Is the Actors Guild union hurting movies?

[jadedeath]

Originally Posted by oppopioneer

The people/audience aren't stupid and big names don't sell movies as we see George Clooney, Ben Affleck, Julia Roberts, Jennifer Aniston, Jessica Biel, Jesica Alba, Cameron Diaz aren't drawing big anymore and Will Smith has had many movies that didn't do good at the box office. People prefer a very good movie that catches the imagination of the public instead of celebrities. Hollywood often puts out more bombs than they put out blockbusters.

I'm just going to use George Clooney to prove your example wrong:

His last couple of movies:

The men who stare at Goats:
Production budget: $25 million
Box office: $68 million worldwide

Up in the Air:
Production budget $25 million
Box office: $163 million worldwide

Burn after reading:
Production Budget: $37 million
Box office: $163 million worldwide

Hell, I can keep this going with most of your list, Will Smith:

Seven Pounds:
Production budget: $55 million
Box office: $168 million worldwide

Hancock:
Production budget: $150 million
Box office: {you might want to sit down for this one} $624 million worldwide

I am Legend:
Production budget: $150 million
Box office: $585 million

Will Smith hasn't put out a really big stinker for awhile, and most of his movies make back their money in the box office, and this is why Hollywood is willing to shell out the money for him.

For someone to say that Hollywood puts out more bombs than blockbusters, that's not even really a matter of opinion or personal preference, you're incorrect.

Most of what Hollywood does makes money in one way-shape-or form or another. They have money coming in for a movie with Box office, home video sales, television rights, merchandising etc. There are very VERY few movies in Hollywood that don't make their money back in the long run.

Which is why Hollywood is still around as a business.

You can only get better more fair reasonable contracts when the unions bend.

Bull$#!+, you get better contracts when your negotiators feel like negotiating better contracts, right now the system works for all involved.

The NFL has a good system in place with collective bargaining agreements and it's the #1 most successful sport and possibly business model in the U.S. and doing extremely well in this global recession where the owners and franchises make lots of money, but the players are millionaires too, but they're forced to work harder as they should. NFL players earn their salaries more than any actor/actress does.

Again, B.S. I can name quite a few actors that make more money per year than any NFL player will ever make on an annual basis. For example, if Will Smith makes $20 million per movie, and he made 2 movies in 2008, that's $40 million per that year, how many NFL players make $40 million for one year?

Also, Hollywood isn't the NFL, it's a completely different system that the two aren't even remotely comparable other than saying "they're both businesses" Well, YES, they ARE both businesses, you're right, but Toshiba and Nabob coffee are both businesses, but do they operate the exact same? No, they certainly don't.

I agree, and there are ways around that such as hiring people behind the camera who are in film school and students can learn and also pitch in and remove a lot of the high salary people who connect a 20 foot wire from one camera to the mixing machine. Lots of people in the film making process on set can be replaced by film students who want to learn the process and that increases the odds and chances a director and producer will spot them and give them a shot.

Let me just ask, do you like watching movies?

That's the reason why people make the money that they do in Hollywood, it's BECAUSE producers aren't allowed to just hire people for nothing {like film students} and reap all the rewards.

What you are advocating is for the average person {camera tech, lighting person, gaffer, etc.} to make NO money at all, {or next to nothing} while Hollywood runs off with all the profit.

Which, is kind of silly.

There are too many people standing around behind the camera, too many and getting paid more than what they're worth!

Hollywood works on a system where you pay the best money for the best people, if you don't like it, I'd suggest that you PM me and I'll send you my address, you can ship all of your Blu-ray related equipment and movies to me, and then you can live as a hermit somewhere not wanting to watch anything related to Hollywood ever again. It's the only way for you to avoid that which you do not like so vehemently.

I agree, it's like what hurt the music industry with Napster and lots of people including fellow musicians attacked Metallica for being against Napster and said it was uncool, well many of these musicians could only perform in studio and couldn't perform live and those songs that were being downloaded are studio recorded songs, so the only musicians making money today are ones that know how to tour live and sound good live on stage because of concert ticket sales. Pearl Jam does sound good live but they and Rage Against The Machine wanted to be political leftist activists against capitalism and they hurt their fellow musicians. The people who support Napster are also the same people who support Net Neutrality which will increase the amount of illegal downloading of Hollywood movies.

I agree, but at the same time, it's the folks that download all the time that are hurting the industry as a whole, it means that all the whining and complaining about how "Hollywood puts out crap, whine whine whine!!111!!" and downloading illegally to 'test things out, because I don't want to pay for what I don't like' are just running around in circles chasing their own tails. If Hollywood doesn't get the money from that rental, then it can't go out eventually and produce something that you might like because it won't have the cash to 'get experimental' and just goes with the safe franchises and remakes.

It's the ultimate catch-22 and the most painful logical disconnect that people have today.

Logan