
Hollywood's Millennial Problem - SonicSoul
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/06/hollywood-has-a-huge-millennial-problem/486209/?single_page=true
======
s_kilk
> But in the last six months, the sequel strategy seems to be deflating.
> Several follow-ups—including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the
> Shadows, Zoolander 2, The Huntsman: Winter’s War, Neighbors 2: Sorority
> Rising, The Divergent Series: Allegiant, Barbershop: The Next Cut, and Alice
> Through the Looking Glass—have “disappointed or flopped outright,”

Not surprising, they're all crap films.

EDIT: but of course, Millennials get the blame.

~~~
callesgg
You got there before me :)

The fact that people using the internet is a more informed might have
something to play in there.

Or it might just be that Hollywood are producing crap and crap again for some
unknown reason. One could argue that they should be more informed these days,
using what i stated above.

------
slg
This article is confusing an industry with its primary distribution method.
The movie industry isn't yet in trouble, it is the theater industry that is in
trouble.

When people talk about the impending death of cable TV, no one equates it with
the death of the television industry as a whole. This is because the future of
TV has become clear with the Netflixs, Amazons, Hulus, and HBOs of the world.
The question is will the movie industry follow down that path of embracing a
new distribution model or will it impede progress at every turn and face a
fate similar to the music industry.

~~~
niftich
Spot on. 10% of [theater-goers] buying 50% of all cinema tickets ought to be a
wake-up call. If they simultaneously released to streaming services (at a
palatable, yet-undetermined price point), studios could make a killing at the
expense of the theater industry.

Anecdotally, as a 18-34 year-old, peer pressure and fear-of-missing-out
contributes to which movies I'll go see. If I could watch them on my own time,
from my house, as it's being released, I'd spend more on movies, and would be
more adventurous with my movie-watching choices.

~~~
hobo_mark
> peer pressure and fear-of-missing-out

What? It's just commercial entertainment ffs...

~~~
mjevans
Culture.

Missing out on /culture/. Also if you want to avoid spoilers you can't
participate in normal discussion venues because there's always going to be
that one user that just can't behave.

~~~
hobo_mark
> Culture.

The article is about big-budget Hollywood movies.

Also, you're seriously saying you avoid certain places/people out of fear of
movie spoilers?

~~~
vitd
I suspect he means online. And yes, I do that, too, if it's something I'm very
interested in.

------
davesque
I think the issue is that no one wants the same old, formulaic, big media any
more. It's funny how many of the old fixtures of the American economy develop
this rent-taking attitude toward their businesses, as though they have a right
to continue reaping profits simply because they were so good at doing it
before. Maybe, if they actually kept pace with innovation in technology and
content delivery the way that today's audience demands, they wouldn't be
having this problem.

------
sandworm101
In defense of big-budget productions, look at the Marvel franchise. Those
movies, which are all sequels of each other, do very well. They are massive
CGI exercises but they are well written and executed. They are movies for
movie fans, full of jokes and themes you have to work at understanding.
Millennials may tweet hatred, but they show up at the theaters.

On the other side are horrific CGI messes like the latest Fantastic Four.
Everyone knows will flop because they see the overly focused-grouped "reboot"
coming. Fans tolerate new political or religious themes (Batman) but you
cannot rewrite an established backstory (Catwoman) or belittle a character's
cartoon origins (Ninga Turtles). The Marvel franchise does well because
respects its fans.

~~~
danmaz74
Yes they did very well until now, but how long can this go on? Sequel after
sequel after sequel... even fans are going to get tired at some point.

~~~
sandworm101
How long have the comic books lasted? The Avengers may have seen their time
come and go, but it's a big universe.

