Why hasn't capitalism worked in Hollywood?
In recent years, Hollywood has ignored the Bible hip and thigh. It took an independent, to make a Bible story, Passion, and it made more money than all the rest.
Hollywood has ignored September 11. The most infamous moment in the lives of at least three generations.
Now Universal attempts to break the Hollywood silent treatment of 911 by making United 93. We will go see it, eventhough I know that leftist political opinions will be everywhere.
But why no movie about the incredible adventure of the special forces soliders in Afghanistan? How they joined up with the warlords in the mountains... how they learned to ride horses... fought battles with wild men and wilder horses. How they WON... how they succeeded.
Because, I think, they won in Afghanistan.
In United 93, Hollywood is making a movie about a successful effort, but not a successful military one. That they can't bring themselves to make.
And I am simply wondering how, how does Hollywood continue to ignore the interests of at least half its audience? Hollywood has left a gaping hole in the market. Why hasn't an independent arisen to unseat the movie moguls who hate their audience?
Hollywood has ignored September 11. The most infamous moment in the lives of at least three generations.
Now Universal attempts to break the Hollywood silent treatment of 911 by making United 93. We will go see it, eventhough I know that leftist political opinions will be everywhere.
But why no movie about the incredible adventure of the special forces soliders in Afghanistan? How they joined up with the warlords in the mountains... how they learned to ride horses... fought battles with wild men and wilder horses. How they WON... how they succeeded.
Because, I think, they won in Afghanistan.
In United 93, Hollywood is making a movie about a successful effort, but not a successful military one. That they can't bring themselves to make.
And I am simply wondering how, how does Hollywood continue to ignore the interests of at least half its audience? Hollywood has left a gaping hole in the market. Why hasn't an independent arisen to unseat the movie moguls who hate their audience?
posted by Walker at 8:43 AM
2 Comments:
But Kevin... your three reasons are exactly why capitalism SHOULD work in Hollywood.
There's an obvious unserved market. That means money. Seems to me there's room for a new studio to arise to soak up profits available from disenfranchised customers.
It happened in television. Maybe its just to expensive to do it in movies... or maybe there is some kind of market fixing going on.
Walker,
Underserved markets exist because nobody has served them. And people find them all the time. Any new product that sells, especially without a massive advertising campaign, is serving an underserved market by definition. Yet those markets often remain underserved for decades.
And while nothing may succeed like success, nothing fails like it, either. Hollywood is successful enough, and remains so, that it doesn't have to serve every potential market. And certainly you've known, or heard of, executives that want to blame business problems on everything by their management style. I know I have.
Well, Hollywood is full of that. They want to attribute the success of Passion of the Christ to Mel Gibson's church marketing campaign, not the content of the movie. They want to assume the bad box office is because there aren't any new Robert Redford level stars any more, or because there are too many distractions for the movie going public, or . . .
Even the people who are involved in and actually produce family-friendly fair, ala Sister Act, don't get why a low-budget movie like Sister Act did such good business. Yet, I can guarantee you, if Whoopie Goldberg had done her big rant on Republicans in the middle of Sister Act, it would have tanked at the box office.
And, frankly, these are liberal elites. While they'll do almost anything for money, pandering to conservatives is, to them, the most low, immoral thing they can do. It would be like suggesting to a pretty young church receptionist that she could make a lot more money as a prostitute.
While that leaves the market open to conservatives, it is a very uneven playing field. The industry is loaded, at every level from the individual theater to the head of the studios, with liberals and "moderates" and even some conservatives who believe that traditional family and Christian fair is box office poison, or will incite violence, or will get them uninvited from all the hip cocktail parties. So conservative filmmakers have a very long row to hoe.
There is one production company focused on family fair. That is, Walden Media.
http://www.walden.com/web/teach/home
And even they don't seem to feel a conservative viewpoint is inclusive enough. "Hoot" may not be as liberal as the trailer makes it look, but right now it looks like a live-action version of Captain Planet. Hopefully it will at least avoid the pernicious Hollywood cynicism Walden claims to want to try and avoid.
Ah, well.
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