Column: Hollywood’s tunnel vision

By Todd Swiss

As the summer blockbuster season winds down, box office sales are down over five percent for the year. Not only has it been a bad year, it has been the worst in over 20 years. The industry just recently ended a record-breaking streak of 18 straight weeks without beating last year’s numbers. Hollywood executives are looking for someone or something to blame for the disappointing results, but their weak finger-pointing is not only short-sighted, it is flat-out wrong.

The Hollywood big wigs are putting most of the blame on Internet piracy. They say that many technology savvy youths are bypassing the theater for pirated copies that appear on file sharing programs such as Limewire. The problem with this accusation is that the main draw of summer blockbusters is the theater experience. A vast majority of movie-goers are not just going to settle for watching the latest sci-fi epic on their 17 inch monitor and listening through insufficient computer speakers. Admittedly, there are hundreds of people sharing movies that are currently in the theaters, but these file-sharers are not the reason for the deflated numbers at the box office.

The reason that people are not going to the theater is the quality of the movies that Hollywood is producing. In a typical summer over the last few years, there have been many original summer hits along with the occasional sequel or remake, but that is not the case this year. Nearly every big budget movie this year has been a remake, a sequel or a movie based on an old television show. Over a quarter of the movies that are currently in wide release fall into one of these three categories. Movie fans have dealt with the same old blockbuster strategy for the last 25 years and frankly, everyone is getting bored with the predictability. ÿ ÿ ÿ

As a film major (and snob), I am not drawn to many of the big summer blockbusters. However, every summer there are two or three movies that combine action with actual cinematic quality. Last year, for example, The Bourne Supremacy, Collateral, and Spider-man 2 all did well in the box office while having some sort of discernable message and not suffering from gaping plot holes. I have not even bothered to make more than one trip to the theater this summer. I did go to see Crash, a supposedly moving drama, but even that was an over-the-top mess. I did not go to see Cinderella Man, The Island or Kingdom of Heaven because I have already seen those movies thirty times. I have no interest in seeing them because I know exactly what is going to happen.

The executives in Hollywood also should look at the past two years. 2003 was a record-breaking year at the movies and 2004 was even better. Although everyone in the industry hopes for amazing year after amazing year, it is just not possible. Ticket prices have steadily risen; therefore, audiences are more selective. Most people are not just going to spend ten bucks on a ticket and another five or six bucks on overpriced concessions for a movie that they might not even enjoy. Most people would rather sit on their comfortable couch in their own home and watch a movie for four dollars.

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Hollywood needs to learn a lesson from these figures. The movie-goers have spoken with their pocketbooks. They will not just spend their money on anything Hollywood releases. There are too many talented screenwriters, directors and actors out there to just waste their genius on rehashing old stories. Hopefully this summer will be a wake-up call to everyone in Hollywood. They need to rethink their motives and live up to their potential.

Until Hollywood gets its act together, it can only expect more disappointing box office figures.

Todd Swiss is a senior in LAS. His columns appear on Tuesdays. He can be reached at [email protected].