
Hollywood's toxic addiction to franchises - applecore
http://grantland.com/features/2014-hollywood-blockbusters-franchises-box-office/
======
GauntletWizard
I'm not nearly as convinced that 'franchises' are a bad thing. Certainly,
there's some serious cash cows there, and some of the franchise movies are
mediocre movies. But they're no more or less mediocre than the all-original
movies that filled the production slots before them. There's about a hundred
movies released by the major studios a year; How many can you name from any
given year? Five? Ten?

What franchises represent, to me, is the new search for continuity. The world
is changing faster, relationships are getting more tenuous. Moving around,
finding new friends, new places to hang out and eat and drink and be merry;
All these things have been enabled by the internet and the sharing economy. I
moved to a new town about 3 months ago, I eat out every night and I've eaten
at precisely two places twice: A korean joint I like because it's named for
Psy's masterpiece, and an indian place a former coworker recommended. The rest
of the time, I've been trying new things, searching for the 'perfect' meal,
never satisfied. In this search for novelty, something has been lost.

There's a reason why you see so many tumblr handles of the form
'harrypotterlover21' and 'twilightfan32'. People identify with these stories
and universes, and find their sense of connection and emotional stability with
them. It's no longer specific people that you have a connection with, but a
grouping based on a shared interest; perhaps one that belies a mindset?

It ties into, as well, the current trend of TV shows to be long-form
entertainment. We want to see characters grow and establish themselves. 1 1/2
hours isn't long enough. 3 hours rarely is. Franchises allow stories to be
told iteratively. That's a good thing for movies and art. There's nothing
special about the traditional runtime for a film that makes it more artistic;
that's just how long humans are willing to sit down and focus on one thing at
a time.

~~~
danielweber
There was an interview with George RR Martin at least 15 years ago (that I
couldn't find in 5 seconds of Googling) where he made a similar point. Some
people were complaining that too many books were parts of series, but that's
what people wanted: an ongoing connection to a universe.

~~~
venomsnake
Martin and Jordan and Goodkind ... they never shine. Their serial work is
mediocre at best - the best Martin book is Tuff (sci fi short stories).
Trilogy seems to be the optimal size for a big story to be told. Above that is
hard. And even Zelazny was not able to pull off amber properly.

The prolific multi genre author - the one that could create a full universe
for a short story and throw it away is rare beast.

So in a sense what happens to hollywood is something that for us geeks has
happened before in two beloved medias - books and games. The only thing that
prevented the game industry to die creatively was the tremendously low cost of
entry into the PC market where the interesting stuff was happening after the
2009 [1].

[1] Owned and played on PS2, PS3, Xbox and xbox 360 next to my gaming PC.

------
unreal37
50 Years ago, in 1964, My Fair Lady was #3 at the Box Office, and won the
Oscar for Best Picture. In 1956, Around the World in 80 days won and was #2.

In 2014, 12 Years a Slave was #44 at the Box Office, and won the Oscar for
Best Picture. In 2013, Argo won and was #22.

I think this represents that "what sells" is no longer the same "the best
movies". The OP says good movies are finding it harder to get made. Good
stories, good acting, good "art", are being pushed out in favor of "popular".

Not sure anything can or should be done about that. But it's definitely a
trend.

~~~
api
Reminds me of junk food. Seems like eventually in most consumer fields
marketers figure out baskets of hacks to push people's buy buttons without
having to resort to quality.

Movies have done that, at least for certain reliable audiences like teenagers.

------
alwaysdoit
There's a key difference between the Econ 101 model and the real world that I
feel is not talked about enough, but is explanatory for a lot of discrepancies
in the market:

People don't pay for actual utility, they pay for expected expected utility.

So franchises are a reasonable solution to this problem: Franchise Ep. 1 was
good, so consumers will go to Ep. 2 because they expect the chances are it's
at least almost as good, as opposed to taking a ganble on some other thing
they've never heard of before. For the studios, it's also a good way to cash
in on something that was not an immediate success, but grew a gradual fanbase
as well.

Other solutions to this problem include: subscriptions (paying a fixed cost
each month for access to a large library in which you don't have to pay an
additional cost for each thing you may or may not like), bundles (paying for a
group of things that includes at least one or two things you know you like,
and using their quality to vouch for the other things in the group), and
money-back guarantees (which doesn't work very well for consume once content).

------
jnks
The fault for Hollywood's endless sequels, remakes, and remakes of the remake
should probably be laid primarily at the feet of the American viewing public.
We won't make the hike to the movies for artsy stuff like Birdman, but Spider-
man I (Remake III)? Already got my ticket!

