Fluffeh writes:
The newest figures show that the industry remains healthy despite continued and over-simplistic rhetoric by the MPAA that the sky is falling for the movie business due to the effects of online piracy. In 2011 the MPAA released figures claiming $58bn in losses due to piracy. These figures were later discredited and appear to have been removed from the MPAA website.
The US/Canada box office for 2013 was $10.9 billion (up just 1 percent from 2012), this was led by blockbusters like The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Iron Man 3. The meteoric rise of the international marketplace has driven the industry's massive profitability, which now constitutes 70 percent of all revenue, up from 64 percent in 2009. This brings industry revenue up to $35.9bn for last year.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Scareb on Thursday March 27 2014, @11:59PM
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday March 28 2014, @12:19AM
Full article for subscribers only. So, is that "legit," or is it of dubious legal status? A relevant quote from your article:
" Yet we still can't see whatever we want, whenever we want it. To do that, we'd have to become criminals. "
Remember being with a girl I was shagging, at her place, thumbing through her T.V. which had both Netflix and Amazon on demand. She asked me to pick something I liked, so Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me it was. What, they only have the episodes from the series? Let's try Amazon...what, only available on Amazon Prime? Really, charging me more for more obscure content that they already had, as if I were ofsetting their potential legal bills by purchasing bestiality or crush videos? Okay, how about Pink Flamingos. No, not on either one. Well, shit, no Troma movies either. Okay, gotta keep lookin...
[ . . . ]
*sigh* Well, the only choices left are Spiderman 3 or Transformers 5. *sigh*
(Score: 3, Funny) by Tork on Friday March 28 2014, @02:01AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 28 2014, @12:09AM
Movies with real humans in them should be banned.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Friday March 28 2014, @03:30AM
I think we can agree, that as an intermediate step, we should make film stock out of no more than 50% human tissue.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by zim on Friday March 28 2014, @12:14AM
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 28 2014, @07:58AM
After all don't they investigate people who are spending way beyond their means?
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday March 28 2014, @01:56AM
According to Hollywood those of us that fill in the blue screens (they sure do like to film on!) cost too much as well. *sigh*
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Angry Jesus on Friday March 28 2014, @03:30AM
> The meteoric rise of the international marketplace has driven the industry's massive profitability,
The international marketplace is also responsible for the dumbing down of movies. The more complicated a movie, the harder it is to translate. It isn't just language, it is also culture. American cultural literacy is not the same as Chinese cultural literacy or even German cultural literacy. It's easier to just leave out anything that relies on the audience to have a working knowledge of society.
But there are two things that do translate easily -- Boobs & Bombs. A little skin and a lot of violence is the lowest-common-denominator across practically all cultures. Thus the popularity of guys like Michael Bay.
(Score: 1) by stderr on Friday March 28 2014, @03:48AM
Excuse me? As a non-american I can promise you that we hate those movies just as much as you do (if not more).
alias sudo="echo make it yourself #" #
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 28 2014, @12:11PM
> As a non-american I can promise you that we hate those movies just as much as you do (if not more).
Woooooosh!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Rivenaleem on Friday March 28 2014, @11:13AM
Oh go jump in a lake. You are seriously going to blame European/Chinese tastes in movies for such movies as Micheal Bay's latest plotless CGI robotfest? As if it has nothing to do with 'Murica! culture. You might have noticed we make some of our own movies over the pond here too. Just because they only fit into one category "best foreign" at the oscars, doesn't mean they don't exist in any sufficient quantity.
Please don't blame the international marketplace for Hollywood shite.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 28 2014, @07:08PM
Ok Mr Indignant, lets go with your premise even though you completely missed the OP's point.
Care to explain why hollywood now generates about 70% of total revenue from overseas box office sales if 'European/Chinese' tastes DON'T favor michael bay shite?
If anything, those 'tastes' favor the shite MORE than the US.
