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Comment by adrian_mrd | Hacker News Reader

You can, but the total output is not the same as that ‘consumed’ and the importance in this context is the influence, not the sheer output.

For example, it could be that 10% of the films on that list are produced but never released (studio dumps, legal issues between producers and creatives, etc).

Just look at the USA box office impact of Black Widow, and Shang-Chi. Only two films but a huge proportion of post-covid box office revenue.

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It's obviously true that superhero films make a lot of money. I'm saying nevertheless, other films are produced, and it's possible to watch them, and thus "I wish other things were being produced" isn't a very reasonable complaint. Unless you're under some obligation to only watch high-earning movies. If people watched the non-superhero movies rather than complaining about their non-existence, maybe we'd get more of them.

A lot of people are under the mistaken impression that money going to the mainstream is money denied to their preferences.

If Disney vanished from the world today, the dollars flowing to them wouldn't suddenly filter out to a bunch of niche and avant-garde media. There's some overlap, but people in that overlap are already into both things and funding them. The djent fans who also love a good radio-friendly bop are already buying djent albums on Bandcamp and listening to the radio-friendly bop on Spotify.

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