Hollywood Meltdown

 2023 so far has been one of the WORST years for the film industry. Studios are dealing with a double writer and actors strike and so far many of their tentpole films had either barely broke even or outright flopped. Disney alone has lost one billion this year.  Some want to blame that on the MAGA boycotts over GROOMERS or something, but really this was a disaster that was a long time coming due to industry trends, changes in technology and culture.

Reasons - 

1. Overbloated Budgets 

 Movies cost too much money especially the big tent pole films. Most of these flops cost $250-300 million to make. A film needs to make 2.5x that much to just break even. $300 million is that thresh hold where the budget gets so big that it will get harder to get the butts in seats needed to make that money back and more.

Movie going has what I call for myself a  30-30-30 problem. Back in 2016 last time since I went to the theatre it cost me $30 to see a film (tix and food) 30 minutes to get there and I have to get 30 minutes early.. Its a hassle and Id rather just watch a film on whatever streaming service I am already paying for. Now in 2023 it is likely a $40-30-30 problem for me now.

2. Blockbuster Congestion 

There are too many of these tentpole blockbusters, when ever major release has to be a $300M event then none of them can make money, even before COVID movie going was in a decline. 1975 JAWS was the FIRST blockbuster and then Star Wars in 1977 blew up.  For like 30 years these event films were the big ones of the year and few and far between. March 2023 year we had 5 event films being released in a span of 4 weeks, Creed 3, Scream 6 sequel, John Wick 4, Shazam 2, and a new Dungeons & Dragons film that was not a sequel. 

When every film has to be a blockbuster no film can be a blockbuster. With the average person only seeing 4 movies at a theatre a year. They are going to real choosy.

3. COVID changed movie going habits

The Pandemic strained an already breaking system, movie going was already in decline, go back to my 30-30-30 problem, thus people are selective on what MAJOR EVENT they go and see. We are seeing the same with video games, the big AAA live service MMO grind fests are getting shut down left and right. There is just not enough people, with not enough time and money to support all of them.

What did the Atari Jaguar commercial say? "Do the Math"

4. Possible Franchise Fatigue

It is possible that after Infinity War the audience has gotten burned out on Super Heroes, other major franchises and the Remakes. Does not help after Marvels big hyped event the franchise is now left with the B and C Squad Heroes. RDJ, Chris Evans and ScarJo is gone. Now the product seems unerwhelming and drifting aimless.

So many of the flops and underperformers are all FRANCHISES. New Mission Impossible under performed, Little Mermaid Broke Even, Transformers rise of the Beasts did not make money and its trying to bring back GI JOE, another franchise that Hasbro cannot bring back after 3 movies. Shazam 2 lost WB $150M,  Newest Fast and the Furious tanked and Pixar had a string of flops.

Ant Man and the Wasp Quantumania cost $250M and lost its debut weekend to a $35M movie about a Bear cranked out on Cocaine. But the biggest losers were Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and The Flash. The last Indy movie was not so great and this is a IP that Millennials and Gen Z just do not care about. Dial Of Destiny cost $300M for a series that should have stayed ended with Last Crusade.

Head of Lucasarts, Kathleen Kennedy wanted to push the Pheobe Waller-Bridge as some female Indy Jones acting like it is new and revolutionary. It was when it was called Lara Croft Tomb Raider on the PlayStation and led to film series with Angelina Jolie then a tepid reboot with Alicia Vikander. Oh....

https://www.ign.com/articles/phoebe-waller-bridge-resurrecting-tomb-raider-dangerous-new-tv-series

Same person is trying to do a Tomb Raider Amazon TV series, she is only producing, but still how clueless are these people? Disney did think having a fake space cruise Hotel that cost $6000 for two nights was a great idea when a real cruise on Royal Carribbean is $1400 for 5 nights. It closed down and knew this was going to be a future Defunctland Episode when I first saw it.

The Flash, the film was announced in 2014 went though 6 directors did not have a script written until 2018, the lead actor started becoming a criminal sex pest who was still at the movies premier instead of in prison. The movie itself was a complete mess with the entire multiverse premise which it seems like EVERY Super Hero movie is about now. Future does not look any better Blue Beetle looks to be DOA for WB and I have new clue the movie even existed until like two weeks ago. There is too much bad mojo around Disney's live action Snow White. Rachel Zegler has said some stupid things in public interviews and the Seven Dwarves look like Seven Ren Faire Rejects.

The Winners - Super Mario Bros animated dominated when the Pixar films and a movie about a Teenage Kraken sank. Held the record for the winning until....Barbie came out. It had right wingers losing their shit, the ones who cry Go Woke Go Broke cried about it being woke, but it did not go broke and knocked Super Mario Bros from its pedestal.

Reason why the did well is because Barbie and Mario are still active as IPs. Nintendo still makes Mario games, the movie until that live action flop from the 80s was tied to the video games and made references to the 35+ year history of the character. Donkey Kong, Mario Cart etc. Now the character has multi generational appeal, we have kids being raised by gamer dads now. Barbie, the toy is still active one of the few that still makes playsets. I see those $190 Malibu Dream Houses come through the Amazon facility I work at all the time. Other toys, ones aimed at boys no longer make playsets and Barbie as stood the test of time while most of the lines I grew up with were fads that never survived the 1980s.

GI JOE is MIA, mentioned the film franchise could not get off the ground after 3 movies. He-Man, Silverhawks, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors etc. Did not make it into the 90s a decade that a new wave of children went crazy for Pokemon, Digimon and other battle monster CCGs.

Oppenheimer, shows that movie goers might want more mature dramas and are sick of the infantile people in tights movies save the world for the 100,000th time.

In video games while the MMOs are shuttering, Elden Ring and Baldur's Gate 3 soared. Two games that were expected to only appeal to a hardcore niche gamer, gamers are getting sick of the live service loot box micro transaction money grubbing.

Now the entire Blockbuster System has gotten so unsustainable that the studios needed to shortchange the talent in order to be somewhat viable and that broke the system as Actors and Writers went on strike and now the VFX artists are trying to unionize. Studios think they can get AI to just churn out more of their basic franchise comic book super hero movies that are already mostly computer generated.

The Hollywood Meltdown is just getting started.