Change in the Business

Cable Television dramatically increased the number of channels available, which provided studios more destinations to sell their movies, and premium stations like HBO and Showtime would buy the first run TV rights of a desirable film before it was made helping offset the cost of production for the studio.

"Why would anyone leave home if they could watch movies from their couch?"

In 1976, Disney & Universal sued Sony to stop the sale of VCRs on the grounds that taping infringed copyright laws. It quickly became clear that VCRs and VHS tapes did not hurt theatrical attendance, which remained steady.

Instead, movies on tape became yet another new way for the studios to earn money.

By the end of the 1980s, Sony-Phillips & Toshiba-Time Warner, merged their research & development and brought the DVD player to the world marketplace. The first feature films on DVD were released in Japan in December 1996.

With improvement in the quality of both video and sound, viewers retooled their libraries with DVDs, re-purchasing films they had previously purchased on VHS.

By 2000 nearly 30 million DVD players and $9 billion worth of DVDs had been sold. Home video, which didn’t exist twenty years earlier, was earning Hollywood $20 billion annually or three times North American box-office income.

Filmmakers knew their largest audience would now be watching from home, so the movie needed to convey constant motion to hold their attention. So, if the actors weren’t moving, the camera was moving, and if neither was moving, the editor was cutting.

The first wave of takeovers in the 60s & 70s was the result of corporations diversifying, adding movies to their main businesses of parking lots, oil exploration and insurance.

The takeovers, which began in the mid-1980s, focused on synergy: the coordination of several compatible business lines to maximize income.

By the year 2000, each studio had become part of a global entertainment conglomerate with divisions in film, television, music, home video, theaters, publishing, toys, theme parks, sports teams, concert venues, gaming, etc...

Nearly every piece of entertainment consumed by the public was under the control of six corporations.

The Summer Blockbusterization of Movies began in the 1970s with Jaws and Star Wars, but it came of age in the 80’s and 90’s with the arrival of Cable TV, Home Video and studio ownership by giant entertainment conglomerates.

May 18, 1986 - Top Guns
Budget: $15 million
Box Office: $357 million
Producers of Mega-pics: Don Simpson & Jerry Bruckheimer

75% of the movie going audience was now between the ages of 12-20 and the majority of this audience enjoyed mega-pics built on: action, special effects, profanity, crude humor, references to pop culture and "I don't give a shit" cool provided by well known performers.

"If a person can tell me the idea in 25 words it's going to make a pretty good movie."

Writers began pitching ideas in bare-bones fashion.

Die Hard - "A cop is trapped inside an office building with a band of thieves who unknowingly hold his wife hostage.”

Soon pitches were reduced to pithy phrases: "It's Die Hard on a bus”

Mega-pics, like the “my gun never runs out of bullets" films of Stallone and Schwarzegger, made more money outside of the US.

Same could be said for:

BMW paid $75 million in marketing costs to have James Bond drive their vehicles in three films in the 1990s. Studios exploited brand partnership by combing films and advertising turning commercials into trailers.

Films aimed at the family audience provided the most lucrative licenses. When Lion King debuted in 1994 Toys R Us was already selling 200 products associated with the film.

Merchandising grossed $1 billion in the first year.

Flashdance (1983) was the first Hollywood film to use a music video as a promotional tool.

MTV was being watched in 20 million homes. It was an advertisers dream, an endless stream of programming devoured by teens.

Films increased the use of pop songs and videos based on them were all over MTV. Having a video connected to your film became essential.

Studio executives had less job security, so betting on a mega-pics was safter and a sure way to keep your job if the film failed.

Studios wanted films that would:

Most female directors at this time were limited to family films and romantic comedies.

With advance funding from cassette presales, video companies like TROMA turned out low budget gross-out comedies and exploitation horror.

But there emerged independent productions which behaved like studio films.