New York in Shock While LA Rocks!
While New Yorkers suffered minor heart attacks on Friday, as banking stocks plunged to levels not seen since 1997 around 2pm - before turning around and climbing back up, LA, so friends told me, was basking in sunlight - and its own glory.
In fact even as he watched Bank of America's share-price nosedive on TV, one studio head blithely told me, Hollywood doesn't want to know about the recession, the market fluctuations and wars in the Middle East: "No one wants to go to the movies to be reminded of anything like that. They want comedy, they want escapism." Scriptwriters, take note.
Despite the reported decline in DVD sales affecting the major media companies' bottom lines, the movie industry, unlike the banking industry, is actually booming. Theater attendance figures are up. (Just not for the mostly bleak films that have been nominated for Oscars).
So therefore don't expect Hollywood tomorrow to reflect the mood on the East Coast. Or across the rest of America. It won't. Yes, some of the parties are a bit scaled back and ABC's broadcast will have some weak advertising figures. But, for the most part, Hollywood intends on producing the glitziest Oscar telecast in years. (Spoiler alert: there will be up to four celebrity winners presenting the big awards - yes four!) And host Hugh Jackman intends to sing and dance his way through a show that reminds us of the illusion that Hollywood is really all about.
And in case teenagers are already yawning they can't be bothered to stay up to see whether some overweight eccentric-dog-loving actor named Mickey Rourke wins, well here's some news for them: they should stay up for presenter...Rob Pattinson. Yes, Twilight's pale Rob Pattinson - a person largely unknown to all those viewers who know who Mickey Rourke is. In other words ABC hopes to cover a very broad demographic.
And all the self-congratulation we expect of tomorrow, isn't necessarily out of place.
Yes, the decline in DVD sales will hurt studios in the short term, but Michael Burns, chief of Lions Gate says that in the long run, their decline will be a boon. "Shipping and packaging is expensive" he says. "How much more cost-efficient to be able to get people to buy content simply by pushing a button."
For the next year or so Hollywood will face the same fiscal restraints as the rest of us. Fewer movies will get made. And those that get made will be carefully selected and priced - which actually benefit all of us.
Gone are the days when anyone thinks it's a good idea to let Jerry "Blockbuster" Bruckheimer anywhere near a creampuff of a film called Confessions of a Shopaholic made for an astronomical $80 million - when the similarly-frothy but infinitely superior Devil Wears Prada was made for only $35 million. Mistakes like that will cost jobs.
So too, egomaniacal actors who want to be paid upfront and refuse to take a percentage of the film's profits as payment may find themselves "resting". And studios need to brace for a summer which will see reduced returns overseas on account of the dollar's strength compared to other currency weaknesses.
But the line-ups ahead are very promising. Warner Brothers is bringing us The Watchmen, Harry Potter and Terminator. Dreamworks has GI Joe and Transformers.
So, Sunday night LA is prepared to party like there's nothing wrong with the world. And that's because, over there, relatively speaking, there isn't.
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EVERYONE is deeply concerned about the financial crisis, including--and perhaps especially--Californians. Are you saying there shouldn't be an Oscars ceremony this year? You do know that it provides jobs for many, many people--caterers, waiters, drivers, florists, car parkers, dish washers, and on and on. In these terribly uncertain times it is, to many of us, a welcome oasis, one night of fantasy before opening the newspaper Monday morning to read of yet more job losses.
This isn't even about LA much LESS California, hell it's not even about Hollywood, but go ahead lady your numerically infinitesimal coterie of self referential and self-absorbed schmucks aren't paying any attention to a drought that will actually limit lawn watering in Beverly Hills before it's all over, and maybe even refilling swimming pools with "infinity edges" looking out over the Malibu coast ( the Hamptons of "Hollllllllllllllllywood!!!!!" ) barbarians at the gate anyone? as Mexican drug wars spill across the border and ..... and.... and.... and....
Do you not realize how many Californians in the film industry are transplanted New Yorkers, including their agents attorneys and publicists? Give me a break with the "La- La land is Airhead- land" BS, already.
Only 1/4 of 1% in Hollywood is successful; the rest can't afford to live here, anymore.
Arnold has so screwed with our income taxes that we are being asked to help him recover from his own budgetary failure, and pay triple on auto registration, new car sales, homes, and a host of other goods and services. We will pay an average of $1000 more on our taxes, virtually wiping out Washington's economic recovery. He has taken Obama's money and stolen it from us. It's like a parent receiving child support, yet their kids are hungry and neglected.
Who gets a tax break? Studio owners. Isn't that something? The people who hope the actors don't do what the underpaid writers did are getting a share of the loot ,and you can bet your Indie they won't share their toys, either. So don't blame ALL of Hollywood, or LA, for God's sakes, lady. That's a generalized distortion if ever there was one. Most of us live month to month and no state has been harder hit by the mortgage crisis than this one. We have way more homeless folks than successful stars.
California has a massive budget problem, a massive water problem and a massive foreclosure problem, but nothing is wrong?
This is just the kind of nonsense that got us into this mess. we denied a looming problem, went on as if the good times would last for ever despite all evidence to the contrary.
The story was about L.A. not California as a whole. I agree it is poorly titled, but it is simply a vignette on the film industry.
At least part of the decline in DVD sales is due to people preferring to wait until they can shift to Blu-Ray. Nobody wants to spend a lot on a format whose days are numbered.
The Internet is killing DVD sales. There will be a new paradigm, and those who embrace it will prosper. Everyone else will eat our dust.
Well Ms Ward, I am glad your friends are all secure in their financial futures,as for the millions of others here in California the future is not as bright.
I know a single person who is living in New York, and he is doing really well, so look forward to my new article" Everyone in New York is Doing Great".
Exactly! I was surprised by the arrogance of this artlcle in purporting that people in LA are not suffering. I do not live in California but even a quick glance at the news tells me that LA is in financial meltdown like everyone else. They are also facing severe water shortages. I have no doubt that America will pull thru this depression even if it takes years. However, our greatest strength is in pulling together as a nation not standing on one side of the country and saying that the other side has no problems.
NY LOVES to think it is the center of everything. We cannot even have a world financial crisis without some loud mouth clown from the East Coast proffering opinions about what goes on in the West. I say, push the Island into the sea and be done with it.
co-sign ... from L.A.
First of all, people in LA are panicking.
Second of all, while I may not be too pessimistic about the film business, the fact that WB and DW are rolling out: "... The Watchmen, Harry Potter and Terminator. ... GI Joe and Transformers" is hardly reassuring, imo. I think those movies will have good, but not great, BO showings.
Believe me, even in areas that are infamous for having stuff filmed, there's a whole LOT of people in the industry already scared since they're not getting as many jobs as they used to.
On top of that, people can't afford to go to movies - especially the teenagers that most movies seem to be aimed at. I'm willing to bet that the box offices won't do that well for any of the aforementioned movies (as in not even close to "good" box office showings), because the teens they're advertising to will just go on the internet instead and watch the movies online for free.
California has been one of the hardest hit by the mortgage crisis and property values have sunk. Much more than home values on the east coast have I believe.
As far as what movies they make, there are all kinds. Happy and depressing. Nothing about this crisis has changed that.
It seems to me that Hollywood movies are the United State's biggest export
Its the only product that we make better then the rest of the world
And California is the country's most productive state. New York doesn't really make anything. They just move money around on computer screens
Wait'll they turn the water off.
Then we'll all be living in Urinetown.
DOH!
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