From latimes.com:

In the documentary “King Corn,” a couple of guys decide to move to Iowa and see what its like to grow an acre of corn. Even though it looks like a picture-postcard cornfield, they discover that what theyve really done is grow an acre of sugar. Most farmers wouldnt dream of eating the corn they grow — its turned into high-fructose corn syrup, an industrialized sweetener that pops up in virtually everything we drink and eat, contributing to epidemic levels of diabetes and obesity.

It was an image that came back to me while researching the annual Studio Report Card. In todays Hollywood, most studios are not in the movie business, theyre in the sweetener business, creating new generations of junk-food franchises. Five of the six top-grossing movies of 2007 were sequels, all of them at least the third installment in their series, none of them films for the ages.

Sequels make money — lots of it. Under increasing corporate pressure to make even more — and certainly not give it to the striking writers — most studios now hand off anything that doesnt fit into an easily salable commercial genre to their specialty divisions, where rigid cost controls are easier to maintain. The model was popularized by 20th Century Fox, which never makes a movie it doesnt know exactly how to sell. It leaves quality issues to its Fox Searchlight subsidiary, the industrys leading studio specialty division, which is currently riding high with “Juno,” the one breakout hit in a year when most specialty division movies died on the vine.

Now other studios are adopting the Fox model, notably Disney, this years Report Card leader. Blessed with the most respected brand in the business, Disney is now less of a film division and more of a family entertainment company. Of the 11 movies it released in 2007, eight were Disney label movies, allowing the company to remain relentlessly focused on its brand. By releasing so few films, Disney was able to make more high-quality films by putting extra time into solving script, production and marketing issues than competitors like Sony and Warner Bros., who roll out more than 20 a year.

“Were probably in a different business than our brother and sister companies,” says Disney studio chief Dick Cook. “Weve learned that its not how many you do but how good they are. If you only make 11 movies a year, youre not putting your movies through a meat grinder; you can be very specific about quality. That way, if we do stumble, and Im sure we will, it will be because we were pushing the envelope instead of not keeping our eye on the ball.”

What follows is my 2007 Studio Report Card with three grades: first for box office and profitability, second for film quality, third for overall success. The grades dont include specialty division films, which are run as a separate business; as for the writers strike, it didnt hit the movie business in 2007 — this year could be a different story.

Disney

The studio has always had the industrys best brand, but never has it been more opportunistic about exploiting its strengths. Under Cooks leadership, the studio has expanded the Disney nameplate to include everything from sports comedies “Game Plan” to Jerry Bruckheimer extravaganzas “National Treasure: Book of Secrets”. The studio production cutback had its skeptics — myself included — but Disney had four of the years 15 top-grossing films, led by a “Pirates of the Caribbean” sequel that made nearly $1 billion worldwide. In part because it released so few films, it generally kept quality high, earning critical accolades with Pixars “Ratatouille” and “Enchanted,” made by Kevin Lima, whos been at Disney as an animator and director for 20 years.

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