~~~
JTon
Yep, classic example of giving the people what they want. I was tired of super
hero movies years ago. But unfortunately I'm in the minority (and even in my
nerdy peer group!)

~~~
rodgerd
My nerdy peer group say they want e.g. better sci fi & fantasy and worship
Joss Whedon. They also solidly torrented Firefly, Dollhouse, etc. Then they
got bitter that Whedon can't get TV series made any more.

~~~
existencebox
I don't normally go on "pop culture rants", but as an ex-whedon fan, he's the
worst of the bunch for me, and I'd be more than happy to see his work
relegated in favor of more unique IP. I can't deny the "technical quality" of
his work, but eventually you watch enough sci-fi and realize that while of
course everyone pulls heavily from their predecessors, Whedon takes the
kitchen sink. Dollhouse was the breaking point for me, both in terms of it
being a weak, less predictive imitation of RuR, and the fact that at the end
of the day, he has a pattern. He has good actors for that pattern, but you see
them enough times and seeing them more times isn't really adding to anything.

There's a lot of noise about mourning the death of sci-fi/cinema etc, but the
gems have always been the outliers. Metropolis and later Dark City,
Delicatessen/City of Lost Children, Firefly(yes, I'll give him that one,
outlaw star has some things to say, but that plot trope was already as old as
the Romans.), Primer, Dark Mirror, I'm rambling at this point and this is
totally going to spawn another sci fi binge, but my takeaway is that there's
been a reasonable stream of surprisingly good sci fi that has popped up in
unpredictable places over the years, even into the torrent era. I have some
faith it will continue to bubble to the top. My theory is that the only reason
good sci fi seems so rare now is that it has become so swamped by bad sci fi
as it has begun to fill the mainstream.

~~~
lmm
There was a period in the '90s when it really felt like no sci-fi was being
made (except in animé). I mean, Star Trek TNG (franchise!) carried on, but
that was about it. Partly the difference seems to be the BBC (which really
punches above its weight in the genre); Doctor Who had been cancelled, mostly
because the creators started putting too much effort into politics and too
little into telling good stories, and their less-long-running efforts seemed
to disappear around the same time. Partly there was less demand for it in an
age of political optimism; sci-fi has always been a way to address issues we
don't dare tackle head-on (see many post-2001 shows e.g. new BSG) and there
was a brief period where we really thought we'd lived through the end of
history. But the theory I found most interesting is that fandom itself killed
sci-fi; all the people who should have been writing stories and becoming the
next generation of creators instead wrote 'zines and participated in the con
scene (wish I could find the reference where I first saw this).

~~~
dragonwriter
If you mean on TV, I think from the dawn of TV virtually no sci fi being made
has been pretty much the norm. (Unless you use a broad enough definition that
that wouldn't be true, even excluding ST:TNG, of the early 1990s, either.)

~~~
lmm
I think there's still a distinct dip in the '90s. In the '80s we have the last
gasp of Dr Who, we have The Tripods, V, Day of the Triffids, and a bunch of
one-off adaptations. In the '00s we have big remakes of Dr Who and Battlestar
Galactica (hell, even V), or the aforemaligned Dollhouse which for all its
flaws was more willing to engage with sci-fi themes than, I dunno, Quantum
Leap.

I've neglected Babylon 5, which is probably unfair to the show, but I feel
like it never had the cultural impact of those '80s or '00s shows. The '90s
drought feels real to me, but maybe it's just a matter of perception.

~~~
dragonwriter
I suspect this is more a matter of what "sci fi" you like. The 1990s had
_lots_ of sci fi TV shows, including, among others:

X-Files

SeaQuest DSV / SeaQuest 2032

More Star Trek than you can shake a stick at (TNG, DS9, and VOY cover the
whole decade, with most of it having two at once)

Babylon 5

Sliders

Stargate SG-1

Farscape

I think there's a better case that the 1990s were the high-point of sci fi
popularity on TV than a particular drought (though I can see a case that there
was something of a drought starting sometime in the mid-1980s through 1993.)

