Blockbusters: Hit-making, Risk-taking, and the Big Business of Entertainment

The title of this review is taken from the book & it pretty much says
it all. The author is quoting Billboard magazine's comment on the
impending release (at that time) of Taylor Swift's cd, Red.

And that's the #1 problem I have with this book, it's very political
(pro corporatist), & the author never admits it.

This is really 2 books in one: the first half is an economics &
statistics textbook, the second half (which while much of it
angered me is an easier read) is about the author's perception of
the business, retailing & profit models of several entertainment
industries (Sports, music, film, TV, books, fashion & more). And
with a couple exceptions I'll note in a moment, she largely gets it
right; which ended up both saddening & infuriating me (to be
explained).

The reason I chose this book is I was hoping to get insight into
WHY the music industry practices such an extreme lowest
common denominator mentality. I get that it's 100% about profits,
but until this century, in the "modern music era", artists from the
Beatles & Stones to the Dead & The Airplane; from Led Zeppelin & David
Bowie, to Prince & early Madonna, up through 90's acts like Sarah McLachlan,
Tori Amos & Nirvana showed both artistic quality AND huge profits.

Now the labels only care about the Justin Bieber's, American Idols,
etc; all of which I consider to be talentless garbage, aimed at 8
year olds.

I wanted to know "WHY"?. She doesn't tell us. She does tell us
why it has to be all about profits, & that blockbusters generate
most of the profits. I get that, but again the only period since the
Pat Boone pre-Beatles era in the 20th century where the
blockbusters were even close to this bad in music was the disco era.

Beyond that, she is a 100% corporatist. Any explanation of
alternatives to what they are doing & how they are doing it are
immediately dismissed. With the music industry in particular, while
she talks about downloading, price cutting & other reasons for the
decline in business, she doesn't address 2 of the main reasons for
declining revenues (& I am a music retailer so I do have a clue on
this): they're spending most of their development & advertising
money on dreadful talent, & the loudness wars have made
listening to music a much less pleasurable experience.

I did get some information I wasn't aware of; Congress outlawed
the old Hollywood studio system in the 40's & 50's (where an actor
signed a long term exclusive contract with one studio & could be
suspended without pay for any number of reasons); per the author
Television networks have now implemented a very similar system.
I also read several things about book publishing & sports that i
wasn't aware of. Heck, she even explains why I'm doing this
review (& she's probably correct!)

Unlike my review, the majority of the book focuses on film; where I
have long felt that in the USA (in most periods) we once again tend
to practice lowest common denominator mentality, which has again grown
much worse this century. Due to the internet, the rest of the world
is starting to "catch up" to us in that regard...... (sigh)

While she does largely accurately & factually report how things
are really being done in the entertainment industries in 2013 there
are at least 2 things she did get factually wrong:

1. In her otherwise pretty thorough discussion of television & other
revenue in sports (the one industry she discusses where the least
common denominator model is not used & they're still making
a huge profit) , she seems to be totally unaware that the current
model being implemented in Baseball is for each team to own
there own cable television station with exclusive broadcast rights.
In Seattle we've pretty much been told not to expect the team to be
competitive until their current TV deal runs out & they start the
station due to the revenue it will generate.

She also doesn't mention that NFL Football is the only major
USA Pro sport that allows over the air broadcasting in all markets.

2. In media retail she (correctly) discusses price gouging,
streaming & digital singles as having caused a perception with
consumers of lowered value of music, movies & books; but she is
unaware that it isn't just Netflix, Apple, Amazon & Walmart; There
are several giants on the internet (the Super D Empire, the Movie
Mars / Odd Banana group, etc) who have done more price cutting
to put there competitors out of business than Amazon, Best Buy &
Walmart combined. She oddly also doesn't mention eBay once.

I could go on & on. Again, I get that this is a Capitalist society &
life in the USA is about profits. But the author & those she profiles
seems to think that is ALL that matters, & art be darned. My
position is that if the content providers put the same amount of
money & creative consumerism advertising into the next Bob
Dylan, he'd generate similar profits as the worthless Mr Bieber.

And their current choices on that are simply not ok.

The quote in the title of this review came from her extensive
sections on corporate advertising tie ins as being REQUIRED to
sell music, films & even books.

I would recommend this book for the following groups: Students of
economics, advertising &/or statistics; those who have the same
pov as the author & want it reinforced; & those who have a pov
similar to mine & wish to be shown just how pervasive lowest
common denominator consumerism has become in our culture (the
frightening thing is by totally avoiding that pov while so avidly
advocating the opposite the author makes my case for me).

