Which is why the comic fans were treated to such off-topic events as Salt, The Expendables and trailers for Jackass 3D. Angelina Jolie dashed through as a form of honey trap while Sylvester Stallone preached to the wrong choir about the evil effects of Batman movies and CGI. While a few of the film-promoting guests made sense (Joss Whedon and Kevin Smith being the two most obvious), most of the stars were bits of second-hand glitter dangled to hawk the studios’ wares.

Which is sort of OK. A little glam never hurt anyone. Heck, even Stallone’s usual brainlessness had at least one positive fitness point (though based on his increasingly puffy mis-muscled look, I would strongly suggest not using his gym). But the real question is why is Hollywood packing this much mainstream star power into an event best enjoyed by couch potatoes in costumes? The answer isn’t very difficult. But it is nonsensical.

For Hollywood, Comic-Con has become the magic gateway to the young male demographic market. In many respects, it is (though in truth, the comic fan universe has a lot of middle-age and balding guys running through it). This is the perfect demographic audience for movies like The Dark Knight. That movie made lots of money, therefore everything pitched toward this audience will make lots of money. Perfect non-logic, right?

In the real world, comic book movies have an extremely iffy history. They cost a lot of money to make (generally around $150 to $250 million before the PR cost is added). Every so often, a film like The Dark Knight scores big. Mostly, they barely break even and some simply bomb. The young male demographic market is pretty small and narrow, and for any of these movies to go anywhere, they have to stretch beyond that audience (which was the case with The Dark Knight). When they don’t, you end up with the so-so return of something like Watchmen (which could be argued as a more pure form of comic book movie) or even worse, the disastrous returns of a movie like Jonah Hex (which even the comic fans wouldn’t touch). Either way, this type of movie costs way too much to make and its box office strength is largely mediocre to gad-awful. But Hollywood won’t give up on the idea simply because it has no other ideas. Period.

So it makes sense to them to barn-storm Comic-Con. Heck, it kind of works because the fans lap everything up with the giddy pleasure of kids running loose in the candy store. Even Stallone got a standing ovation (despite the fact that most of these kids were born after he became an over-pumped has-been). By all accounts, the audience loved it. It was like being a paparazzo for a day. By the end of the festival, people were thrilled.

The same could be said about a one-night stand with the most shallow but beautiful woman on earth. Might be a night to remember, but don’t plan on making it the rest of your life. Boredom kicks in by day two, and before the week is over the resentment level is more toxic than the Gulf of Mexico after the oil spill. Hollywood is only there because they think these folks are going to stroke their egos, praise these crappy films and become walking PR zombies that will turn each movie into a mega-hit. It ain’t gonna to happen, but that’s what the suits think.

In turn, the festival will get pressed and steamrolled until it just can’t take it any more. Likewise, the fans become experienced and even jaded. They wake up one morning feeling used. They start snapping at each other in the convention hall as they realize that their dream date is really just a one-dimensional tease with an IQ lower than supermarket squash. They start to feel that they need, even want, something better, something more, and all they are getting is the same lame movie with a mere change in the roman numeral. Then, they get mean.

I have seen this first hand. Back in 1997, I got hounded out of business as a reporter with a British magazine by the UK publicist for a major US studio. I had written some basically smart-aleck reports about the filming of the fourth installment in an extremely profitable super-hero movie franchise. I had broken the unwritten law by suggesting that the studio honchos who were calling the shots didn’t know what they were doing and strongly suggested that the movie might end up being a box office dud (you are suppose to make these kind of statements only after the film has already opened and bombed). I even suggested that the studio had no clue as to what the fans might want. By the time this was over, I was out and the PR guy was writing reviews for the magazine under a nom-de-plume.

However, I took some comfort at a fans convention a week before the movie opened. J. Michael Straczynski was the guest and was doing a bang-up job of working the house while delivering a 30-minute-long diatribe about the idiots who ran Hollywood. As an example of studio stupidity, he tore into the same movie. Suddenly, hundreds of fans started lining up at the microphones in the auditorium to take turns denouncing the movie as a travesty of a highly regarded (since 1939) comic book hero. One after the other unloaded increasingly scathing attacks upon the film (which they hadn’t even seen), the studio and basically anybody connected to the dang thing. The whole place started to resemble a Soviet purge trial from the 1930s.

So I suspect that the folks at Comic-Con will be happier sticking with such fan-made short films as Batman: Dead End. This love affair with Hollywood is likely headed toward a bumpy end.

