The bullion from Titanic, the most successful movie of all time, has been counted and banked. The threatened actors' strike has been averted. The summer box office started with a tremendous bang: Deep Impact took $41m when it opened last weekend. Hollywood should be basking in just the kind of self-congratulatory back-slapping that makes it most insufferable. In fact, Tinseltown is in a miserable funk. A palpable sense of unease can be felt in studio executive suites as they reluctantly come to terms with a deeply troubling realisation: none of the rules that have governed studio film-making for the past two decades, ever since the blockbuster success of Star Wars and Jaws changed the economics of the business in the mid-1970s, hold sway any more. A series of high-profile flops has made it clear that, Leonardo DiLaine notwithstanding, the era of the megastar may be ending. The top stars of the past 15 years - Clint Eastwood, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Kevin Costner and even Harrison Ford - whose very presence was once seen as ensuring at least a decent opening, now look, at about $20m a picture each, enormously overpriced and over the hill. Huge budgets no longer guarantee the all-important opening weekend box office, tie up too many studio resources, and force studio executives to down too much Prozac. Small, inexpensive, often non-American films, such as The Full Monty, which cost $2.5m and has grossed nearly $250m to date, have been far, far more profitable than most pictures from the major studios, whose average cost has now reached $53.2m, plus an average of about $22.2m for marketing. Inexpensive, starless, genre pictures aimed at teenagers, such as Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer, have easily outperformed most high-priced studio fare. The endless sequels that the studios have relied upon to prop up their summer release schedules, such as Speed 2 and Batman & Robin last summer, have been misfiring badly. After years of catering to young men, the studios have been forced to acknowledge that women, especially young women, can turn movies into hits, as My Best Friend's Wedding, starring Julia Roberts, The Wedding Singer, starring Drew Barrymore, and City of Angels, starring Meg Ryan, showed. For many films, the American box office, which used to represent most of a film's take, can now be dwarfed by the overseas box office (Seven Years in Tibet, for example, took $40m in America and $100m internationally). In the independent sector, far too many films are being produced. On a recent weekend, 10 small independent movies opened. Miramax is believed to have more than $50m invested in unreleased movies in its vaults. Some of the studios have found themselves badly wrong-footed by these changes. When Scream came out last year, and showed how big the teenage audience had become, Columbia Pictures quickly added much younger people to its executive roster. "Everybody got a wake-up call on this audience with Scream," says Lucy Fischer, the vice-chairwoman of Columbia Pictures. Other studios quickly slammed teen comedies and thrillers into production. Fox, scared silly by high budgets after last year's disastrous $160m Speed 2 and the terrifying Titanic scare, responded by quietly nixing the $100m-plus Ghost Riders, which was to have been directed by Speed alumnus Jan DeBont. Even though it was to star all-time box-office champ Harrison Ford, Universal similarly said no to Age of Aquarius, because it did not think a movie about relief workers in Bosnia justified a $90m price tag. Universal also halted the $100m Hulk, the big-screen adaptation of the Marvel comic hero. And a few weeks ago, the out-of-sorts studio fired its head of production.

If any studio exemplified the old way of doing business it was Warner Bros, which has had the most stable management team in Hollywood for the past two decades. Warners' success during that time came from its long-term relationships with established talent such as Clint Eastwood, with venerated directors such as Stanley Kubrick, and with expensive, old-style producers such as Jon Peters, Richard Donner, who produced Lethal Weapon 4, and Jerry Weintraub, who produced The Avengers, both of which will be released this summer. But in the past 18 months, Warners' money-making formula came badly unhinged as the company released a string of expensive pictures, top-heavy with stars, that died at the box office, including Father's Day, The Postman, Sphere, Mad City and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. At first, Warners insisted that it would not be panicked, but it then pulled the plug - temporarily, it said - on two $100m-plus movies that, a year ago, would have been shunted straight into production: Superman Lives, starring Nicolas Cage, with Tim Burton to direct; and I Am Legend, set to star Arnold Schwarzenegger, with Ridley Scott directing. Then, after months of damaging executive infighting, which culminated in the ousting of Billy Gerber, the joint head of production, 10 days ago Warners announced a series of sweeping changes - changes that are being mirrored at other studios - that Terry Semel, Warners' co-chairman, admitted were "the result of the state of our industry". Warners has said that it will be cutting its output from about 28 films a year to 20; that it will cut back on the big-budget "event" movies that have been its staple for the past two decades; that it will be producing more films in the mid-budget range, between $20m and $80m; that, in a bid to keep down costs and to retain more control of its films, it will use more first- and second-time directors; and that it will work with a broader range of producers. "There will be a shift away from the good-ol'-boy network that has always existed at that place," said one agent who deals with the company. These changes have come too late to affect much of what will be appearing in the cinemas this summer, which looks more like the end of the old era than the beginning of the new. But, in a marked contrast to previous years, this summer will see just one major studio sequel: Lethal Weapon 4. There is the usual dose of big-budget, special-effects movies, such as Deep Impact, Armageddon and Godzilla, the 300lb gorilla - well, lizard - of the summer. And, of course, there is a smattering of animated fare for the kiddies, including Disney's Mulan and Warners' The Quest for Camelot. Instead of sequels, Hollywood now seems to prefer remakes, such as Godzilla, Doctor Dolittle, Mask of Zorro and A Perfect Murder (a remake of Dial M for Murder, starring Michael Douglas and Gwyneth Paltrow), or television spin-offs, such as The X Files and The Avengers. The summer will see DreamWorks - the studio set up by Steven Spielberg, the Hollywood entrepreneur Geffen, and the former Disney production boss Jeffrey Katzenberg - finally flourish after early disappointments. Deep Impact has already opened strongly and there is a lot of buzz around Saving Private Ryan, directed by Spielberg, and the partially animated Small Soldiers. But there is one other noticeable difference this summer: there are a surprising number of films that moderately intelligent adults might enjoy, including Bulworth, Warren Beatty's political satire; the heavily touted The Truman Show, Peter Weir's television satire starring Jim Carrey; Out of Sight, an adaptation of Elmore Leonard's novel by Steven Soderbergh, starring George Clooney; Spielberg's aforementioned Saving Private Ryan, which stars Tom Hanks; and Terry Gilliam's adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S Thompson's classic novel of drugs and paranoia. And Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Costner, the kings of summers past? Nowhere in sight.