------
amyjess
Another related phenomenon, not the same one as is described by the article,
but certainly contributing the same thing is what Patton Oswalt calls ETEWAF.
[0]

ETEWAF stands for Everything That Ever Was, Available Forever. Basically,
Oswalt argues that having massive easily-accessible archives of media going
back decades is actually hurting the entertainment industry, because every
time something new comes out, it's compared to the best of the best right
away. Not only does it contribute to the "everything _must_ be part of an
established franchise" attitude as described in the article, but it also
hobbles new entrants in franchises by setting impossible-to-beat standards. It
hurts new entrants in franchises because people treat new movies with the
expectation that if it's not better than the best movie in the entire history
of the franchise, it's not worth watching. And, getting back to the article's
argument, it hurts non-franchise works because if something doesn't tie in to
an existing decades-old pop-culture saga that everyone's archive binged on,
it's not worth bothering with because it won't have the emotional connection
that something in a franchise has. It's a double bind.

Another consequence is that you can't do anything unironically anymore. Every
new entry into a genre has to make fun of and subvert genre tropes. They have
to have characters snark "Oh, this isn't like the movies, [creature]s in the
_real_ world don't work that way!". You can't just do a straight-up action-
adventure movie now because they all have to be half-comedies where the cast
mocks the genre tropes as they unfold.

As much as I love being able to do huge archive binges of my favorite things,
it's ultimately going to kill the ability to produce anything new. Honestly, I
just want some straightforward pulpy entertainment where nobody cares about
either fitting in with past material or defying past material.

[0]
[http://www.wired.com/2010/12/ff_angrynerd_geekculture/](http://www.wired.com/2010/12/ff_angrynerd_geekculture/)

~~~
current_call
Gwern covered ETEWA about a year earlier than Oswalt, but with a different
stance. Why should we need or want new media when we already have enough
classics to keep us occupied for the rest of our lives?

[http://www.gwern.net/Culture%20is%20not%20about%20Esthetics](http://www.gwern.net/Culture%20is%20not%20about%20Esthetics)

EDIT:

Also, as of now, you're the only one with anything profound to say in here.
Good job.

------
k-mcgrady
Stop spending so much money creating movies. They sink so much money into big
action packed CGI pieces of rubbish when they could make 10 movies which have
a decent story and longer shelf life for the same budget. I was on a flight
recently and it was fortunate to have most new releases. I had to spend 20
mins searching to find one that I thought would actually be good. It was a
long flight so I watched one or two of the recent 'blockbusters' too. While
slightly entertaining I will never watch them again. If you want me to buy a
movie or rent it multiple times create something with a good story. We don't
need anymore superhero vs superhero movies or reboots.

~~~
pessimizer
> They sink so much money into big action packed CGI pieces of rubbish when
> they could make 10 movies which have a decent story and longer shelf life
> for the same budget.

10? More like 100. With high quality video, it's become cheaper than ever to
make a movie; the major expense could be the talent (but instead, it's the
marketing, special effects, and graft.)

~~~
draw_down
As far as I can tell, the largest single cost in producing a movie is still
the cast.

However, I agree with the general idea of this thread, that the cost of
production is the driving force causing studios studios to play it extra safe,
and make crappy movies that they think will be broadly appealing, because each
one is such a gamble.

~~~
pessimizer
But the justification of the money that goes to the cast is marketing. You get
a star to sell a particular movie.

------
endymi0n
Main problem is that Hollywood's media strategy is simply not reaching
millenials anymore.

Media consumption is split 60:40 on internet<>linear TV in the relevant target
group, but media buying is split 40:60, quickly falling apart further.

And where it's digital, it's still mostly old school CPM and "premium" brand
traffic that's extremely inefficient and reaching just a fraction of the
users. Trailers of relevant films often simply aren't reaching potential
moviegoers anymore.

Disclaimer: Currently building a company fixing this for Hollywood.

~~~
sandworm101
>> Trailers of relevant films often simply aren't reaching potential
moviegoers anymore.

Have you been to a movie theater recently? Trailers are everywhere. They make
up the first 20 minutes of the movie. They are playing on screen outside. I
think we movie goers are suffering from trailer fatigue.

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douche
Most of the movies I like to watch would never be made by Hollywood today. I
watch AMC and TCM and Grit, pretty much all old movies from the 30s, 40s, 50s,
60s and 70s. I would bet that most of them were made for a million dollars, or
less, frequently with the studio's stable of contracted actors. They could
throw out a lot of different concepts, when every movie didn't have to make a
billion dollars to break even.

