alas they were just regrouping their thoughts and prepping the next batch of re-releases. 2012 was the year of 1980’s remakes with such notable films as Total Recall and Red Dawn being rebooted and 2013 looks like it is going to continue the trend with remakes of Robocop and The Evil Dead set for release this year.This is modern Hollywood:
http://www.shortoftheweek.com/2012/01/05/has-hollywood-lost-its-way/
The graph above shows that the big studios have decided to play it safe, maybe it’s because of the economic downturn that the studios have decided play it safe and have the majority of their releases as either remakes, sequels or adaptations. The recession has played a part in the current state of the stock Hollywood is pedalling to the public, but to see the start of it all one has to cast their mind back to the year 2000 with the success of the Bryan Singer’s X-Men film with a worldwide gross of $296,339,527 (http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=xmen.htm) and then two years later with the even bigger success Spider-Man which had a worldwide gross of $821,708,551 (http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=spiderman.htm) to see the beginning of the modern trend of superhero films as the big earners of the studio. Superhero films have always being around, but it took awhile for them to become the main profit earners for studios, before superhero films Hollywood churned out action films as their main earners during the 80’s and 90’s. Before action films and superhero films the public were fed westerns as their main source of cinematic entertainment.
Hollywood has always being good at grabbing on to a trend and mining it for every last piece of its worth, but the rate of remakes, reboots and adaptations in todays market is a sad reflection of Hollywood’s tendency to play it safe and not to finance original idea’s especially when the odd time they do finance original idea’s the results can be very profitable ie, Inception with a worldwide gross of $825,532,764 (http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=inception.htm) and Avatar the highest grossing film of all time earning $2,782,275,172 worldwide (http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=avatar.htm).
Avatar is not only the highest grossing film of all time, it is also the film which reignited the 3D trend, which is now becoming a signature of Hollywood blockbusters. Whether good or bad 3D is questionable as an artistic quality, in some cases people cannot watch 3D films as it can cause headaches and nausea, then there is the fact that 3D glasses darken the image on screen as they are polarized lenses. The big studios do not seem to be interested in fixing or even addressing this problem as they are blinded by the the numbers 3D films bring in, which is understandable from a financial point of view. 3D has its merits, when done correctly like with Avatar, it can add another layer to the storytelling, but when done badly like Clash of The Titans it can ruin the cinematic experience and pull you out of the film altogether.
After the success of Avatar the studios post-converted a batch of films and in the process destroyed everything that they were trying to build, filmgoers got tired of watching second rate 3D conversions and in turn the public stopped going to as many 3D films. In 2011 Kung Fu Panda only grossed 45% of its weekend box office earnings from 3D screenings, whereas in 2010 Shrek Forever After took 60% of its weekend gross from 3D screenings. (http://www.cartoonbrew.com/cgi/kung-fu-panda-2-stumbles-in-us-audiences-avoid-3-d-version-43367.html)
Distribution: Modern models of distribution such as Netflix and Hulu are changing the way in which films are being distributed. Independent films who can not get a wide distribution can release their films through online video on demand websites such as Netflix and Hulu. Whereas in the past films made independently of the big studios would have to rely on the home video market to turn a profit, now they can run one marketing campaign for a small scale cinema release and an internet release at the same time rather than having to spend money on two different marketing campaigns at different times of the year.
"The number of films released in theaters and video on demand at the same time nearly doubled from 2009 to 2011 and is projected to jump about 30% this year to 68. The dark comedy Bachalorrette exemplifies the trend: it has grossed about $5.5 million from video - on - demand(or VOD) rentals since premiering in August compared with a paltry $418,000 earned in theaters. "
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/oct/05/entertainment/la-et-ct-video-on-demand-20121006The above article snippet from the LA times goes to show that the old model that Hollywood has being using is not necessarily the correct model, for all films. Certainly the big blockbuster films are nearly always going to do well in a cinema, but the smaller films such as Bachelorette are the sort of films one can watch at home without the need for a 40 foot screen or surround sound, even though a lot of film lovers will have a surround sound system in their house already and with the affordability and greater performance of digital home projector kits people are more willing to pay for a video on demand website like Netflix or Hulu to watch a newly released films from the comfort of their own home rather than to go to the cinema.
Some of the big studios have already embraced the idea of video on demand as a viable model of distribution for releasing their films. The Walt Disney Company and 20th Century Fox both own shares in Hulu and Disney have just recently inked a deal with Netflix to become their main distributor by the year 2016. (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121205/06151021236/disney-chooses-netflix-as-its-exclusive-distributor-beginning-2016.shtml)
The Walt Disney Company and 20th Century Fox both have subsidiary production companies which they use for distributing more niche films. For example Disney own Marvel Studios, which they use for releasing all of their superhero films such as the Iron Man series and The Avengers, the latter being one of the highest grossing films of the summer. Another one of Disneys Subsidiary production houses is Pixar Animation Studios which specialises in CG animated films such as the Toy Story franchise and this summers Brave, a brave step in the importance of female heroes for young children.
20th Century Fox’s subsidiary production companies include Searchlight Pictures which Fox use to distribute more arthouse and independent films such as Little Miss Sunshine and The Ice Storm and Blue Sky Studios is Fox’s animation arm which released such films as Rio and Ice Age.
Marketing: When John Carter of Mars had its title shortened to John Carter dropping the “of Mars” part because Disney or more so the director Andrew Stanton believed the dropping of “of Mars” would help the film appeal to a wider audience, alarm bells started to ring across the internet. Then the trailer was released, which showcased an unexciting bland looking movie spectacle. It was later revealed that the director had being given complete marketing control by the studio, something unheard of in todays studio system and not too common even in the golden age of cinema. The production had a head of marketing, but nearly every suggestion they made was turned down by Stanton according to reports. (http://www.vulture.com/2012/03/john-carter-doomed-by-first-trailer.html)
Stanton was allowed creative control by Disney because of his previous successes with Finding Nemo and Wall E, released by Disney via Pixar Animation. Stanton was clearly out of touch with how to sell a live action movie to a public audience, using music from the 1970’s in the trailer and claiming that the trailer for the original Star Wars film he seen as a boy was the example he was following in how to sell John Carter to the public. The first Star Wars film was released in 1977, Andrew Stanton based his marketing campaign on a film released thirty six years ago, surely the alarm bells should have started ringing at Disney a lot sooner.
For a good example of modern marketing one should look to The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolans 2008 hit film and its use of viral marketing to sell itself to the public. The campaign began with posters being put up in cities all across the United States, referring to the character of Harvey Dent saying “I Believe In Harvey Dent” and with a website address linking to an online game which the public could play to reveal clues about the film. The Dark Knights embrace of modern marketing techniques helped it to a worldwide gross of over a billion dollars, which when compared to John Carter and Disneys loss of over 150 million shows us that in order for Hollywood to survive it has to move with the times.
