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Disney, IP, and “Returns to Marginal Affinity”

matthewball.vc

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Re: Disney, IP, and “Returns to Marginal Affinity”

#21

Post by nabla9 »

I don't think it's about storytelling at all. Star Wars under Disney or Marvel are not examples of good storytelling.

What Disney understands is the brand management. Disney brands are valuable because they are familiar, consistent and safe choices. Disney is the stable food producer in the entertainment business.

Using Scorsese's non-cinema as a label for what Disney does not necessarily bad. First 3 star Wars Movies were cinema. People were surprised, exited and blown away. You can't replicate that again and again. Now Star Wars is just Star Wars. People want stable diet of Star Wars that is just like they remember it with minor variations. It's watered down, but very familiar. They keep all the 'best bits' people like. "I have bad feeling about this", "something something dark side".

Re: Disney, IP, and “Returns to Marginal Affinity”

#22

Post by SllX »

tamalpais wrote: post #16

I have so much respect for Disney and Bob Iger in particular. But something feels lacking about a single company controlling all the best-loved stories in a culture. It’s like a monopoly on sentiment. Until the last 100 years or so it’s been the case that a given culture’s stories — folklores, mythologies, and religions — were in the public domain. And while they were at times subject to tight control, e.g., non-vern…

The stories that Disney owns are just a drop in the bucket compared to the whole rest of the world. I mean, no matter what you watch, read, play or listen to, there's only so many hours in the day for any of it. I remember the Aladdin and Lion King movies of my youth fondly, but no more fondly than say, Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Smash Bros., Astro Boy, Final Fantasy, Lord of the Rings, Pac-Man, Pokémon, His Dark Materials, Animorphs, or the Harry Potter books. Last I checked, Disney doesn't own any of that and those were just the first handful of examples I pulled out of my hat. I think our media habits are even more fragmented nowadays than they were in my youth, and that's in part because YouTube, Steam, Twitch, Netflix, and the million and one other streaming services we have today didn't exist in the 90s. I think Cable TV was the new hotness, and that was choice compared to mere broadcast television.

Re: Disney, IP, and “Returns to Marginal Affinity”

#23

Post by habitue »

nabla9 wrote: post #21

I don't think it's about storytelling at all. Star Wars under Disney or Marvel are not examples of good storytelling. What Disney understands is the brand management. Disney brands are valuable because they are familiar, consistent and safe choices. Disney is the stable food producer in the entertainment business. Using Scorsese's non-cinema as a label for what Disney does not necessarily bad. First 3 star Wars Movie…

But the article points out that Disney doing that is exactly why Star Wars performance has been lackluster. They're now taking a step back because apparently the public doesn't want a steady drip of Star Wars same-old-same-old

Re: Disney, IP, and “Returns to Marginal Affinity”

#24

Post by freddie_mercury »

SllX wrote: post #22
tamalpais wrote: post #16

I have so much respect for Disney and Bob Iger in particular. But something feels lacking about a single company controlling all the best-loved stories in a culture. It’s like a monopoly on sentiment. Until the last 100 years or so it’s been the case that a given culture’s stories — folklores, mythologies, and religions — were in the public domain. And while they were at times subject to tight control, e.g., non-vern…

The stories that Disney owns are just a drop in the bucket compared to the whole rest of the world. I mean, no matter what you watch, read, play or listen to, there's only so many hours in the day for any of it. I remember the Aladdin and Lion King movies of my youth fondly, but no more fondly than say, Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Smash Bros., Astro Boy, Final Fantasy, Lord of the Rings, Pac-Man, Pokémon, His Dark Mate…

What's more movies get privileged in a weird way over other things. Avengers: Endgame brought in $2.7 billion and is the highest grossing film of all time. Only 5 films ever have broken $2 billion.

Phantom of the Opera the musical has made $6 billion, blowing Avengers out of the water. Wicked the musical has grossed $3 billion, more than any movie ever made. Same for Mamma Mia!.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) made $600 million in the first 72-hours, far more than any movie ever. League of Legends makes $1.4 billion a year, again more than any movie ever made. Fortnite makes $2.4 billion.

In the UK, more people watched The X Factor than Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The book Diary of a Wimpy Kid sold over a million copies in its latest installment.

Yet none of those things enter conversations about cultural affinity in the same way movies do.

