If you’re the type of person who felt inclined to watch the Academy Awards last night, I hope you enjoyed the show while it’s still around. I tuned in for about an hour — mostly to see how Ellen Degeneres was handling her job as host — and found that I could predict about every award based on the politics and the pre-show scuttlebutt alone. 
In fact, I correctly predicted the winner of every major award — including Best Picture — despite the fact that just about the only film nominated in any category that I saw this year was Little Miss Sunshine.
This speaks less to my amazing prophetic powers than the rote predictability of the Oscars themselves. They’re growing less and less relevant, and it’s only a matter of time before they become so irrelevant that people stop paying attention. I give the Oscars fifteen more years.
In fact, in case you’ve missed this decade altogether, it’s no secret that the entire Hollywood movie industry is dying. Why? Actually, the reasons are well-documented in any number of places, but I’ll repeat them here because I’m just that way.
- High definition television and DVDs. The obvious scapegoats. The movie theater chains made a huge tactical mistake in the ’80s and ’90s by putting an emphasis on building lots of multiplexes with smaller screens. The end result is that I’ve got a high-def TV and Surround Sound setup in my basement that rivals many of these lower end venues. It’s certainly good enough for your garden variety comedy/drama, and does a damn fine job on the mega-blockbusters too.
- Actors’ and directors’ exorbitant salaries. It’s an interesting phenomenon that now Hollywood’s profits are teetering, the A-list stars are commanding higher prices than ever. Why? Well, the less certain you are of making back your investment on a film, the more you’re willing to spend to make sure you can get that return. Ben Stiller might not bring in nearly as large a crowd as, say, Robin Williams did back in the day, but at least he’s still bringing in a crowd.
- Hollywood regulation. Robert Rodriguez wanted to give artist Frank Miller co-directing credit for his (brilliant, bloody) Sin City. The Director’s Guild of America wouldn’t let him. So, figured Rodriguez, who the fuck needs to be part of the Director’s Guild of America? He quit. It’s this kind of rigid bullshit that causes A-listers like George Lucas, Peter Jackson, and James Cameron to snub the system and work outside it. Look for more defectors from the Hollywood unions as their relevance plummets.
- A globalized workforce. Similarly, who wants to deal with expensive union workers in Hollywood when you can hire some non-union worker in Fargo, or Tallahassee, or Mexico City for that matter? The spotlight creative jobs in Hollywood will stay local (for a while, at least), but filmmakers will discover that you can outsource almost everything else. Why pay x for postproduction in Hollywood when you can get the same quality for 10% of x in Bollywood?
- Lack of edge. More multiplexes + higher salaries + union costs = more expensive films. What happens to movie studios when they need to get more and more butts in the seats to make back their investment? The same thing that happens to U.S. Presidential candidates once they make it through the primary season — they go scurrying for the middle. The studios and the movie chains start falling back on “sure bets” — sequels, popular franchises, formulaic comedies with bankable stars. Quality (which was never all that high to begin with) dips precipitously.
- Moore’s Law (i.e. more powerful computers). Films that once required a film lab, a team of special effects gurus, and a roomful of dedicated Silicon Graphics workstations are becoming the province of some dude with a $500 camcorder and a Mac. There’s only so much gee-whiz spectacle and panache you can fit into a 90-minute film, and Moore’s Law says that desktop computers will be hitting that threshold in a few years.
- New methods of distribution. In the old world, the only way to get your movie seen was to worm your way into the slippery network of nationwide movie chains, most of which won’t screen small, independently produced films. Festivals like Sundance made some headway in the ’90s opening film up to the smaller fish, but again it’s computer technology that’s made the difference in distribution. Why put up with the hassle of going through the traditional channels to distribute your movie when you can distribute it on the Internet via BitTorrent or YouTube, or just sell the DVD on your website?
- New methods of marketing. Just like you couldn’t get your film seen in the olden days without studio distribution, you couldn’t get your film heard about without studio marketing money and big media tie-ins too. That’s going away. Good-bye, massive Burger King promotions — hello MySpace guerrilla marketing.
- An unreasonable obsession with piracy that keeps the studios from trying new technologies. The MPAA has been gearing up its anti-piracy machinery in preparation for a similar onslaught that the music industry experienced. And like with the RIAA and the music biz, the studios will never win by threatening to sue the pants off their audience.
So what does a dying Hollywood movie studio industry mean for the movies themselves? Well, just because the movie industry we’ve grown up with for the past hundred years is dying doesn’t mean the movies are going away. You might be watching less of them at a cramped, overpriced, greasy theater next to the mall and watching more at home. You’ll see increasing market segmentation, more international faces, and the death of the Big, Loud, Summer Blockbuster That Pleases Everybody. You’ll see talents outside Southern California given a chance to bloom. You’ll see Hollywood itself change from the film industry’s Mecca to its mausoleum, kind of like Detroit and the auto industry.
How can Hollywood possibly reverse these trends? A few ideas:
- Interactivity. Exactly how this would work I’m not certain. Perhaps a system where you can vote for the outcome of the film in progress, a la “American Idol.” The crowd wants our protagonist to get the girl in the end? He gets the girl. They’d rather kill off the miserable fucker? He dies. (The big hurdle here is that such interactivity is likely to be expensive and much easier accomplished at home anyway.)
- Elimination of the theater release window. Hollywood is clinging desperately to the idea that major films should be given an exclusive window of opportunity to lure viewers into the theaters. Here’s a better idea — give away copies of the DVD with a ticket to the film. I guarantee if you don’t have to make that choice between paying $12 a ticket for a film you only see once, and waiting six months to pay $15 for a film you can view over and over again, you’ll spend more time in the theaters.
- Serials. We’ve gotten used to the idea that every film should be an “event.” Why not take the long-term view and build an audience gradually over time with serials that release new episodes, say, three or four times a year? Keep the production costs low and give discounts for those who buy tickets to the whole run of the series.
- One word: IMAX. You’re unlikely to be able to achieve the experience of watching an IMAX film at home until we’ve got the whole immersive virtual environment thing down, and who knows when that will be. So start putting some serious money into building IMAX theaters and financing IMAX films. I’m unclear exactly how the business model for an IMAX theater works or who owns IMAX in the first place, but Hollywood needs more IMAX theaters next to the mall and fewer multiplexes.
And if the movies do crash and burn, you could always stay home and read a book. Just a suggestion.