All the efforts at snaring the hotly coveted young male demographic at the cinema have backfired on Hollywood, as interactivity surpasses passive entertainment.
Hollywood has spent billions of dollars on special effects and hot young stars for its summer blockbusters, and focused its scripts on the 13-25 year old male audience. The movie studios have been rewarded with indifferent rejection and even outright competition from the audience.
The New York Times cites a study by Los Angeles-based OTX, where out of 2,000 moviegoers surveyed, men under 25 have seen 24 percent fewer movies than they did two years ago.
What were they doing? Sending instant messages, surfing the Web, and fragging bosses in videogames. And on top of those distractions, the rising cost of movies has also been a factor in choosing other forms of entertainment, more significant than any other reason.
Hollywood hasn’t made this a difficult choice for their favorite demographic, either. The number of 13-25 year old male respondents who find Hollywood offering “excellent” choices has fallen to 35 percent from 60 percent.
Meanwhile, some of the younger audience has not only turned to interactive entertainment, but to creating videos too. Sites like San Francisco-based AtomShockwave’s AtomFilms host hundreds of films created by independent filmmakers.
AtomFilms had a presence at the tony Cannes Film Festival in May. Along with Star Wars powerhouse Lucasfilm, AtomFilms presented its 4th annual Star Wars Fan Film Awards on the same day Star Wars Episode III debuted in theaters. It may not be the end of Hollywood, but many of these filmmakers got to share a very prestigious spotlight with the big studios and others.
David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.
