Word: hollywood
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...when the big franchises (Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, Spider-Man, Shrek, Harry Potter) were really cooking. Inflation explains the variance between dollars earned and tickets sold. Ticket prices keep rising; and with Avatar charging road-show fees and getting away with it, look for Hollywood to keep following the Starbucks model: persuade the customers that your product is premium, and charge them for the privilege of buying...
...which were the big losers? Expensive duds are harder to calibrate; for example, a film may disappoint Stateside and be a hit abroad. Still, it's a Hollywood rule that movies with $100 million-plus budgets should at least earn as much at the domestic box office as they cost to produce. If they didn't in 2009, they made our top-of-the-flops list. The underperforming nine: Terminator Salvation, Disney's A Christmas Carol, G.I. Joe, Angels & Demons, Watchmen, The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, Public Enemies, Land of the Lost and Where the Wild Things...
...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 salaries - star wattage - don't always metamorphose into box-office heat...
...price that Avatar is getting in some theaters for its 3-D IMAX version. With the annual domestic box office topping $10 billion for the first time, and a solid week of vacation time for kids and adults coming up, business couldn't be more robust for Hollywood. To the rest of the U.S. economy, the moguls say: What recession...
...Hollywood defends ROMAN POLANSKI...