Los Angeles Times – In the decade’s early years, high-net worth individuals and cash-flush hedge funds poured billions into Hollywood, backing independent productions and co-financing big-budget popcorn movies. But as those investors lost fortunes in the markets (and, too often, on dead-on-arrival movies), they pulled back on their show business speculating, forcing the studios to put more of their own money at risk — like homeowners undone by their mortgages.

“It does something radical to an industry when $12 billion to $14 billion suddenly goes away,” said Gill. “That places an enormous strain on the system. And nothing is replacing it. It used to be ‘let’s get the Germans’ and then the Germans went away, so it was ‘let’s get the Japanese’ or ‘let’s get the insurance companies.’ There was always going to be somebody else. Now it looks like it’s not going to be someone else.”

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Tags: hedge funds, high-net-worth-individuals, independent productions, investors