History tells us of how, through the ages, a line of noble studio bosses have stepped forward to look Hollywood in the eye and give it the cold hard facts. One goes back to legends of the Katzenberg memo — the 1991 Dear Industry missive of then Disney exec Jeffrey Katzenberg pleading for lower costs; or to the great bean counters of yesteryear; proud men, men of character and common sense not afraid to stare down the mobs of show business and tell them, you are spending too much money. Like, way too much money. Like, drunken sailor, how-the-hell-do-you-think-this-adds-up-on-any-budget money.

And we all know what happened as a result of their heroism; Hollywood came to its senses, committed itself to modest, within reason budgeting and became the most stable, nuts and bolts business on Earth, consistently impressing investors with its ability to create eight to eleven percent margins year in, year out.

Yes, exactly.

Well, today Robert Iger has stepped forward to be the latest great truth-teller. An interview with the Financial Times, quotes him thus:

"The business model that underpins the movie business is changing," Mr Iger told the Financial Times "If we don't adapt to the change there won't be a business - that's my exhortation to my team."

Mr Iger advocates a thorough re-examination of costs associated with marketing and producing movies. The solution, he said, required "research and development, risk-taking . . . real focus on changing the
status quo".

Next month Disney plans to unveil Keychest, a new technology that will allow digital copies of films to be stored remotely and then viewed and moved across platforms, such as smartphones, or games consoles such as Microsoft's Xbox.

Like Hollywood, we're all for unveiling your Keychest, going cross platform or whatever you want, but when you get into that "thorough re-examination of costs associated with marketing and producing movies" stuff, we know code for lower budgets and less hype when we see it, having seen and heard it so many times before. And our answer to it remains unchanged — Good luck, buddy.

Or more precisely — if you wanted to work in a business that didn't spend ridiculous fortunes on totally absurd extravagance, don't you have an uncle in the Tool and Dye game who could have taken you on? Because the bottom line of Hollywood remains that extravagance and excess are what the popcorn eaters pay for, and keeping a lid on that culture, fighting for "excess within reason," is always going to be a chump's game.

Because in the end, an understated campaign for a "costs-within-line" production may look great in slide 18 of the power point you show off at the quarterly board meeting, but when all is said and done, having The Jay Leno Show on your books is not going to be the thing that gets anyone's head carved alongside Mayer, DeMille and Evans on Mt. Showbizmore.

But still, Get Smart versus Love Guru is a hell of a quandary. So just for the hell of it, let's hear what the put-upon, overproducing likes of Alan Horn and even Dick Cook are complaining about today:

Adding to their costs, movie companies spend huge sums to globally promote and release their films — as much as $150 million for some big event pictures.

"In order to break through the clutter, we all feel the pressure to spend more in marketing," said Warner Bros. President Alan Horn. ...

This summer, Disney's much-anticipated sequel The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, got upstaged by two behemoths opening in proximity, Iron Man and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

"There were these giant vacuum cleaners on either side of us, and it took significant amounts of business away for our movie," said Walt Disney Studios Chairman Dick Cook.

In fact, pretty much everyone's a winner in the Times's parallel universe — even the beleaguered Weinstein Company and MGM are piling on! Meanwhile, Picturehouse is winding down its staff buyouts as we speak, and ThinkFILM is still battling rumors of its own demise. "Who?" you ask. Don't worry — the LAT will cover them after they and their, ahem, vacuums are safely liquidated.

[Photo Credit: Paul Duginski, Los Angeles Times]

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