------
jessaustin
One must at least tip the cap to the sheer audacity represented by the chart
of _thirty-two_ upcoming comic book character movies. That is a giant
investment, that from a psychological perspective could only be made on such
comically phallic properties. It's hard to be sure that the public has such a
giant appetite for this sort of thing, but _someone_ sure is sure. One can
imagine business-school case studies a decade from now including this chart
while discussing the collapse of the American film industry.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Superhero action/adventure movies are solid gold right now because they not
only do well in the US but internationally as well, which has become as big or
bigger of a market as the US. Overall, averaging out the Marvel superhero
movies made over the last decade the franchise has pulled in around a billion
in revenue per year. It's practically an industry unto itself at this point.

------
untog
The most interesting point for me isn't that these are all superhero movies
(they sell well, simple as that) but that movie studios are announcing plans
for movies that they won't release for at least _five years_.

What is the viewing public supposed to do with that information, really? Who
knows what I'll be doing with my life. Aside from anything else it
demonstrates a remarkable belief that audiences are very far away from getting
sick of superhero movies.

~~~
dragonwriter
The announcements were for (current and potential) _investors_ , not really
_the viewing public_. The nature of the world is that its not really possible
to restrict the information to the former set without also releasing it to the
latter set, but the latter group isn't the one for whose benefit the
information is being released, so it doesn't really make sense to ask what
that group is supposed to do with the information.

------
KaiserPro
Look, the rpoblem is this, hollywood isn't about art, ideas or socialism. Its
all about hard cash.

The problem here is that the movies that people watch in any great number are
sequels. This means that they generate cash. As alluded to above, that's all
that hollywood cares about.

There are people that are prepared to take risks, like the wienstien company.
However, a failure like the grindhouse (which is a terrible film) meant that
they almost disappeared.

Why is that so? think about it in bandwidth terms. Studios release 5 or 6
movies every three months. Each one of those costs up to $100 million each.
When a movie is released you have to pay for advertising, promotion, tedious
talking head stuff. Then the movie is in theaters for 4-10 weeks. Then later
on its punted to rental, and then DVD/blueray.

If a movie doesn't do well in that time, its sunk. gone along with 1/5th of
the studios earnings for that quarter. most movies barely break even. Which
means a studios business model has to build in a lot of loss.

A TV channel has subscribers. This means that they can take a risk. Even if a
show is shit it wont hurt earnings immediately. Plus they have 3-5
blockbusters shows on a week. which means a much faster turn around. However
the shit/hit ratio in TV is ironically much higher. (American TV is
horrifically bad.) But because its all based on subscribers risks can be taken
as one show is such a tiny fraction of the total output.

~~~
rodgerd
> Its all about hard cash.

Quite. Studios have minimaxed their money making capabilities, and (generally)
no longer take 70s style gambles on films like "The Godfather".

This is only exacerbated by the fact that it seems people are prepared to pay
for the likes of "Transformers" but the people who claim to want more
interesting/niche films aren't prepared to shell out for them, whether because
they keep their money in their pockets, torrent them, or whatever.

~~~
Retra
All the people who like good movies stopped going to see movies because they
know they aren't good.

Related:
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/lr/evaporative_cooling_of_group_beli...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/lr/evaporative_cooling_of_group_beliefs/)

A cult gets more extremist over time because moderates will leave. Then the
definition of 'moderate' changes relative to who is still there, and the cult
slides into an ever-more-narrow circle of ever-more-extreme followers. It's a
feedback loop.

Except in case of movies, it is a feedback loop that promotes maximum
reliability and profits. It doesn't promote "good movies" or "what the
audience wants" in any way: it promotes what the _remaining_ audience is
unwilling to sacrifice.

