Hollywood Home Theatre

According to Chris Anderson, in Hollywood, hits are losing their power.

He notes that it's not that people aren't watching films and listening to music, it's that they're just not following the herd. He guesses that most of the decline in box office is due to the rise of the DVD.

Could it be that Hollywood has not made a decent movie in years?

In 2005, major studios have delivered moviegoers 14 remakes of their own films, up from just four in 2000, according to movie research firm Nielsen EDI.

If it is not remakes of the past, then some movies are based on foreign successes or television series.

An article from the New York Times noted multiple theories for the decline abound, but many movie executives and industry experts agree that too many movies just are not good enough.

"Part of this is the fact that the movies may not have lived up to the expectations of the audience, not just in this year, but in years prior," said Michael Lynton, chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Originality may be a factor here.

If we were to look at a recent critique entitled “Lack of originality is where '21' really deals a losing hand”, the author notes;

The brainiacs of the gambling romp “21” are smart enough to expertly count cards at the blackjack table, identify hot betting tables and put on disguises so they can take Vegas casinos to the cleaners. So why are these MIT scholars so dumb they fall into greedy, grubby plot holes a C-minus Statistics 101 student would have seen coming a mile to the Nth power away?

To take this argument farther though, in our post-modern times, what is original anymore? Stories are based on the same archetypes and are simply melded for the times.

Going back to Anderson’s theory that many are simply not following the heard, while others say that everybody is looking for their different interests, maybe the traditional movie experience is in for a major change.

Warren Lieberfarb, a former Warner Brothers executive notes;

"It's not just the DVD…It's the flat-panel television and the sound system, with the DVD option, that has radically changed the quality of the in-home experience. The home theatre has arrived. You have to change the business model of the movie business."