Thursday, March 02, 2006
A Wise Old Story Artist Says:
"Animation producers aren't going to keep pulling aces off the bottom of the deck. "Hoodwinked" made money, but look at "Doogal." The picture went nowhere. These smart aleck, cheapjack ripoffs of "Shrek" just hit the wall after awhile..."
(Hulett listening to a story artist at DreamWorks...and embroidering just a teensy bit.)
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2 comments:
Too true. When DW was going public we had a studio-wide meeting and Jeffrey showed a slide that broke out the money generated by the studio's animated films. For the average DW 'toon, a quarter of the income came from worldwide box office, and a quarter from ancillary stuff (TV rights, pay TV, licensing, etc.). And about 50% was DVD/video.
I was a little surprised. Now, that's gross money, not profit, but I still found it dramatic. That meant the north American box office (what we all tend to track) might amount to only one dollar in 8 that a major film generates. Pretty amazing.
DVDs have become THE big drivers in movie revenues. Theatrical box office often acts as a mere platform for the DVD release.
DVDs have made a huge difference in animation. In television, "Family Guy" returned to production (and employment for lots of artists) because of DVD sales.
"The Simpsons" are HUGE in DVD -- each season that's released selling more than the one before. (Rupert Murdoch is quoted in a recent Hollywood Reporter interview as saying "bless 'The Simpsons'". Rupe might be conservative, but if a liberally biased show makes him truckloads of money, then hey! Rupert is liberally-biased.)
The recently touted "decline" in "home video" is somewhat deceptive. DVD sales are still going up, but VHS sales are cratering. So collectively, there's been a flattening out of growth.
It's not for nothing that the conglomerates fight the guilds and unions as labor tries to get a bigger slice of royalites from the DVD pie.
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