Reel Inequality: Charting the Vanishing Middle Class of Movies • Hacker News Board

Re: Reel Inequality: Charting the Vanishing Middle Class of Movies

#41

Post by autoexec » Tue, Dec 05, 2023, 9:29 AM UTC

jerf wrote: post #22

justrealist wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be more precise, those mid-budget films all did well relative to their budgets. Marvels still made far more money, but the budget was so bloated that Marvel took a loss.

Five Nights at Freddy's: $286,595,570 The Marvels: $197,035,186 That's how badly Marvel movies are bombing now. FNaF actually straight-up beat Marvel, and by a very comfortable margin. There is no minimizing this. This is disastrous for Disney.

They lost at the box office, but reviews for The Marvels suggest it's the better movie (although not by much). That's even taking into account the fact that horror tends to get worse reviews as a genre. There are a lot of reasons why The Marvels might have performed so much worse in ticket sales (I'm guessing superhero fatigue, and the character(s) not being very popular to begin with had a lot to do with it), but Disney's MCU can recover as long as they're willing to put more effort into giving people a story worth watching. The NYT's review was titled: "You’ve Seen This Movie 32 Times Before"

Re: Reel Inequality: Charting the Vanishing Middle Class of Movies

#42

Post by FirmwareBurner » Tue, Dec 05, 2023, 10:37 AM UTC

g9yuayon wrote: post #13

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What's the point of having the best technologies on earth yet having your tribe living in dirt and fighting with rhinos and using duet to elect your leaders Yes, Marvel is shit now, but escapism and fantasy entertainment doesn't work on real world logic. If I want to see realistic battles going on I just turn on the news. I go to the cinema because I want a dose of escapism while I turn off my brain for 2 hours.

Me too. It's just that I don't want to escape into the world of the villagers in Wakanda, where owners of stealth jet and energy shield fought on rhinos with spears, and a handful of people lived like royalties but I would live like a peasant.

>It's just that I don't want to escape into the world of the villagers in Wakanda

Then why do you go watching Black Panther movies, when you already know the plot holes? It's not for you or me, but according to their finances, a lot of people seen to enjoy them .

Re: Reel Inequality: Charting the Vanishing Middle Class of Movies

#43

Post by FirmwareBurner » Tue, Dec 05, 2023, 11:57 AM UTC

metabagel wrote: post #18

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I miss the cheesy but wholesome comedies and parodies of the 1990s and 2000s: Anger Management, Rush Hour, The Cable Guy, American Pie, Scary Movie, Bruce Almighty, Eurotrip, Tropic Thunder, Hot Shots, Borat, Idiocracy, How High, White Chicks, etc. We can't have any like those in this age because someone on Twitter will claim to be offended. Good thing to back-up those old gems as well before they get cancelled/edite…

> We can't have any like those in this age because someone on Twitter will claim to be offended. I think this is mostly an exaggeration. I think there will always be an audience for tasteless and raunchy movies. It might be a good long while before we see another white actor in blackface though, I'll grant you that.

> I think there will always be an audience for tasteless and raunchy movies.

There still is an audience but that audience is not cared to by Hollywood for fear of social media backlash. That's why nobody's making edgy comedies and parodies anymore and the movies currently been made massively alter their original IP to conform to modern identity politics("put a brown chick in it and make her lame and gay")

South Park are the only ones left because they're not Hollywood.

Re: Reel Inequality: Charting the Vanishing Middle Class of Movies

#44

Post by Frotag » Fri, Dec 08, 2023, 4:01 AM UTC

Evenjos wrote: post #38

Frotag wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people call this genre rational fiction. Personally I really liked Harry Potter: Methods of Rationality. The MC was super narcissistic and nitpicky, a true engineer. For example he was often looking for ways to create perpetual motion machines / infinite energy with magic.

I love rational fiction. Yes to Methods of Rationality, Mother of Learning, and also Paranoid Mage and a few others, including Majority by Abby Goldsmith.

Oh wow, I just binged Paranoid Mage and it was really good (especially books 1-3). Thanks for the recommendation!