Comment by FredPret
2 days ago
Hollywood is floundering because:
- there's no secondary market for VHS & DVD anymore. Almost all the money has to be made on opening weekend
- in recent years, content has become preachy instead of focusing on being entertaining
Netflix & Amazon movies are ultra-low quality; you couldn't pay me to watch it. A quality Hollywood production that was made to entertain instead of persuade can still easily outcompete tech company movies
How much is the secondary market for streaming? When Netflix picks up a major studio release, how much do they pay? Or if it's available on Youtube/Amazon, how much do they make on that?
(All of this is made weirder by the fact that half of the biggest movies every year come out of Disney and go straight to its own service.)
Here's Matt Damon explaining the economics of the evolution from VHS -> DVD -> piracy.
He doesn't directly address how much Netflix pays for rights, but presumably the answer is "not enough".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jx8F5Imd8A8
> in recent years, content has become preachy instead of focusing on being entertaining
I'm not sure I feel this? From my perspective, the Marvel films feel like a counter example, where they only care about the "entertainment" (arguably the opening weekend!), and there's no lasting quality to them. Each one individually is a reasonable way to pass 2 hours, but they feel like junk food films, I don't feel better for having watched them.
The alternative is things like A24's output, which one may call "preachy", but while I might not enjoy them in the same way as turning my mind off in front of Avengers 8: Avenge Harder-er, they have a much bigger impact on my life and satisfy me much more as a viewer.
Having a diverse cast and talking about things that used to be taboo is not being preachy.
Call it what you will but doing the above for reasons of “representation” or “education” rather than entertainment is simply not a fun experience for anyone, even the self-righteous people making those films.
A business needs a laser focus on how it adds value to its customers or it’ll die.
> doing the above for reasons of “representation” or “education” rather than entertainment
That's basically never the case. People assume it is because they don't like seeing a diverse cast and come up with that excuse.
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