Is it over AI created images and money, money, money?
The purpose of running a for-profit movie studio is to make a profit.
Are you serious?
I watched it too.
They could easily have edited out a good 90 minutes.
I sense this was a Sorcesee guilt trip movie.
Did The Osage tribe bank roll the fillm?
Nobody but people like us are going to sit thru it. At least three couples walked out when I was there. I think they went Perry’s flick.
Let Hollywood die. Don’t give them a penny.
I had to laugh about “Dune Part 2”...
Part 2 of a remake of a remake....
Hollywood is a joke.
Apparently, the remaining Pythons are re-releasing Monty Python and the Holy Grail in theaters this December for the 48-1/2-year anniversary. I hope it blows everything else out of the water, but the woketards will probably protest the hell out of it.
Having read the book in my youth I would have gone to see Dune 2. Even if it did change some of the original people for the sake of wokeness. At the time I first read it did not realize the similarities between the Freeman and Islam. It is kind of obvious now.
I'm stoked to see Napoleon though, definitely going to watch it in the theaters.
And Meghan Markle is still AWOL from the picket lines...
I am a huge movie fan and am always looking to see what is out - there is nothing better than sitting in a dark theater, with popcorn and a drink, enjoying the huge screen - and then going out to dinner afterwards.
There have been very few movies that I’ve even been interested in over the past two or so years - the last time I was in a theater was to see “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” - in 2019.
Some of the running times are far too long - Oppenheimer and
Killers of the Flower Moon - I’d rather wait until they’re on one of the streaming services and I’ll watch it over two nights.
The local theater closed its’ doors last month. (local to me was 25 miles away)
The movie industry has always had its problems — and the history and sociology of that is interesting — but it was in a reasonably good place prior to the advent of streaming. Movies succeeded or failed based first and foremost on ticket sales, which ultimately put viewers in control. A robust secondary market developed when VHS tapes, and later DVDs, appeared; this created a very long shelf life during which films could still recoup their costs, and that in turn expanded the limits on what the studios were willing to greenlight. Apart from a handful of blockbusters, licensing for broadcast was a distant third. And niche films could linger for years on the arthouse circuit, which was ok for films that were probably pretty low budget to begin with. This created openings for writers and directors with projects that depended on good writing, good stories and great acting— and that could be made inexpensively, because they didn’t need costly special effects.
Then came streaming. The core problem is that the big tech companies own the distribution systems, and the big tech companies dwarf the legacy movie studios in size. We are used to thinking of the big studios as titans. That’s true, as long as we recognize that they were big fish in a little pond. That all changed when big tech moved in. Amazon, Apple, AT&T and Comcast can buy the whole movie industry with chump change — and for the most part, they have. They bought the legacy studios largely in order to control their libraries of older films and shows in an effort to build market share in the pixel streaming business. But ultimately, big tech doesn’t care what the content is, and it shows.
The movie industry used to be run by people who, despite their many sins, at least lived, ate and breathed movies. Today the big studios are run as loss leaders for global conglomerates looking for an edge in the pixel ecosystem.
So now the reigning problems:
1. Streaming overexpanded. All the streamers are losing money. Consolidation is universally expected — after which the streamers, having used predatory pricing models to crush independent filmmakers and the theaters — will jack up prices. In the meantime, they are relentlessly squeezing every other part of the value chain in an effort to reduce their losses, and this has set off a race to the bottom on quality.
AT&T finally got tired of subsidizing a money losing streaming operation, and it dumped WarnerMedia via the spinoff and merger with Discovery, the king of trash tv. That’s a sad end for Warner Bros. and HBO, which used to be crown jewels back in the little pond. A lot of people expect Warner Bros. Discovery to be broken up and sold. It is deeply indebted and bleeding money. I only hope that happens before the current leadership runs it entirely into the ground.
On the plus side, maybe Warner Bros. Discovery will hold onto CNN long enough to give it the full Discovery treatment. CNN can become “Naked and Afraid of News,” Wolfie would be offered a severance package if he refuses to strip down, and infobabes would perform in the buff and would be hired with that in mind. The “journalists” would probably object that this is beneath their dignity, but they would be reminded that an adjoining division of their company routinely requires this of 20-something actors, both male and female, and it’s all about ratings so don’t take it personally. No one would be forced to do anything — that would be abusive — but hey, that’s the job, and if you don’t want it, we can find young hotties to read off a teleprompter who will.
(2) The big tech conglomerates are global companies with global platforms. That creates a steady background pressure to seek generic content for generic, lowest-common denominator viewers. And since the biggest markets of the future are in Asia ... well, they will jump through hoops to please the God King Emperor Xi.
(3) The bigger the company, the more susceptible it is to political pressure from above, financial strongarming from the venture capital crowd (which is also subject to political manipulation and corruption), and activist pressure from the woke mafia. We’ve learned that corporate America lives in terror of twitter mobs. The bigger and more concentrated the industry, the greater the problem becomes. We’re all familiar with Obama’s tech summits in the White House, when the tech CEOs gathered around a conference table to discuss their “responsibility” to “curate” the news. And we’re all familiar with the incorporation of the movie and tv industry into the incestuous democrat revolving door system on hiring and the informal, 24/7 networks of communication between the companies and their political minders. These are now the same people who control most of what happens in the movie and tv industries today. Entertainment media has become part of the Borg.
By comparison, the old movie industry used to be remarkably decentralized. Yes, the big legacy studios looked dominant, but barriers to entry were relatively low. Independent filmmakers could do their thing, and smaller studios had room to grow. Tenure at the top was uncertain and often short lived.
What should be done? First and foremost, the current streaming model needs to die. It is financially unsustainable, so something is going to change. We should be working for it to change in the right way. Not very long ago, the internet was universally heralded as something that would allow unprecedented decentralization in many domains. It has turned out to be an incredibly powerful force for consolidation, enforce conformity, and control. Somehow we need to enforce decentralization.
Maybe robust anti-trust action? In the movie business, maybe a strict separation of production and distribution? Maybe an end to subscription stovepiping, in which every movie and tv show would be universally available as PVOD across all platforms — possibly after a reasonably short period of exclusivity akin to the old theatrical window? If Apple makes a good movie — and there are a couple over there that I want to watch/rewatch — I shouldn’t need a subscription; I should be able to “buy a ticket” and rent or buy it PVOD or via a physical copy.
I’m open to suggestions. What we’re doing now ain’t working, except for the would-be commissars. The goal should be a diverse ecosystem with low barriers to entry and reasonable access to distribution for independent voices. But the streaming junta will have to be broken first.
When’s the next movie by Tom Cruise coming out?
I saw “The Holdovers” this weekend. It was good.
It was my first time back at the movies since CoVID and I wanted to stop the movie many times to go to the bathroom or get a snack or rewind a section I didn’t quite understand. I’ve become too used to streaming and movie theaters just don’t work for me anymore, lol.