Is piracy killing Hollywood? We may never know.

[Tyler]

The MPAA is one of the first to jump when it comes to how much money they're losing, but they sure are secretive when it comes to what percentage of revenue it is.

The MPAA claims they lose $3.5Billion(B) a year due to piracy, mostly overseas.  However, when asked how much they make on legitimate foreign sales, those numbers are "confidential."

I can see this both ways.  Sure, I guess they have no obligation to tell us how much they make on sales overseas, but it also gives a green light to slant statistics in their favor.

For instance, I could say, I pay $400 a day in gas, but refuse to state how far I drive.  If I drive a semi and am on the road 23 hours a day, it's not so bad.  But if I drive to and from Belleville, IL, that's outrageous.

Just my 2 (maybe 2.5 cents).

Full story http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/31/business/media/31dvd.html?oref=login">here (sorry about the registration)

[Bryan]

Wanna save money? Stop paying the actors multimillions of dollars.

[Tyler]

For real.

If $25Million wasn't the standard for Hollywood heavyweights, movies would cost much less, thus increasing profit margins (in theory).

I remember when 2 Fast 2 Furious came out? Vin Diesel wanted $20M to reprise his roll.  The producers decided they weren't going to pay him that.  Without him, they made the ENTIRE MOVIE for less it would have cost to have him in it.

Dumb and Dumberer was the same way.  Jim Carrey would have put the price tag on the movie so high that they wouldn't have been able to afford to make it.  Instead it was made for less than the cost of one actor being in it.

[Brad Nunnally]

I listen to talk radio alot, once a week Dave Glover, 97.1 FM, talks with a "Movie Guy". I can't remember his first name off hand. He was saying a couple of weeks ago that his contacts in hollywood have told him what the trend of the next generation movies are going to be. Most of them are going to be remakes of old movies or T.V. shows like Dukes of Hazard coming out later this year. It costs so much now to not only have to pay for high quality effects and the actors salaray that they are not willing to take the chance on new ideas. In some respects I can't wait till all "actors" are nothing but CG characters. We all know its coming. So, in the mean time I guess the only place we can hope to find orginal movies are the independent movie fairs.

Brad Ty Nunnally
CAOS Vice- Pres.

"Cinema is the most beautiful fraud in the world."
Jean-Luc Godard

[Tyler]

I can see that from both ways.  Part of me is sad that more and more actors in movies are become CG characters.  It's a dying artform that will probably become entirely extinct someday.

But, at the same time, the nerd in me is impressed with the technology behind all the effects, and can believe that although the old artform is dying, a new artform is being born.

[Brad Nunnally]

Yeah, me personally love watch some of the old black and white films everynow and then where it was the actors and actresses that made the movie, not the effects. 12 angry men is one of my favorites. I don't think CG charaters will ever completely replace actors because there is just somethings that computers can't do. (Not yet atleast.)

Brad Ty Nunnally
CAOS Vice-Pres.


"The movies we love and admire are to some extent a function of who we are when we see them."
Mary Schmich

[Tyler]

I agree.  One thing I love is a movie with NO special effects.  All real people, all real scenes, all the time.  Personally, I'm not a huge fan of very many old black and white movies.  I've seen my fair share, but most of them just seem not very good.  Of course there are exceptions, but that's just my take.

Movies with no special effects have to rely on acting and plot, something that quite a few awesome CGI movies seem to have forgotten by accident.

[Brad Nunnally]

The worse nitemare for hollywood would be if they take the quantity over quality. When the CG actors become more popular I can see that happeneing. If they can just use templates to make movies, then movies will just be flooding about of hollywood. I get shudders just thinking about it.

Brad Ty Nunnally
CAOS Vice-Pres.

[Tyler]

It'll be just like a function call

MakeMovie(length, rating, numCharacters, actingLevel);

[Brad Nunnally]

lol
[/quote]

tfizzle wrote:
It'll be just like a function call

MakeMovie(length, rating, numCharacters, actingLevel);