To be honest, there have been some pretty successful movies this summer. For example, Iron Man 2 took in a hefty $310 million US gross ($615 million worldwide). With an estimated production budget of $200 million plus (the plus meaning that the real budget was probably around $300 million), it will actually make some real profit once it is out on DVD — at least as long as DVD sales stop slipping away (there has been a recent upturn, but much of that is due to the DVD release of Avatar).

Likewise, Toy Story 3 has taken in $363 million US ($630 worldwide). With a production budget of $200 million plus (see above about what the plus means), it will have a reasonable return by Christmas with DVD sales (see above about the slipping revenues from DVD sales).

In each case, the movies opened on 4,000-plus screens. Also in each case, the films suffered major drops between their first and second weeks (Iron Man 2 fell by about 50 percent while Toy Story 3 dropped by nearly 40 percent). By their fifth week of release, each movie was barely coasting at an average of $3,000 per screen. Not exactly bad totals, but not really the kind of figures that would make many theater owners beg for more. And keep in mind that these were two of the most successful releases of the summer.

Then there is The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. Barely retaining some sense of the first movie’s indie origins, the current budget is around $65 million (more or less, though still pretty dang modest next to the big boys). With a US gross of $265 million (worldwide: $553 million), it has made a clear clean profit despite its fast box office drop (more than 60 percent within three weeks of play). It is running about even with the previous release, New Moon, but the figures clearly indicate that it has hit the profit wall, and the steady budget increase should be kept in mind during production of the next installment.

Then you have the three most successful indie movies of the summer. The Duplass Brothers’ comedy Cyrus was made for a lean $7 million (which is a huge budget for these guys) and has managed a steady creep in distribution to a total of 446 screens and a gross of $5 million. More important, Cyrus is currently averaging around $2,300 per screen and rising as it heads into its sixth week of gradual release.

Close behind Cyrus is the $2 million production of Winter’s Bone. In its sixth week of release, Winter’s Bone has moved up to 121 screens with an average of $2,870 per screen and a current gross of $3 million and climbing. It may actually out-gross Cyrus and appears to be well on its way to becoming one of the most successful indie movies of 2010.

But the big attention is on The Kids Are Alright. OK, compared to the other two movies it has the most generous budget ($10 million – which wouldn’t have covered the first week of lunch on Iron Man 2) and the bigger-named cast (yes, I know that Cyrus stars John C. Reilly, but still…). But the real attention-getter is that The Kids Are Alright has taken in $1.8 million in its first two weeks of release and is only playing on 38 screens. I personally suspect that Winter’s Bone will prove to be the stronger movie, but The Kids Are Alright has become more of an attention-grabber for the media.

What does any of this mean, besides the obvious fact that indie films have to work hard for their money while tent-pole productions are a pretty expensive way to make the rough equivalence of $2 dollars? These figures certainly prove that the slow release pattern is the way to go for most indie movies. Part of the problem when major studios dabble in indie production is their failure to grasp this basic difference in distribution patterns. Likewise, the success of Winter’s Bone is a tribute to the power of Internet-based word-of-mouth (which the majors are still trying to figure out).

But there is another oddity in these figures that is just now being realized by some people. Every successful major film this summer has made more money overseas (especially in Europe) than in the US (some films such as Iron Man 2 even opened first in Europe). This didn’t used to be the case, and it suggests future problems for mainstream Hollywood. European distributors are already seeking a bigger cut of the action based on this imbalance at the box office. In turn, the US box office is actually in a state of decline, and the current indicators strongly suggest that this attendance drop has only just begun.

Some indie movies, when they do manage to get released, can have a slow but steady pattern at the box office. Likewise, the European market is often more interested in these films than the current American system. In many ways, indie movies are closer to the European model. A case in point is the 2009 Swedish thriller The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Made for a modest $13 million and released rather belatedly in the US, it has already made $9.5 million in its extremely limited American release (only 70 screens). This looks like a pretty modest return until you add that to its worldwide gross of $109.5 million.

To be honest, it is probably the only outright legitimate hit of the summer.

The social network revolution has become the major historical marker for the first quarter of the twenty-first century. More than anything else, it has become the strange connecting link between people across the globe, as everyone from the President to the Norman Bates-like guy next door has a “personal” page on the Internet. With so much traffic, no wonder Hollywood wants to muscle in.

