An article on contactmusic.com shows the shifting landscape of the movie market in 6 words, movies give way to tv shows. The top DVD seller for the week isn't the latest blockbuster to come to DVD but ABC's Lost The Complete Sixth Season.
While there have been some blockbuster surprises, Inception comes to mind, many of the movies that has come from Hollywood lately has been pretty old, reworked plots.
There has been a pretty solid move from even A level actors to be willing to work in TV as there has never been before. In the past it was always the arena of B level actors looking for a boost in their acting career, but it has now become its own career path for a professional actor.
As theater ticket sales fall , rental stores go out of business , and online theft killing the last bastion of online DVD sales, it seems like TV is about the only place for actors to go in the future. The one bright sector of the industry is sales of discount dvds, but this low profit sector doesn't drive much industry.
When the history of Hollywood is written, it may be that the aptly named Titanic was the peak of its influence and resplendency in Post Cold War American society. Although the film itself cost tens of millions to make, it raked in 10 times or more in the theater alone, and went on to continue its path of through DVD sales and rentals. It is still asking and getting near original purchase price, and having no problem staying off the discount dvds list.
Such a goliath could never be considered in this current atmosphere, and with good reason, it wouldn't make much profit.
But even with such a shift in the media market, essentially all that is shifting is the format that a plot line is delivered. The movie format is about 80-200 minutes long, uninteruped plot line, while the "TV" format is between 30-60 minutes of interupted plot line put into a serial form that together form seasons. Of course even with all my talk of the "death of Hollywood" many TV programs are created in Hollywood as well.
So what's shifting in the world of DVDs? How people purchase them, or more to the point virtually only buy discount dvds online, and how many series you have to buy before you finally get to the end of the plot .