~~~
lmm
But that could work either way; movies could equally become more and more
artsy over time and the audience that dislikes that would leave. Why didn't it
happen that way?

~~~
Retra
'Artsy' is unreliable by nature. You can't maintain a feedback loop on
unreliable input or output.

------
Animats
The franchise addiction is well known. What changed in 2014 is that studios
started publicly issuing product roadmaps. The next half decade of the comic
book universes has been mapped out. (Disappointingly, Black Widow doesn't get
an origin movie.) A chart:
([http://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/comicsalliance.com/fi...](http://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/comicsalliance.com/files/2014/10/CA_Supermovies_10-28-2014-21.jpg))
This covers all the way up to the next Green Lantern movie in 2020. (The last
Green Lantern dud will have been forgotten by then, like 2007's Spiderman 3).

Disney actually has a Crap Sequels Division, Disneytoons. For decades, they
produced direct to VHS/DVD/BD sequels: Cinderalla 2, Mulan 2, etc., which
could be found near the checkout in low-end retail stores. When Disney
acquired Pixar, Disneytoons was phased out, and a number of designed-for-
mediocrity projects cancelled. But it came back to life. Coming soon: _Cars 3_
and _Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast_.

The only hope for novelty may be another big series in Young Adult books. Not
much innovation there right now. The vampire and zombie books continue to come
out. (Vampires down, zombies holding steady, based on bookshelf space in
stores.) Teen survival stories are big, but they're mostly bad Hunger Games
clones at this point. J. K. Rowling did the magical school thing so well that
nobody else can compete. Greek mythology seems to have peaked outside the
Marvel universe; the endless Percy Jackson trilogy stream is still coming out,
but everybody is tired of it. Tom Clancy books are still coming out, even
though he's dead and the ghost-writers suck.

As Comics Alliance says, "This is what the next five years of your life looks
like."

------
DanielBMarkham
It's interesting to note where the real creative action is nowadays: TV.
Specifically, long-form serial format that people can binge watch.

In the recent Terry Gilliam interview posted on HN, he made the point that
mid-level movies are out. You can find financing for the super-huge Spiderman
47s, and you can go indie with a Red One and shoot your own stuff. What you
have a really hard time doing is finding 10-20M for a mid-sized niche film.

I'm a movie fan, and I've lost what little respect I've had for Hollywood over
the past few years. Too many times I've been sitting in theaters for some nth
version of a comic-book movie and thought: really? Is that what the writers
and directors really think of my intelligence.

Best thing I know to do is to stop watching them, even if I do love movies.
I'll happily go pay to see another Sharknado before I'll pony up for the next
17 versions of whatever the Star Wars franchise has to offer.

~~~
kaoD
> I've been sitting in theaters for some nth version of a comic-book movie and
> thought: really? Is that what the writers and directors really think of my
> intelligence.

What do you expect them to think, if you're sitting in theaters for some nth
version of a comic-book movie? ;)

They only care about revenue. You're signalling them "I'll pay for this shit".
Is it their fault?

------
a3_nm
Another important and frightening thing about franchises is that they decouple
the movie from the creators who produce it. You can buy the rights to a
franchise and make something that people will want to watch, no matter who is
being commissioned to make it.

This is very strange, both because it assumes that anyone can continue anyone
else's work, and because it implies that the "right" to create the "official"
sequel to a work of fiction is something that you should be able to buy and
sell.

~~~
seizethecheese
This isn't frightening to me. If you own the rights to your work, then you
should be able to sell it to whomever. If you don't own the rights, then you
are most likely being paid by someone else to produce the work, in which case
this also isn't scary. If I paid someone to produce a work, I would surely
want to be able to sell the rights in the future.

It would be scarier to me if this wasn't the case. Imagine writing your first
novel, and then a large corporation hires a writer to produce a sequel. How
many Game of Thrones sequels would there be already? I'd rather George R.R.
Martin have the time to create instead of having to compete.

~~~
a3_nm
> How many Game of Thrones sequels would there be already?

I don't find this scary. Presumably people should favor the ones written by
the original author, because they would expect it to be more true to the
spirit that they liked in the earlier works. However, if some people prefer to
read works by competing authors, then that would be good for them, and too bad
for Martin. The notion of being able to assess property rights over a universe
of fiction (beyond the original copyright interpretation of ownership of the
actual work and adaptations of the work _in its fixed form_ ) are a new and
dangerous notion, I think.

Lots of artistic creativity is discouraged or impossible today because of the
unclear legal status of fan fiction, or of works that are inspired by another
work but cannot afford to pay a license for them. I find this far more
worrying than the consequences of depriving rightholders from exclusivity
rights on the universes created by authors.

------
ChuckMcM
The writing on that makes me understand that the author really loves movies.
And loves them perhaps a bit too much in the sense that any entertainment
medium is, at its heart, a _fashion_ medium, and fashions change.

