Now is a horrible time to be the head of a movie studio. But it’s a great time to be a conservative looking to enter the movie market. All it requires for conservatives to make a serious play for the culture is a level of seriousness about the culture.
Lynda Obst, producer of blockbusters including Sleepless in Seattle and The Fisher King, says Hollywood is in serious trouble. In her new book, Sleepless in Hollywood, Obst says that thanks to the crash and burn of the DVD industry, the entire Hollywood profit model is at risk. She says an industry leader told her, “The DVD business represented fifty percent of their profits … Fifty percent. The decline of that business means their entire profit could come down between forty and fifty percent for new movies.”
Major actors and actresses are seeing their pay slashed. Directors and writers are watching jobs go down the tubes. One studio head told Obst about “famous players who regularly came to [a studio head] begging for favors – a picture, a handout, anything.” According to the studio head, these stars
“have extremely high overheads … They have multiple houses, wives, and families to support. They’ve made movies for years, they were on top of the world and had no reason to think it would end. And then suddenly it did. They’ve gone through whatever savings they had. They can’t sell their real estate … It’s a tragedy.”
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