Sony is to cut back on making films, it was revealed today, instead putting more of its money into high end television productions. The studio, which is currently making new Neill Blomkamp movie Chappie with Hugh Jackman and Sigourney Weaver, will cut its annual slate from 23 to 18 films. Only four of these will be summer blockbusters, as it is widely agreed that cinema audiences are not big enough to sustain the number of expensive films currently being released in this slot.
"Some of our movies just didn't perform as we had estimated," said its president, Kazuo Hirai. "We recognized that we must do better."
He was referring, diplomatically, to the likes of White House Down and After Earth, both of which struggled at the box office and fell well below studio expectations. By contrast, its TV series Breaking Bad became a massive international success.
The studio made a loss of $181m in the last financial quarter.
