The New Hollywood Economy
Today, production expenses in Hollywood have gone through the roof, and yet the demand for escapism remains as strong as ever. For the movies thrive on such fantasies—whether large-scale disaster films, or smaller scale, more opportunistic work. Some peop
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The New Hollywood Economy
Abstract Today, production expenses in Hollywood have gone through the roof, and yet the demand for escapism remains as strong as ever. For the movies thrive on such fantasies—whether large-scale disaster films, or smaller scale, more opportunistic work. Some people get into the movie business because they have a passion for film. But as mainstream films become ever more expensive, routinely costing $100,000,000 or more simply to produce, it seems that the old system of making movies is broken. A relatively new studio in Hollywood, The Asylum, is dedicated to doing just that; giving the viewer something the majors won’t. Something like Sharknado (2013). This chapter examines The Asylum’s relentless output of genre films and other cinematic outliers that challenge mainstream cinema. Keywords The Asylum • Sharknado • Escapism • Woody Allen • Science fiction • Indie films
The Hammer and Amicus films discussed in the previous chapter were all made for a pittance, with budgets in the $300,000 range at most. Today, production expenses are much higher, and yet the demand for escapism remains as strong as ever. For the movies thrive on such fantasies—whether large-scale disaster films, or smaller scale, more opportunistic work. Some people get into the movie business because they have a passion for film. Some have dreams of creating the “great American movie,” or rising © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 W.W. Dixon, Hollywood in Crisis or: The Collapse of the Real, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-40481-3_3
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to the top of the Hollywood Dream Factory. But as mainstream films become ever more expensive, routinely costing $100,000,000 or more simply to produce, and then under-performing at the box office—Pacific Rim and The Lone Ranger are two prime examples—it seems that the old system of making movies is broken. The risks are simply too great—a few bad bets can sink a studio. Spectacle and special effects just don’t bring in audiences anymore; people want something new, and outrageous, for their entertainment dollar. And a relatively new studio in Hollywood, The Asylum, is dedicated to doing just that; giving the viewer something the majors won’t. Something like Sharknado (2013). In essence, the tactics employed by this renegade studio are nothing new. The Asylum follows in a long line of low-budget Hollywood production companies, such as American International Pictures (AIP) in the 1950s and 1960s, and Roger Corman’s New World Pictures and Concorde/ New Horizons in the 1970s and 1980s, which both offered viewers something the mainstream studios couldn’t; films aimed directly at their target audience—outlaw movies that made up their own rules as they went along. In the 1950s, American International broke the Hollywood studio mold by making films expressly for teenage audiences, which no one had exploited up until that time. With titles like I Was Teenage Werewolf, I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, Attack of the Crab Monsters, The Wild Angels, and The Trip, to say nothing
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