Do or Die Time in Hollywood? 

Bart’s article may be right. Even if he’s not right that it’s THIS summer, one of these years studios are going to spend 5 billion on production & marketing and get back only 2 billion in revenue. If they lose 2-3 billion on overblown “Summer blockbusters” then executive heads will roll. Jobs will be lost. Producers will try to figure out another better model. The truth is — the better model is already here and it’s called pure good storytelling aka drama. For some years it’s been a given that it’s very difficult to conceive of producing a high-budget movie without some kind of built-in audience, pre-existing fan base, or pre-sold audience awareness garnered by a previous existence as a TV show, children’s book or graphic novel. The good news for writers is that many of the more successful projects (critically, financially) do not necessarily come out of that giant blockbuster mold. None of the films nominated for Oscars in the categories of Best Picture, Screenplay, or Directing in 2006 (78th awards) are “blockbusters” — and in fact most didn’t even make much at the box office. Hecky, you can argue that even these Oscar contenders are still derived from pop culture sources: Brokeback Mountain (short story) History of Violence (comic book), and Munich (book/history). But none of these are the mega-hyped pop-culture machine of a “Spiderman 2” or the giant rehash of a “Poseidon.” Don’t get me wrong, I like big blockbusters because they can be fun to watch and often have the most popular actors we love in peril. but the “Summer blockbuster” is a trend set running in 1976 with the smash release of JAWS. Before that, nobody ever thought of selling a movie that way. But these pictures are so expensive that creative risk is out of fashion, with rare exceptions (Peter Jackson.) Studios and producers skittish about super-inflated budgets are developing an appreciation (financially, critically) for smaller, quirkier, more daring movies. A gross-out little horror movie with an in-your-face script like Eli Roth’s HOSTEL can be made for $4.8 million and earn $48 million. A nice 10X return. Or Paul Haggis’ CRASH made for $6.5 million and returning $53 million at the box office. And Haggis wrote CRASH based on notes he made one night when he couldn’t sleep, mulling over a car-jacking he’d experienced years earlier. So there’s always room for a creative screenwriter to do more — with less budget. Two screenwriters I know wrote one of the biggest sequels of the last decade. Did it do anything for them? Well, yes, they got a fat paycheck but the movie will not go on anyone’s “favorites list” and while it is a credit, it’s not a to-die-for one. Nothing to feel Oscar-proud of as a writer. Neither original, nor “good.” The message I think is this: (A) No idea is too crazy, small, or original. (B) a lot of ideas are too big, long, complicated, expensive, or familiar to be worthwhile sweating blood over.