阅读新视野04 Blockbuster Movies

Crazy Reading 4

Blockbuster Movies

Before you read 阅读思考

Answer the following questions.

1．What do you know about the actor above?

What do you think of his movies? ___________________________ 2．Do you prefer big-budget movies

or smaller independent films? ____________________________ 3．How much do you think the average

Hollywood film costs to make? _____________________________ Target Vocabulary 目标词汇

Match each word with the best meaning.

1．_______budget a．a plan of expected in come and expenses over time

2．_______expect b．poor; modest

3．_______humble c．well-known or famous for something bad

4．_______merchandising d．a group of similar things or events

5．________minimum e．wonderful; exciting

6．________notorious f．need someone or something in order to work or live well

7．_______rely (on) g．the smallest amount (opposite: maximum-the largest amount)

8．_____series h．believe something will happen; believe you should have something 9．_______spectacular i．a company that produces movies; a place where movies are made

10．______studio j．toys or clothes made in order to promote something, e.g., a film, sports

Reading Passage 阅读文章

Movies are probably the most popular form of entertainment today. Today’s full-length movies began with short motion pictures developed in France in the late 1800s by the Lumiere brothers. However, the world’s first full-length film, The Story of the Kelly Gang, came from Australia. This silent film, which showed the life of the notorious Criminal Ned Kelly, opened at the Melbourne Town Hall on December 26, 1906. It was over an hour long.

The film industry has come a long way from its humble beginning, and today millions of dollars are spent producing and advertising movies. Some of the most expensive movies ever produced include Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (US﹩175 million), Titanic (﹩200 million), and the Lord of the Rins trilogy (﹩300 million –about ﹩100 million a film). In comparison, the most expensive Bollywood film ever made, Devdas, cost only

﹩10 million to make.

However, when you compare the cost of an older movie with the value of money at the time it was made, Cleopatra remains the most expensive movie ever made. Elizabeth Taylor played Cleopatra in this film made in 1963. One of the reasons why this movie cost so much money was because Ms. Taylor had 65 different (and very expensive) costumes in the movie! This movie, if made today, would cost a minimum of ﹩275 million to shoot.

Some people, however, think the one film beats this record. For All Mankind, a documentary about NASA’s nine Apollo space missions, was produced from film taken by NASA aboard its spaceships over several years. If the cost of the spaceships is taken into account, the film cost billions of dollars to make!

The average budget of most Hollywood movies produced in the 1990s was over﹩50 million, and movie budgets are still continuing to climb. Often ,the movie itself cannot make enough money from ticket sales alone to cover the cost of production, and the studio relies on merchandising and selling products related to the movie to help make up for poor box office sales. For example, the film Star Wars, which was a huge success in terms of box office sales(it made ﹩500 million at the box office), has gone on to make more than﹩2.5 billion after its release from toys and other merchandising connected to the Star Wars series.

The problem that Hollywood studios are finding is that as film budgets increase, audiences expect more and more spectacular special effects-all of which cost increasing amounts of money. “You have to drive the audience into the theater, and they won’t be driven into the theater unless you can show them something they haven’t see before,” says Joel Silver, the producer of the three Matrix films. “You have to wow them.” With audiences taking expensive special effects for granted, it seems that for the time being, big budget films are here to stay.

Circle the letter of the best answer.

1．What was the subject of the first full-length film?

a．the Lumiere brothers c．a famous Australian building

b．a thief d．France in the 1800s

2．Which is true in comparing Hollywood and Bollywood movies?

a．Bollywood movies are much cheaper. c．Their movies cost about the same to make

b．Hollywood films are much cheaper. d．The passage doesn’t say 3．Why was For All Mankind so expensive to make?

a．The rockets in the film were very expensive to make?

b．NASA needed to train astronauts to act.

c．The movie included many famous actors.

d．The special effects were very expensive.

4．What can be assumed about the average cost of producing a Hollywood movie today?

a．It is less than ﹩50 million. c．It is higher than ﹩50 million.

b．It is about ﹩50 million. d．The cost can’t be assumed from the reading