Event movies are nothing new, the idea of a film becoming more than that, and being part of a murchandiing bombardment had existed for years, one needs only look back and it is clear from Lord of the Rings to Jurassic Park. They are nothing new.
The question is why make event movies? Well one answer is that films on their own do not always make back the millions of dollars that go into such blockbusters. Some films such as Godzilla which were a flop at the box office would lose millions by being a standalone product.
Transnational media corporations because of this need to safeguard their investments in such films. By implementing multiple stratagies and marketable devices of the concept they make up their loses and save their investments.
Table 1. Event Movie Franchises
Franchise Media Conglomerate Year/(Number of Films) Production Budget World Box Combined Combined Office Gross
The Lord of the Rings Time Warner (New Line) 2001/2002/2003 (3) $281 million $2.91 billion
Harry Potter Time Warner 2001/2002/2004 (3) $360 million $2.63 billion
Jurassic Park Universal (Vivendi/NBC) 1993/1997/2001 (3) $229 million $1.90 billion
Matrix Time Warner 1999/2003/2003 (3) $300 million $1.62 billion
Spider-Man Sony 2002/2004 (2) $339 million $1.59 billion
Star Wars News Corp. 1999/2002 (2) (+3) $235 million $1.57 billion
Lara Croft–Tomb Raider Viacom 2001/2003 (2) $170 million $360 million
Pirates of the Caribbean Disney 2003 $125 million $650 million
Significant about the table above is that every one of the biggest grossing is all part of franchises that have converged between numerous medias, games, books, films, toys in what is refered to as a event movie phenomenon.
The idea of a event movie is simple, one it uses a theme of already successful products. It promotes itself as a big can not miss blockbuster and keeps mainly to a high concept ideal. A script easily sumable in a single sentence.
Secondly...” Second, the
event movie as a strategy is a business model used by
TNMCs to benefit from the industry’s macro structure”
Finally the transitions between medias is to maximise audiences who prefer alternate media forms. For example to get games involved, and bring people of different target audiences together. It also tries appealing to a global audience over any specific region.
After the decline of big budget films in the late 60s films had to be made to to a cheaper budgets, the event movie however defies this. It’s goal is to be big, stand out from the competition. Before even coming out the idea you must see this film has to be presented. It has the bigger budget the bigger actors, the must see.
It must use the best technology. The aim to recoup all costs and expenses as quickly as possible as soon as the film is released. Through expensive marketing the audience is to have been bombarded so much they have the desire to see this film weeks before it is ever released.
High Concept films are the easiest to sell. They are simple and effective placing importance of visual stylistic elements while simplifying characters and narratives. Adding to this the very actors, the bands used for the soundtrack are all added to the selling points of such films.
One way such High Concept films establish a film in the audiences contiousness before it is released is by use of relying on pre existing themes or ideas. Comics, games or books are three examples of this that with the audience already aware and has a understanding of what they going to see.
Also with this comes the stratagey of sequels, prequels and such to maximise profits even more. Looking at the figures above it is very clear all the highest grossing films have been part of serieses with such prequels and sequels.
The benifits of this and the high concept nature is by simplifying the characters and narrative it is easy to advertise and promote. By breaking a script down to a single sentence it can be shown in the thirty seconds to a minute advertisements allow. By featuring more visuals like high explosions it looks better than it may or may not be. In such time it would be impossible to promote characters and deep narratives.
An interesting note is that with trend of illegal downloading of films films are spending less time at cinema for quicker release dates to maximise profits. And quickly recover costs that by waiting longer are more likely to be lost by such illegal downloads. To maximise profits further normal and special editions, are being used to incourage more consumption of the product. With the more bland vanilla original and then various extended re releases and commemorative box sets coming later.
The problem becomes such pieces can only be made by companies willing to take a initial loss on the film before making it back through these various schemes. Through the multiple sequels, throught the alternate editions, games and overall products they release from the concept they make back their money and then some in the end but such a huge amount of money is required to get the ball rolling it limits the ability of lesser financial based people within the industry to compete.
Information based upon the article below
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t775653657
The Event Movie: Marketing Filmed Entertainment for Transnational Media Corporations
Sven Jockel a; Thomas Dobler b a Ilmenau Technical University, Germany. b MFG Foundation, Stuttgart, Germany. Online Publication Date: 01 June 2006 To cite this Article: Jockel, Sven and Dobler, Thomas (2006) 'The Event Movie: Marketing Filmed Entertainment for Transnational Media Corporations', International Journal on Media Management, 8:2, 84 - 91 To link to this article: DOI: 10.1207/s14241250ijmm0802_4 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s14241250ijmm0802_4
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