The state of cinema, Part III

Nikki Finke looks forward to a movie year she fears will be overstufed with sequels and remakes, and despairs: "See, it simply takes too much moolah to create awareness for new concepts— in marketing parlance, this is known as 'audience creation.' It's a given that with franchises and remakes, the awareness for under-25 males—the most coveted category of moviegoers—approaches 100 percent. But with original stories, that awareness level drops below 60 percent. And when the overall budgets of movies (as of 2005) stand at $96.2 million each and marketing costs $36.2 million per pic, it stands to reason that studios are loathe to gamble on unproven product. Riding coattails takes the risk out of a notoriously risky biz, which means moguls can have fewer Maalox moments in what is tantamount to a life on meth. Production has dwindled to just a dozen films from each major each year, most of them sequels."