Unfortunately, it's not from Judy Miller, the GOP, or President Bush. It's
from liberal Hollywood:
One of Hollywood's basic tenets is that when things go wrong it's somebody else's fault.
Which is why it's so startling, suddenly, to hear studio executives and producers taking responsibility for the rows of empty seats in movie theaters this year.
"It's really easy for all of us to blame the condition of the theaters, gas prices, alternative media, the population changes and everything else I've heard myself say," said Sony Pictures Vice Chairman Amy Pascal, whose summer releases "Bewitched" and "Stealth" flopped. "I think it has to do with the movies themselves."
In May, Entertainment Weekly pondered whether even George Lucas' "Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith" could do battle with the forces keeping moviegoers at bay. "Can Revenge of the Sith Halt a Serious Slump at the Box Office?" the magazine asked in a headline. "Or Are the Movies as Doomed as Darth Vader?"
The movie grossed nearly $400 million domestically but failed to ease Hollywood's anxiety. In June, an Associated Press-AOL poll found that 73% of adults preferred watching movies at home.
In August, after studios had watched such expensive films as "The Island," "XXX: State of the Union" and "Kingdom of Heaven" go belly up, Robert Iger, who took over as chief executive of Walt Disney Co. today, speculated to Wall Street analysts that it might even be time to release movies simultaneously in theaters and on DVD.
All along, theater owners said they knew better. Audiences, they contended, were weary of films with lame plots whose advertising campaigns seemed to be better thought out than their story lines. They pointed to such sleeper hits as the documentary "March of the Penguins," which drew huge crowds via word of mouth without the benefit of splashy marketing, as evidence that if you give them a good reason, people will get in their cars, drive to theaters and pay dearly for a tub of popcorn.
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