Word: chernin
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Beavis and Butt-head Do America, which grossed (heh heh, he said "grossed") a robust $63 million. (Next up for Paramount: a Rugrats feature.) "A movie can't compare financially with a successful series like The Simpsons on TV," says Fox's Mechanic. Says Peter Chernin, president of Fox's parent News Corp.: "We should have done a Simpsons movie five years ago." Simpsons creator Matt Groening and his colleagues toyed with expanding a 1993 episode, Kamp Krusty, before deciding no. "But," notes Chernin, "we also wanted to start a traditional cel animation division and thought Anastasia was a compelling...
...taking the obvious solution and cutting back the pace of production. But that won't be enough; they face other difficulties that will be harder to address. Costs are soaring so dramatically that it's getting tough to make a buck. "Every day I have two choices," says Peter Chernin, chairman and chief executive of Fox Filmed Entertainment. "One is to make a series of absolutely insane deals and the other is to make no movies...
Studios admit that attacking the cost of top talent will be next to impossible. "The weakest studio sets the marketplace," Chernin says. "Whoever is the most panic- driven will hike up the costs." Instead, they will set their sights on mid-level stars without a proven ability to attract crowds. "Michael Keaton (Multiplicity) or Alec Baldwin (Heaven's Prisoners)--they better deliver the goods," says a studio chief...
Starship Troopers boasts no major stars. But such films could do as much damage as those packed with expensive talent. Even as he enjoys the success of Independence Day, Chernin is concerned that so many of the summer's hits were driven by special effects. Next summer will bring even more. "You're looking at the Batman sequel, the Jurassic Park sequel, Starship Troopers, Speed 2, Titanic and two volcano movies," he says. Such pictures routinely cost $100 million or more to make even without major stars...
...blockbusters covered the tabs of smaller flops. While a film like Independence Day generates a multimillion-dollar profit, the big pictures often don't clear enough anymore to make other problems disappear. That means studios will have to scrutinize smaller films more carefully. There are no easy answers, says Chernin, and no radical solutions available. The bottom line, says Universal's Meyer: "You have to choose well and be lucky...