Hell, if movies and actors started to have to depend on their performances for more than five percent of their salary they might actually start producing a product that will at least attract people to the box office. How many times can you visit the same well before the bucket comes up empty isn't a question Hollywood asks itself often enough.

Sequels, prequels, offshoots, and spin-offs have become the norm as they try to squeeze every last available dollar out of a familiar brand. The Mummy begat The Mummy II which in turn begat The Scorpion King which allowed The Rock to become a bona fide box office draw and do a remake of Walking Tall and a movie based on the game Doom. (To give The Rock credit he was the best thing in Be Cool as the gay bodyguard/chauffeur with aspirations to stardom.)

For every History Of Violence or Crash there are twenty-five vehicles for somebody or the other which end up going over a cliff because there is nobody behind the wheel of the car. But instead of pulling in their horns and re-examining the way they do business, the studio folk are more interested in maintaining the status quo even if it means that at some time in the future a movie will only be made if it can generate either a line of jewelry or action figures.

As it is, those days don't seem too far off, or might even be upon us, when one contemplates the major releases this past summer. How many comic book characters were or are going to be featured this summer and in upcoming months? The people over at Marvel Comics aren't even subtle about it. Tim Rothwell, president of the company's worldwide consumers-products media group says movies like Fantastic Four and Spiderman are "commercials in the sky" directing people to his product.

This symbiotic relationship between movies and comics isn't that new, but the exploitation of it through all the ancillary products and the immense profits they produce has grown to the point where instead of being a nice bonus on top of the box office they are becoming the raison d'être for the production. Last year while Disney had worldwide box office totals of $2.26 billion their return on licensed properties was $2.6 billion.

Disney is an exception as almost all of their movies have been geared towards merchandising since day one of their existence. Obviously if the film is a dud, they aren't going to get much in the way of sales when it comes to retail product, but what they lack for in quality, Disney invariably makes up for in quantity.