I agree with him that franchises get boring, but he seems to miss the part
where I, the movie-goer, stop going to movies and so the studios notice and
stop making them and try to make something else. My daughter and I were noting
that all the TV shows seemed to be police procedurals with a police officer
and a "quirky side kick" of some sort. That concept got run right into the
ground. And now all of them are 'Game of Thrones' clones where their is some
nominal "set" and within that set are created no fewer than a dozen inter-
twined story lines of competition and intrique. And because they want to have
a dozen or more story lines, many of them are just plain silly.

My point is that it sucks when something you love moves on from what you love
into something new[1]. But it isn't the end of the world, nor is it
necessarily the end of an industry. It is just the new, new thing.

[1] My wife laments my music tastes are stuck in the 70's and 80's :-)

------
seizethecheese
Hollywood makes franchise-based movies because the profitability is much more
stable. Would you rather Hollywood produce more $100 Million movies that
return only $10 Million?

The elitism in these sorts of discussions is cringeworthy. I absolutely hate
superhero movies, but I'm not their audience. Seriously, people don't whine
about teen-audience flicks so why whine about this?

~~~
vvpan
I feel like you haven't read the article. Your first point the author admits
himself. As to the second point, I don't think he's "whining" that they exist,
but that there is little else: "In 2014, franchises are not a big part of the
movie business. They are not the biggest part of the movie business. They are
the movie business. Period."

~~~
AndrewDucker
Which is a fair point. Looking at 2014 you have to go to the 15th most popular
movie to find one that's not associated with a pre-existing property:
[http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=2014&p=.htm](http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=2014&p=.htm)

~~~
waterlesscloud
The studios would be fine with any lower ranked movie being in the top 14,
though. People went to see what they went to see. They got what they wanted.

------
astrojams
I don't see what the problem is. Franchises are less risky because they've
already removed a lot of the risk. Isn't this the correct path for business?