If you are middle of the road on these issues, I suspect there are
better books out there.

Edit: I saw a documentary on Consumerism the other day that at least partially
answered the question I began this review with: The documentary had 1 answer:
in their opinion, sexualization = consumerism. In their opinion by sexualizing
entertainment meant for children, it turns the Children into hard core consumers
at a much younger age, & their parents than spend a lot more $'s on the kid's
consumerism than they would if say Bob Dylan was the artist of the hour, or if
something clean like Herman's Hermits was being marketed to the kids.

I don't remember under 16 yo female singers being super sexualized until Britney
Spears at 14 (maybe I have a short memory) (Actually Annabella Lwin of Bow Wow
Wow does fit in this category pre-Britney EXCEPT BWW was NOT being marketed to
children; they were even too weird for most adults!).

Interesting pov, & one I hadn't thought of before. A psychology professional I
discussed this with agreed that the concept made sense to her (in fact like me
she hadn't really thought of it in these terms before, but after doing so felt
it made alot of sense).

If you're the sort of person who sees only one movie a year, that movie is unlikely to be [[ASIN:B002O67FHY Dersu Uzala]].

If you are a movie executive that piece of learning ought not to seem radical or new. It certainly isn't a function of the information revolution, and would have been as true when Derzu Uzala was released in 1976 as it is today. Yet it is the intellectual cornerstone of Anita Elberse's provocative new book "Blockbusters" which, while dismantling the New-Age canard of the Long Tail is otherwise far less overwhelming than the commentariat seems to believe.

The blockbuster hook is simple: if you are a global media conglomerate like Warner Brothers or Real Madrid, you are better betting the farm on a small number of "blockbuster" projects than diversifying your resources and "managing for margins" a portfolio of smaller projects. Elberse compares Warner, who did this, which NBC TV, who did not, and reaches her conclusion.

Her false premise is to suppose that, in plumping for yet another Harry Potter movie, Warner Brothers really is "risking big". As a matter of fact, it isn't. It is goosing its scale, but risking small: the five films on its annual slate will all be totally formulaic (those that are not remakes or sequels are in tried-and-true genres), will rely on well-established stars and directors, and will deploy immense production resources to deliver superficial fireworks without challenging norms or demanding any great commitment from viewers.

Warner targets precisely the sort of person who sees only one - or five - movies a year, because that's how many it makes.

Some all-but-self-evident assumptions:
*The marginal return on each additional movie ticket you sell tends (but never quite gets) to 100%: All other things being equal, the more people see your movie, the greater your profit margin will be.
*Most filmgoers see a given film only once.
*More filmgoers see five movies a year than see 50.
*Those filmgoers who see only five films won't be seeing Derzu Uzala.

If you take these assumptions as good then, if your movie studio has the requisite resources, it is only sound business sense to make your movie one of the five movies that almost everyone will go see. Likewise, if you don't, reset your priorities and your target demographic accordingly. But expect that your revenues will be accordingly constrained. There are only so many swine before whom to cast your pearls.

This is, as Elberse notes, of a piece with refocussing business strategies adopted by Apple, GM, Fender and other resurgent business lines: don't try to be all things to all people; clear out your inventory, figure out what you're good at and hit that channel relentlessly. Quit wasting time at the periphery.

Leave the tail, that is, for those poor toilers who have no option but to target it. But make no mistake: these toilers are vital to your ecosystem, and without them the big fish could not do what they do: the small guys discover and nurture new talent, do the research and development and build reputations of up-and-comers to the point where, for a Warner Brothers, they become safe enough to bet the house on. Even though she intimates this, Elberse's theory asserts not that only blockbusters should be made, but that *blockbuster-sized studios should only make blockbusters*: everyone should focus at the top of their own segment of their market.

This is really only sound common sense.

The question which Elberse doesn't address is what effect this has on the statistical distribution of film budgets. If every producer applies a blockbuster strategy in its own segment, this will tend to make the head taller and fatter, and the tail skinnier and, at the limit, shorter. And so it transpires: According to the Financial Times, in 2000, 1 per cent of artists accounted for 71 per cent of pop music sales. Last year, the same proportion accounted for 77 per cent.

Perhaps Elberse's theory, which owes nothing at all to the digital revolution, suggests the anointed few are getting smarter, and are hitting their channels more clinically than they used to. But down the tail lurks a much more interesting question: what happened? How was Chris Anderson so wrong? How is it that, all things being considered, the infinite time and choice vouchsafed by digital revolution has led to us exercising fewer choices?

