A different take: Hollywood's unresolved business model

Since the late 1980s, academic literature has polarised over how to represent organisational change and financial resolution within Hollywood. For some, Hollywood is an example of flexible production with win-win outcomes for all. For others, the major studios have entrenched their global power at the expense of others. This paper presents a different take on Hollywood which builds on the observations of stock market analysts about the absence of adequate corporate profits, set in the context of financialisation and its discontents. In Hollywood, the 'search for synergy' motivates a strategy of perpetual restructuring, where results will usually disappoint. The lack of profit is explained as due to the uncontrollable pay demands of key 'creatives', the mature market for film, and the mismatch between price and cost in the industry. The implication of this different take is that the absence of corporate profit is chronic and inherent in the business model, so that Hollywood is both a graveyard for corporate businesswhich searches for but does not find profits, and a field of opportunity for a small number of strategically positioned individuals - stars and directors - who become seriously rich. © 2010 Taylor & Francis.