LOS ANGELES (dpa) – Like the gritty hero of an old fashioned western who overcomes all odds to protect his homestead, Hollywood and the film industry are emerging this month prosperous and triumphant from a year fraught with danger and challenges.
At the start of the year there were many who believed that the old Hollywood power structure was about to be toppled by a host of menacing converging factors. Some believed that movies were losing their relevance as youngsters flocked to video games, and the Internet gave them alternative forms of entertainment.
With many Internet companies still flying high, others believed that the major studios would all be taken over by new economy moguls who knew little about the film world and had no respect for its values.
Attention was focused on the merger between AOL and Time Warner. While it would clearly be the world’s largest media company, experts predicted it to be dogged by serious integration problems that could mar its attempt to create valuable synergies across its gigantic empire.
Elsewhere, the actors and screenwriters guilds were threatening strikes that looked likely to shut down movie making for a protracted length of time, even as rival film production facilities like those in Canada were attracting more producers with their impressive facilities and low costs. Cinema chains were also in crisis after a glut of overbuilding with most of the largest companies mired deep in bankruptcy troubles.
Much of the early fare Hollywood offered moviegoers was typically unimaginative and wooden. The most notable movie event, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” became the most successful foreign language film in U.S. history with almost no help from Hollywood. Other notable movies early in the year were the drug epic “Traffic” and Tom Hanks’ “Castaway”. Elsewhere, “Hannibal” enjoyed the third largest debut in history with a 58-million-dollar opening weekend, but was soon knocked down a place when “The Mummy Returns” grossed 68.1 million dollars in May for the second best opening ever.
Astute observers were beginning to see the emergence of a new marketing formula which relied on producing a sequel to a popular movie and giving it a massive promotional blitz to ensure a huge opening, before negative word of mouth drives down ticket sales.
But the debut of “Shrek” gave other filmgoers hope that Hollywood could still produce movies that were witty, imaginative and free of violence. These qualities were noticeably absent in Pearl Harbor, which with a 130-million-dollar budget had the dubious honor of being the most expensive movie ever made.
Other notable movies in the second half of the year were “Moulin Rouge”, “Tomb Raider”, “A.I.” and “Monsters Inc.” the latter of which appeared to prove that in the time of national trauma after September 11, there was nothing like a furry blue monster to offer comfort and escape.
But film historians will no doubt note 2001 for two movies that appeared in recent weeks. “Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone” and “Lord of the Rings” are not only destined for massive box office revenues, they also appear to be genuine cultural phenomenon and an expression of modern society’s need for fantasy escapism from the various challenges of 21st century life.
Both these blockbusters were produced by units of AOL Time Warner, which is set to reap billions more from the sequels that are already in advanced development.
Almost without exception, the film industry can feel satisfied at the year end. Not only is it able to point to a record level of box office receipts, which for the first time ever are set to cross the 8-billion-dollar mark, the number of tickets sold is also set to reach record levels.
Studios appear to have ridden the September 11 fallout to a new level of success and are cashing in with quarter after quarter of record profits – even as other sectors of the U.S. economy plunge into recession.
They owe this profitability not only to producing films that tap in to huge audiences worldwide, but to their new found ability to generate income away from the box office. They do this by signing lucrative merchandising deals and selling television and foreign rights for huge sums of money.
They are also capitalizing on the latest public craze for home entertainment, the digital video disc. In the past year, it has almost surpassed the trusty video cassette as the preferred medium for watching movies at home.
Whether these financial resources will lead to better movies is questionable. But quirky, lyrical and original movies just coming out, like “Beautiful Mind”, “In the Bedroom” and “The Royal Tennenbaums” all provide a glimmer of hope.