Olly Buxton

I think anyone who works or is interested in the media, entertainment, or sports industries will find this book not only enlightening but highly enjoyable, as well. Anita Elberse brings her theories to life with the many cases and characters she weaves into each chapter. However, these theories aren't just presented anecdotally - there's solid data included, as well. It's thought provoking material and great fodder for conversation.

Arguably the best book I've ever read on this industry. It is a must read for everyone - you don't have to be in entertainment to appreciate the value of this book. Anita's discussion of how most industries in the world are moving towards blockbusters is backed by actual data, which makes it as fascinating - if not more so - a read as any of Malcolm Gladwell's books. I guarantee you will not regret buying and reading this book - it'll be the fastest and most interesting read you'll ever have.

Anita Elberse's "Blockbusters" provides a lot of information I had never known about regarding big celebrity personalities and organizations in the music, sport, film world and other areas of the entertainment industry. The large companies that finance these entertainment products / services and their strategies are covered in "Blockbusters." These individual celebrity business approaches was aptly detailed and written about. "Blockbuster" flows well. Elberse's goal in this book in her own words is to: "separate fact from fiction - to describe how the entertainment industry really works, based on an understanding of why entertainment executives make the decisions they make and on actual data about how those decisions play out in the market place." The author succeeds in this. Elberse has access to these executives in her position at Harvard Business School.

One of many examples detailed in this book are the following: two rivals noted by Elberse are Alan Horn, who led Warner Brothers (and later Disney) and Jeff Zucker of NBC's Television Group. By 2011 Warner Brothers was the only study in history to exceed $1 billion at domestic box offices for eleven years in a row. However, Jeff Zucker's strategy failed and by 2010 he was asked to leave. NBC far behind on many statistics, including the profit margins which are considered to matter most. Now, this is a films studio being compared to television, but it is media and both strategies are compared.

The "Blockbuster Strategy"

Warner Brothers used the Blockbuster strategy, and NBC actually discontinued the model. The Blockbuster strategy is: "The leading television networks, film studios, book publishers, music labels, video game publishers, and producers in other sectors of the entertainment industry thrive on making huge investments to acquire develop and market concepts with strong hit potential, and they bank on the sales of those to make up for the middling performance of their other content." Spreading resources across product lines seems logical but it often fails. No one knows which product will "catch on" across the broad spectrum. Yet of course, the Blockbuster Strategy can fail and be very costly, but it can be focused on, and it is.

Bigger than what they do:

Sports team strategy and the positives and negatives of banking on a huge super-star is detailed in chapter three. In chapter four the ways superstars use their brand (power) is noted. one quote is: "David Becham is bigger than what he actually does on the field. Jay-Z is bigger than Rihanna because of what he does.....When Anna Wintour, the editor of the fashion magazine 'Vogue called to say that they wanted LeBron on the cover, I knew he had reached that stage too. He is bigger than what he does."

One of the many examples in chapter 4 is (again) the ultra-talented LeBron James. One of the biggest NBA players in NBA history, he was worth $90 million dollars before even graduating from high school. He was on Team USA in the 2008 and 2012 Olympics and led the Cleveland Cavaliers and Miami Head to the NBA Finals, winning the championship with the Heat. Obviously LeBron James is a brand, but it's how he manages it that is so apt and business-like. His contract with Nike was one of the highest ever for an athlete. When James was 20 he fired his agent Aaron Goodwin, who represented several NBA players and established his own firm to manage all aspects of his business endeavors and marketing his activities. His partners in this were his childhood friends. The business was created an names LRMR, after their first names. James is considered to be a true entrepreneur.

Blockbuster ends with current and future trends. This is an informative quick read on a topic almost all of us experience regularly - different forms of media - yet we know little about the strategies behind the scenes. Well written and researched.

Chapters:

1. Betting on Blockbusters
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Grand Central Publishing, Marvel Entertainment

2. Launching and Managing Blockbusters.
Lady Gaga, Octone Records

3. Investing in Superstars
Real Madrid, Boca Juniors

4. How Superstars Use The Powers
MGM and Tom Cruise, Maria Sharapova, LeBron James

5. Will Digital Technology end te Dominance of Blockbusters?
Youtube, Hulu, the Metropolitan Opera

6. Will Digital Technology Threaten Powerful Producers?
Radiohead, Major League Baseball, The National Football League

7. The Future of Blockbuster Strategies
Jay-Z, Lady Gaga

8. Epilogue: No Business like Show Business?
Marquee New York City

Notes
Acknowledgements
Index

Pros:
Very well written accompanied by clear-cut graphs that contextualize and prove the points presented.
No gratuitous jargons typically associated with economy books by scholars.
Super contemporary examples (reader in 2016)

Cons:
Some of the notions were are familiar to me as a MFA in Film Production, but the points were explored deeper made my understanding better of what I already knew. So not sure if this is a con ;)

Anita Elberse's "Blockbusters" is exactly as described. If you are looking for a book on the creative side of entertainment, this isn't the book. But if you want an explanation on how the 'event' movie began to take over the theaters and why as well as how singers like Lady Gaga could hit so suddenly and with such a blanket force, then this is the book to read.

