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T H U R S D AY, O C TO B E R 0 5 , 2 0 0 6George Lucas Proves (Again) He Knows NothingAbout MoviesBig budget Hollywood movies are dead, insists George Lucas. He saysspending $100 million on a movie and another $100 million onmarketing is crazy. For the same amount of money, Lucas says he couldmake 50-60 movies (and apparently not market them). Volume,volume, volume, he insists.That's great. He could indeed make 50 low-budget movies for $4million each and surely some of them would click. He'd probably endup like France, where the government bankrolls lots of tiny movies thatnobody wants to see. Invariably, a FEW of them would gain a wideraudience. But that has nothing to do with making blockbusters. Anygood studio should include a mix of smaller films with big stars (called"independent" films) and another label for releasing truly small,independent films (called "award winners"). Some of them willinvariably break out. But they won't fill the role of blockbusters like"Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" or "Spiderman 2" or even"Superman Returns," which -- good or bad -- pack people in.And how does Lucas conceivably justify the ludicrous claim thatAmericans are abandoning the movie-going habit for good. No, moviesdon't dominate the landscape the way they did in the Thirties, but byevery conceivable measure, movies are FAR bigger than they have beenfor at least 70 years. Tons of people go to the movies. And in the last 10years, everyone has learned the joys of owning a library of movies thesame way they've always had a library of music and books. More peopleown movies than ever in history. More people have access to moremovies than ever in history. More movies are watched than ever inhistory. FAR more money is spent on movies than ever before inhistory.Just from 1980 to today, you can see movies exploding from a roughly$10 billion industry to easily a $50 billion industry. In the US alone.And we still don't have enough screens in China and India and Russia.Meaning there's a lot of room to grow. He says TV is the way to go?Guess what? A season of a major network TV show now costs $65million and counting -- the pilot for "Lost" cost $14 million and manyNext Blog»sal1mineo@hotmail.comSEARCH BLOG FLAG BLOGFOLLOW BLOGP O P S U R F I N G . C O MS U R F I N G T H E WAV E S O F P O P U L A R C U LT U R EB Y M I C H A E L G I LT Z & F R I E N D SPOPSURFING.COM: George Lucas Proves (Again) He Know...http://popsurfing.blogspot.com/2006/10/george-lucas-proves-ag...
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