~~~
vvpan
The problem is that it's an unfortunate situation, whether it's governed by
laws of business or not.

~~~
sosborn
> The problem is that it's an unfortunate situation

Unfortunate for whom? No matter what direction the industry takes it will
never be all things to all people, and there will always be room on the
fringes for products that don't fit that direction.

------
guelo
Considering how much freedom society sacrifices to protect Hollywood's
profits, it's amazing how awful their product is.

------
mark-r
I saw Captain America Winter Soldier this week, and of course it's a prime
example of what the author is saying. But it did refute one of his minor
points, the timeliness of current movies. It seemed perfectly in tune with the
post-Snowden era.

------
aswanson
I wonder if these movie studios, with increasing costs and ever-greater
reliance on "hits", will become more and more like the recording industry,
with its three major bland pop-hit consolidated companies and nothing else.

------
ahomescu1
I'm surprised to see on that list some sequels to flops, Pacific Rim being the
perfect example. Why would anyone go watch Pacific Rim 2, or London Has Fallen
(which I assume is a sequel to Olympus Has Fallen)?

------
MarcScott
I didn't see another Batman reboot in the list of up and coming films, but I'd
wager there'll be one before 2020.

------
twiceaday
The same thing is happening in videogames. Budgets are getting out of control
and sequels make for lower risk ventures.

------
skuhn
Movie franchises and sequels also existed in the 30s and 40s, with series like
_The Thin Man_ and the _Road to..._ cranking out new installments every year
or so. They thrived for similar reasons to today's comic book movie
franchises, and I think they will ultimately share the same fate.

Why do people go to comic book movies today?

1\. They like knowing what they're signing up for. As evidence, look at how
movie trailers have evolved into Cliff Notes versions of movies over the last
few decades.

2\. This particular market had been ill-served; so anything catering to this
niche was disproportionately rewarded. Comic book fans had long lamented that
there were no big budget adaptions of their favorite books.

3\. It's easier to make variations on an established template from a
production standpoint, and it's easier to obtain financial backing when you
can point to prior successes (the "it's like Uber but for Netflix" startup
syndrome).

It isn't that comic book movies are creatively bankrupt by definition (nor
were _The Thin Man_ movies, and many other franchises over the years). They
have a rich well of prior stories to draw on and splash together, and a lot of
what Marvel in particular is doing with ongoing narratives is interesting. But
they are also racing towards a saturation point which will inevitably result
in the collapse of their entire enterprise. They have attracted a lot of good
actors, directors and other collaborators; but even with all of that talent
they are simply producing too much, too quickly to avoid reaching a point of
creative and financial exhaustion.

As others have noted, it's pretty laughable that Marvel and DC have announced
slates that run all the way to 2020. They are certainly going to have to
cancel or postpone some of those films when audience indifference becomes
impossible to ignore. And then like other things that have oversaturated their
markets (music / rhythm games), it's going to be a long, dark winter before
they get to show their faces in any respect again. I am certain that within
the next ten years we'll see articles and interviews talking about how "comic
book movies don't sell" and "guys running around in spandex suits are passe".

Meanwhile, if you could approach this stuff in moderation, I think it might
work out differently. Make a few comic book movies a year. Make them all
distinct from each other. Don't tell the same stories again and again and
again (origin stories of characters that have existed for 80 years, for
instance). Approach the material from the perspective of telling a story in a
new way, rather than rehashing the same story for new money.

Unfortunately, this isn't the way business is done in Hollywood or Silicon
Valley or anywhere else. If someone makes money doing something, then thirty
other people are going to try to reproduce that success, and many of them may
have missed the point of how and why the original succeeded.

------
brianstorms
There were 5,400 new screens added and 1,000 new cinemas added in mainland
China in 2014, which had a 33% rise in movie box office. Moviegoing
internationally, especially in BRIC (Brazil-Russia-India-China) countries, is
booming and has been for years. Moviegoing is stagnant to slowly dwindling in
the US market.

The big blockbuster movies, especially the franchise films, are aimed at the
global audience because they're making much more money overseas than they're
doing domestically. And the studios/distributors want to make money. They
don't care about art or cultural meaning. They care about money.

Several years ago, PG posted a YC article called "Kill Hollywood." I wrote a
rebuttal with the mocking (and deliberately attention-grabbing) title "Kill
Y-Combinator". PG and YC laid out a mission to invent new businesses and
platforms that provided ways for content creators, creative types, etc, to not
have to deal with the mess that is Hollywood. I replied that while I agree
Hollywood is a mess -- it's a permission industry, they're obsessed with
rights and are ruthlessly litigious if they sense any infringement -- I felt
PG's article went too far. I suggested that all movies aren't the problem,
some are, the big dumb franchise ones. I argued there is a ton of great
brilliant artistic talent in the industry, but they have a hell of a time
getting their work to an audience. The studios and the financiers (usually,
nowadays, foreign investors; banks, oil sheiks, etc.) want big international
blockbusters (read: franchise repeat hits). The artistic
filmmakers/directors/acting talent is getting squeezed out. Why do you think
Soderbergh stopped making movies? He got sick of the Hollywood BS. I advocated
and still do that Silicon Valley ought to strive to build new platforms that
facilitate the good movie content reaching audiences at sufficient scale so
that good films have a future and can make a difference. I tried to do this
with a startup, and got Silicon Valley money (seed round), but the resistance
and loathing of anything M-word (Movie) related in the Valley is brutal. I
