Rob on…the state of movies in 2023

There’s an old Chinese proverb that roughly translates to say “May you live in interesting times”. That quote immediately sprung to mind today as I sat down to put together this post on the state of the movie industry.

Ever since the advent of television, I think it has been normal for TV and movies to have creative ebbs and flows; sometimes it seems like tv is creating better product than movies; other times movies are much more creative.. I think right now, the former is true. Some of this is completely out of the movie industry’s hands. There are other situations where the big movie studios have been shooting themselves in the foot, figuratively speaking. I will address what I, the lowly consumer, sees as the main issues facing the movie industry at what i feel is becoming a critical juncture.

Before I even begin with this breakdown of the aliens of the movie industry today, I think it’s important to point out that just buy the sheer amount of potential content, television has the potential to create much better stories than movies. Whether it’s episodic storytelling or serialized, TV shows just have a much better chance of deeper character development and greater story arts than one and one-half to 4 hour feature length movies might have.

Original content is every TV channel’s endgame

I suppose it was inevitable that the streaming services would eventually begin creating their own original content. Netflix may have built it subscription based on classic movies and vintage TV shows, but the true money on that medium has always been in original content. Its the same reason MTV went from airing music videos 24/7 to running nonstop reruns of Ridiculousness and Jersey Shore. Despite how insipid those shows may be, someone is watching them. More to the point, advertisers are paying money to run their commercials during those shows. One need look no further than the Hallmark Channel and their seemingly endless supply of holiday moves. We joke about their lack of originality or storytelling, but people still tune in for more.

Streaming was a paradigm shift

Covid was a game changer for virtually every aspect of our lives. The way in which our entertainment is disseminated was no exception. The big studios, and the little studios, for that matter – realized they could release movies straight-to-streaming as cinemas remained closed. For a time, there was a question of whether the multiplex was going to survive Covid. In many ways, I don’t think it ever recovered.

Lately we hearing a lot about Max, Paramount+ and Disney are hemorrhaging money, but for most of its time as a streaming service, Netflix has proven that this medium can be profitable. However, even this remains to be seen, given some of the concessions that were made to resolved both the SAG and writer’s strikes. I think Netflix will be okay, but their profits may not increase geometrically anymore

Hollywood’s leans into their tentpoles

The success of Jaws (1975) and Star Wars (1977) lead to the birth of the summer blockbuster event movies. In the years to come, these movie would be know as “tentpoles” as their success financially supported the rest of a studios creative endeavors. In fact, it was the success of Star Wars the Led Paramount Pictures to dust an IP of theirs called Star Trek. Thus began the era of tentpoles and their inevitable sequels.

Moviegoers have been complaining about the abundance of sequels for decades; usually making these complaints at the movie-plexes after they buy their tickets for the new sequel.

The whole sequel thing makes sense, from the studios point-of-view. If you have one really successful movie, why not make a follow up? However the Law of Diminishing Eventually takes effect. But despite the fact that GenZ didn’t grow up waxing nostalgic about Indiana Jones movies, we still got an 80-year-old Harrison Ford dawning his fedora for what we hope is the final time this past summer.

I thin what personally annoys me more than sequels are the follow-up movies that blatant cash grabs. Was anybody REALLY clamoring for a Willy Wonka prequel?

Doubling down on the blockbusters

Two years ago, Spiderman: No Way Home was touted as the movie that was going to save the cinema. At the time, Marvel Studios was seemingly bulletproof and Spiderman made a ton of money. But lately, the MCU has lost a lot of its luster. Most fans feel that Avengers: Endgame was Marvel’s creative zenith and it can only go downhill from there. This is to say nothing about Jonathan (Kang) Majors’s assault conviction and subsequent firing by Disney on Monday.

What could have been…

Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom‘s opening weekend is expected to be dead on arrival. With James Gunn and Pater Safran named as the new heads of DC’s film division, the last of the “Snyderverse” films Shazam! Fury of the Gods, The Flash, and the latest Aquaman sequel, have premiered as afterthoughts.

One thing that doesn’t get nearly enough publicity is that Warner Bros. Discovery burned up its marketing budget in 2022, forcing the studio to push back the releases of Shazam: Fury of the Gods, The Flash and now finally Aquaman. In fact, it was reported that Warner Bros. Discovery only had enough money to release three new movies that year.

Adding to WBD’s woes was their decision to permanently shelve the Batgirl movie. There have been conflicting rumors that the movie was canned for tax purposes; others have said that early screenings were received poorly. I could almost understand the decision to cancel Batgirl – if the movie is really as bad as people are saying. But the logic of axing Coyote vs. Acme escapes me. By all accounts, its the best movie of its kind since Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The movie has bounced, on and off the shelf. The latest word is that WBD is shopping the movie to different distributors.

Earlier tonight, I had heard rumors online that Warner Brothers discovery is and talk to potentially merge with Paramount Pictures. The idea of there being one less multimedia conglomerate responsible for 90% of all information I receive frightens me. But that’s another story for another day.

Throwing good money after bad money.

Not only has Hollywood been shellshocked out of taking any creative risks, now Hollywood is hedging ALL of their bets on their big budget blockbuster tentpole attraction movies. The budgets for the sequels and the superhero movies seem to keep getting larger and the returns are getting smaller. I spoke about The Law of Diminishing Returns in my review of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. The terrible secret is that fans get franchise fatigue.

Even Marvel Studios, the once seemingly unstoppable juggernaut is finally show holes in its vibranium armor. Why is Hollywood so shocked by this? If the MCU had ended after avengers endgame, the Marvel franchise would’ve been the most successful in the history of motion pictures. Studios would’ve spent decades trying to reach that level of success again. Did they think the Marvel hit parade would REALLY go on forever?

Poor CGI takes viewers right out of the movie.

Yes, movies with big budgets look sharper; their special effects look better and they are perceived to be movies of a higher quality. But even now, fans are realizing that money does not equal quality Ant Man & The Wasp: Quantumania and The Flash both received criticisms for the lackluster and, at times, incomplete CGI.

Hollywood has to start taking chances again, and realize that every problem in every movie production won’t be resolved by money alone. Are there only so many times that a studio can keep going to their same well with sequel after sequel.

I can go on and on about this. But I think you get the idea.

END OF RANT

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