DreamWorks delays financing talks with Wall Street

By Sarah Sluis

While Hollywood likes to tout its immunity to recession via The Great Depression, during which the
industry not only made money, but also lifted the spirits of America with its leggy musicals, it looks as though the credit crunch has already affected Hollywood financing.

DreamWorks chose to delay its Wall Street pitch for additional financing, planning to wait a month for the crisis to settle down before proceeding.  Right now this makes sense--DreamWorks says it has enough money from its Reliance deal, and Wall Street has more important things on its hands right now than to lend more money.  More news stories like this might indicate trouble.  However, with the Dow dropping 40% from last year, the question is not if we will see more stories like these, but "when?" and "how many?" 

As I wrote yesterday, major studios have already secured financing for most of their projects going into production now, giving them some safety and lead time.  In fact, many of them had delayed their projects for another one of capitalism's favorite concerns--unions, and the expiration of the Screen Actors Guild contracts.  Hollywood has stated its confidence that people will still go to movies in an economic crisis, since they are a relatively cheap source of entertainment, but what if it lacks the money to make its films?

Reprising my "Money, Politics, Hollywood" post from last month, I thought I would throw in a Hollywood political update.  Today, THR's Risky Business blog ruminated about the timing of the release of Oliver Stone's W.  Releasing a film about our president before his term has finished surprises me as well, although from what I understand it's more of an "origin" film than an analysis of the Bush presidency.  Unlike other politically minded films like Farenheit 9/11, which looked for someone to blame, W's trailer surprised viewers, including myself, with its frat boy lampoon of Bush.  The trailer shows Bush's partying antics and his sheepish reception of a lecture from his father--no one nefarious, just criminally clueless.  With the popularity of Tina Fey's Sarah Palin imitation fresh on the minds of viewers, I think W's greatest angle for success will come from viewers trying to chase laughs similar to SNL's political caricatures.