AFM and more oscar contenders

I dropped by the AFM, aka American Film Market and the first thing I noticed in it's banners is that they've added a few new words. It is now the American Film "and Television" market.

This is a big thing, TV was the poor cousin to AFM, like I said in the last blog, AFM was a big deal where Americans could sell their product to almost every country in the world. 

But things changed, as you all know. Netflix, for example, is changing the film and TV market in a huge way. The Writer's Guild of America says now that TV writers now make more money than feature film writers.

I think that it's due to the fact that there are now two different types of films; one is big blockbusters that cost anywhere from $150 million to $300 million, and the other is mostly small independent films that play for a week so that the producers can say it had a "theatrical run." Most of these are either financed by family or friends and are usually about going back home to see that girl/guy you remember.

And the movies in between are a few romcoms that don't last long in theatrical either. There are exceptions like the two "Taken" films with Liam Neeson, you know, the movies where his daughter is taken in one, and he's taken in the other. And they're pretty good movies.

It's clear to see that TV is the big elephant in the room now, although it is just beginning to change with Netflix and Hulu and all the others. 

But besides that there isn't much... except -

The Academy award movies that are starting to show their faces finally. I mentioned a few blogs ago Jake Gyllenhaal is getting attention with Nightcrawler, and it seems to be growing. 

Besides Jake, there are the obligatory Brit movies, one with Benedict Cumberbatch who should get an award just to say his name. He's doing The Imitation Game (a bad title?) based on a brilliant British code breaker during WW2, Allan Turing, who broke the German Enigma code machine and eventually committed suicide.

And of course, I should mention Reese Witherspoon who is fighting for an Oscar with a movie about a woman who hiked a thousand miles after re-hab. She's putting Legally Blonde behind and going for a second Oscar in which she uses drugs and love scenes.

But let's see how this name game goes until I can come up with something more interesting.

We have now;

Jake Gyllenhaal (Nightcrawler)
Benedict Cumberbatch
Reese Witherspoon (Wild)
Michael Keaton (Birdman)