Professor Elam

Tuesday Oct 12 2010

 We are discussing cost volume profit and break even in ACCT 3314. I mentioned that Easy Rider started the modern low budget movie trend. IMDB   suggests Easy cost $400,000 and grossed $60 M, back when ticket prices were about 2 bucks.

The movie got poor initial reviews but then quickly resonated wtih the times- economic stagnation, a sideways stock market, America reeling from scenes of the TET Offensive (we won the battle and lost the war, those battles  became the basis of the movie Platoon). The movie was a true counter culture hit and got Jack Nicholson and Dennis Hopper going in their careers. Hopper ran afoul of drugs in real lilfe but blossomed later one. Nicholson became a mega star. Peter Fonda was not so lucky. He squandered the earnings of Rider on trying to do it again, his career seemingly ending with a one hit wonder.

Other examples of this genre are Blair Witch Project

Roger n Me which got Michael Moore going, and John Carpenter's Hallowwen series which kicked off Jamie Lee Curtiss career. roger Corman was a pioneer in the genre and responsbile for giving many young actors a start.

While on the topic the Spaghetti Westerns were initially done on the cheap, Eastwood famously receiving only about $20,000 for his first role as the Man with No Name in A fistful of Dollars. Again this movie resonated with the time as America became more embroiled in Viet Nam. People became more introspective and interested in themsevles as opposed to the group. That was specifically what the Man with No Name came to symbolize. He was the anaonymous figure looking out for

himself amidst a violent landscape that rewarded the violently successful. This was, from a socionomic standpoint, a great metaphor for what was about to happen to the United States.  While pepople were dying in Viet Nam for questionable reasons, the anit hero overcame his foes and got rich in the process, about as far from John Wayne as one could get.

We will have more to say as the movie analogy, keeping fixed costs low, is a feature of some of the most financially succesful movies.  Eastwood never forgot this Gran Torino is  a great example of keeping costs low, and the gross high. No  wonder Universal loves this guy, more to come, stay tuned to this site.