Elberse gives the risks of the blockbuster mentality but also the patterns on why it works and continues to be deployed year after year by movie studios.

It isn't the most fun read if you love movies as an art form and you can recognize that the 'blockbuster' strategy essentially choked the art house theater out of existence in almost all places except for the largest of cities but it is still a very interesting read that makes a lot of sense when you consider the scope of Elberse's subject matter.

Definitely worth reading for a movie fan.

Blockbusters offers an insider's perspective on why movie studios, publishing houses, record companies, and owners of sports teams are willing to make huge investments in certain projects and individuals. Anita Elberse uses the first few chapters to demonstrate how big investments can equal big profits. Although these big investments can lead to embarrassing financial losses (think of the move "John Carter"), the author shows that the gambles often pay off as one blockbuster can essentially bankroll a studios other projects.

The author uses the term "blockbuster" to encompass everything and everyone from a movie to a sports team to an individual. The latter half of the book contains mostly case studies of these blockbusters, organized by chapters addressing specific topics such as pre-release marketing schemes and digital distribution. I thought that some of the profiles could have been condensed, as after a while some of the examples become repetitive. The insider interviews can be quite lengthy. Fortunately, the author covers such a wide range of stars (from Lady Gaga to Radiohead to Jay-Z), athletes (LeBron James) and organizations (NFL, soccer leagues, etc.) that there will be something of interest to anyone who doesn't live like a hermit.

There is plenty here to interest the casual reader, but I would suggest intently reading the first half and skimming the second for parts that interest you.

What's wrong with movies these days?

If you're satisfied with bloated, unbearably lengthy, special-effects laden epics usually about heroes with mystical powers, you might say, "Nothing." If you're like me, and are annoyed that the titles on the marquee at the multiplex look too much like an advertisement for a comic book shop, you know the movies are in trouble. Some clues to their decline can be found in Blockbusters: Hit-Making, Risk-Taking, and the Big Business of Entertainment by Anita Elberse.

In the prologue, she reports the strategy adopted by Warner Bros. in 1999, to greenlight four or five "tent-pole" or "event" films, spend the big bucks on producing and promoting them, and hope their success compensates for the 20 or so smaller (and, undoubtedly, more mature) movies that sink or swim on word of mouth because the studios can't be bothered to support them.

This "blockbuster" strategy was successful, and is now being imitated, not only in movies, television, and sports, but in music and publishing. If not for inclusion on the syllabus of college literature courses, William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway wouldn't stand a chance in a marketplace now dominated by boy wizards, teenage vampires, zombies, and warm and fuzzy tales like Marley and Me. Popular culture (and popular culture is about the only culture there is today) is kid stuff today, of interest to adults only if they haven't grown up.

Elberse offers a convincing argument that the blockbuster mentality is good for business (its effect on art is not addressed in this book), but it has its drawbacks. If it's true that the presence of a superstar in a movie's cast means an additional $20 million at the box-office, is it worth it if that's the amount that the star demands as salary?

Blockbuster also considers the effect that more economical and readily available digital technology may have on the "bigger is better" mentality. Hopefully, it will have a purging effect, similar to the flushing of a toilet.

The question that opened this review should be modified to ask, what's wrong with society that the arts have become so degraded and the public so willing to accept mediocrity?

Brian W. Fairbanks

I LOVE THIS BOOK!!!!! Ironically, I was doing some research to write my OWN book, and this turned up. I ordered it, and read it, and it made me abandon my project altogether. Its extremely thorough, and well-researched. Anita Elberse has outdone herself with this project! She gives stories from the executives themselves and uses case studies from real companies to analyze the various ways that blockbusters are made. She also lays out examples for why flops happen. I think that EVERYONE needs this book, whether they are at the top of the food chain in business, or at the absolute bottom! It is essential reading, period. If I were teaching business classes, this would be required by my students. I can't recommend it highly enough...