No, those are insipid fabrications that cost little or nothing to produce and that pander to the trailer-park crowd. They’re the last gasp of a dying — and largely irrelevant — medium.
___________________
Yeah, kinda what I meant. Anything for eyeballs and low production costs.
Stashed wealth can evaporate quickly, given their lifestyles. The old ones will be fine, but the younger moguls/stars might actually have to sell toys and mansions into a falling market. Plenty of examples of *stars* spending their later years in trailer parks.
I don’t know much about film production, but I believe the tech has become cheap enough (like that for music)to democratize the craft. I’d actually like to see more sophisticated indie films. I’ve been reading indie fiction for a couple of years and some of it is quite good.
The technology for original production has become cheaper. Distribution and release costs are still about the same. There’s still a limited number of competent writers, directors, and actors, and effects work is still expensive. The primary limiting factor is that there’s no system for producing an income from mid-sized budget features. Folks will pay money to see a film in a theater, TV will cover production costs for their features because they can recoup them through advertising, but there’s no financial model that’ll produce an income from a half-million dollar film that’s not mass market. Direct to net in some kind of organized pay-per-view model might eventually be the key. NetFlix is also doing some innovation in the field of in-house production.
The big breakthrough’s going to come when we get to somewhere around 80% broadband penetration and cable dies. Then you’ll be able to make your film, put it on the server with an evolving pricetag, and pocket most of the income.