![]() ![]() All this can then be translated into all sorts of toys, games and other goods that make up the bulk of merchandising. Since the “hit-driven” 1970s, Hollywood has churned out films that follow the blockbuster formula: they are very expensive to produce 11 and market, are released according to the saturation release system 12 and often feature simplistic characters, fast-paced action, many special effects and a loud soundtrack. They have kept looking for the next blockbuster that is going to give them a huge opening week-end at the box office, a big market share and balance their budget while also pleasing the young audience that had come in droves to see the adventure of C-3PO and R2-D2 in Star Wars. 12 Saturation release means that blockbusters are released on as many screens as possible at the same (.)Ħ The media conglomerates that appeared in the 1960s and 1970s have now become bigger, but market-shares and benefits are still the driving force in Hollywood while more and more business graduates have joined the ranks of studio executives.11 For example in 1996 the production cost of Independence Day (Roland Emmerich) reached $75 million w (.).Both films were tremendously successful 10 over a short period of time, attracting many young people who then went back to the cinemas to watch Star Wars over and over again-a new trend at the time. 9 Then came Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977) with its huge box office and merchandising profits. The 1970s brought the answer with the release of Jaws (Steven Spielberg), the first modern-day blockbuster pioneered by Lew Wasserman in 1975 and that was also the first film in Hollywood history to reach the $100 million threshold. Feeling under pressure for financial results, studio executives went on the look-out for the perfect formula that would satisfy the shareholders while filling in cinemas. 7 Hollywood started changing, and Lew Wasserman, who had taken over Universal in 1962, was at the forefront of the re-organization of Hollywood in the 1960s, creating “the impetus and the model for the modern media conglomerates.” 8 These conglomerates were controlled by boards of trustees and shareholders who wanted financial results, and considered films as mere products whose manufacturing should be processed in the best cost-efficient way. That decade saw different studios, also called the Majors, taken over by bigger conglomerates, as was the case for Paramount taken over by Gulf+Western in 1966. release of Jaws earned $260 million while the 1977 release of Star Wars earned $307.264 mi (.)ĥ The decline in cinema audience, combined with the consequences of the 1948 anti-trust Supreme Court decision that had forced Hollywood studios to divest themselves of their cinema chains, 6 led to financial difficulties in the 1960s.All this explains why American studios have successfully adapted (and/or distributed) many comic books over the past few years.Ģ But adapting comic books would however be fruitless if the context was not right for their characters, and successful films can tell us a lot about their context: The paper will first show that adapting comic books and their superheroes is ideal for the film industry: they perfectly fit the prevailing pattern of blockbuster production while they are also adapted to the changes currently brought about in the exhibition business by digital technologies. Superman belonged to the blockbusters that have dominated Hollywood’s way of doing business since the 1970s while they have confirmed the importance of the young audience. Therefore, it is not surprising that comic book heroes and films eventually came to be associated on the silver screen, as was for example the case in 1978 with Superman (Richard Donner) starring Christopher Reeve. 2 Then, at the end of the 1950s, problems led Hollywood to pay more attention to teenagers who already constituted the bulk of comic book readership. 1 Both had an established mass audience in the 1940s and at the beginning of the 1950s. 2 In 1952, there were 43 million moviegoers per week, and the comic book circulation reached about on (.)ġ Hollywood built its studio system and developed into a true industry in the late 1910s and 1920s while the comic book industry developed in the late 1930s. ![]()
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