Has Hollywood become too Dependent On Blockbuster films?

It is like politics. You know how we keep getting politicians who serve special interests and not the public? The movie business is like that. They are beyond supply and demand considerations. Look how many franchise remakes we get--how many Batmans in the last few years. This has zero to do with audience demand. Zero. It is all about the tastes of the executives and not having to worry about competition. It's no longer a merit-based thing. And to add to the lunacy, at the same time they claim to cater to audiences in the West, they want to cater to audiences in China. You cannot make films that appease two different cultural identities. This has never been attempted in the history of the world in art. It's a new phenomenon. It is corporate-controlled and artistically stifling. It wasn't like that in the 1960s. The big studios were pretty stale but all the money was being made by the B movies and international indies. Hammer, Toho, AIP, Italian genre film etc.
The problem today is that you have a handful of giant corporations who control all the gates and media advertising. Guaranteed that if it went back to the old supply and demand system, the quality would miraculously improve. Movies today are made by hedge fund managers, not artists.
 
Avengers Endgame topped 2 billion. And the superhero movie trend continues :oops:
 
Cathbad said:
If I was making gazzilions selling widgets, I'd have absolutely no incentive to change over to thingamabobs.

;) :D
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Avengers Engame made 2 Billion worldwide , Unbelievable.:oops:
 

Tableau Public

public.tableau.com public.tableau.com

Although these graphs cover IMDb and not just Hollywood, they are a good indication of when each film genre was at its peak, and when it was not.
Westerns have largely been replaced with horror. Perhaps there'll be a hybrid genre someday - the Horror Western.
 
In essence the term "Hollywood Accounting" means lying about profits. Hollywood accounting - Wikipedia

It is considered a standard thing with Hollywood. They lie about profits when it suits a purpose.
And these big corporations really cannot lose money-they are way too big to fail. Digital film releases are dirt cheap, and Disney has so many subsidiaries (and tax money from the public) that they cannot lose a profit. Walt Disney was supply/demand. Modern Disney is not. It really does have more money than some governments GDP.
Another interesting cultural phenomenon is how people are interested in movie profits. It used to be of no interest to the public. Now it is like horse racing and is often of more entertainment focus than the story content.
Do people really want all to wall superhero movies?
Did people in Moscow really want to stare at giant Lenin posters all day?
Where's the alternative choice?
 
Harpo said:
Why won't it? It's less than 75 million behind, which isn't much comparatively
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The drop-off in the take has been very big, to the point where last week it 'only' took 16m and now the next big summer films are taking the audience (& screens). Now I agree that 16m isn't chump-change but that's an ever reducing amount being taken....
 
Dark Phoenix is not going to match Endgames Numbers.
 
KGeo777 said:
Where's the alternative choice?
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YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO, Sky and very soon Apple too.

Those powerful Hollywood studios won't feel it overnight, but people are watching much better quality TV and watching films that have never had a cinematic release. Unless they also change then they will wake up one day and find that the world has moved on, and left them behind.

However, (as already discussed) people like the group experience of watching films, so cinemas will never die. I'd say for an analogy that Hollywood studios are like train companies and the others are car manufacturers. How you decide to make your journey is yours.

Harpo said:
The top three films (Avatar, Endgame, Titanic) are about a decade apart.
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Of those three, I have only seen Avatar at the cinema (and didn't think it was that good.) I won't be seeing Endgame, and still haven't seen all of Titanic.
 
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