TIME: Almanac 1995

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<text id=91TT2727> <title> Dec. 09, 1991: Motion Pictures:Reversal of Fortune </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1991 Dec. 09, 1991 One Nation, Under God </history> <article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> BUSINESS, Page 56 MOTION PICTURES Reversal of Fortune </hdr><body> 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. </body></article> </text>