The shifts happen on a regular basis, but it's like a cycle. So things come in and out of vogue and then five years later they're back in vogue. Or there seems to be a theory that this is the way the industry will go and everybody goes over that way and then something happens to the country and you're back again at the place you were.
Eric FellnerIn terms of putting the cast together, no problems. You know, the only problem always is just price-point. Our ambitions as we get older, all of us, is to try and do more.
Eric FellnerPeople are piling into England, there's lots of studio films happening there. When we budget our films we multiply it by 1.55 it's much easier than when we multiply it by 2 so the cost looks a lot less in dollars, because everybody talks in dollars in terms of finance. And then the shift that I think is coming, I hope is coming, is movies made in a..."simple" is the wrong word, you visit movie sets all the time I imagine, the whole process has just got so big.
Eric FellnerThen something fails and they're all out again, but DVD revenue is disappearing, you know, it's not disappearing but it's going off a cliff and what that's done is it's polarized the industry in a way that I've never seen before where studios are making less, they're bifurcating their choices where they're either going very, very big or they're just picking up a few rights on an acquisition basis or making really small things.
Eric FellnerIt wasn't like we cut songs out; we cut bits of songs, bits of action or bits of whatever. So we would have to go back in get a full orchestra re-orchestrate it, re-score it, re-record it. It's a massive job. But, if there's a demand we can always discuss it.
Eric FellnerThat middle ground of films used to be 70, 80, 90, 100; now it's like anything over 20 or under 140, the middle ground has become this huge area where they don't really want to be.
Eric FellnerThe problem with Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead is that they worked brilliantly in the UK, the US, and Australia; internationally they haven't worked so well because people don't know the films as well as in the English speaking languages. So when it comes to putting the budgets together it's quite challenging. So those are the problems you have.
Eric Fellner