New buyers such as CBS Films and Open Road Films have emerged to replace the departed studios.

ECONOMIST: Independent films are at last recovering from the slump

There's also the challenge of producing a stunt that will actually shock people in a time when "so many hours of television are taken up with people doing insane things on reality shows, " says Terry Press, a former marketing consultant and current co-head of CBS Films.

WSJ: Sacha Baron Cohen's PR Blitz for 'The Dictator': Good Marketing or Just Annoying?