The chances of becoming a Hollywood director
I read somewhere the other day that 1 out of 16,000 people will become professional athletes and that got me thinking about what were the chances of someone becoming a Hollywood director. To qualify, I mean specifically a big budget feature film director, not someone who makes a professional living directing commercials, PSAs, videos, wedding videos, news journalism, or any other things such as that. People can and do make good livings doing such things, but for this exercise, I am limiting discussion to only big budget feature film directors. For the sake of argument as to what films can be included, I will limit it to films that get wide screen theatrical distribution in the US in any given year. And more specifically, films that had wide screen DOMESTIC release, as opposed to say, a film from Denmark exhibited in a few art house theaters in select cities. This site has some interesting statistics:
International Release Comparisons
In 2005, there were 320 domestic releases in the US. That number seems consistent over the previous years as well, so let's stick with this number and play with it. These releases account for anything and everything in the theaters: big budget Hollywood movies, Indiewood films, truly independent cinema, as well as documentaries, and the like. Everything.
If you assume that most working directors, shoot a film once every two or three years, we can multiply 320 by three let's say, and we get 960. That means that if each director shot only one film once every three years, there would only be room in the market for 960 directors. Since Hollywood probably only accounts for a percentage of all those films released, we can safely assume that most directors did not make a huge income from each film. So if they shoot only one film every 3 years, and they made $500,000 per film, that comes out to only $166,000 per year. Not bad, but not great considering you had to be in the top 1000 to make that. Of course some directors are quite prolific and shoot a film every year, like Spielberg, but let's just stick with these numbers for now.
Let's get back to the analogy of professional athletes. There is about 1500 professional NFL players, 750 NHL and MLB players, and 400 NBA players out there. If we add that up, let's say there are 3500 professional athletes in the 4 major sports. If we add up all the other professional sports such as soccer, golf, tennis, hell, let's even include bowling and poker for all I care, you're talking about approximately 5000 professional athletes in the entire US. Let's all say that most of these athletes, especially in the 4 major sports, are in the 22-32 year old bracket, a 10 year age range. There are retired athletes in their 40s and 50s, etc, but they are not playing any longer. Assuming these numbers are somewhat accurate, let's do some math:
If there are 5000 professional athletes in the US, that means that on average there are 100 athletes born in every one of the 50 states. But that is over a 10 year age range. So, per year, we can say that on average, in EVERY STATE, there will be born 10 future professional athletes PER YEAR. Yes, wrap your mind around that, only TEN PER YEAR PER STATE.
Now remember these 5000 athletes are mostly in their 20s and early 30s. Conversely, wide release directors can be of any age, ranging from hotshots in their 20s to 60s and 70s. And while there are 5000 pro athletes, we counted less than 1000 directors. It gets worse if we count all the athletes who are retired and no longer playing, who are in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s. For arguments sake, let's quadruple that number to find out the number of living persons who have made a living as professional athletes and we get 20,000- more than 20 times the amount of living, working feature film directors.
If the chances of becoming a professional athlete are slim to none, the chances of becoming a big-time big-budget director is non-existent.
And professional athletes get paid way more too.
Doesn't affect my decisions or my life, I love what I do and I'm passionate, but just some food for thought.
International Release Comparisons
In 2005, there were 320 domestic releases in the US. That number seems consistent over the previous years as well, so let's stick with this number and play with it. These releases account for anything and everything in the theaters: big budget Hollywood movies, Indiewood films, truly independent cinema, as well as documentaries, and the like. Everything.
If you assume that most working directors, shoot a film once every two or three years, we can multiply 320 by three let's say, and we get 960. That means that if each director shot only one film once every three years, there would only be room in the market for 960 directors. Since Hollywood probably only accounts for a percentage of all those films released, we can safely assume that most directors did not make a huge income from each film. So if they shoot only one film every 3 years, and they made $500,000 per film, that comes out to only $166,000 per year. Not bad, but not great considering you had to be in the top 1000 to make that. Of course some directors are quite prolific and shoot a film every year, like Spielberg, but let's just stick with these numbers for now.
Let's get back to the analogy of professional athletes. There is about 1500 professional NFL players, 750 NHL and MLB players, and 400 NBA players out there. If we add that up, let's say there are 3500 professional athletes in the 4 major sports. If we add up all the other professional sports such as soccer, golf, tennis, hell, let's even include bowling and poker for all I care, you're talking about approximately 5000 professional athletes in the entire US. Let's all say that most of these athletes, especially in the 4 major sports, are in the 22-32 year old bracket, a 10 year age range. There are retired athletes in their 40s and 50s, etc, but they are not playing any longer. Assuming these numbers are somewhat accurate, let's do some math:
If there are 5000 professional athletes in the US, that means that on average there are 100 athletes born in every one of the 50 states. But that is over a 10 year age range. So, per year, we can say that on average, in EVERY STATE, there will be born 10 future professional athletes PER YEAR. Yes, wrap your mind around that, only TEN PER YEAR PER STATE.
Now remember these 5000 athletes are mostly in their 20s and early 30s. Conversely, wide release directors can be of any age, ranging from hotshots in their 20s to 60s and 70s. And while there are 5000 pro athletes, we counted less than 1000 directors. It gets worse if we count all the athletes who are retired and no longer playing, who are in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s. For arguments sake, let's quadruple that number to find out the number of living persons who have made a living as professional athletes and we get 20,000- more than 20 times the amount of living, working feature film directors.
If the chances of becoming a professional athlete are slim to none, the chances of becoming a big-time big-budget director is non-existent.
And professional athletes get paid way more too.
Doesn't affect my decisions or my life, I love what I do and I'm passionate, but just some food for thought.
posted by Michael at 4:06 PM
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