Both Flourishing In And Helping Define An Era In Which The Art And Commerce

Both flourishing in and helping define an era in which the art and commerce of filmmaking was driven by the filmmakers themselves, not the studios, Lucas made his first splash in 1971 with the thought-provoking anti-establishment science fiction piece called THX 1138, followed by the popular coming-of-age comedy/drama American Graffiti in 1973.Based on the financial and critical success of the latter film, 20th Century Fox agreed to finance and distribute Lucas' next project, Star Wars. Upon its completion in 1977, Fox executives concluded the film would be a complete disaster and readily agreed to give Lucas 100% of any merchandising profits derived from the release of the movie, which they assumed of course would be nil. To everyone's surprise, Star Wars quickly became the highest-grossing film of all time, with box-office receipts to date totaling over $460 million on a film that cost $11 million to make. Within three weeks of the film's release, the price of 20th Century Fox's stock had doubled -- to a record high. While Lucas has been historically tight-lipped about the amount of money he made off Star Wars merchandising profits, estimates range as high as $1 billion (U.S.)
These latter three pieces of economic data were quickly absorbed by the powers that be, particularly the Fox executives who foolishly signed away what would have been a sizable chunk of $1 billion. The lessons: audiences would stampede towards theatres to see compelling special effects films and would inhale every ancillary action figure, soft drink cup, book, toy, and lunchbox available. The success of Star Wars soon inspired Paramount Pictures' film adaptation of the Star Trek television series, 1979's Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which, though considered a critical dud, still grossed $137 million at the domestic box office. The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi followed in 1981 and 1983, ushering in a new era of film driven by the hunger for the blockbuster. It was soon thereafter arguably, not coincidentally that the profits being made by film studios began to attract the attention of larger, outside corporations.
Unsurprisingly, a mentality has evolved which seeks to duplicate successes by discouraging risk-taking, i.e., originality in storytelling. The logic is that a product derived from a previously successful product is a surer bet than attempting to launch a completely new product that is unfamiliar to the audience. This means sequels to successful films, films adapted from successful books or comic books, films adapted from TV series, or remakes of previously successful films. The current landscape of Hollywood releases, and hence international releases, is dominated by just such a lack of originality. Again, a survey of the international box office figures from Screendaily.