Hollywood Tightens the Belt

It appears that tough times have hit Hollywood as much as anywhere else. A recent article by Ryan Nakashima in the Associated Press indicates that Hollywood is green-lighting fewer big-budget films.

Several projects that had previously been given the budgetary go-ahead have since been yanked from release schedules. These include Johnny Depp's "Lone Ranger" and, sadly, Stephen King's Dark Tower trilogy and television series. Even Spider-Man, whose previous three films had budgets of $139M, $200M, and $258M respectively has had its budget slashed for the reboot, Amazing Spider-Man, which has a rumored budget of a mere $80M.

Can Hollywood do more on less? Perhaps this is a good trend, causing filmmakers to rely more on character, acting, plot, and emotional impact rather than special effects, stunts, and CGI wow-factor. But either way, I hope they manage to get a Dark Tower movie made!