Why the Film Industry Hasn't Been Disrupted Yet, Part 5

Oh, man. You've described exactly how it works in this business on all and every level! It's a constant stream of smoke and mirrors. You can't fight that, and if you can't join-in on that it's just best to nod in situations like that. Parlour tricks, fancy and fake bling, and lots of cash moving around.

Problem arises when, on the operating level, you have to 'keep it real'. BS echoes still and people need time in order to snap back to the real world, stop believing their lies, and get something done. It's a wonderful chaos, but that's how it works. It's not any different in 'normal' business, this is jus amplified because people are well-versed in agitprop.

Distribution is still kind of like that, it got M&A over the years so the octopus is bigger, less fragmented.

If anyone is thinking of disrupting this and is reading this. Here's a thought you need to solve. It's simple to understand. Let's say I'm holding rights to 100 movies. Average, Hallmark type of movies, nothing special. Each distributor (who sells to TV and cable stations) or TV stations themselves out there are willing to pay me $10,000 (ballpark, but not far out) for a right to show that movie for three years (also ballpark) in one or up to several small countries. That's $10k for three years, per movie, per country (or several smaller). That's a $1m potential to fully unload my library to one area over three years. Let's say there are 20 areas in the world where I can unload my full library and more (lots) which will take a partial library (I and them deal with multiple titles only, it's easier that way for both and one title gets out only if it's special). That's, roughly, $20m over three years for my library. Every three years. Forever. Each station for each (unlimited, but it varies) showing sells advertising and recuperates my cost and they earn something back.

For you to disrupt that, if you go global, you would need to offer the same amount (at least) on your shaky non-established platform for my library (and others). TV/cable/distributors won't touch my library anymore because now it's global and they lost exclusivity. Why so? That makes it harder for them to sell advertising for some reason, that's what they say at least.

For you to offer a platform where you offer me a share of revenue will not work. Why? Because those TV/cable/distro give me cash, secure cash, predictable cash, each and every cycle. With your offering I would have to take care of marketing (or you would) in order to push my old library of movies to viewers.

That's what you need to solve. Secure stream of cash for library holders which is at least equal to their realised potential and upwards. How you secure that stream? That's what you need to solve.

> Not everything can be made on a small budget with innovative story. Some products can, but not majority.

Honest question, have there ever been any attempts to vary the price of content based on cost to produce?

If a studio wants to pump out high quality, low budget teen slasher flicks, why cant they sell at half the price of a CGI blockbuster?

Would those straight-to-dvd or midday movies do better if their value wasn't directly compared to AAA titles? Sure, it may not have been The Godfather, but it was a quarter of the price to see, so I don't feel ripped off.

If a movie uses unknown actors (which to me always feels more immersive than trying to imagine a star as yet another persona...), why does it have to cost me the same as a movie with individual actors paid an order of magnitude more than the previous film's entire budget?

Why do foreign films have to compete with American films at an equal price point (for local tickets)? Would more people choose a random Bollywood flick over the generic rom-com on date night if tickets were half the price at the same theater?

Maybe that's what we're seeing with original programming on things like Netflix?

Isn't the first question to ask is ... why? Why certain industry will need to be disrupted and why it is considered a good thing? I didn't see any content creation industry has been disrupted, only the funnels/media are. There are just that many people on this planet can produce high quality music/movies/stories and even proven figures could lead to high profile failures. The risk is HIGH, and there isn't too much technology could do to improve that.

And that's why one of my favorite quotes, by Mark Twain, is:

"A man holding a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way"

As is often the case, technology is a minuscule part of the real business. It's an enabler, not the whole business. The mistake engineers without business experience make time and time again is to start with technology.

True. They say producing movies is extremely expensive, but only because they force blockbusters upon us and because they use stars from an extremely reduced pool of actors. Example: There are thousands of muscular guys worldwide who beg to act in better movies, why always require the same few US actors? Example: The French movie industry makes money, although they focus on a romantic/comedy market with much lower production costs and much reduced (French) market. Movies don't necessarily have to be worldwide-reaching to be pleasant. I'm confident it's possible to build action movies or thrillers without 3D, with much fewer battle scenes, with a much better scenario (Jason Bourne I'm looking at you), with younger actors and in other countries than USA without harming the audience's pleasure too much. But that requires not having the existing marketing-pumped blockbusters as competitors.