Economic Fallout Goes to Hollywood

Looks like the money crunch is hitting everyone. Even Hollywood.

Latino Review says:

Disney took advantage of the seasonal news lull last week to quietly slip out news that it has decided to withdraw from producing The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the next in the Chronicles of Narnia series of films based on the children’s books by C S Lewis.

Blaming “budgetary considerations” for its decision, the studio said it would not renew an option to co-finance the $200m (£137m) movie because the worsening economic climate has forced it to become more selective about the number of films it produces.

I had thought that Prince Caspian did well enough, but maybe not so great to throw money at another one. Especially with the green turning a lighter tone lately.

The article even says that Harry Potter is not immune to the slashing of movies. Apparently with JK Rowling not driving the rabid fanbase in anticipation of the next book, the studios are worried that profits will slim.

I think it would be a shame for ongoing series with existing source material to draw from to be cut short. I hope Harry Potter gets its full run.

And to think that they would be hesitant to make sequels in fear of losing money and instead we are letting them pour money into Meet the Spartans. Know why? Because they make money.

ITS YOUR FAULT!! You people who go see dumb spoof movies are killing the movie economy!!

Watch Responsibly.

Comment with Facebook

6 thoughts on “Economic Fallout Goes to Hollywood

  1. The tightening of the purse should also see alot of these so called high profile films that turn out crap to not even be considered. Hooray for Hollywood. It has been a dire decade and a half of film.

  2. They don’t know how to budget things at all. For every stupid movie that gets the green light and actually makes money, they release some POS movie that bombs while movies that might do well (like the third Narnia film) get the ax.

    I never understood why they feel the need to over spend on making these movies. I don’t get the logic.

  3. Their Harry Potter logic escapes me. Those movies have been running on their own power for the last few sequels.

    As for Dawn Treader, I’m sure they’ll consider going back to it once they figure out that it shouldn’t cost $200M to make. Even “Return of the King” was made for $94M. I’d really like to know how studios budget things.

  4. Prince Caspian lost almost 50% of the worldwide box office compared to the first one, and only made double it’s production budget internationally (~$400M vs. $200M budget). With fear that they would make even less at the box office with a third, I can understand Disney backing out of a third one. The last Harry Potter on the other hand made the second most money of any of the 5, and made over 6 times its production budget (over $900M vs. $150M budget). I think the franchise is safe, even if the economy causes them to lose some of their box office. Half or 2/3 or whatever of a ridiculous profit is still a pretty ridiculous profit.

Leave a Reply