Week 3 [Seminar Notes] - Form, Thematic and Politics of the New Hollywood Blockbuster

What is a Franchise?
- Something that is not just a film series but also adapted into other media.

The Schatz reading is great for the critical writing essay for this week Hollywood theme.
- For Schatz, the term "New Hollywood" is primarily associated with the period after 1975 and the dominance of the 'blockbuster'
- Since 1975, the business had been dominated by "high cost, high-tech, high-stakes blockbusters":"multi-purpose entertainment machines" that breed music video and soundtracks albums, TV series and video cassettes, video games and theme park rides, novelisations and comic books.

Some tendencies of Hollywood since the 70s
- Action/Adventure/Fantasy/Sci-Fi films tend to make the most money
- Address broad audiences (young and old) a.k.a. 'The Four Quadrant Movie'
- Use 'pre-sold' content, franchising using different media platforms and merchandising
- Tendency to create fictional worlds
- Intensive use of special FX, CGI and digital animation

1960-80s Corporate takeovers
Universal - MCA '62
Paramount - Gulf & Western '66
United Artists - Transamerica Corporation '67
Warner Bros. - merger with Seven Arts '66 sold to Kinney National '69

Sony bought Columbia Pictures and is now renamed Sony Pictures Entertainment.

The Blockbuster Syndrome
- Studio slates organised around 'tentpole films'.
- 'High concept' films. (films plots can be explained in a sentence)
- Use 'pre-sold' content.
- Seriality: Sequels, remakes, reboots and franchises across different mediums.
- Merchandising, spin-offs and synergy.
- Importance of revenues from home viewing and overseas markets.

Room 666 (What's the future of cinema interview?) - Spielberg
- Films are going to expand and only get more expensive.
- Hollywood wants the ideal movie, something for everyone.

Narrative, Character and Spectacle
- "Star Wars is so fast paced... and resolutely plot-driven that character depth and development are scarcely on the narrative agenda."
- "Films that are increasingly plot-driven, increasingly visceral, kinetic, and fast-paced, increasingly reliant on special effects, increasingly 'fantastic' (and thus apolitical) and increasingly targeted at a younger audience."
- But... "the lack of complex characters or plot in Star Wars opens the film to other possibilities, notably its radical amalgamation of genre conventions.
- "Younger, media-literate viewers encounter a movie in an already activated narrative process.
- "The movie itself scarcely begins or ends the textual cycle."

For Schatz, the intertextuality and the incoherence of blockbusters are part of their commercial strategy - easier to spin off as multimedia franchise, and opens up different points of access for audience:
- The blockbusters tends to be intertextual and purposefully incoherent.
- The organisation of the industry favour the text strategically open and multiple reading and multimedia reiteration.