For every 2,000 scripts an average production company reviews, only one is chosen to be filmed, Dowling explained. Only about six scripts are chosen to be filmed by the average company in a year. Of those, only about 20 percent recover their costs. Even though filming and production can mean big bucks for a city, nearly every place in America gets some of the dollars spent by Hollywood every year. Theaters across the country cash in on what Hollywood delivers.
Advertising is big business for America's newspapers.
And Hollywood is finding new ways to cash in on every film. While Americans spend millions of their discretionary dollars on entertainment, the international market surpassed the U.S. market at the box office in 1996 and has been ahead ever since. Dowling said Hollywood has pioneered the marketing spinoff, profiting in ancillary products even more than the movies themselves. The Walt Disney Corp. is one of the champions of the spinoff. A marketing spinoff Las Vegas is more than aware of is the trend of tourists visiting locations in movies.