It started slowly with various folks like Steven Spielberg setting up FaceBook sites that were largely a substitute for the old school notion of fan clubs. There is no real interaction with the named figure, and most of the site is simply provided as a venue for people to make goo-goo eyes over the artist — strictly a one-way street that was less informative (and even less personal) than an old edition of Photoplay magazine. It was clear that Hollywood sort of knew it had to somehow deal with this new medium but really was unclear as to what that meant (and not really very comfortable with the prospect).

Then things began to get interesting. Young indie filmmakers began using social sites for everything from fund raising to information networking. Various film festivals began using such sites as a base for PR and contact. Various businesses and consulting services related to indie production began sprouting across the globe. A whole new world of interactive communication was taking place, and the average Hollywood player was still on the sideline.

The one major part of the commercial film industry that learned quickly was, as usual, the porn trade. Various major porn “stars” began setting up their own FaceBook and Twitter sites and, as Netherlands “actress” Bobbi Eden recently demonstrated, were prepared to begin steering social networking toward a new and more interactive level. As usual with the porn trade, it’s all pretty cheap, sordid and outrageously obvious. But it sure makes Spielberg’s site on FaceBook look blander than vanilla yogurt.

Then came the last straw. The current hot idea is that you can predict a movie’s box office by assessing the amount of time that it is favorably mentioned on Twitter. What started out early this year as a theory has become an established system currently in use by such sites as BoxOffice.com and various film studios. Despite the MPAA’s recent (and successful) political squishing of film future derivatives predicated on their argument that nobody can predict a movie’s opening box office, everyone in Hollywood is scrambling to do just that, and they are heavily focused on various versions of the Twitter approach.

Which also means that Hollywood wants a slice of the social networking market. Oh sure, it’s a very up-and-down relationship. Last October they were telling Hollywood stars to stop using Twitter while working on a movie. Then a networking site for professional filmmakers came into being. Last year, Paramount Pictures salvaged a mediocre season with the surprisingly successful release of Paranormal Activity, a movie that was a testament to the raw power of Internet activity. This October, Columbia Pictures will unload a direct barrage against Mark Zuckerberg and the creation of FaceBook via the movie The Social Network ( which is sort of unnecessary, since Zuckerberg does a pretty good job of trashing himself every time he opens his mouth).

So what accounts for this Jekyll-and-Hyde approach to social networking sites? Simple — they are out of Hollywood’s control, and as a general rule, Hollywood fears anything it can’t control. Sure, it also doesn’t understand this social phenomena, but big deal. Nobody understands it. The real problem is that Hollywood doesn’t control it, and yet finds itself having to depend on these sites for PR and box office purposes. Hollywood has always existed in a tight little bubble, and the Internet is an incredibly intrusive pain in the rear for these folks.

Hollywood finds itself in a bizarre relationship with the thing it hates most (kind of like Mel Gibson’s relationship with the rest of humanity). As it storms aboard the Internet and social networking sites, it wants a top-down system in which Hollywood provides only the information it wants to give, and everyone just laps it up. But the system doesn’t work that way (case in point being the recent failure of the viral campaign for Knight and Day). Hollywood has to adapt to an interactive approach in which anyone with a laptop can jump in and say rude things that reflect poorly on the bloated piece of brain-dead garbage that the studios are always peddling. Good grief! It’s like a war out there.

An old-fashioned range war, to be exact. Once upon a time, the Internet was like an open territory, full of promise for those who journeyed across its uncharted lands. But those days are over as civilization has moved in (well, sort of, if you call Perez Hilton civilized). Now the old money is rolling in and desperate to take control. It all sounds just a bit like the background to the infamous Lincoln County Range War.

So I guess we are now waiting to see who emerges as the Internet version of Billy the Kid.

Then there is my technique. I call it educated speculations developed from current and emerging patterns. It is more widely known as blind guesswork. At least it isn’t as messy as goat entrails, and it has a fifty/fifty success rate (more or less), which actually places it ahead of Nostradamus’s 7 percent. Fortunately, the future trends in movies are more predictable, and the real question is not if but when certain changes will take place.

Take for example the rise of the digital cinema. Despite the high cost of converting to digital projection format (general estimate of $150,000 per screen), theaters are pressed to pursue the technology due to the 3D revolution. The 3D mania has resulted in a strange collaboration of studios, digital suppliers and lenders, who have created special funds to rapidly expand the use of digital projectors in order to increase the number of screens for 3D movies.

