Meltdown spices heat up Hollywood

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Los Angeles: late-’90s Wall Street tale Boiler Room, said Hollywood sometimes rushed in without an eye toward the movie’s long-term health.

“You look at a movie like Wall Street and my movie may suffer the same fate—it feels really, really dated,” he said.

Experts also say that while a zeitgeist can affect viewing habits, Hollywood can be too literal about trying to capitalize on it.

“One of the most popular genres during the Depression was the gangster movie because people felt powerless and wanted a solution outside the system,” Syracuse University’s Robert Thompson said. “Good art packages and processes; it doesn’t copy, which is why it’s hard to develop stories about current events.”

But producers and filmmakers are hoping that, in the right context, these tales can work.

“If you wanted to show a mirror to people that says ‘You’ve been drunk on money,’ they’re not going to want to see it,” said Luhrmann, who says he wants to move quickly on Gatsby. “But if you reflected it on another time, I think they’d be willing to.”