Look at the sales from recent US shitefests:
Battleship [the-numbers.com] - US: $65M, Overseas: $239M
John Carter [the-numbers.com] - US: $73M, Overseas: $210M
After Earth [the-numbers.com] - US: $60M, Overseas: $184M
(Score: 1) by Rivenaleem on Friday March 28 2014, @11:39PM
Very simple:
US population 220 million. Rest of world 6.78 billion
That's a 1:30 ratio
Battleship 1:3
John Carter 1:2.8
After Earth 1:3
So Americans are 10 times more likely to enjoy a Micheal Bay-type movie than the rest of the world.
Sure Not all the rest of the world has access to movies, but I guess we can cut the number in half and my point still stands. Americans love Hollywood movies much much more than the rest of the world.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 29 2014, @12:29AM
> Sure Not all the rest of the world has access to movies,
> but I guess we can cut the number in half and my point still stands.
You can cut it in half, but that would be intellectually dishonest.
Try cutting it down by 99% because population count doesn't matter when talking about total dollars - what matters is disposable income and compared to the rest of the world, all americans are in the 1%. [policymic.com] So try again Mr Indignant.
> Americans love Hollywood movies much much more than the rest of the world.
Oh man, you really put your foot in it with that one, Mr Ignorant. There are only two countries where domestic films regularly outsell Hollywood shite - S Korea and India. Occasionally France will too, but that's not consistent. And S Korea has protectionist laws to help out their film industry.
(Score: 1) by Rivenaleem on Monday March 31 2014, @08:09AM
>Oh man, you really put your foot in it with that one, Mr Ignorant. There are only two countries where domestic films regularly outsell Hollywood shite - S Korea and India. Occasionally France will too, but that's not consistent. And S Korea has protectionist laws to help out their film industry.
Those are 2 different statistics. Whether domestic films outsell Hollywood or not, is irrelevant as to who enjoys Hollywood more. Domestic movies typically have a lot less marketing power behind them and there are fewer of them overall.
Here follows some made up numbers, just to display the point.
If 60% of the movies watched in France are Hollywood, and 40% are Domestic, you might say they prefer Hollywood movies over local, and I wouldn't argue with that.
However if 80% of movies watched in the US are Hollywood, and 20% are foreign, then you can say that Americans prefer Hollywood movies more than the French do.
So you see, both points can be 'right' Americans can like Hollywood movies more than the French, while the French can like Hollywood more than Domestic.
But I can see we're not going to agree on much of anything, so lets leave it at that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 28 2014, @05:08AM
I've read the transcipts of court cases. I have seens the ads shown before movies. I have read their websites. LIES! Piracy is destroying the movie industry! We must do something! This talk of actual 'profit' is lies! A smokescreen by the enemies of the MPAA!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 28 2014, @07:59AM
Don't buy their shit AND don't download it either. Don't talk about it, have nothing to do with those criminals.
We must kill them before they kill us. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2010/fe b/23/opensource-intellectual-property/print [theguardian.com]
(Score: 1) by microtodd on Friday March 28 2014, @12:16PM
So, when I look around at the state of the US and the world (and try not to get depressed) there's that whole capitalism/production/"what the hell does the US even make anymore?" school of thought. Part of this country's economic woes stem from the fact that the US doesn't really make anything any more. Its a services economy.
But what's interesting is, if you look at the numbers [wikipedia.org] apparently the US is still a "powerhouse" in terms of exports and production. So why the hell are we in such dire financial straits?
IANAE (economist) but I think this is part of the issue right here. The big exporters like China? They sell physical goods that people pay money for, and those goods and tools go on to create more production. There was just a post earlier this week that talked about how with a fiat currency you have to have continuous growth to sustain it. If you are building and exporting hammers and people buy those hammers and build more things then you have growth. What does a movie create? Yeah, jobs I guess but it seems like a broken window fallacy.
So yeah, US still has a lot of export revenue. Its all movies, video games, comic books, etc. (and maybe cars).
NOTE: My point of all this rambling is maybe to create some discussion amongst the Soylenters? That's why I come here, after all. To hear the insights and intelligence of my fellow posters.
(Score: 2) by fliptop on Friday March 28 2014, @12:33PM
I'd guess food and weapons are pretty high on that list.
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.