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The end of teen movie schlock?
2005.07.27 — Business | Entertainment | Movies | Movie Analysis | by Andrew Cole
Not Dude, Where's My Car? [official site] |
Hollywood has been making movies to attract teens to the theater and to the video store, where they rent lots of movies. But with the rise of DVD, film-lovers are buying films more often than renting them, and it's adults doing the buying. This is likely to have a profound effect on the movies that get made.
In the golden age of Hollywood (the 1930s to 1950s), film-goers tended to be young adults, often women, and often looking for drama rather than adventure. Films back then were more, well, soapy... like a soap opera.
But with the rise of teen culture and especially the rise of home video, Hollywood discovered the buying power of teenagers, who spend in small amounts but often. That propelled the video rental market to incredible heights. (Well, that and porn, of course.)
[Teens] propelled the video rental market to incredible heights. (Well, that and porn, of course.) |
As Edward Jay Epstein explains in a piece on movie advertising, video stores based their movie purchases on opening week box office, which is the most likely indicator of customer demand for rentals. As a result, Hollywood has made films mainly for the mass of young, low-income movie-lovers likely to be big renters.
But the chain store retailers like Wal-Mart and Best Buy base their purchases on a film's power to draw in the store's target customers—a very different demographic. They're using sale pricing on DVDs as a means of attracting customers who may also buy digital cameras, HDTVs, computers, and other appliances. That means that Hollywood has to begin making films geared toward those consumers... affluent, young, suburban technophiles, rather than teens and low-income film-renters.
Imagine less video game drek, horror schlock, and slapstick! |
That fact could create a shift in the film-making world. Imagine more mature dramas, character-based comedies, and good acting! Imagine less video game drek, horror schlock, and slapstick!
On the other hand, the international market is still going to be most open to the same big-budget, low-brow action-adventure it has been for twenty years or more, simply because mature drama doesn't translate well. (Literally. It's just hard to translate fast-talking, culture-centric Curb Your Enthusiasm-style dialog).
The result could a new golden age of film, with high-quality dramas and comedies as well as great blockbuster adventures, with less of the worst and more of the best... (if DVD doesn't kill off theatrical screenings altogether).
Cross your fingers... or, better yet, shop at Best Buy.
f e e d b a c k
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