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I'm Drew Breunig and I obsess about technology, media, language, and culture. I live in New York, studied anthropology, and work in advertising technology.

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2011’s Top Films Show Us What’s Wrong with Hollywood

Roger Ebert recently outlined several reasons film revenues are dropping. I’d like to add the my own item to his list: film studios are addicted to the safe but diminishing returns of properties created by a braver Hollywood of the past. And rather than investing in new, exciting ideas they’re choosing to tap dry wells and splurge on lobbyists in pursuit of a red herring, piracy.

To illustrate their inability to invest in new ideas, let’s take a look at 2011’s top 20 grossing movies:

  • 8 of the top 10 grossing films from 2011 were sequels or prequels
  • The other 2 films were franchise films which tied into recent movies (Thor and Captain America)
  • Which means all top 10 movies were previously existing properties or stories
  • In fact, only 2 of the top 20 movies are wholly original stories (Rio and Super 8)
  • For perspective, ten years ago the top 20 grossing movies contained 8 sequels and 8 original ideas
  • For further perspective, 4 of 2011’s top 20 grossing films have siblings in 2001’s top 20 (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Shrek, The Fast and the Furious, Planet of the Apes)
  • 6 of the top 20 films from 2011 are the 4th film in their series or higher. 7 if you count Puss in Boots, which is the 5th film associated with the Shrek franchise

Clearly, Hollywood needs to innovate and stop mining it’s past. But rather than invest in attempts to create new stories and new properties, it continues to squeeze every ounce of life out of its past creations and blames its woes on piracy. The film industry would like you to believe that piracy, not a lack of new ideas, is the culprit behind its financial decline.

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  1. shazb8rgle reblogged this from dbreunig
  2. thatemperor reblogged this from dbreunig
  3. m24instudio reblogged this from dbreunig
  4. ben-davis-poetry said: Cinemas are businesses like any other, they will produce and therefore market the most immediately profitable ventures like sequels and shitty action flicks. Kill the market, and the stupid television which allows it and maybe we’d get somewhere
  5. dbreunig posted this