Word: budgets
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Dates: during 2010-2010
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...grossers. The lessons: prestige directors get to spend more money, and, in dollar terms, their "personal vision" can look astigmatic to the mass audience. (And great to critics, who put the Mann and Jonze films on their 10-best lists, and would rightly fret if big-budget assignments went only to hacks.) Consider, too, that none of the first seven of the top 10 grossers had traditional stars; but the loser list featured the likes of Jim Carrey, Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, John Travolta, Johnny Depp and Will Ferrell. The lesson, which Hollywood should have learned by now: $20 million...
...down the movie money chain, that rule applies. In medium-budget films, stars and directors with hits in their past can take disastrous oversteps. In 2009, reliable comedy stars such as Adam Sandler and Jack Black headlined fairly pricey pictures (Funny People, Year One) that went doggo; Sacha Baron Cohen tried to parlay his Borat success with the more acerbic Brüno, and what did the audience do? Pranked him. Ferrell's Land of the Lost cost $100 million to produce, and took in less than half that domestically...
...Movies Have to Be Pringles? That's the gambler's fun of the movie business. Roll the dice once and you get a Paranormal Activity ($15,000 budget, $150 million worldwide gross). And if you've really got the nerve, follow the example of Roland Emmerich, the master of cheesy disaster movies (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow). He offered studios a take-it-or-leave-it deal on his world-ending 2012. Some turned it down; Sony bought it, on Emmerich's terms. In less than two months the picture has earned nearly $750 million worldwide, and Emmerich stands...