Talk:Hollywood accounting

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Contents 1 Reasons 2 Capitalize "Accounting" 3 Merger 4 Peter Jackson 5 Crash 6 X-files on FX 7 Random Thought 8 Production Accounting 9 A little spin?

[edit] Reasons

This may be for income tax reasons, but more often it is to reduce the amount which the corporation must pay in royalties or other profit-sharing schemes.

Can we find some info to back this up? Obviously, the profit-sharing reasons get the most publicity, as that is what pisses people off and causes the lawsuits to be lobbed back and forth, but I'm not sure one way or another which reasons results in more raw dollar savings for the studios. --Bletch 02:39, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Capitalize "Accounting"

Shouldn't "Accounting" be capitalized since "Hollywood Accounting" is a proper noun?

I don't think it is a proper noun. "Hollywood" obviously is, but "Hollywood accounting" isn't the name of a specific event or policy; it's a generally observed practice, like "loan sharking" or "phishing." sinisterscrawl 06:12, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merger

Incidentally, I feel that the info in artist exploitation could well be merged into here. Anyone agree? DS 11:44, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

While the examples in this article qualify as both Hollywood Accounting and Artist Exploitation, they are not really necessarily the same thing. Hollywood accounting is just one way that artists get exploited, and I'm inclined to believe that artists are not the only entities that have been "reverse Enroned". That said, the article on artist exploitation is so anemic that it probably doesn't make a difference at this point. --Bletch 00:15, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Having read the article on artist exploitation, I don't think it's a good match. The very word "exploitation" requires a moral/philosophical evaluation, whereas "Hollywood accounting" requires only a mathematical evaluation. Keeping H.acct. seperate as a technical topic prevents it from flame wars by any idealogues who have their own ideas on how the economy ought to work. --L. 22:07, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Peter Jackson

I believe that Peter Jackson is also suing New Line Cinema for doing this practise also.

Yeah, currently the lawsuit (according to Jackson/Wingnut Studios) is to force New Line to allow an independent audit of books. The suit is pretty much about that since New Line refused to let them look it over after finding "anomalies". Here's a link that includes the recent statement from Wingnut. http://www.aintitcool.com/node/31211 PHOENIXZERO 14:35, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Crash

The NY Times has reported that Crash is the victim of Hollywood Acct'g. It's reg-only, but there's a cite on Digg.[1] Thomas B 23:23, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] X-files on FX

I am wondering if David Duchovny's dispute with Fox over X-Files profits fit within this subject. He argued that his contract gave him a percentage of syndication fees. Fox ended up "selling" the show to its sister network for what Duchovny felt was well below market value, thus cutting his potential payments. [2]

[edit] Random Thought

Makes me think they never heard the addage, "Never cost somone more money than it would cost him to have you killed."

So how much is a life sentence worth in dollar value?

[edit] Production Accounting

Why is Production Accounting being redirected here?

[edit] A little spin?

At the end of the "How it Works" section there is a little plug saying Orion Films went under after "The Silence of the Lambs," and this is proof (a reader would be led to believe) that many films are in fact quite unprofitable.

Common sense seems to dictate this is spin placed in Wikipedia. After all, why haven't Touchstone, Disney, MGM, Sony, Paramount, Warner Brothers or any other studios gone bankrupt so readily then, if a seemingly large proportion of movies incur a loss? Indeed, as a student of the Accounting field, I could testify that "Hollywood accounting" (yes the 'a' in Accounting should be lowercase here) is creative accounting designed to hide profits.

Of course, my personal opinion in such a matter does not matter, but what does matter is the attempt to mislead readers with that last paragraph plug. I'm deleting it and watching this article: if it comes back without good reason (as would be discussed here in this page) I'll just delete it again.

Scryer_360 (talk) 01:18, 15 February 2008 (UTC)