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Barry Diller: The movie business as before is finished and will never come back

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341–350 of 492 posts

Re: Barry Diller: The movie business as before is finished and will never come back

#341

Ok, here's my problem with the movie theatre industry. There's 100+ years of fantastic historical content and we're not doing anything with it. 99% of what's shown in theaters is new releases. I understand we don't want to "go stale" as a society and that movie producers also need to make a living, but the balance is just way off. I would pay good money to see "the good the bad and the ugly" with my kids in a couple…

Every top comment on HN is someone with an unprofitable use case complaining that no one serves them. Change my mind.

Re: Barry Diller: The movie business as before is finished and will never come back

#342

Ok, here's my problem with the movie theatre industry. There's 100+ years of fantastic historical content and we're not doing anything with it. 99% of what's shown in theaters is new releases. I understand we don't want to "go stale" as a society and that movie producers also need to make a living, but the balance is just way off. I would pay good money to see "the good the bad and the ugly" with my kids in a couple…

Movie theaters have a financial incentive to show old films if audiences are interested in watching, because the theaters get to keep a larger cut of the box office revenue compared to new releases. If the theaters aren’t showing old movies, I don’t think it’s because of a lack of imagination on their part.

As I understand it, though, studios won’t release many of their more valuable library titles for theatrical exhibition at any price, presumably to marginally enhance their cachet on streaming services.

Re: Barry Diller: The movie business as before is finished and will never come back

#343

That interview was rough. TLDR: The studio and distributor's chokehold on movies is dead. Hallelujah, good riddance, piss off. For some historical perspective, 99% had a nice episode about movie theaters. The Megaplex! https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-megaplex/ TLDR: The movie theater biz has always been in flux, now is no different. PS- After the dust settles, I'm sure new gatekeepers will arise. Same as i…

> The studio's chokehold on movies is dead. No, the reality is studios are consolidating control over their content. For example, Disney controls distribution and access more than ever before with their Disney+ streaming service. Disney produces the content and directly distributes it to the end user: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney%2B https://www.disneyplus.com

> No, the reality is studios are consolidating control over their content.

Ya, it sure seems like everyone's pulling their own content in tighter.

I couldn't quickly find out how many movies, shows, etc are published every year. If anything, it seems like the entertainment industry is in a free-for-all. I'm almost curious how it shakes out.

Can we agree that the prior theatrical distribution system, so near and dear to Barry Diller's heart, got mooted?

Re: Barry Diller: The movie business as before is finished and will never come back

#344
post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the short squeeze was in jan/feb, what’s that late spring jump?

> https://imgur.com/a/jTkXhtx The thesis that appears to be correct with AMC and GME is that the shorts never really covered, they simply kicked the can through some creative vehicles.

20% of the AMC float is short, and could cover in less than 2 days. 25% of the GME float is sold short, but it would take a bit longer for shorts to cover, looks like 5-7 days based on avg 10d volume.

The thesis you posted is Wrong.

Re: Barry Diller: The movie business as before is finished and will never come back

#345
post #174
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember seeing indie comedies and horrors. I dont think indy implies serious, altrough there are also sad indie movies. > . If a viewer wants 'fun' then they're stuck with formulaic superhero blockbusters. I dont think this is true either. The industry producing formulaic is not because it is only way to have fun. If you look at series that came out lately (Money Heist, Westworld ... ) they are not formulaic and a…

Take this with a grain of salt and bias on my part. But indie movies from my perspective seem to be stuck on the "weird". They have to be "weird" (or "different") otherwise they're not "indie" but rather low-budget "b-movies" that I think everyone despises to some degree. Unless of course they end up being a hit in which case they're cult-classics.

Agreed. 'Indie' = low budget and weird/niche/slightly pretentious/not for me but grudging respect for it; 'B' = low budget and I think it's bad; 'cult' = low budget and I think it's good.

It's not obvious that one would rather apply 'cult' than 'independent' to something one likes, but there we go, language!

