Can Hollywood do anything right?

With the Christmas holiday box office rush over, it seems that 2005 will not be the break out year Hollywood was hoping for. Overall the ticket sales are down a reported 5-6% over 2004. Several big budgeted flops: Stealth, The Island, and others caused the exit of Dreamsworks from the independent production business.

The budgets of most "tentpole" movies are now north of $150 million. Factor in another $75 million for worldwide marketing costs and the gross participation of the stars and you can see why the movie business is hurting. What is the cure for the problem? Make lower budgeted films? Not really. The problem is to make better films that people want to see, rather than making remakes. The urban film segment was mostly positive with several theatrical releases going respectable numbers. However, according to our research there was less than 5 "urban" films that had a theatrical release in 2005:

Hustle & Flow
The Gospel
Diary of a Mad Black Woman
Crash
Woman Thou Art Loose

The total box office take for the above five movies was less that $100 million. The production budget of the five is estimated at less than $15 million, i.e., the cost of one A list Hollywood "Star".

The urban segment if developed properly can be a profitable segment for a production company structured for the production of urban films.

Silver Screen Studios, Inc. (OTCBB:SSSU) is one such company structured for the production of urban films. The development of the production infrastructure where costs can be controlled is the key to profitability in the urban market segment.