7:40AM STV | So it looks like we’re back on the Depression’s doorstep, with credit axed and markets capsizing here and abroad. But one growth industry continues to thrive reliably: Movies, where despite the ongoing threat of a SAG work stoppage, studios are sinking more than a half-billion dollars into
productions for their 2010/2011 calendars. This after earning nearly $US7 billion at the domestic box office through September (more than 10% of which came from The Dark Knight and Iron Man alone) and increasingly hedging their bets with financiers based everywhere from
Manhattan Beach to
Calcutta. While you may be panicking, and both Wall Street and Washington wonder where the bottom is, Hollywood is betting on its history as a recession-proof redoubt — one that was never sturdier than in the Great Depression. We can outlast anything!
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