Timed Essay Question 2

Explain how economic contexts influence film production. Refer to Disney’s The Jungle Book (2016) to support your points.

Disney as a company was founded by Walt Disney in 1923, and its first major feature film was Snow White. Over the years Disney has grown increasingly in finance and become a global brand. It has to consider how much a film would cost to make, and how much it could potentially earn when released. Cultural industries will play safe, and don’t take risks. An example of this would be the original jungle book, and also its remake.

Overall, the production and distribution of films will cost the companies are large sum of money, due to the different phases that it must progress through before it can be released. The company itself, and the finances that they have are also contributing factors that will affect the success of a film. For example, films that tend to have more money put into them, with seamless cuts and special effects will tend to generate more money than ones made by independent companies on a low budget. The companies have to first invest in the product, and market it to their audience to gain their interest. They then have sold (screen) their product to the audience, and in turn hopefully make a profit off of it so that they can then reinvest into more products to sell to them.

The Jungle Book remake was distributed globally to 70 countries across various regions, and it had a $175m budget to make it. Disney needed to ensure that the global audience were interested in the film by releasing teaser trailers, and posters, which would grasp their attention without giving away the whole film to them before it was released in its entirety., as well as other forms of promotion which could bring in a wider audience. The rework would appeal to a wide audience, as many people would be familiar with the original film and would likely want to see what a remake of it would be like. This links into post-modernism as it emphasises the idea that no new piece of media is original, through the fact that this is a remake of the original movie, and both were based off of the book written by Rudyard Kipling.

Profits made off of films and the other forms of marketing are what allow Disney to expand their brand, and thus make more expensive products, that would have an even bigger budget than previous ones, which once again would increase their own profit. This a prime example of a capitalist business model, in which they are only creating profits that will benefit them and enable them to gain further profit than their previous ventures. The primary target audience of the jungle book remake would likely be older children, due to how the trailer reveals it to appear darker than the original cartoon film was. The secondary target audience would be the parents of these children, as they would be very familiar with the original, and would likely want to see how the remake was in comparison to that. Furthermore, it links in with genre theory as it has typical conventions of both fantasy and action films, for example, the talking animals has been a prime feature of many of Disney’s fantasy films, and the tense fight scenes displayed link in with action movies.

In conclusion, economic contexts influence film production due to companies following the ideal capitalist business model and playing safe with their products so that they can earn as much profit for themselves as possible. Thus, allowing them to expand their budget range for more projects to repeat this cycle.