Hollywood always survives. When TV arrived in the Fifties studios scrambled to 3D, then Cinemascope, and survived. The digital age has posed a deeper threat. 

The Intouchables, a French film, outperformed Avatar several ties.

Competing for profits with piracy, digital and social media, the internet, sports, pornography and video games, Hollywood is frantic.

However, for all the perennial dream factory bashing, some great entertainment is still made, depending on your taste, or some say, lack of taste.

Michael Blaha, Professor of (media) Law at Southwestern School of Law said today, “Hollywood now is probably best defined as the two ‘zations’: globalization and democratization. Globalization, because Hollywood now earns more than twice as much of its box office in foreign territories than it does domestically.

The Avengers represents the best and the worst in American filmmaking.

Democratization because technology has reduced the cost of producing all kinds of intellectual property, allowing diverse content, and there are more varied distribution platforms than ever, assuring those voices will be heard.”

It’s facetiously said that the most creative film people are accountants. Studios often embed a 25 percent “overhead” fee into their budgets, not an incentive for low budgets. Budgets have escalated with corresponding flops.

The LA Times reported that the French film “The Intouchables” cost $11.5 million and has grossed $339 million and climbing. It’s about a paraplegic millionaire and his friendship with his Algerian caregiver.

“It isn’t even in English,” wrote the paper. 

Put another way Avatar grossed 10 times its budget and “The Intouchables” grossed 30 times.

This supposedly exposes Hollywood incompetence and puts executives in excited mode. Many would only speak off the record when discussing the comparative success of a “fer’n film.”

Elspeth Tavares, editor of Business of Film for 30 years said, "The majors are stymied and preconditioned by the ‘accountancy syndrome’, money before creativity, with the attitude that they can continue to make their shortfall via other platforms. The market has dramatically, irrevocably changed.

Film director Philippe Mora and his wife Pamela in their West Hollywood apartment, the same one Cary Grant used at the height of his stardom. Photo by WeHo News.

“With the recent availability of ‘cash’ from financial sources, Wall Street and others, plus the emergence of some 15 sales and distribution companies led by seasoned executives, the independents again have an edge. A review of the high profile deals with A list talent across the spectrum of filmmaking during Cannes (2012) confirms this.”

Dave Gregory, stereographer, says Alvin Toffler’s “Future shock” or too much technological change in too short a time, has arrived. The ranks of white male executives indicate Hollywood is arguably as sexist, racist and ageist as ever, and needs a diversity reboot.

According to a prominent manager to whom I spoke, but who would only be quoted anonymously, “The infamous 1 percent applies here, where the top 1 percent in town control everything and the rest are on a treadmill.”

Hollywood is in anxiety as it plays catch up with the morphing digital paradigm, aggressively affecting distribution, production and finance. Movies are no longer “filmed,” they are “captured.”

“Data wranglers” roam sets. Pirates plug into digital projectors and download perfect copies.

The studios get into digital problems and budgets increase. Even how one will archive these digital movies is giving archives migraine. In a back to the future twist, the cost effective thing to do is output the digital version onto 35mm film to preserve it (for at least 100 years).

Ray Zone, film historian and 3D expert says, “Now that a few 100 million dollar tentpole 3D movies have bombed, Hollywood studio executives need to figure out how to use 3D more intelligently with more product for broader audiences.

“They have to figure out how to use 3D more effectively for cinema content and transmedia as it migrates into the home and onto handheld, single-user devices like smartphones and tablets."

Movies are no longer “filmed,” they are “captured.”

Estimates of lost revenues from piracy for artists and studios run into billions. Many are victims until some form of copyright policing gains teeth.

Google and others recently derailed anti-piracy legislation in Congress, but on 25 May 2012 issued a Transparency Report saying Google itself takes down one million links a month in anti-piracy efforts.

Under the flag of “freedom of speech,” simple larceny is rampant. It’s a many layered issue because the culture of the Internet began as a free flow of information between individuals.

Minecraft creator Markus Persson said, “Piracy is not theft. If you steal a car, the original is lost. If you copy a game, there are simply more of them in the world.”

Franchise minded, Hollywood continues its commercial content focus on teenage boys and some males under 35 with comic book heroes. Despite conspicuous flops, the demographics and hits like The Avengers speak powerfully to those who green light budgets.

Young women are patronizingly given the much lower budgeted date, wedding and getting-pregnant movies.

A cerebral star by contrast to many, even Clooney had to play Batman, an “exceptional” man who dresses as a bat.

The comic book epics can be seen as an offshoot of “American Exceptionalism,” which posits that America's culture, values, democratic system, and history are “exceptional” and worthy of universal acclaim and imitation. Hollywood has magnified this concept to supernatural proportions.

Movies fantasize about American heroes with magic powers conquering every conceivable enemy from demons to aliens. This delusional fantasy is possibly dangerous content, by raising impossible expectations.

Presidential candidates are asked which superhero they identify with. The comic book hope in films is a conflicted theme, often accompanied by catastrophic 9/11-type destruction, as in The Avengers.

Hollywood also applies its money directly politically. Recently President Obama raised $15 million at George Clooney’s home.

A cerebral star by contrast to many, even Clooney had to play Batman, an “exceptional” man who dresses as a bat.

So Hollywood politics is all over the map, but united at the moment on American Exceptionalism, with men in tights.