Film publicity and the incentive to satisfy audiences

If publicity can get people through the theater doors, how much does the movie itself have to deliver? We don't start with that problem, but the history at the beginning helps us understand how it develops.

Movies both influence the wider culture and draw on it. That's a broad opening. The next sentence gives us a specific relationship: in the mid-1920s, studios put actors under exclusive contracts because audiences were interested in their private lives. A familiar star could make people curious about a movie before they knew much about its story.

Think of hearing that an actor you like has a new movie. That might get your attention even if you haven't heard the plot. Studios supplied celebrity information to gossip columnists, who helped build that interest. The publicity brought people in; once there, audiences usually discovered that the films also offered good storytelling.

So publicity and quality weren't necessarily competing. An actor might be the initial draw, and the movie could still reward the audience for coming.

Then the writer shifts attention to the other beneficiary: the press. Celebrity stories gave newspapers something their readers wanted. The studios gained promotion, and the press gained readers and revenue. The reference to “cultural cross-fertilization” names that mutually beneficial relationship. It isn't just the opening's general idea that movies reflect cultural events. The surrounding sentence tells us which two parties are helping each other here.

Paragraph 2 brings that relationship into the present. The arrangement has grown into a whole entertainment-media industry. Television and radio interviews, magazine articles, and advertisements now do much of the promotional work for the studios.

Why would a newspaper or talk show provide that publicity? Because it attracts an audience for the newspaper or show. If everyone else has made people curious about a forthcoming film, covering it lets another outlet benefit from that existing interest. The press isn't simply doing the studios a favor.

The belief that there's always something worth promoting helps keep this going. A publication needs material to cover, and a film everyone is already discussing supplies it. So far, we have a system in which both sides have a business reason to participate. That alone doesn't establish what's wrong with it.

“The problem” at the beginning of paragraph 3 marks the turn: promotion is starting to shape creation. Studio executives increasingly decide which subjects and actors will appear, taking influence away from writers, producers, and directors. Could that favor a movie that's easy to advertise over one that's good to watch? That's the concern the next sentences develop.

It would be too simple to say that studios suddenly started caring about money. They've long wanted large audiences. What has changed is how a film can attract one. Word of mouth from satisfied viewers depends on giving people an experience they'll recommend. An immediate publicity campaign can generate curiosity before that kind of recommendation develops.

Imagine asking a friend whether a movie was worth seeing, as opposed to buying a ticket after an exciting publicity campaign. The first route puts pressure on the film to satisfy someone who has watched it. The second can sell the experience before anyone knows whether it will be satisfying. The money still comes from drawing moviegoers; the concern is that the route to those customers no longer depends as heavily on quality.

The ending explains why the writer expects this problem to continue. Studios are earning more money with the formula, so they have a reason to keep using it. Emotionally engaging films are predicted to become rarer. That isn't a claim that every promoted film is bad or that improvement is impossible. It's a warning about a profitable system weakening the connection between attracting an audience and rewarding it.