But the 3D revolution will most likely have a limited lifespan (I’m guessing that it will be very low-key by the start of 2011). While some films that are actually made in 3D will still have the long-term ability to attract an audience (especially if the filmmaker has a clue about how to use the format), most of the 2D-converted-to-3D movies are already leaving viewers with a bad taste for the process. Likewise, the steady increase in ticket prices for 3D movies is forcing many viewers (already strapped for cash) to rediscover a deep appreciation for the artistic merits of the flat screen.

So what becomes important is not the issue of 3D, but rather the total conversion of the theater system to digital projection and digital distribution. Since the cost of digital distribution is infinitely cheaper than using 35mm prints, the financial restraints placed upon small distributors and indie filmmakers vanishes. Economically, just about anybody can distribute a movie through the digital system.

What will stop them is the desire by the major companies to control the process. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse did more than make a lot of money this weekend. It also sucked up nearly 4,500 screens. Another 4,000-plus screens were busy showing Toy Story 3. Then 3,000 plus screens were stuck with The Last Airbender. Add in the next 6 major titles, and at least 25,406 screens in the US are currently tied up with the same 9 movies. There are roughly 37,396 screens in the country. The remaining screens are largely made up of either drive-ins (seasonal and largely marginal in their financial returns) or second-run screenings. So it is no surprise that indie movies have a tough time finding a place to show (for example, the indie movie Cyrus was the tenth biggest movie last weekend, but it’s only playing on 77 screens – which in indie terms is a very wide release).

The major companies like it this way. The old days when Hollywood maintained a total monopoly over the distribution system are gone, but the system still basically works that way. However, the economic drive of the digital approach is toward total decentralized control. The high cost of 35mm print distribution ($2,500 per print more or less) was ideal for large companies. Digital distribution removes the financial barrier and, in theory, opens the system to a wide range of small vendors.

Which is why the majors are going to work overtime to create every possible roadblock imaginable. For example, the rating system maintained by the MPAA has a financial price tag that can vary (depending upon a wide range of issues) from $10,000 to $250,000 per title. As a general rule, a very low-budget film cannot afford the fee to go through the rating process. In turn, a movie without an MPAA rating finds that its theater access is sharply diminished (mostly limited to the few “art house” theaters that still operate).

Directed ownership of theaters by studios was broken up in the late 1940s by the Supreme Court decision in the case of Paramount Pictures. In the 1980s, the rules were relaxed and various major studios went back into the theater business by buying large portions of stock (often around 47 to 51 percent) in many of the major theater chains. The advent of 3D and the cost of digital conversion has hastened this process (e.g. the manner in which IMAX has used the conversion as a means of gaining control over the screens that are converted). So the majors have sizable control over the distribution process.

Too bad the digital revolution just doesn’t give a damn. The recent failure by Viacom to roll back the “safe harbor” rule in its suit against YouTube is just one indicator of this trend. But even if Viacom were to succeed (perhaps by floating a bill through Congress — hey, it happens, as we all know), it still doesn’t matter. The nature of the technology (and the demands of commercial distribution) makes it virtually impossible to stop the process. Don’t believe me, then just look at the music industry.  The effort is impossible to enforce and manages gives the average hacker a bogus yet romantic allure (suddenly, all the geeks in their parents’ basement are flying the Jolly Roger while trying to figure out how to buckle a swash).

But the other irony of 3D and digital conversion is even more perverse. In principle, the move is designed to make film going an “event experience.” The cost of the conversion (with its ensuing ticket price increases) may actually drive away film viewers (current box office drops support this) and even force some theaters out of business. Instead of saving the theater business, 3D may be the last gasp of a dying enterprise as emphasis continues to move in the direction of various alternative distribution patterns. Likewise, digital distribution to theaters carries a weird double-edged point: the process makes it cheaper to do, and also makes it more feasible to simply skip the theaters altogether and go straight into the home market.

The actual future of movie theaters remains, at best, murky. But the special presentation of TV programs and “live” events will become increasingly more important to the theaters than simply showing movies. Eventually, the average megaplex will function more as a kind of social/community center than as a movie palace. It’s almost as if the theater system is rolling back to where it began over 100 years ago. Throw in a few more live acts and we could simply call it vaudeville.

