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The Slow Death of Hollywood

mattstoller.substack.com

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Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#51

Post by ravenstine »

Hollywood is hanging itself by its own velvet rope. Remakes are seen as an excellent investment because, so long as they are properly stylized and full of dazzle, they are low-risk and have reasonable returns. Usually.

This won't work for them forever, and I think everyday people are catching on to the fact that they're just being resold the same stuff they've already bought. The other day, my cousin's 11 year old son was over and we were trying to figure out what movie to go see. We asked him if he wanted to go see the live-action Aladdin remake. He told us he didn't want to see it because they(Disney) were just taking a 2D movie that he'd already seen and are just doing the same thing again with actors to make more money. I gave him a fist-bump. He's not even a cynical kid, either. We ended up not even going to the movies because everything that was out was either a remake or n-th sequel, ridiculous looking, or rated R.

If kids who weren't even around when Aladdin or The Lion King first came out are catching on to the fact that corporations are just recycling their parent's generation's culture, it's a sign that Hollywood has gotten completely full of itself and is in early-stage apoptosis.

Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#52

Post by thrusong »

JansjoFromIkea wrote: post #35

Honestly I'm expecting the whole industry to crash hugely. I've received so many free cinema tickets to mainstream cinemas in the past 3 years that I haven't once actually paid to see anything by a major studio in that time, and I'm someone who goes to the cinema once a week on average. Much like MoviePass I assume _someone_ is paying for all those trips I go on for free, and when they stop paying I'm not going to go…

One of the most frustrating things for me regarding ticket prices is that no theatres in my hometown (Winnipeg, Manitoba) offer matinee pricing anymore.

I'm guessing this is possibly because of the Cineplex monopoly since they bought out Famous Players.

I get so pissed off with paying $16 to see a movie by myself in an empty auditorium during the day when it used to be $8 a seat. What happened to supply and demand?

As for the whole Netflix = consumable content thing, I completely agree. Maybe they come up with a good first season because of big data... there's no overall plan where to take the story and usually the follow up seasons are terrible.

Look at a show like Santa Clarita Diet- I'm positive that show had absolutely no idea how to explain anything or how to wrap it up.

Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#53

Post by Buetol »

I have another guess: Rising inequalities in the U.S. means fewer and fewer people can have access to high quality movies. This means the internal market, which is the fuel of Hollywood, is dying and that's why Hollywood is dying.

It's just an intuition and a guess.

EDIT: Also, it could mean that the concentration of money inside a few hands in Hollywood mean they try to make fewer movies so they get more return on investment. For example, if you produce 20 movies per month or 10 movies per month, and you have a monopoly, then it's cheaper and almost as profitable to 10 movies a month. Only an healthy competition or subsidies like in France can make you want to produce more movies.

EDIT 2: I confess that I'm an Armchair Economist https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Armchair%20E...

Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#54

Post by dylan604 »

AmVess wrote: post #21
iscrewyou wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have this gripe that shows DO NOT need to run for 10 seasons. Breaking bad was a great example of a show that didn’t drag on, caught itself when it was starting to and pivoted and finished it strong. Now it’s a classic. Should there still be shows with 10 seasons? Sure. But most of them should be like 3-4-5 seasons. People lose interest. But if they knew that the only need to pay attention for 3-4 seasons, i think…

Breaking Bad is not a great example, because the show was created with a defined length that fit the narrative. It had a certain beginning and and end in mind before it became a show. The studio wanted it to run longer, but the owners of the show said no. The only major departure from Breaking Bad on paper and Breaking Bad in reality was Jesse Pinkman. He was originally only to be a bit character in one episode, but…

The creators of Lost claimed they new exactly how that series was going to go, but watching it definitely felt like they were stringing things along to get to the 100 episode syndication threshold more than telling a fulfilling story.

I've been enjoying the limited-series shows, or shows that do not attempt to correlate multiple seasons together like Fargo. The first season of True Detective was done in the right number of episodes to get the story told without stringing it along. The studios forced a rushed second season that I pretend doesn't exist. HBO's Sharp Objects is another example of using just enough episodes to tell the story.

Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#55

Post by smacktoward »

scarface74 wrote: post #33

This entire article is flawed because of the premise that Netflix is a monopoly. There were 495 active scripted shows in 2018 - 146 more than in 2013 ( https://gazette.com/arts-entertainment/the-number-of-scripte... ). There are also more avenues than ever to shop around a scripted show including five networks - as opposed to three four decades ago and many cable channels. In the 80s and 90s, most cable channels were…

I suspect that Peak Netflix is already behind us. They've been quite frank that in their current incarnation they're aiming to become the next HBO (see https://gizmodo.com/netflix-the-goal-is-to-become-hbo-faster...), and while HBO was definitely the "gold standard" of prestige TV, it was never anywhere near crowding out its many rivals.