could not get an A round, and my big seed investors walked away without even
giving us a chance (lookin' at you, Google Ventures).

There remains an incredible opportunity for disruptive technology to come in
and raise hell and make the moviegoing experience better for consumers, for
filmmakers, for studios, and for the exhibitors. The movie theater industry--
separate from the studios, I'm talking about the cinemas themselves, which
they themselves call "exhibitors"\--is appallingly bad and inept at embracing
technology to attract larger audiences and keep them coming back. Some small
chains like Austin's Alamo Drafthouse get it, and have figured out a way to
make their theatres event destinations thanks to clever branding, great
curation, great food and drink, and an overwhelming sense of entertainment and
belonging. The AMCs of the world on the other hand exist basically to sell you
insanely marked-up popcorn/soda/junk food, and could care less what is
displayed on their screens as long as the entire experience is as monetized as
possible. And franchise films help them keep their unimaginative business
model limping along year after year.

I believe that if we could get some decent and COMMITTED funding for
innovating mobile/social/local tech that relates to the moviegoing experience,
we could do a lot to wake up the greedy Hollywood execs to fund better and
more varied content and the exhibitors would be less fearful on taking a
chance on showing that content. I would love to see this. I've already spent
years of my life in this space, lost a ton of personal money in this space,
but would be willing to give it a go again in a second if I could find the
right alignment of stars (people, funding, filmmaker/exhibitor connections). I
think it can be done without Hollywood's permission or even involvement. It's
about the consumer and about the exhibitor. Hollywood only gives people what
they believe they want. Better tech could make audiences way more aware of
good movies they're not hearing about now. If they know about it, and hear
their friends wanna see it too, guess what: you get scalable demand. An
exhibitor will do ANYTHING where there is demand. You just have to show it's
there. Who's with me?

------
thomasmarriott
The market will provide.

------
jonnathanson
Allow me to introduce my client, the devil. I'll be representing him in the
following few bullet points. Mainly as an intellectual exercise, but
hopefully, a worthwhile exercise.

\- First: This is a very thoughtful and well-written article, and it raises
some very valid points. Sequelmania is a creatively bankrupt strategy in the
long run. (That being said, I'm a big fan of what Marvel has been able to do
with its franchises, and I'm not convinced that its films are the sort of
anti-creative schlock it's become trendy to describe them as. Full disclosure:
a good friend is fairly high up the food chain at Marvel, and he's a brilliant
and awesome exec.)

\- Second: It's also a monetarily lucrative strategy. More important, it's a
de-risking strategy. One sees the same pattern in the video games industry,
where the decision to churn out _Call of Duty 327.5_ is a no-brainer, destined
to reap at least a billion dollars in revenue, and the decision to make a
daring, idiosyncratic, artful, niche game is liable to get a studio head
fired.

\- Third: In the good old days, studios were a total mess. They took wild
swings in profitability, their shareholders were often fleeced, and their
executives lived high on the hog. This was generally accepted as the cost of
doing business in a creatively driven industry. Today, not _too_ much has
changed: but the execs currently in power are much more adept at managing
brands and franchises. They're also better businesspeople (with some notable
exceptions). This is actually a good thing, if you're a shareholder in a movie
studio.

\- Fourth: About those shareholders. Over the last 20-odd years, and
especially over the last decade, Hollywood has received more and more
investment capital from hedge funds and i-banks. What do finance guys want to
see? For one thing, the books. "Hollywood accounting" is actually on the wane,
and that's a good thing. They also want to see results. ROI. Predictable ROI,
if at all possible. This goal often stands at odds with free-reined creativity
and risk-taking, with plenty of the unfortunate consequences that the author
points out. But it also forces studios to think more like businesses, and less
like social clubs. Executives should be held accountable for their financial
results, not their popularity at Soho House.

\- Fifth: The indie film, the risky film, the daringly trashy film, and the
eccentric film are far from dead. Big studios aren't making them anymore, but
as means of production and distribution continue to democratize, _especially_
at the small-time level, you'll see more and more true indies step in to fill
this gap in the market. My off-the-cuff prediction: big studios double down on
the franchise business—which, when you think about it, is probably what a
"big" studio _should_ be focusing on. Little and mid-sized players, in
addition to foreign players, focus on the niche and arthouse fare.
Globalization, plus interesting new distribution technology, allows these
players to punch above their weight as never before.

\- Sixth: By _FAR_ the best combination creative/business executive Hollywood
has had in my lifetime was Michael Eisner. This guy gets a lot of shit for the
whole Michael Ovitz debacle at Disney, and it's tarnished his legacy
considerably. But he almost singlehandedly revitalized and rebuilt the Disney
machine. Disney is the Apple of the movie business, and he was (kinda sorta)
its Steve Jobs. (Steve Jobs himself was later involved in Disney, as we know.)
He had his misses, as well as his hits. But he's the sort of exec Hollywood
needs more of, not less. Its development and production aspects should be run
by creative executives, and its overall business units should be run by true
business executives. Whenever the twain shall meet--very rarely--these people
should run the shop. I'd love to say that Hollywood selects for combination
creative-business people, but it doesn't. It selects for good politicians on
the creative side, and good bean-counters on the business side. It needs to
rethink its talent-cultivation pipeline, and I'd be lying if I said I knew
where to begin.

------
kuni-toko-tachi
There is a reason why most journalists are whiney manipulative people.

