Johanna Blakley
Oh, what a difference a year makes. Last year, I attended the Finance Conference at the American Film Market and I heard suit after suit sound off about the beauty of having money, money everywhere! With all that easy money washing about everyone’s ankles, no one, even in their “dire prediction” mode, suggested that things were going to go bad. And bad they’ve gone.
Or have they?
Yes, there’s less money out there for film financing, but is that really a bad thing? This year's panelists – especially David Molner, the purse-string holder for many a movie – felt that after 10 years of loose money, it was time to practice some restraint (and, dare I say it?) good judgment. Mark Gill, CEO of The Film Department, argued that easy money made for a lot of bad films. During the lush years, making a film that an audience actually wanted to see was not the driving motivation. Why would it be when everyone thought they could make an easy buck selling mediocre horror flicks to growing global markets? With tightened credit markets, things have changed, and Molner predicted things would remain tight in the film industry for five years. If you’re an avid movie-goer like me, you're probably hoping that the film industry is "recession proof," not necessarily because you feel a deep respect for the industry, but because you're hoping against hope that there will be a good movie or two at your neighborhood multiplex the next time you go. Here's what the finance guys had to say:
What kinds of movies are we going to see in theaters in the next couple years? The short answer is that we’ll see a lot fewer movies coming out. Gill mentioned that the studios are way behind on greenlighting projects for production next year, meaning that we’ll start seeing a shortfall as early as next Fall.
For the last few years, audiences have been spoiled with options at the multiplex. With eight to eleven films opening each weekend in big cities, we had a lot a choices (though not necessarily good ones) for our moviegoing dollar. Why was this the case? The main reason was excess liquidity: that’s why hedge funds and banks that had never bothered with the fickle film industry suddenly came calling, sinking $18 billion dollars into Hollywood’s maw. That pays for a lot of film stock, but what to put on it? With the advantage of hind-sight, the suits felt that there was too much money out there for our own good. And because we moviegoers have so many other entertainment options at our fingertips – both legal and illegal, I might add – the market could not sustain a steady flow of at least seven releases per weekend. The optimum number according to our experts? Half that.
I suppose I should stop being surprised by how often the internal logic of games seems to apply wholesale to some aspect of real life. Games, after all, tend to be based on “real life” scenarios, and, as many evolutionary biologists argue, humans are hardwired to play games in order to prepare for danger in the real world. From Hide and Seek to World of Warcraft, it’s pretty easy to see how fantasy settings can be used to mentally and sometimes physically prepare us to survive when calamity strikes.