Re: Barry Diller: The movie business as before is finished and will never come back

#346

Before streaming, a movie studio actually had to convince an audience to leave their houses and buy a ticket to make money from a movie. This meant the studio had to pour a lot of money into marketing for each movie. The cost to market a movie could be up $30M to $50M range for a blockbuster movie. For a mid-budget drama like Meet Joe Black or A River Runs Through It, you could be looking at a marketing budget that m…

It's funny, I keep seeing this era the same way. There used to be such a different structure behind things. Everything was more expensive but we went to grab them because they were so superb. Also it imposed some kind of order.. those who managed to fabricate large things in front of the random nature of workgroups, social trends and audience desires got to grab the hero / fame status (for better or worse). Today, av…

think of it as “leveling the playing field” in which it over time asymptotically approaches shit

Re: Barry Diller: The movie business as before is finished and will never come back

#347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) A device's location can be guessed with your IP address at the very least. 2) Wifi networks. On iOS, I'm almost sure that apps cannot access the list of wifi networks that the device sees. As you may know, the list of wifi access point MAC addresses can be used to triangulate a device's geolocation (there was a related case with Google Streets View cars gobbling up that info[0]) On Android, wifi network MAC addres…

Android requires location services enabled to do ambient WiFi scans: https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/connectivity/wifi... However, I believe connected WiFi information can be obtained on Android without location services enabled. On iOS, I believe an app needs special permission even to fetch connected WiFi, and I believe you are correct that there is no way to access ambient WiFi scans.

Super interesting, thanks!

Re: Barry Diller: The movie business as before is finished and will never come back

#348
post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is why I've been struggling with finding good films to watch nowadays. Shows are doing great but movies have been suffering. Take the movie "Nobody" for instance. How the hell that movie got the ratings it did I will never know. Not only is it not good, but it was nothing what it was marketed as. My solution to this is to watch actual films that are made with artistic intent or to see certain things that…

Isn't it said that there are only seven actual stories? That every story is a variation of those seven plots with different names, places, times, etc?

I guess you are referring to this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Basic_Plots

This, for example, is a perennial favourite: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero%27s_journey

However, I'd like to think it's not just the plot, but the acting and the interpersonal relationships, that makes things interesting.

Re: Barry Diller: The movie business as before is finished and will never come back

#349

Ok, here's my problem with the movie theatre industry. There's 100+ years of fantastic historical content and we're not doing anything with it. 99% of what's shown in theaters is new releases. I understand we don't want to "go stale" as a society and that movie producers also need to make a living, but the balance is just way off. I would pay good money to see "the good the bad and the ugly" with my kids in a couple…

Every top comment on HN is someone with an unprofitable use case complaining that no one serves them. Change my mind.

There are theaters that are dedicated to playing older movies, and they apparently turn enough profit to subsist in some locations. I think that makes this a top comment on HN with a profitable use case complaining that there's not enough around.

Also, I would watch the shit out of the Good the Bad and the Ugly in a theater. Same with original Star Wars (which I think happened during extra trilogy releases occasionally), The Matrix, the Princess Bride, and anything in that vein which either has a cult following, is a different/better experience to watch in a theater, or both.

Re: Barry Diller: The movie business as before is finished and will never come back

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Placer is able to track cell phones that have an app installed that uses their SDK. They currently have their SDK in over 500 mobile apps. The data is anonymized, but it would probably shock people how much information I can get from this system. I just pick a location and I can see how many people walked into that location over any time span in the past 4 years, where they live, how much money they make, where else…

Wow, this seems like incredibly valuable information for traders and hedge funds. There is a well known retail analyst (Mathew Boss) who famously said they take aerial photos of mall parking lots to estimate traffic and sales. This data is even more granular.

Yeah, commercial Satellite data "intelligence" is a big thing. (This is clearly the "civilian" version of what has been going on in the military world for a very long time)

I wanted to send this example as it's exactly what you're talking about -- monitoring of retail locations (as a data service):

https://learn.rsmetrics.com/trafficsignals/retail/monitoring...

... but I found this from the same company which is crazier:

https://learn.rsmetrics.com/cedm/boeing-tracker

"RS Metrics Boeing Tracker is a custom event driven monitoring product which focuses on the activity and production at Boeing factory sites. Insights generated from Boeing Tracker help investors and PMs' to optimize their investment strategies."

Among other things, they're counting cars at the Boeing Employee Parking Lot:

https://learn.rsmetrics.com/hubfs/BA_2_Boeing%20Renton%20Fac...

Yeah, ok. Wow.

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