Hollywood Meets Real World

Financial reality has set in on the movie industry on three fronts.

Movie Stars Meet Real World (Full article requires subscription; HT Techdirt) –

Hollywood stars are being forced to take pay cuts as the major studios are pulling the plug on big-budget projects.

With last year’s box office takings down 5.2 per cent and the cost of making movies ballooning because of added expenses for digital enhancement and global marketing, studios are refusing to meet stars’ financial demands. In addition, several high-profile films due to go into production have suddenly disappeared from view.

Movie Director Meets Real World (blog link used because the NY Post moves Page Six material quickly), as a critic hits his taste limit and walks out of “Clerks II” –

DON’T joke about women, donkeys and bestiality if you expect Joel Siegel to watch your movie. That’s what director Kevin Smith found out when the pun-loving “Good Morning America” film critic stormed out of a press screening of Smith’s “Clerks II,” which opens Friday - an act that’s sparked a vicious war of words between the two.

As you can see from his bio, Siegel, the only film critic who has ever received a Tony Award nomination (1982 for The First, the story of Jackie Robinson breaking baseball’s color barrier), is no slouch. I think it was a rude mistake for Siegel to announce to the entire screening audience during the filming that he was walking out, as the full Page Six report noted. But it’s telling when the subject matter and presentation of a major studio film are so disgusting that a respected mainstream film reviewer can’t take it any more.

And yes, this is a financial issue. Makers of tasteless comedies have assumed for years that they can pump out their bilge without a meaningful pushback from critics or filmgoers. It may very well be that “Clerks II” will benefit from the controversy, but the studios are on notice that not everyone is going to sit there and take it. Similar trashy films in the future won’t have the benefit of the high-profile Smith-Siegel mud-wrestling match.

In fact, critics and audiences might choose to sit somewhere else. One major studio looks like it has figured that out in the next item.

Movie Studio Meets Real World, as Disney decides to return to its roots –

Walt Disney (DIS) is restructuring its studio division to emphasize blockbuster franchise films over more adult fare, a move that will mean slashing 650 jobs worldwide, the company announced Tuesday.

Among those who will be losing their jobs is Disney’s longtime head of live-action production, Nina Jacobsen.

Disney veteran Oren Aviv, president of marketing and chief creative officer of The Walt Disney Studios, was promoted to president of production.

The restructuring will cut Disney’s film output from about 18 a year to about a dozen. Of those, about 10 will be released under the Walt Disney Pictures banner, a proven family friendly brand that includes the successful Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

Family films as the road to moviemaking success — Who knew?