~~~
jasonthevillain
That's actually true. In that era, studios would make a wide variety of movies
on lower budgets, with the expectation that some would hit and some would
flop. When you accept that, it's easier to bet on bold, risky movies.

The worst thing that can happen isn't that a big budget film flops; it's that
the audience ceases to pay attention to what's being made at all because so
little of it feels fresh and none of it blows their minds. Why spend $25 on
tickets to see something that's probably mediocre at best?

Other the other hand, there are plenty of TV shows trying to be original, and
nobody ever seems to stop talking about it.

------
mjevans
Yet another issue is the actual price of a ticket at a theater.

I'm willing to spend more for something that I trust will have been made to
the standards that I desire. This doesn't mean FX standards, it means a film
that I can actually enjoy watching.

The current price of movie tickets means that I'm only willing to go to the
theater for a really good movie. Marvel has become a brand that I associate
with (in recent years) producing films that are of the archetype I expect
(from the ads) when I go in, and that also have enough embellishment to the
core story that I enjoy watching the film.

If it cost me 3-5 of today's dollars instead of 15 to see lesser films I might
still go to some of them even if they are the usual Hollywood crap; instead of
the premium product they want to trick me in to thinking they've made.

~~~
criley2
I was curious if it was simply inflation which made you perceive that a movie
ticket was more expensive.

And it looks like, mainly, yes it is. Using industry data
[http://www.natoonline.org/data/ticket-
price/](http://www.natoonline.org/data/ticket-price/), and adjusting for
inflation, the average price of a movie ticket in America has not meaningfully
changed in the past 50 years.

1967 (in 2016 money): 8.74

Average price in 2015: 8.51

I will say that prices appeared ot peak in the 70's, with 1.65 in 1971 being
9.75 in 2016 dollars.

I have to ask, are you just going to see a matinee, or are you signing up for
prime time ULTRA 3D FX EXPERIENCE (+7$) and buying $20 in popcorn or
something?

Year - Price - $2016

2015 $8.43 8.51

2010 $7.89 8.66

2000 $5.39 7.49

1990 $4.22 7.73

1980 $2.69 7.81

1971 $1.65 9.75

1967 $1.22 8.74

1958 $0.68 5.63

1948 $0.36 4.86

~~~
mjevans
The price around 2000 looks accurate, however in today's dollars I'm used to a
/single ticket/ being much more like 12-15 USD (depends on time and theater;
approximately double if counting dollars using your inflation scaling source).

The actual validity of that scaling data can be questioned as the model used
and variables it tracked can result in much different outcomes.

Source: I remember it being not difficult to see a movie for slightly over 5
USD around ~15 years ago.

------
danmaz74
TL;DR

> The more young people’s attention is fragmented, the more expensive it is to
> create an audience for each film, the more desperate studios are to find
> franchises that birth many fruitful sequels, the more it makes sense to
> create fewer films and conserve production and advertising budgets for a
> handful of them.

Very sad...

------
mschuster91
It's also a problem of cash: when I was maybe 12 years old, a ticket cost 5€,
and add another 5€ for soda and popcorn. Easily affordable, especially if
you're disciplined enough to skip eating junkfood for two hours.

Now, I'm 24, and a movie ticket costs 13€ + 7€ for soda and popcorn.

If I want to go to the cinema with my girlfriend, together with public
transport tickets I'm out 50€ for maybe two hours (which, thanks to the insane
rents in Munich, is 1/6th of my disposable income!).

Eh, no thanks, I rather pay the same amount for Sky Entertainment (pay TV) +
Netflix and my projector. Added bonus: no idiots on their cellphone, no
queues, no one who farts right in front of my seat. Oh, and there's no money
wasted when we decide that there are more important things to do than watching
a movie ;)

------
mikebelanger
The article's title is misleading in that it implies millennials are the
source of the movie industry's problems. But the content of the article is
correct in that there's other sources of entertainment these days that capture
millennials' attention far more.

