If you’ve been following this summer’s box office circus, you’ll want to check out two highly pertinent NYT articles from today.

The first covers changing attitudes in Hollywood towards modern production beliefs and practices:

Despite a domestic box-office surge after years of declining attendance, 2006 is shaping up to be a time of Hollywood discontent. Studio executives have waged war on actor salaries, as high-profile projects with stars like Jim Carrey have been put off. Movie production deals, like the one Tom Cruise has at Paramount, are being renegotiated. Studios are also making fewer big-budget movies.

But while Hollywood has undergone periodic shifts like this before, many people here agree that there is something different this time, a permanence to Hollywood’s new austerity plan. Executives are facing too many unknowns, among them, changing moviegoer habits, rising costs and the threat of piracy.

“In this Wall Street and corporate world, the discussion has become: What is the proven, unique selling property of this product?” said Warren Beatty, the actor, who is upbeat about the industry’s prospects.

But he, too, agreed the industry was in transition. “The problem is you can’t sell entertainment the way you sell cars or air-conditioners,’’ he said. “Entertainment is dependent, to some extent, on surprise.”

The second looks at the much ballyhooed “failure” of Snakes on a Plane and the summer box office in general:

“We see that Internet interest in a movie doesn’t necessarily translate to good box office,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations, a company that tracks the box office. “To some, the marketing was more exciting than the movie. Everyone was talking about the movie. But you have to convert that talk into moviegoing, otherwise it’s just talk.”

Spread the word!