First, not everything is available on free platforms. Some movies remain siloed behind paywalls. And some movies are simply withdrawn.
But my bigger complaint is that it takes time for movies to make it to Tubi or some other free platform. If you are content to wait a couple of years to see something, that won't bother you. But if most of the audience is conditioned to do this, it will destroy the independent studios and make it almost impossible for new entrants to find audiences. And the streamers say good riddance because they view theaters as competition.
The streamers live on subscription fees -- and at this point, they're spending big bucks on sports programming because people want to see games in real time.
The sense of urgency drives subscriptions, just as the need to see a movie while it was still in theaters used to drive the box office. The streamers now move all the movies and shows to a subscription based platform akin to an online library.
You might say, "That's fine, and it's convenient." But how can an independent studio or startup that doesn't own a big studio platform find an audience, recoup its production costs, and maybe even make a profit if it loses the box office? How can the indies even affordably advertise a new movie across multiple platforms?
The streamers are operating in a quantity over quality space in which box office is irrelevant. They throw up a blizzard of cheap content hoping that they can shotgun something at highly targeted audience segments. In that environment, cheap is best, and lowest common denominator films that play as well in China and three dozen other foreign markets as well as in the U.S. is the goal.
We end up with generic slop. The people still trying to do good work lose their revenue streams; they'll get whatever the streamer will pay, and the streamers want cheap. Tentpoles get promoted. Existing IPs with huge legacy fanbases built back when the industry was still oriented to box office get mined for endless stupid remakes, sequels and spinoffs. Quality becomes a harder and harder sell.
“But how can an independent studio or startup that doesn’t own a big studio platform find an audience, recoup its production costs, and maybe even make a profit if it loses the box office? How can the indies even affordably advertise a new movie across multiple platforms?”
The Blue City Times is happy to announce a 10-movie pre-payment service with movies selected by our movie reviewer.
Your money will be refunded in full if you watch no more than two movies and are dissatisfied.
You don’t even have to live in Blue City to enjoy our plan and our carefully picked movies.