TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/120991/1209201.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 7.2 KB | 156 lines

                                                                                BUSINESS, Page 56

MOTION PICTURES

Reversal of Fortune


Thanks to three winners, Hollywood averts disaster. But will
moguls forget the lessons they preached?

By GUY GARCIA -- With reporting by Patrick E. Cole/Los Angeles


    Has Hollywood lost its golden touch? Until a week ago, that
was the question the film industry was asking itself. Even the
most gung-ho moguls were starting to agree that after years of
escalating budgets and swelling egos, collective comeuppance was
finally at hand. THE FRIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS screamed Variety.
"Is this merely the worst panic in 10 years or the worst in 25?"
asked screenwriter and columnist William Goldman. Hollywood found
itself mired in a slump that appeared to have grown worse during
the fall when such big-budget movies as Disney's Billy Bathgate
and Paramount's Frankie and Johnny turned out to be
disappointments.

    No longer did Hollywood look recession-proof. Moviegoers
stayed away with a vengeance, spurning $7 ticket prices as an
unaffordable luxury. The scare led to a flurry of resolutions
and confessions by Hollywood's powerful -- all of which was
perhaps more entertaining than the pictures showing in movie
theaters, at least for those outside the industry. Suddenly many
moguls were swearing off big budgets and promising to go back
to basics: they would pay more attention to good stories, put
romance back in the movies, abandon tired old formulas.

    What a difference a weekend makes. While it is too early
to tell whether the holiday season will bring a complete
reversal of fortune, studio executives are dancing in their
suites at the sudden success of three movies that represent the
industry at its old-fashioned commercial best. The Addams
Family, Paramount's gothic comedy based on the New Yorker
cartoons, took in $24.2 million in its first three days of
release, the biggest fall-season opening in history. Cape Fear,
the Martin Scorsese remake of the 1962 thriller, racked up $10
million in its second weekend, for a total of $24.3 million. And
Disney's cartoon fable Beauty and the Beast earned $9.6 million
in its first weekend of wide release -- the best such showing
ever for a new animated film. All told, the top 10 movies took
in $55 million, compared with $51 million during the same
weekend last year.

    The studios are hoping that November's box-office
breakthrough will set the stage for the success of major films
scheduled to open in the next few weeks, particularly Tri-Star's
Hook, a Peter Pan fantasy directed by Stephen Spielberg and
starring Robin Williams. Among others: Tri-Star's Bugsy, a
gangster epic featuring Warren Beatty; Warner Bros.' JFK, a
conspiracy story directed by Oliver Stone; and Columbia's Prince
of Tides, a drama based on the Pat Conroy novel.

    Some studio executives are worrying that in the sudden
euphoria, Hollywood might forget the promises it made during the
preceding scary months. "I think this is going to be the biggest
Christmas ever, but that won't address Hollywood's problem,"
says Thomas Pollock, chairman of MCA Motion Picture Group, which
operates Universal Studios. "The problem is not the box office.
There are more good movies than there have been in a while. I
think movies cost too much to make and they cost too much to
market."

    When films get too expensive, they cannot afford to fail,
which means that moviemakers will produce safe -- and mediocre
-- fare. Production costs have increased 185% over the past
decade; last year alone, they rose 14% to $26.8 million per
film, while corresponding print and advertising expenses went
up 26% to $11.6 million. Anxiety began building in Hollywood
last summer when box-office revenues declined 6% from the
previous year, a faster contraction than that of the economy as
a whole. According to some estimates, even if five of the 15
major releases slated to open in the next few weeks become bona
fide hits, 1991 grosses will remain 6% to 8% under 1990's total
of $5.2 billion.

    The sad statistics inspired Hollywood to do the kind of
soul searching it had long avoided. The reason for the slump
was "bad pictures," says Mitchell Goldman, president of New
Line Cinema Distribution. "I can't believe the recession or
television or even the Clarence Thomas hearings contributing to
that kind of dent in box-office receipts," he contends. "I see
a decline on all levels," observes Roger Beaumont, an
independent producer and former Columbia executive. "Today the
craftsmen are superior. They are masters of tricks. The
romantics are all gone. Batman was the most successful movie,
and it was awful."

    Beaumont puts the blame for Hollywood's crisis of
creativity partly on a lack of vision and experience among the
executives who control the studios. As long as lawyers and
accountants are in control, he contends, Hollywood will never
again take the leaps of imagination required to create great
popular art. "If the studios start becoming passionate about a
project, they will make better movies," says an agent who
represents several big stars. "Instead of saying, `I want to
make this movie with Kevin Costner,' they should ask the writer
or producer, `What are you passionate about?'"

    Yet Hollywood's Catch-22 is that as soon as creative
genius shows its face, it asks for $10 million or a share of the
gross, or both. The fierce competition for top talent has
encouraged bankable stars and directors to demand stratospheric
salaries and perks. Some studio bosses have dared to say no in
the past few months, pointing to the box-office slump as an
excuse. "Studios are growing very, very tough. It's harder to
make the deals that we did three years ago," entertainment
lawyer Tom Hansen told the Los Angeles Times.

    Some studio chiefs maintain that cutting production costs
is only part of the solution. For Hollywood to get back on its
feet, they say, it must not only watch the bottom line but
develop ambitious projects with well-known stars and
crowd-pleasing special effects. "Will I say no to a $40 million
picture?" says Universal's Pollock, who generally will not let
the studio make any films with budgets of more than $30 million.
"It depends. If you say only `make cheap movies,' you're
limiting yourself. The movies that did well this year were two
of the most expensive ones, Terminator 2 and Robin Hood."

    Betting that Pollock is right, Universal is bankrolling
Spielberg's Jurassic Park, a sci-fi epic based on the Michael
Crichton novel. While the budget is rumored to be well over $50
million, the studio expects to reap side benefits: the movie
could become the basis for a Universal theme-park attraction,
for example.

    In the meantime, Hollywood is pinning its hopes for a
revival on its unusually rich crop of big-budget Christmas
movies. "Of course, if those films don't live up to their
promise," warns Brian Grazer of Imagine Films, "the industry
could be in even worse shape going into 1992." The greater
danger is that a spate of expensive hits will tempt the industry
to revert to its high-cost habits of old, triggering a painful
sequel to the fright before Christmas.