Stars? Check. Script? Don't need one yet ...

How to Construct the Perfect Summer Blockbuster

We live in a blockbuster world. This year, there are 18 "tent-pole" releases, an average of three apiece for the six major studios. Eighteen tent-poles: that's one heck of a tent. Their release dates have been locked in for months like cruise-missile coordinates, audiences looking skyward for the gleaming payload. After a dip in 2005, when US box office fell for the first time since 1991, this unstable erection has kept on expanding, with budgets keeping pace in the race to keep jaws dropping and popcorn popping. Titanic's $200m budget was tutted about incredulously in 1998; that figure is now routine. And yet, with such huge sums jangling about, it remains the slackest of business environments: three out of four studio films don't even turn a profit. "Hollywood [throws] away more money than you can believe," says Sean Verity, of industry analysts Epagogix. "In any other business, people would be held to account." And still the stakes grow. The third installments of Spider-Man, Shrek and Pirates of the Caribbean are duking it out for 2007 franchise supremacy. The voracious CGI furnaces demand ever-greater cash sacrifices. Dark mutterings are abroad about industry hubris and imminent decline. Blockbuster Gtterdmmerung has arrived. So what are the crucial factors that will allow the studio to produce a cash cow instead of a lame duck? The script, pt 1 Important, but not essential, at least at the point of getting the go-ahead to develop the movie. Hollywood is an insecure whispering gallery, so it's more important that your project has good "provenance" than that it actually exists. You need to have star talent attached; the producers hawking the idea should have a proven record of success; it helps if it's an adaptation of or sequel to some existing property; or, failing that, you need to have a killer concept that could light Michael Bay's stogie from 500 yards. The pitch So the light bulb is blazing above your head - you have a totally original idea. This is where the pitch to the producers comes in, that three-minute revolving-door of glory or ignominy that all writers must pass through. Having a miraculously succinct watercooler encapsulation to hand - the hallowed "high concept" - is helpful. The heyday of the high concept that produced such vulgarian landmarks as Top Gun ("An Officer and a Gentleman - with a plane!") may be gone, but it is still a useful entry point. Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs ("cop infiltrates mob; mobster infiltrates the cops") is a fine recent example. Says one UK-based producer: "If you can find an area where a quirky idea coincides with some real-life, factual scenario, people are still interested." The producers Plenty of clanking blockbuster noise originates from inside the studio lots, but surrounding them is a network of freelancers, from high-profile operators - such as Jerry Bruckheimer and the UK's Working Title, who have firm ties to specific studios - to hundreds of small production companies. Plenty of them micromanage the development process themselves, so the writer's vision is more likely be kindly treated if it comes through the independent sector, and original material more likely to be solicited. Matt Delargy, development executive at Ecosse Films, which is producing the forthcoming Brideshead Revisited, says: "The studio system is very brutal generally, particularly on writers." The Matrix, an original franchise pitched by the then-untested Wachowski brothers, made it through this side route, via veteran producer Joel Silver.

The talent Obviously, having Julia Roberts or Steven Spielberg attached makes Care Bears II: Beyond Thunderdome a weightier and far more viable proposition. But it's not that simple: top-line stars and directors don't ensure success. The blockbuster waters, ploughed up by innumerable supertankers, are even more turbulent than when Spielberg, James Cameron and Robert Zemeckis started out: even commercial titans like Peter Jackson and Bryan Singer had (relative) flops with supposedly foolproof properties in King Kong and Superman Returns. The lack of confidence is affecting stars too, especially male ones. Very few new contenders who can do a Tom Cruise and "open" a movie on name alone have emerged: since Titanic, Leonardo DiCaprio is the only definite, and his $20m-plus salary reflects that. Johnny Depp, with added pirate power, is a marginal case. Jude Law tried and failed to step up, with a seven-movie blitz in 2004. In short: talent is important, but no guarantee. Gail Egan, producer of The Constant Gardener, sees it cumulatively: "If you've got a really good star and a really good script, you're much more likely to get a really good director. It's a snowball effect." Nick Meaney, of Epagogix, downplays the role of actors, suggesting that it's films that make the stars, not vice versa: "Look at the top 50 films and in seven-eighths of the ones that aren't sequels, the 'star' - though they may have been a known actor was not a star." The concept design When, in Terminator 2, Arnie put a fist straight through the T-1000's quicksilver torso, it became apparent that a baton was being passed, and that CGI would become as much the star of the blockbuster firmament as the stars themselves. Don't underestimate the wow factor: vibrant, ostentatious concept design can be crucial in securing funding. Peter Jackson sank $50,000 of his own money into producing the 35-minute presentation that eventually swayed New Line into backing the Lord of the Rings trilogy, after all the major studios had passed on it. The development Once the studio adopts a project, expect it to go through the process commonly referred to as "hell". Assessment by committee and multiple rewrites are routine, to ensure the script ticks all the boxes: making sure your prima donna star has the optimal number of flattering close-ups and enough coffee-drinking breaks to keep Starbucks onside. The average development cost per film, before a project even hits the cameras is $13.8m; a studio's total development costs get offset against the profits of the films that do get made. No pressure, then. The franchises Blockbusters and franchises are virtually synonymous; one of the main functions of blockbusters is to create new revenue streams ("vertical integration", in exec-speak). Sequels are necessary to maximise the money-making opportunities. But the raw material of the franchise is becoming an exhausted seam: the comic books have been strip-mined since 2000 and executives are searching further and wider for ready-made "properties" to rework, scraping the barrel as low as theme-park rides (Pirates of the Caribbean/Haunted Mansion). But a failed franchise can damage a studio: Paramount has struggled in recent years thanks to two inert attempts at Tomb Raiding. But it distributes Shrek the Third, which is pushing it back up the rankings this year, and the return of Indiana Jones in 2008 is nigh-on a sure thing: a good franchise always retains latent appeal. Star Wars, the most lucrative franchise ever ($1.9bn and counting) ruthlessly exploited 20-year nostalgia with its prequels. The merchandise Being "toyetic" is the aim here - it's part of the "consumer experience" (aka naked emotional manipulation). Transformers - the toy that begat the film - is this mentality writ stupid; conversely, commercial predictions for Disney's forthcoming Ratatouille were initially slow because "experts" said kids wouldn't want to cuddle up to a velour rat. And changes are afoot: traditional toy sales fell by 9% last year, while "youth electronics" grew by 22%. This is because action figures and the like

