Hollywood Moves Away From Middlebrow Movies | NYTimes.com

Hollywood Moves Away From Middlebrow Movies - NYTimes.com

Excerpts:

• The era of using marketing to trick consumers into seeing bad movies was drawing to a close.
  
  
• One by one, these expensive yet middle-of-the-road pictures delivered disappointing results or flat-out flopped. Meanwhile, gambles on original concepts paid off. "Inception," a complicated thriller about dream invaders, racked up more than $825 million in global ticket sales; "The Social Network" has so far delivered $192 million, a stellar result for a highbrow drama.
  
  
• As a result, studios are finally and fully conceding that moviegoers, armed with Facebook and other networking tools and concerned about escalating ticket prices, are holding them to higher standards. The product has to be good.
  
  
• Cynical cinema buffs will laugh: isn't Hollywood always blathering on about quality yet churning out dross? Perhaps. And there are always exceptions.
  
  
• Still, the message that the year sent about quality and originality is real enough that studios are tweaking their operating strategies. Sony Pictures Entertainment, the studio behind "The Social Network," is trying to bet more heavily on new directors with quirkier sensibilities.
  
  
• At Walt Disney Studios, which has traditionally not worried much about directorial artistry (at least in its live-action films), a new executive team has been busy attaching A-list filmmakers to broad blockbusters. David Fincher, who directed "The Social Network," is working on an adaptation of "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea." Guillermo del Toro, the "Pan's Labyrinth" auteur, is developing a new movie around Disneyland's Haunted Mansion ride.
  
  
• "Movie marketing can't settle for good anymore — it has to be great," said Dennis Rice, a consultant who has held senior positions at Miramax and Disney, noting that he was not speaking specifically about Fox.
  
  
• All of this talk about originality and quality is partly a studio response to the closing over the last two years of art-house divisions like Paramount Vantage and Miramax.
  
  
• At its core, the flight to classier blockbusters is also about insecurity: when in doubt, flee to quality. Studios are having a hard time reading what the audience wants. Animation is not as infallible as it has been. Stars are not delivering, as evidenced by "The Tourist" and "How Do You Know," a Reese Witherspoon film that moviegoers collectively ignored.
  
  The sequel strategy still seems to be paying — "Iron Man 2," "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" — until you notice flops like "Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore."
  
  
• North American attendance for 2010 is expected to drop about 4 percent, to 1.28 billion, according to Hollywood.com, which compiles box-office statistics. Revenue is projected to fall less than 1 percent, to $10.5 billion. It has been propped up by a 5 percent increase in the average ticket price, to $7.85, thanks to 3-D.
  
  
• "I believe there is a long-term danger to moviegoing if familiarity becomes too pervasive in the films we make," said Chris Meledandri, the founder of Illumination. "The industry has a responsibility to its audience and to itself to make films that allow people to have a sense of discovery in the cinema."

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