Plautus: The Hollywood Industry

The Roman playwright Plautus is attributed as claiming “You must spend money to make money,” and few industries seem to be taking this so obviously to heart as Hollywood in the 21 st century. Even before the birth of the modern blockbuster in the mid-1970’s, studios had been chasing the concept of big – big spectacle, big events, big grosses, and now, big openings and big, continuing franchises. But there’s a rising sense that something is being lost in the scramble for topping the previous box office record. Ever eager to secure known properties and sequels, a studios are increasing blockbuster budgets while ignoring other avenues. The amount of industry dollars committed to “mid-budget” (as opposed to “no-budget” independent films or
Others have left Hollywood, like Steven Soderbergh (
Traffic
,
Ocean's Eleven
,
Magic Mike
) who, in 2013, lamented the treatment of directors by the studio system and stated “I think that the audience for the kinds of movies I grew up liking has migrated
Agnew
3 to television.” (Child)
And the success of shows like
Mad Men
,
House of Cards
,
Orange is the New Black
, and
Breaking Bad would support the notion that viewers with interest in adult-oriented media now prefer Netflix over a trip to the local AMC. But someone sure turned up at the cinema to make
Clint Eastwood's mid-budget/R-rated
American Sniper the biggest domestic hit of last year
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, and it likely wasn't comic book fans or Pixar kids. And even the realm of targeting a mass audience, financial restraint can yield impressive results – Warner Bros. and the Lego Group aren't strapped for cash, but last year's
The LEGO Movie only cost about one-third
3
of the last several Pixar films these days, and was still a huge success.
For all the supposed conventional wisdom of studios committing to ever more $150-$200 million films at the expense of movies at one-third to one-fourth those budgets, there
2
2014 Domestic Grosses: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=2014&p=.htm 3
IMDb - The Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1490017/ 4
“Celebrating Universal's Year Without Blockbusters” http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2014/03/07/celebrating-universals-year-without-blockbusters/ Agnew
4
It's impossible to argue with the business sense in only risking $500,000 on an independent movie instead of $50 million on a mid-tier studio film, but that approach also ignores public demand for movies that don't fit studio perceptions of “big 4-quadrant PG-13 crowd-pleasers.” With the ability to produce and distribute more movies than ever before thanks to the digital revolution, the medium deserves to continue to offer filmmakers a place – and a price point – where they have more means to exercise their creativity, rather than being treated like a kid with a GoPro. And given the noteworthy success that recent studios have had with
“smaller” films, the audience is still clearly there to support