These are just a few of the reasons why the major companies are heading into turmoil. They are also some of the means by which indie cinema will actually have a resurgence, though it remains to be seen in what form. The whole concept of indie filmmaking is undergoing major changes, and what will emerge from this process is still a vaporous presence. But it will be the future of film. The rest is merely the last stand of an old era.

In other words, we don’t need to hear any more crap about how the film business is recession proof. We also don’t need to listen to any more nonsense about how 3D is going to save the business (if anything, it has divided sales in a negative manner). Likewise, the boys of Hollywood can stuff it on the idea that the tent pole movie is the exclusive path for the future. Most likely, the July 1 release of The Last Airbender (with an estimated budget of $150 million and a PR budget of $130 million) will follow the expensive downward momentum of Knight and Day and assorted other expensive clunkers that have left many theater owners anxious to screen repeats of such TV shows as Lost in order to attract an audience.

So it is interesting that Variety has just discovered the financial possibilities of small independent movies. OK, they’re not exactly that enthused about the subject, but their recent article Indie Pics Rebound May Be at Hand is one of the few nice things they have had to say about the subject in quite a while. It’s not as if there are any low-budget movies out there at the moment that are scoring big dollars. But a few titles are scoring some loose change and are doing so with a lot less expense than any tent pole epic.

Admittedly, the success stories reported by Variety are kind of in the hypothetical mode. Two of the most prominent movies in the article, Cyrus and Babies, are not exactly breaking any records out there. Like a young toddler, Babies started off with a sudden burst, then toppled quick. As for Cyrus, it actually opened with an impressive $45,429 per screen average. That was on 4 screens. Once it widened to 17 screens, the average dropped to $17,719. It may not be a good idea for the movie to go much wider (two dozen screens could kill it).

But hey, they’re out there, and at least some people are going to them. That is the real story. The current distribution system for indie movies is almost zilch. Taking the glass-is-half-full position, Variety argues that the lack of indie competition is good for indie films. Yeah, sure. And maybe if BP were the only oil company around, we wouldn’t be beefing so much about the Gulf oil spill. By the same logic, if Knight and Day had been the only tent pole movie this summer, Tom Cruise might have made some money. I have found that any argument based on the lack of competition is largely bogus.

Fortunately, what these films do demonstrate is that indie movies can still display some signs of life in the marketplace. The indicators are extremely limited, and the current distribution pattern is still outrageously stacked against them. But at least something is still stirring, and the long-term prospects for indie movies might yet improve.

One possible sign is the increase in digital theaters, as reported in another Variety story. Due to the success of Avatar and other 3D movies (all of which were in a digital format in 3D), theaters are moving more aggressively toward adapting to the new technology. The reason to adapt is for the blockbusters, but the technology also makes it more financially feasible for small movies to get distributed. A digital version of a movie can be distributed for $150 a screen (instead of $2,000 plus per 35mm print). At $150 a pop, I could start distributing my home movies to AMC. Nobody is going want to see them, but I could easily afford to do it.

As more theaters go digital, the indie cinema should prosper. But it won’t. The current distribution system is geared toward Hollywood mainstream dominance and it rejects virtually any approach that steps outside of standard mainstream control (thanks to both the studios and the constant heavy-handedness of the MPAA). The system is rigid, rejects adaptation and refuses to bend in any direction other than the established order. On the other hand, the established order is in the process of falling apart all over the place, and it is likely that theater owners will be increasingly interested in finding alternative approaches. It is a period of evolutionary change.

Which is why it is also interesting that a new approach in indie film making is starting to surface. Participatory cinema is about to make an off-beat but potentially aggressive appearance. The first step in this direction started in 2004 with Open Source Cinema and its online approach to production. This has evolved into a network of film hobbyists who have increasingly moved from mere enthusiasts to actual filmmakers, working in collaboration via the internet. Three movies are currently in production via this technique, with the Finnish production of Iron Sky preparing for the start of actual shooting in October (actually, some of the film has already been “shot” via the digital work – it’s the people they are still working on).

In many respects, the production of films like Iron Sky is closer in methodology to the early days of video game development (so is its plot line of Nazi moon bases and uber alien conquers looking to reverse the end of World War Two). It’s way off base from most traditional standards of indie film making, which is also one of the reasons to keep an eye on this sucker. Evolution is a funny thing, and once upon a time, our own ancestors were funny critters dangling from trees. That is why you always have to look off base.

There are major changes in the air, and whatever comes next will be something that is way off base.