Despite releasing nine films this past summer, Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Pictures Group (which includes Columbia, Tristar, Screen Gems, Sony Pictures Classics, and others, but whose primary releasing arm is Columbia Pictures) announced that it is only going to release four movies in the summer of 2014, citing a crowded marketplace and a need to reduce spending.
During the Investor Day conference at the studio, CEO Michael Lynton discussed a “significant shift from motion pictures to higher margin television production and networks,” a move that suggests more streaming content and a focus on television, which has been considered by many of the major studios. He also told investors he’d cut $250 million in costs over the next two years.
Lynton also said that growth in original programming and international markets have boosted that business, a business model that’s been obvious in recent years – many of the blockbusters of the past summers have done far greater business overseas. Also worth noting is that despite the ballooning budgets of many of the summer tentpoles, another executive said that overall spending on film production is down 50 percent from its peak seven years ago.
This story is interesting in its acknowledgment by a major studio of the shifting modes of media consumption, while also continuing to focus on tentpole releases. More studios will hopefully follow the model in the future.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
