Hollywood Wants Bailed Out?

Dear Dancing Monkey Masters and Organ Grinders,

This is why you don't pick sides.

Because there comes a day when your opponent holds the purse strings when you've got your hand out.

Unlike, say, automaking; entertainment is not actually an essential industry.

It's something that anyone can make from materials at hand.

It might not be "art" but it does serve to pass the time.

Now you're facing the fact that the movie theaters, whom you regularly skin rather than shear, cannot remain open while you keep delaying the release of new product for them to sell to the customer.

They're in the state they're in because of how you "sell" your product to them.

It's why there's only a couple of theater chains instead of many locally owned venues.  The margins have been squeezed so tight that the only way to have a theater showing new-run films is to be able to take advantage of economies of scale.

Perhaps things wouldn't be so dire if you didn't skim off all the cream and overpay the monkeys to dance.

You brag so much about how many billions you rake in from the box office, put some of that money into keeping the places that collect it for you alive.

Of course, I've long felt that the DOJ should look into Hollywood Accounting, ENRON executives went to jail using far more open and honest accounting methods.