Forthcoming releases The Truman Show Talent: Jim Carrey, directed by Peter Weir Story: in a satire on TV and modern life, Carrey plays a naif who doesn't realise that every moment of his life is being televised and that everyone around him is an actor Prospects: early reviews are calling it a 'masterpiece', but will audiences go for Carrey, five out of whose last six movies have taken more than $100m, in a serious role? Budget: $70m UK release: July 24 Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Talent: Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro, directed by Terry Gilliam Story: Hunter S Thompson's unfilmable 'gonzo' novel of drugs and paranoia in the American West, with Depp playing Thompson Prospects: is Gilliam, who co-wrote the script in eight days, crazy enough to succeed where Scorsese, Nicholson and others who wanted to make the movie failed? A lot of vomiting and jumping dwarfs, reported test audiences Budget: $20m UK release: Sept 18 Armageddon Talent: Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Ben Affleck, directed by Michael Bay Story: can Willis save Earth from an asteroid the size of Texas heading towards it at 22,000 mph? Of course, as long as he's not distracted by Affleck trying to bed his daughter Prospects: with Deep Impact cleaning up the early summer asteroid-heading-for-earth crowd, will anyone stick around to watch the trademark pyrotechnics of director Bay (The Rock)? Budget: $100m plus UK release: Oct 2 Godzilla Talent: the special effects, Matthew Broderick, directed by Roland Emmerich Story: there's this great big lizard that used to be in Japanese movies crawling all over New York, so clever scientist Broderick tries to stop him - or is it her? Prospects: Sony suits will crawl into very deep holes if this monster of a movie doesn't gross as much as The Lost World Budget: $120m UK release: July 17 Saving Private Ryan Talent: Tom Hanks, Edward Burns, Matt Damon, directed by Steven Spielberg Story: this D-day movie sees eight US soldiers, led by Hanks, sent behind German lines to rescue a stranded paratrooper Prospects: Spielberg and Hanks seem like a sure thing, but the opening 20-minute Normandy invasion sequence is apparently so harrowing that it makes Platoon look like an afternoon at the Chelsea Flower Show Budget: $70m UK release: Sept 11 The Horse Whisperer Talent: Robert Redford, Kristin Scott Thomas, some horses, directed by Redford Story: for the three of you that don't know, this eight-handkerchief weepie is a romance between Redford as a horse trainer and Scott Thomas as a magazine editor Prospects: Redford finally managed to pare his four-hour movie to a slow 164min - probably not enough for the book's millions of fans. Disney hopes to get back the $3m it paid to British author Nicholas Evans Budget: $70m UK release: Aug 28 X Files Talent: David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, directed by Rob Bowman Story: well, there are these two FBI agents, a lot of paranoia, a lot of paranormal phenomena, a missing sister, some aliens, and, finally, perhaps, some answers Prospects: Fox is hoping that the ardent fans of the TV series will turn this long-awaited movie into a big-screen franchise as successful as Star Trek Budget: $60m UK release: Aug 21 Bulworth Talent: Warren Beatty, Halle Berry, produced and directed by Beatty Story: when Senator Bulworth, played by Beatty, has a breakdown he starts spouting unpalatable and politically incorrect home truths about politics Prospects: better outside the US. In America recent movies about politics, such as Primary Colours and Wag The Dog, haven't found an audience Budget: $30m UK release: TBA 54 Talent: Mike Myers, Neve Campbell, directed by Mark Christopher Story: Studio 54, the club to end all New York clubs, its rise and debauched demise, sex, drugs, rock'n'roll and all those other good things, snort, snort, told from the point-of-view of a hat-check girl Prospects: as one of the two movies set in the wonderful world of the disco era - the other is The Last Days of Disco, directed by Whit Stillman - Myers as the late Steve Rubell, Studio 54 co-owner, may have the edge Budget: $20m UK release: winter 98 The Avengers Talent: Ralph Fiennes, Uma Thurman, Sean Connery, directed by Jeremiah Chechik Story: rather proper, retro secret agents Steed and Peel save us from an ill-mannered villain, played by Connery, who is intent on controlling the world's weather Prospects: will Fiennes slumming and Thurman's skin-tight jumpsuit be enough to attract those who don't remember the TV series? Budget: $65m UK release: August Mulan Talent: The voices of Eddie Murphy and Donny Osmond Story: adapted from a traditional Chinese myth about a Chinese woman who dresses as a man - er, is this a Disney animated movie? - and fights against invaders with the help of her/his guardian angel Prospects: sources say Disney's 36th animated feature has been testing through the roof with audiences Budget: $80m UK release: Oct 16 Small Soldiers Talent: Kirsten Dunst, the voice of Tommy Lee Jones, directed by Joe Dante Story: when, in this mix of live action and animation, 12in tall toy soldiers come to life and start to fight in the living room and on the front lawn, things begin to look bad in suburbia. But then the toy soldiers turn on the humans and it gets really rough Prospects: word-of-mouth on this DreamWorks production is very strong Budget: $70m UK release: TBA

 

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