Tom Rothman and Jim Gianopulos may run a movie studio, but these days they often feel more like traffic cops, making sure 20th Century Fox's releases don't crash into rival films at the multiplex.
To help them through the congestion, the movie chiefs pore over slick white boards in their offices cluttered with color-coded magnetic strips showing the titles of films set for release through 2010. Like chess players in a high-stakes game, they shift films around hoping to outmaneuver rivals.
With a glut of titles flooding the marketplace, all studio bosses fear that the surplus is impeding an already rugged road to profitability. Studios and independent distributors last year released a record 517 films -- an average of 10 a weekend, up 49% from a decade earlier -- and this year movies are coming at the same pace.
"This is one of the biggest issues facing Hollywood today," said Rothman, noting that it's just as crucial to pick the right release dates for movies as it is to select the right script and hire the right stars and filmmakers. "When you're trying to cram too many movies into a finite number of release dates, it's inevitable some will suffer."
Although the industry has periodically grappled with an oversupply of movies, executives say the current abundance is particularly troubling because it comes as overall attendance and once-robust DVD sales have stagnated.
Adding to their costs, movie companies spend huge sums to globally promote and release their films -- as much as $150 million for some big event pictures.
"In order to break through the clutter, we all feel the pressure to spend more in marketing," said Warner Bros. President Alan Horn.
The logjam has been fueled by billions of dollars of film financing that has poured into Hollywood over the last few years from private equity, hedge funds and other investors, arming studios with easy cash and creating a new crop of independent distributors.
In the last three years, companies such as Overture Films (backed by John Malone's Liberty Media Corp.) and Summit Entertainment (bankrolled by Merrill Lynch & Co.) have entered the fray, along with Weinstein Co. and the revived Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.
As a result, movies that otherwise might never have gotten the green light are adding to the congestion, many critically acclaimed films are getting lost in the shuffle and releases targeting the same audience segments are cannibalizing one another.
