Hollywood: The Next Five Years

[Buscemi]

After seeing the recent events in the industry (such as instability at indie labels and potential gambles), I think I will give a shot at predicting what Hollywood will be like in the next years. Here are my predictions.

-Michael Fassbender will be one of the top male actors in Hollywood.

-Leonardo DiCaprio will finally win an Academy Award.

-The D-Box process will be available in at least 50% of theatres in the nation.

-The Wonder Woman movie will finally happen.

-Summit will go into dire financial straits after the Twilight series ends and Sony will buy their library.

-Lionsgate will be taken completely over by Carl Icahn, revenues will drop and the company will be stripped down to pieces. Studio Canal will buy the library and start an American film division. Lionsgate heads sue Icahn but Icahn dies before the suit can happen.

-Miramax will not come back in a big way. The company is bought but it can't replicate the successes of the old days. Disney buys back the library at a discount.

-Liberty Media sells the Anchor Bay name and library to Blue Underground and the company thrives again under William Lustig (the original founder of Anchor Bay).

-MGM is sold in pieces. Warner Bros. buys the library while Sony buys future projects from the company (such as the James Bond films). The name and logo are sold to an independent buyer.

-Harvey Weinstein dies of a heartattack and his family is left with a massive amount of debt accumulated while running The Weinstein Company. In a bankruptcy auction, Studio Canal buys the films. It will be revealed that Harvey sold his soul to the Devil to keep the floundering company running.

-The Avengers will be considered the biggest disaster of all-time.

-Blu-Ray and downloads will co-exist together. DVD will fight the good fight but decline similar to VHS. However, there will still be a loyal following due to Blu-Ray being backward compatible. Meanwhile, downloads will never capture more than 20% of the home market.

-The next big things in cinema: Choose Your Own Adventure and 4-D.

-Quentin Tarantino finally releases Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair. He releases it himself in a grindhouse-style format and look.

-The Tree Of Life finally comes out.

-CBS Films folds after the failure of Beastly and Paramount gets their film library.

-Avatar 2 will gross $4 billion worldwide and Avatar 3 will gross $6 billion worldwide.

-Someone will actually try to make a motion-capture version of Game Of Death the way that Bruce Lee would have wanted it. Audiences cry blasphemy and the film flops.

and

-Cthulhu still won't happen yet. Studio heads simply won't understand it.

[undeadmonkey]

haha, funny. had a little bit too much?

[Buscemi]

Some of them could happen. For example, look at Summit's box office numbers.

2007 (no Twilight): $4 million (1 movie, average gross: $4 million)
2008: $226.5 million (5 movies, average gross: $45.3 million)
2009: $482.5 million (9 movies, average gross: $53.6 million)
2010 (so far): $188.9 million (6 movies, average gross: $31.5 million)

Now take away the Twilight grosses.

2007: $4 million (1 movie, average: $4 million)
2008: $33.7 million (4 movies, average: $8.4 million)
2009: $187.1 million (8 movies, average: $23.4 million)
2010: $96.3 million (5 movies, average: $19.3 million)

So without Twilight, anything that Summit tries to do can negatively impact them financially. And seeing that Summit is a flop machine outside of Twilight, this company will be hemorrhaging money in a matter of time. This is also why Summit dropped out of the MGM deal. They didn't have enough money to buy the company.

Right now, Summit is reminding me of Orion Pictures in the 1980's. Like Summit, Orion produced and released a number of low-budget hits (Platoon, Back To School, Dances With Wolves, The Silence Of The Lambs) but produced way more flops. Eventually, the company began to lose lots of money and later filed for bankruptcy in 1991. MGM bought the company's library many years later.

Meanwhile, I seriously do believe that Studio Canal will attempt an American run. Their film library is one of the biggest and they already have established distribution arms in France and the UK. A lot of Lionsgate's DVD output actually comes from Studio Canal. If Carl Icahn does indeed prove to destroy and strip Lionsgate to pieces like he does with every other company he buys, I can see Studio Canal making a run for the company.

[numbersix]

Hah, some interesting stuff there, kiddo.

Agreed with Fassbinder, he could be very, very big.

Not so sure about Summit. The money from Twilight will enable them to generate a lot more films and perhaps they'll get one or two hits each year, enough to keep them going. You're probably right about MGM being sold off in bits, though.

I do think that digital downloads will become a lot bigger than 20% of the market. And it'll constantly increase.

And don't expect and Avatar sequel in the next 5 years!

[Ron Burgundy]

Who are you boosh? Nostradamus' reborn???

No, some predictions are good, but i dont know if you will get even half of those remotely right...

Avatar 2, wont make more than 2 bil, even dumb people know what a sequel is...

And my prediction:

Boosh hits 10 000 posts before end of year.

[Buscemi]

Transformers 2 outgrossed the first worldwide despite the fact that it was a worse sequel. When James Cameron calls, people listen. And when Avatar 2 comes, people will flock to see more of the blue creatures from Pandora.