The big question mark hanging over this plan is that they are burning tons of borrowed money to achieve it. Do those investors think they're buying into HBO 2.0, or do they think they're buying into a future monopoly? The sheer amount of money they've been able to raise suggests the latter, which means those investors are going to be unpleasantly surprised at some point down the road.

Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#56

Post by chipotle_coyote »

scarface74 wrote: post #33

This entire article is flawed because of the premise that Netflix is a monopoly. There were 495 active scripted shows in 2018 - 146 more than in 2013 ( https://gazette.com/arts-entertainment/the-number-of-scripte... ). There are also more avenues than ever to shop around a scripted show including five networks - as opposed to three four decades ago and many cable channels. In the 80s and 90s, most cable channels were…

To actually quote from TFA:

> The story is that users will buy Netflix streaming services and it will be too much trouble to switch to a different service, which is a variant of a phenomenon called “lock-in.” So no one will be able to compete, the company will be able to raise prices and lower costs, and voila, another Amazon-style monopoly. It will be one of the few left standing after the inevitable shake-out.

This doesn't strike me as a flawed premise. Stoller suggests this is a variant of lock-in, not actual lock-in, and makes the comparison to Amazon. Amazon's selection is huge and their convenience is indisputable, and we've become so used to just going to Amazon first that we often don't bother to check whether they actually have the best price. (When I do actually check that, they often do, but they don't much more often than you might think.) And the price of Amazon Prime has increased by 50% in 5 years.

> You also have multiple streaming services backed by companies with far more money than Netflix either already on the market or coming within the next year...

When any streaming service that isn't Netflix is mentioned in an article, here or anywhere else, comments are filled with people complaining about subscription fatigue. How many of these services are actually going to survive, do you think? How many are you going to subscribe to? If you're already paying for three, or four, or five, how receptive are you really going to be to articles exhorting "The best show on TV in the last decade is exclusive to Service Number Six!"?

And, on point for the article, if you are already paying for three, or four, or five, Netflix is one of them, isn't it?

If you're only paying for two, Netflix is one of them, isn't it?

If you're only paying for one...?

And that's the premise of the article. I'm glad your dad's enjoying the Roku TV, but I don't think that makes Stoller fundamentally wrong.

Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#57

Post by ravenstine »

jstutzman wrote: post #47

[Netflix] now routinely ends shows after their second season, even when they’re still popular. Netflix has learned that the first two seasons of a show are key to bringing in subscribers—but the third and later seasons don’t do much to retain or win new subscribers. - That's crazy and smart all at the same time. Definitely not user-centered design.

I don't particularly mind this. All the shows that I love usually peak within their first 3 seasons. I'd much rather a show end while it's good than for it to drag its feet for 7+ seasons and die with a whimper. Most viewers just follow trends and are fickle. This is Netflix's way of allowing shows to have fans but also stay viable(cool, hip, new, and full of zazz) for the general audience.

Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#58

Post by thrusong »

I love going to the cinema, but I avoid Cineplex here in Canada like the plague.

They lack basic showmanship like dimming the lights (every showing I've been at in the past seven years they just flicked the lights off and started playing the movie and then the credits roll and BAM, full brightness).

Couple that with Cineplex being an "extract-every-penny and don't re-invest" business. The top reviews for their biggest theatre in town include comments such as "the carpet smells like corpse."

Honestly, if bad content will lead to the demise of this company, I say bring it on. Hopefully Landmark will escape largely unscathed.

Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#59

Post by ravenstine »

goldcd wrote: post #18

I'm actually OK with the cancellations. Maybe I'd have liked more Santa Clarita Diet - but had given up watching Orange is the New Black and the Marvel stuff. I'd loved them, liked them, then maybe was watching out of a "sense of duty".. There's only so much TV I can/should ever watch, so if there's going to be anything new, they've got to stop making something old.

I loved Santa Clarita Diet, but I'm also fine with them having cancelled it. I'd prefer shows just stick around for a few good seasons than get long in the tooth. I hope they develop more shows like it, though.

Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#60

Post by iscrewyou »

WorldMaker wrote: post #37
cmiles74 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to guess at the reason that Netflix is canceling these shows, but many shows simply have too many seasons. I suspect it's because the way the networks estimate their viewership (things like Nielsen households or telephone surveys) are less reliable than the detailed metrics that Netflix can track. While everyone misses their favorite show when it's canceled, it could be as simple as viewership has dropped b…

Plus, large numbers of shallow (one or two season) shows plays to Netflix's illusion of choice. The more different "shows" it can show in a carousel the more people feel they are getting from their subscription. That's probably going to be increasingly important to them as other content providers leave the platform, if anything. I wonder if Netflix had adopted a UX more like Amazon's early on where every individual s…

Except they are removing The Office and Friends. These are my "run in the background while I do work" shows. I was happy when they raised the price because I was happy to give them money for what they gave. But after this, if Parks and Rec also gets cancelled, I'm not sure paying for Netflix streaming will be worth it for me.

I understand Netflix is probably not that more than 50% fault since they don't own the rights. But still.

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