With Hollywood in the midst of a reality check, I think it offers an opportunity for independent filmmakers to rise to the front, if they offer quality films as a legitimate alternative.
As one writer recently said concerning the current disruption of the industry: "Meanwhile, the six major studios - or the ugly sisters, as they are sometimes called - are reeling from Wall Street demands for big stock increases as well as from piracy, bloated marketing costs, ridiculous budgets, overpriced stars and generally a lack of ideas, reflected in a punishing, if not farcical, slew of sequels, remakes, movies of old TV shows and then remakes of sequels and sequels of remakes."
The point is of course that they don't have ideas of their own and are reaching far and wide to serve the young audience that are willing to pluck down some money on this particular fare. Of course, what they also have to do is add the enormous cost of the special effects to continually feed this specific audiences hunger for thrills. The trouble is that this isn't sustainable at these prices.
What's happening as a result is that essentially Hollywood studios have to cut way back on costs and number of films made to be able to have any chance at maintaining financial responsibility. They've already been making moves to this end. George Lucas has already said that this is the route he is going to take.
What does this have to do with independent film? Basically the big studios are being forced to offer films that are in the budget range of a large number of independent film projects; it's becoming more of an even playing field. And in a lot of cases, independent film has much better stories to offer than the studios that have become copiers of comic book characters.
Films are going to have to reach niche audiences far more now than in the past, as a whole. Independent film is uniquely built for this very purpose.
This doesn't mean that there won't be the occasional blockbuster that will be offered with high costs, just that the average cost of film production is going to go down below its almost $100 million per picture. Most studios are looking for costs to average between $20 and $30 million. I think this will give some independent film a good chance at being a larger part of the consumers' experience.
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