An article on contactmusic.com displayed the shifting landscape of the movie market in 6 words, movies give way to tv shows. The top dvd seller for the week wasn’t the latest Blockbuster to come to dvd but ABC’s Lost The Complete Sixth Season.
Although there have been some Blockbuster surprises, Inception comes to mind, much of the material that has come from Hollywood lately has been pretty stale, reworked plots.
There has been a pretty solid move from even A level actors to be willing to work in TV as there has never been before. In the past it was always the stomping grounds of B level actors looking for a boost in their acting career, but it has now become its own career path for a professional actor.
As theater ticket sales fall , rental stores fail , and pirating decimating the last bastion of online dvd sales, it appears that TV is about the only place for actors to go in the future. The one bright sector of the industry is sales of discount dvds, but this low profit sector doesn’t drive much industry.
When the history of Hollywood is written, it may be that the aptly named Titanic was the peak of its influence and glory in Post Cold War American society. While the film itself cost tens of millions to make, it raked in 10 times or more in the theater alone, and went on to continue its path of through dvd sales and rentals. It is still asking and getting near original purchase price, and having no problem staying off the discount dvds list.
Such a behemoth would never be considered in this current ambiance, and with good reason, it wouldn’t make much profit.
But even with such a shift in the media market, essentially all that is changing is the format that a plot line is delivered. The movie format is more or less 80-200 minutes long, uninteruped plot line, while the “TV” format is between 30-60 minutes of interupted plot line put into a serial form that together form seasons. Of course even with all my talk of the “death of Hollywood” many TV programs are created in Hollywood as well.
So what’s changing in the world of dvds? How people purchase them, or more to the point virtually only buy discount dvds online, and how many series you have to buy before you finally get to the end of the story .