Studios Already Shredding Hundred Dollar Bills For Use As “Summer Of Prosperity” Parade Confetti

We’re nothing if not suckers for a nice feel-good story, especially when it’s accompanied by a fun chart where Spider-Man scales a pillar representing the obscene amounts of money some of our favourite movie studios are making: With four different films crossing the $US300 million mark, Hollywood is enjoying its Best Summer Ever, a period of prosperity that is erasing all memory of that nasty, alleged “Slump” of 2005, when executives were forced to answer all kinds of rude questions about why their shitty product wasn’t selling. During this new Golden Age of Very Profitable Threequels, they instead get to crow about how smart they are in the pages of Variety:

“It’s proved that when you offer people great stories that also deliver state-of-the-art effects and stunts, they want to go out and experience it together. It becomes an event,” said DreamWorks CEO/co-chair Stacey Snider, whose studio and Paramount turned out “Transformers.”

Of course, it doesn’t hurt when those great stories, state-of-the-art effects, and amazing stunts enhance a communal experience constructed around hugely successful animated ogre, spandex-clad superhero, or sexually ambiguous pirate franchises, but whatever. This is not a time for cynicism, it’s one for celebration: As we speak, famously generous Paramount emperor Brad Grey is finalising his plans to end August with a Free Bag of Money Social on the Melrose lot, in which he’ll personally reward each employee for their contributions to Shrek the Third and Transformers‘ incredible run of success.

[Chart via Digital Variety]

• Hollywood hits new highs [Variety]