Re: Disney, IP, and “Returns to Marginal Affinity”

#25

Post by tanilama »

tamalpais wrote: post #16

I have so much respect for Disney and Bob Iger in particular. But something feels lacking about a single company controlling all the best-loved stories in a culture. It’s like a monopoly on sentiment. Until the last 100 years or so it’s been the case that a given culture’s stories — folklores, mythologies, and religions — were in the public domain. And while they were at times subject to tight control, e.g., non-vern…

Bob Iger is magical but I am not worrying about Disney's monopoly per say.

Yes, Disney is dominating Hollywood like no one had done before.

But Hollywood itself is as irrelevant as it has never been. It no longer dominates the world's attention, and the audience's choices are more abundant than ever.

Re: Disney, IP, and “Returns to Marginal Affinity”

#26

Post by TulliusCicero »

skokage wrote: post #4

I disagree with this article that this is all about their ability to "tell stories", as much as management that's really good at identifying which company to acquire next so they can squeeze every last cent from consumers for whichever IP they are pushing at the time. Most people I've talked to DON'T believe the star wars series has gotten better from a story telling perspective, as this article proposes. I don't thi…

20 years from now, there'll be people pointing to now as the Disney golden age, saying, "I don't like all the isekai genemod content they're making these days. I just don't get the appeal of giant catgirls learning to live in an alternate dimension. Disney was better when it was all superheroes and Star Wars."

Re: Disney, IP, and “Returns to Marginal Affinity”

#27

Post by tanilama »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #24
SllX wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stories that Disney owns are just a drop in the bucket compared to the whole rest of the world. I mean, no matter what you watch, read, play or listen to, there's only so many hours in the day for any of it. I remember the Aladdin and Lion King movies of my youth fondly, but no more fondly than say, Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Smash Bros., Astro Boy, Final Fantasy, Lord of the Rings, Pac-Man, Pokémon, His Dark Mate…

What's more movies get privileged in a weird way over other things. Avengers: Endgame brought in $2.7 billion and is the highest grossing film of all time. Only 5 films ever have broken $2 billion. Phantom of the Opera the musical has made $6 billion, blowing Avengers out of the water. Wicked the musical has grossed $3 billion, more than any movie ever made. Same for Mamma Mia! . Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) m…

> Yet none of those things enter conversations about cultural affinity in the same way movies do.

Really? What cultural affinity is there for Avengers? For Force Awakens?

I would argue movies have built an establishment of critics around itself, the disclosure surrounding it does appear to be more sophisticated and intellectual. But that doesn't mean the it is shaping the audience's perception the same way.

Re: Disney, IP, and “Returns to Marginal Affinity”

#28

Post by JohnJamesRambo »

friedman23 wrote: post #19
thrower123 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The insidious thing is that Disney is making an increasing share of all the things, too. I don't understand why they were allowed to buy 20th Century Fox.

Because when you objectively analyze it, they don't have anything close to a monopoly on content.

How can you even say that? I’m dumbfounded. Only in this era of complete erosion of antitrust could this statement be made. Standard Oil would have been awed by this cornering of the market.

https://www.titlemax.com/discovery-center/money-finance/comp...

Re: Disney, IP, and “Returns to Marginal Affinity”

#30

Post by thaumasiotes »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #24
SllX wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stories that Disney owns are just a drop in the bucket compared to the whole rest of the world. I mean, no matter what you watch, read, play or listen to, there's only so many hours in the day for any of it. I remember the Aladdin and Lion King movies of my youth fondly, but no more fondly than say, Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Smash Bros., Astro Boy, Final Fantasy, Lord of the Rings, Pac-Man, Pokémon, His Dark Mate…

What's more movies get privileged in a weird way over other things. Avengers: Endgame brought in $2.7 billion and is the highest grossing film of all time. Only 5 films ever have broken $2 billion. Phantom of the Opera the musical has made $6 billion, blowing Avengers out of the water. Wicked the musical has grossed $3 billion, more than any movie ever made. Same for Mamma Mia! . Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) m…

> Avengers: Endgame brought in $2.7 billion and is the highest grossing film of all time. Only 5 films ever have broken $2 billion.

> Phantom of the Opera the musical has made $6 billion, blowing Avengers out of the water. Wicked the musical has grossed $3 billion, more than any movie ever made. Same for Mamma Mia!.

> In the UK, more people watched The X Factor than Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The book Diary of a Wimpy Kid sold over a million copies in its latest installment.

> Yet none of those things enter conversations about cultural affinity in the same way movies do.

The first metric you mention is not the right one for discussing cultural impact. You'd want to compare number of tickets sold for Phantom of the Opera to number of tickets sold for Avengers: Endgame.

Weirdly, you go on to make the correct comparison for The X Factor.

I'm not convinced that popular video games haven't made their way into the conversations about cultural significance.

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