are now only selling to under-sixes and arrested adolescents like Andy, Steve Carell's trinkethoarding 40-year-old virgin; the Kids are now increasingly mesmerized by digital-era entertainments. Exploiting this new niche is priority one in Hollywood. The DVD sales Anyone who dutifully upgraded their Star Wars box set every time George Lucas altered a pixel on Jabba the Hutt's chin can pat themselves on the back for keeping Hollywood afloat in recent years. After DVD arrived (US spending was $2.5bn in 2000; but $21.2bn by 2004), the industry was awash in extra cash and opportunities - hence the glut of gargantuan budgets. This wasn't always a good thing: under-performing hackwork such as Elektra was floated into profit by DVD sales, making the thought of asking Jennifer Garner to pick up her ninja toasting-forks for a second outing worryingly tempting. But with shelves now groaning beneath all those box sets and special editions, the market is slowing, and executives are growing more cautious. The sounds of belts being tightened across Los Angeles was one reason cited last year when Paramount booted out Tom Cruise (he was creaming off 12% of their DVD take, for one thing). The cavalry - HD-DVD and Blu-Ray - are on their way, and DVD remains a low-cost, high-profit racket, but the goldrush is over. The foreign sales Is America tiring of Hollywood? The talk is that the US domestic box-office market is now saturated, having been overtaken by international takings for the first time in 2004. Marc Samuelson, producer of Stormbreaker, explains the new film-making frontiers: "In many territories, you've had steadily improving economies over the past 25 years; plus the addition of the entire eastern bloc in the past 10 years; and you've got Russia, which is a very important territory for western films, now they've got their issues of piracy somewhat more under control." But that also means the movie's premise must be able to cross borders. Samuelson explains that parochial affairs like American football movies are unlikely at big-budget level now, and unusual international backdrops to aesthetically pleasing CGI apocalypses to be expected. 20th Century Fox has embraced these new markets with vigour, ponying up some of the budget for Timur Bekmambetov's Russian Matrix rip-off Nightwatch, and its sequels. The release The initial releases of big movies seem to be getting bigger and bigger, with this year's contenders coming out on more than 4,000 screens across the US. Since The Matrix Revolutions "zero-hour" opening on November 5 2003, which shipped 18,013 prints to 96 countries, simultaneous global releases have been taking us away from the days of tortuous nine-month waits for the next Police Academy to cross the Atlantic. But truly innovative new marketing ploys are rare: The Blair Witch Project's internet fireside-story seems unrepeatable, and the fanboy fever for Snakes on a Plane was more interesting than the actual movie. More than ever, the studios seem happy to settle for smash-and-grab: huge openings, loudhailered by multimillion dollar TV advertising campaigns (as established by Jaws) followed by enormous fall-offs in the second week. The real anomaly is that most old-fashioned of things: a film that builds momentum on its own quiet merits. Pixar are the current masters of this - and Ratatouille is doing just that in the US. The script, pt 2 And back again. With doubts over whether fat star salaries bring enough returns and many franchises running out of steam, story has come back into fashion. Epagogix has designed a computer program to assess a proposed movie's likelihood of success, which is finding favour with producers. It breaks down scripts into hundreds of constituent elements (the setting; whether the hero is black or white or an alien; if everyone's speaking Aramaic), assigning each one a commercial value. Epagogix claims it can estimate 80% of projects' likely US box office to within $10m of the final figure. "It does something that the studios can't do and we can't do and you can't do - the interrelationship between multiple factors that the mind just can't compute," says Nick Meaney.

With more unsentimental types, including private equity firms and banks getting involved in film financing, there is bound to be more of a demand for an objective eye: Legendary Pictures, for one, could have done with sharper intelligence on the $500m deal with Warner that has so far produced 300, Batman Begins, Superman Returns, Lady in the Water and The Ant Bully. Whether it's a good thing for film is another debate - critics have already argued it will lead to even greater homogenization of "product". But William Goldman's old adage, "Nobody knows anything," is past its sell-by date. The goalposts have moved: now, it's "nobody knows everything" - the computers are there for what the people don't know.