As Hollywood prepares to launch the summer Blockbuster season this coming Friday, with the much anticipated release of The Avengers - and you can't even throw a rock in California without hitting a poster or advertisement for it - many American moviegoers will again bow their heads in mourning.
In this Corporate Age of Hollywood, where movie productions now are decided according to risk versus return calculations, as opposed to the merits of a story along with the talents of the Director, Actors, and Script writers, originality is no longer a valued commodity. The order of the day, and that is day in and day out, is Rehash.
Hundreds of production assistants, once assigned to Pitch Markets and Pitch Sessions, are now tasked with sifting through the thousands of scripts already owned by the studios. Their new purpose is to sort them according to the level of success in their initial release decades ago, assess the production cost of updating the story - which includes the packaging(salaries associated with attaching a director and prospective actors) and then submitting the "packaged" prospects for "greenlighting" by the decision maker(s).
When you add to this, the endless parade of sequels(The Expendables 2, Madagascar 3, The Dark Knight Rises, The Bourne Legacy, G.I. Joe Retaliation are all scheduled for summer 2012 release), one cannot help but wonder if there is any original thought remaining in Tinseltown.
The additional implication for American moviegoers of color, is that because of our historically minimal representation in Hollywood films(aside from the offensively stereotypical), the Corporate Age of Hollywood all but guarantees that for the forseeable future, there will be no significant change on the horizon in terms of the projects and opportunities for work. This goes double for African American actors, as well as Hollywood offerings that appeal to the African American audience.
Ultimately, real change begins when all those of us who are fed up with the status quo, step up, speak up, and endeavor to create the types of projects that we wish to see.
Here at Imajen, we have pledged to do our part. Stay tuned, relief is on the way.
