People are probably going to switch from Netflix over to Disney+ once it is launched. Once Netflix is gone, Disney+ would then jack up its price to $40/month. I think we have all seen this movie too many times before.
There will be nowhere near the amount of content of Netflix. Additionally all content seems to skew family friendly, which isn't true of Netflix. Lastly, its clear given their recent takeover of Hulu (plus what was said in the Dinsey+ unveil) that Hulu will be their Netflix competitor.
Look at admissions over time. I only have UK numbers to hand [1] but despite an increasing population, we're still at barely a tenth of our 1950 numbers. MPAA stats [2] seem to show the US in decline over the last few years but I cant find a nice table to do an 84y comparison.
So again, cinema might be taking absolutely more money than ever before, but that's probably through higher ticket sales. Numbers of bums on seats is not breaking any records.
1: https://www.cinemauk.org.uk/the-industry/facts-and-figures/u...
2: PDF!! https://www.mpaa.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/MPAA-Theatri... (there are other reports for other single years but they're hard to grok out the attendance numbers).
Even the fact that the numbers are comparable in 2019 says about cinema's staying power ;)
Why not worldwide? Even the US numbers are rickety. There are multiple ways to account for inflation, multiple ways of record counting for sales, trying to factor in re-showings, etc. Adding on multiple currencies and economies is a power of extra complexity.
> There's tons more money out there now
Yes. Money. My whole thing here has been about weighing success by monetary takings. It doesn't necessarily track. The price of a ticket has far outstripped what retail indexed inflation. Tickets, after inflation, are eighteen times more expensive than their 1950s counterparts. You only a eighteenth of the 1950s audience to gross the same.
But while we're talking about bullshit headlines, looking up Endgame renders some gems [2]. Things like "Fastest to $1bn" aren't just historically incomparable because of inflation but because distribution has changed significantly. Movies in the US used to have months of lead-time ahead of the global market. There still is for many languages. Modern studios recognise the waste and damage in this. Endgame was globally available (to over half the population) within 4 days. "Highest Opening Weekend" grossses also have the same problem.
1: https://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm?adjust_yr... 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_box_office_records_set...
And your numbers are not accurate, I think. Inflation from 1950 to the present day has been 900% if this site is to be believed: http://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1950?amount=100
So the 50 cent cinema ticket from back then would be 5 dollars now and instead it's around 9 dollars. Double, but not 18x.
If you're going to make qualitative claims, where the price of a unit is largely fixed at a point in time, I think you have to compare quantity of sales, not gross.
It's all marketing wank. A way for producers to pomp around with their "record"-breaking titles. And at a financial level, sure, whatever... But that's not how these statements are used.
The problem with cinema attendance, at least here in the United States, is you can't trust the numbers anymore.
Take AMC, they have their A List that allows you to see 3 movies a week for a monthly fee, if you head over to /r/AMCsAList/ you will find a good number of people that will go see movies they have little interest in JUST to use all their 'free' movies each week so now you have someone that may have seen 2-3 movies a month, seeing 12 movies. Occasionally you'll even see threads over there where people brag about how many weeks long their streak of seeing all their movies is.
Similarly there was MoviePass (I think it's mostly dead now) that was allowing people to do the same for over a year.
(There's some common tropes in that category; PG-12, if that rating, has to feature at least one major Chinese city and one or two Chinese actors, and the Chinese are never the bad guys. These things also apply to the Americans. Basically, the two propaganda machines combined.)
Pretty cool.
None of the things you mentioned are required by the US like China requires things in its movies.
Is that really true or is it just films like "Avengers" who make Hollywood's balance sheet look better than ever?
I'm not entirely convinced that the film industry can survive without giant blockbusters like that.
You might say that there's always been blockbusters, but although I don't have any data on this I imagine the proportion of $ that these films make up has only grown over time. Maybe leading to a reliance on a few big hits.
I consider this one of the reasons we've seen a proliferation of super-hero/comic adaptions (an endless supply of material here) and other giant movies tapping into an existing fanbase (Star Wars, Fast/Furious, etc).
A lot of films that would have US pull no longer get made. That's because the US is at most 300m people, and there's billions more that aren't reached. Whereas any movie made now needs to have international trends. So you end up with comic books made as movies and tv shows. They have been tested in print, work with other cultures, and make money hand over fist.
Tl;dr. Making movies for a country is last century. New movies need to capitalize on international sales.
This is also why Netflix will probably not die; for me personally, 90% of their original content is a bit shit, however I am also very aware that a lot of people enjoy that 90% I don't, e.g. my parents. And then there's the huge international market, each country, each region has its own preferences.
What I'm saying is there will be people that enjoy some content and keep their subscription for that show. Netflix doesn't need to optimize for one demographic.
Though I understand Hollywood has always been about about making profits, but in the end this will only lead to more movies simply being treated as a tool to generate revenue rather an outlet for creativity and great story telling, which was exactly what made them great in the past. In that perspective, there's no difference between a movie and a piece of commercial software.
Big explosions and FX effects are not elements that make a film great as they do nothing to connect deeply with the audiences on a human level. They are shallow, cool and awesome for five seconds but that's about it. The more you watch these films, the more you become like the population they want to target.
No wonder books are still selling so well today.
But, I don't disagree with OP. Movies are either Nth in a series are a remake of a remake or just meh.
Explosions are fun on the big screen, but that's about all.
Noooo not recycled garbage at all. /s
What do you consider "Hollywood"? Get Out and Us were both independent movies, were they not?
Hollywood has always been Hollywood.
They simply didn't advertise them as much as they did the blockbusters, because advertising is very expensive and most films are capable of making back their production budgets but not the advertising budgets (which can equal or even exceed the actual cost of making the movie, see e.g., Solo which was considered a loss because of the amount Disney spent advertising the film).
First is just unending deluge of comic book movies. Second is pretty much 90% self-produced TV series.
There's nothing wrong with producing TV series... there's something else you don't like, right? These particular ones? Or is it the fact that they are self produced?
I certainly don't disagree that they should embrace an open market and liberal distribution, but trying to draw performance outcomes from subjective qualities is silly.
The real threat to these services is that attention is finite, as is my money. I can't afford to have lots of services with low utility.
Yes, Disney can charge whatever they want and people will pay it even if they don't want to and/or can't afford it because economics do not apply...
...right?