I thought the slow burn of older movies was because of the cost of printing and managing the prints.
My understanding is that it was a substantial investment for a movie, which meant that releases had to be staged - you wanted the most bang from each print [1][2].
With digital theaters, this is no longer an issue, the cost is up front with the expensive projecting equipment.
>But Hollywood have always done this - recycling old ideas in new wrapping. Yes, but I think it's safe to say that there were a lot more original movies a few decades ago than there are now. Hollywood used to take more risks. >According to Wikipedia, Aladdin grossed "$923.7 million, against a production budget of $183 million". So despite you and your nephew, Disney seem to manage OK. Exactly. People are bemoaning th…
"Hollywood" has never, ever taken more risks than they are taking today. Netflix alone spent $12 billion on new content in 2018. They expect to spend $15 billion in 2019, and expect this to hit almost $18 billion in 2020.[1] There is more new, original content being produced than anyone could ever expect to watch in one lifetime. Compare this to a few decades ago when you had 3 or 4 networks on TV each making a dozen…
Those are TV series for the most part. What's their movie budget?
The main one is my health insurance, which consistently gives me a free cinema ticket ever fortnight (was every week) for walking distances I'd've walked anyway. Mubi gives me free cinema tickets each week to a designated film. My phone network gave free ones occasionally for a while too, have switched networks since but I believe they still do.
Those tickets are all paid through the services you are mentioning though. The health insurance, the phone network and Mubi don't get those tickets for free. You do pay a fraction of the tickets through those subscriptions, and a lot of people are paying this fraction too but whithout taking advantage of those tickets, so actualy spending money on movie theatre tickets not even knowing it :)
Maybe I phrased it poorly but that was my point. It's free to me but when it comes to box office numbers they can still claim record breaking figures partially off the back of it. As far as the economics stand right now everything is going good but this kind of thing will have a long term knock on effect towards the perceived value of a trip to the cinema.
These companies won't endlessly do that, there's weird stuff going on with the numbers to prop up the unsustainable cinema prices and it isn't going to last.
I'd say the industry is increasingly reliant on opening weekend hypefests leading to crazy preorder rates too, which actually might hold up even though I find it grim for wholly different reasons.
I don't think it makes sense to define monopoly as a binary state. There are ways that companies with monopoly power behave even if you can argue the company itself isn't a monopoly. And, for what it's worth, copyright owners are the canonical monopolies. There's no suitable replacement for Stranger Things. What's new is that TV show copyright owners are now able to monopolize distribution. I get that there's a more…
Compare Netflix’s library to Disney’s, especially with the Fox acquisition. Which library would you rather have going into the next decade?
I don't think people will give Netflix subscriptions for Disney, I think they'll buy both.
I'm sure Netflix would rather have Disney's library, but there's always a second place in a duopoly.
> everyday people are catching on to the fact that they're just being resold the same stuff they've already bought. But Hollywood have always done this - recycling old ideas in new wrapping. And Hollywood have always been criticized for being vapid entertainment, empty spectacle etc. "catching on to the fact" suggest that this is some secret insight which undermines the enjoyment of the movie. But I'm pretty sure mos…
>But Hollywood have always done this - recycling old ideas in new wrapping. Yes, but I think it's safe to say that there were a lot more original movies a few decades ago than there are now. Hollywood used to take more risks. >According to Wikipedia, Aladdin grossed "$923.7 million, against a production budget of $183 million". So despite you and your nephew, Disney seem to manage OK. Exactly. People are bemoaning th…
> Yes, but I think it's safe to say that there were a lot more original movies a few decades ago than there are now.
This is false.
Sequels and book adaptions have dominated the top 10 every year for decades and decades.
Netflix would like nothing more than to have the government force production and distribution to be separate. Their core business was using data to buy better content for cheaper and then figuring out what you want to watch better than anyone else.
If production and distribution were separate, everyone would want to be distributed by Netflix because they have the largest global reach. And they could get out of the huge money sink that is making content. They only make content because they saw this consolidation coming.
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 i…
Inequality is rising, but so are the lowest rungs of american society. They have seen huge increases in standard of living.
"Hollywood" has never, ever taken more risks than they are taking today. Netflix alone spent $12 billion on new content in 2018. They expect to spend $15 billion in 2019, and expect this to hit almost $18 billion in 2020.[1] There is more new, original content being produced than anyone could ever expect to watch in one lifetime. Compare this to a few decades ago when you had 3 or 4 networks on TV each making a dozen…
What are we defining as "Hollywood" here? Is Netflix really considered the same thing as the studios that produce the blockbusters?
They share the same offices and employees move back and forth between them, so yeah, I'd say they're the same.
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 so…
> everyday people are catching on to the fact that they're just being resold the same stuff they've already bought. But Hollywood have always done this - recycling old ideas in new wrapping. And Hollywood have always been criticized for being vapid entertainment, empty spectacle etc. "catching on to the fact" suggest that this is some secret insight which undermines the enjoyment of the movie. But I'm pretty sure mos…
An old story in a new telling and interpretation is a different thing from a remake.
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? A…
Yikes, $16, that's terrible. Movies in Cambridge, MA (includes many indie and foreign selections) can be had for $9 if you go to a matinee, or buy in books of 25, or patronize a local restaurant. They also have give away free ticket giveaways about once a month. The theater on the opposite side of town has a $4.75 matinee every Tuesday.