The new line is this: Wall Street, real estate, the art market — all of those other supposedly stable investment areas — are now such a mess that Hollywood is one of the safer places you can park money.
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Scene Stealer - Suddenly, Hollywood Seems a Conservative Investment - NYTimes.com
Recessions are good for the movie industry. And with the switch to RealD movies, I’m excited for the future of cinema.
If only they could lower the price of a ticket and encourage people to flock back to the theater… I think they might take a huge hit at first, but if they market it right, we can get back to the times when people went to the theater, if not every day, then at least twice a week. Perhaps a stagnated price structure based on popularity like in Japan… popular movies can be priced higher than unpopular movies. Yes, this would completely mess up the box office figures and popular movies like Batman might become way more expensive and raise their profits exponentially while smaller movies suffer. But there is something more than just profit (although of course profit is the primary interest.) If the choice is between 10 million people seeing a movie at 12 dollars, and 20 million people seeing it at 6, I think in general the filmmakers and studios would be happier with the second.
Edit: Rereading this I realize I completely disagree with this statement. The stagnated price structure in Japan is terrible making movies unreasonably expensive, and making popular video games insanely pricey while leaving the unpopular games just as expensive as in other countries. Also the logic about having double the amount of people if the price was halved is really faulty considering there are a variety of other reasons people do not go to theaters anymore. I do wish it was cheaper and people did go more often, but perhaps 3-D movies are the only way to raise attendance.