What's the article didn't mention was the role of copyright law in all these
sequels. The length of time a copyright can be held on any IP has been
continuously lengthened over the past 20 years, making sequels a more tenable
venture for movie studios.

~~~
aab0
> The length of time a copyright can be held on any IP has been continuously
> lengthened over the past 20 years, making sequels a more tenable venture for
> movie studios.

Strictly speaking, it was lengthened once, 18 years ago, with the
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act)

I don't know if copyright law is really all the important. The Mickey Mouse
Protection Act extended corporate ownership from 75 to 95 years, but no one is
making an Iron Man movie or not based on what they think revenue for it will
be in 2091, much less 2111. Economics alone means that the NPV of 2091 revenue
will be ~$0.

I find much more compelling the argument that it's an attempt to de-risk an
increasingly capital-intensive and high variance business.

~~~
mikebelanger
Good correction -- shame on me for not looking up the exact times that
copyright terms were extended. For some reason, I thought most of them
happened in the past 20 years :P

I agree, extending copyright another 20 years is a marginal, if not a more
theoretical benefit. I doubt any company thinks 50, let alone 95 years ahead.

------
draw_down
Maybe they should make better movies, instead of endless sequels to movies
made when "millennials" either weren't born yet or were too young to care.

------
sandstrom
> The problem for Hollywood isn’t that audiences are ignoring sequels. The
> problem for Hollywood is that audiences are ignoring everything that isn’t a
> sequel, adaptation, or reboot.

I prefer original films over sequels. With few exceptions most sequels I've
seen were so bad that nowadays I rarely consider them.

If Hollywood think that X-Men 11 is the answer they problems beyond those
mentioned in the article.

------
miiiiiike
> _Americans buy only four movie tickets a year [..]_

Four a year? Really? Sunday matinee tickets are super cheap, I go to the
movies 2-3 times a month!

~~~
kylec
I probably average less than one per year. Before Star Wars VII, I can't tell
you what the last movie I saw in theaters was.

~~~
miiiiiike
Why is that? I can't help myself, I love going to the movies. When
November/December hits, and the Oscar contenders start coming out, I'm in the
theater 1-2 times a week.

~~~
kylec
There's so much good stuff I can watch on Netflix and YouTube that it's not
worth it to me to spend the time and effort going to a movie theater, buying a
ticket, then watching a movie. Besides, I'm pretty patient, and I can usually
wait until a movie I want to see is available for streaming or download.

I make exceptions for cultural phenomenons like Star Wars, where I think that
there's a social advantage to being able to talk about it when everyone else
is talking about it.

------
autokad
There is a lot wrong with movies today. I'll go with my 2 biggest gripes:

First and foremost, i want to go to the movies for entertainment. I find
myself bashed over the head with liberal views. so yeah, alienating 50% of the
US population, there's that.

2ndly, movies want to squeeze out money from the under age crowd. that I dont
get, they dont buy a whole lot of tickets anyways, so you make a zombie movie
PG 13? really?

~~~
pjscott
Interesting. I haven't noticed movies bashing me over the head with liberal
views, but I'm not conservative so I might just be oblivious to it. Do you
have any examples?

~~~
jedberg
One example is the spate of "humans are warming the globe" movies that came
out a few years ago, many centering their plots around penguins and their lost
habitat.

The message worked, my wife was teaching 10 year olds at the time, and those
kids were literally afraid of it getting too hot to go outside for recess if
they didn't recycle.

I happen to think that's a good thing, but if you're one of those
conservatives who believes that yes the planet is warming but no it has
nothing to do with humans, than those movies will piss you off (as it did to
some of the more conservative parents in our area).

~~~
aab0
That is terrifying. Propaganda for any cause should not be that easy. This
makes me even more worried about Trump.

