Say Goodbye to Hollywood......

While we eagerly await the British Invasion of Hollywood*, it seems like there may not be so much "there" over there to invade anymore. And its the Internet wot is eating Hollyowood in an invasion of the booty snatchers, as broadband allows people to consume their movies online, and even make their own. To quote the Los Angeles Times:

Who needs Brad Pitt if you can be your own hero on a video game, make your own video on YouTube or feature yourself on Facebook?

So, Dire Warnings then...what happened to Music is coming to a cinema near you:

Exhibitors Relations reported that attendance actually declined yet again, reaching its lowest point in 10 years. And though defenders of the industry protest that foreign markets account for 40% of a film's revenue and that those proceeds are compensating for falling domestic box office, foreign receipts have been down too, and even DVD sales are plateauing. In short, the overall trends remain discouraging.

Robert Young at GigaOm has an interesting take, that Online Media is changing the way we consume video media, so the traditional "theatre broadcast" model needs to change - Theatre 2.0?:

what Hollywood might look like in the year 2020 could have more to do with how studios develop new “products”… much like they did with the advent of television (when they created sitcoms, game shows, movies of the week, etc.). But this time, future Hollywood products will probably have to integrate and leverage the virtually unlimited digital resource of self-expression and social media.

The article itself makes an interesting point, that movies are irrelevant and its actually the sleb's life sagas we watch now instead, in our always-on world:

Two years ago, writing in these pages, I described an ever-growing culture of knowingness, especially among young people, in which being regarded as part of an informational elite — an elite that knew which celebrities were dating each other, which had had plastic surgery, who was in rehab, etc. — was more gratifying than the conventional pleasures of moviegoing.

In this culture, the intrinsic value of a movie, or of most conventional entertainments, has diminished. Their job now is essentially to provide stars for People, Us, "Entertainment Tonight" and the supermarket tabloids, which exhibit the new "movies" — the stars' life sagas.
User Generated Movies.

This rings true with me, as it explains a world where slebs can be sans talent, all one needs is access (and usually silicone) to get a small bit-part in The Saga.

Is this what Jenny Sundén , who argued that, in order to exist online, we must write ourselves into being really had in mind

* Postscript - still no gong for Peter O'Toole, after 8 times up - very frustrating!