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Comment by sumy23 | Hacker News Reader

We might simply be at peak content. Better content requires better talent. The pool of talent is finite. Perhaps there aren't enough talented writers and producers to make better content happen.

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There are definitely enough talented writers, it’s just that the Hollywood system is notorious for gatekeeping good writers, and thats if the writer had the perseverance and material support to even finish a spec script.

It’s a pool with a lot of constraints on it, many of which are artificial.

Netflix started to disrupt Hollywood, but it looks like Hollywood figured out how to manage Netflix. Rumours abound of conflict between the tech branch and content branchs (which is mostly Hollywood types now) of the company.

> There are definitely enough talented writers

Based on? There aren't even many good technical writers, which is a lot easier than writing fiction.

Based on the extremely low number of available writing jobs.

I know a few dozen struggling screenwriters who are trying to get (a) their screenplays produced or (b) contracted to write scripts. Note that these are all female screenwriters with an actual track record in industry (in this case, episodic broadcast TV).

It really boils down to a few gatekeepers (mostly old white guys) giving the screenwriting jobs to the same idiots over and over again. For example, the guys who wrote Morbius have never written a successful film that made money back at the box office but already have 1 new screenplay in production and have been contracted to write several more; meanwhile the screenwriter of Crazy Rich Asians (which not only outgrossed Morbius but nearly grossed as much as Morbius' screenwriters' other films combined) has only been hired for a single film (Raya and the Last Dragon) since.

? Wikipedia says the writer you are referring to as disadvantaged is working on a project as a writer, producer and director and has some pretty heavy backing

This is the Wikipedia article for the film: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untitled_Adele_Lim_film

No, she might be working as a director on a film that has yet to be made; she is not the writer on that film. And she is not an "executive producer," so the title of "producer" is meaningless (it doesn't actually entail any responsibilities and is generally an honorific).

And the point is that while she had a major blockbuster success, this will only be her second film since that success; in that time, the losers behind Morbius will have worked on 4 films.

The point you are trying to make is starting to require a lot of caveats. She might be director not a writer, she's a producer not an executive producer, etc.

Also, Lim lists herself as a director of the film in her Twitter bio[0], so it seems like a lot more than a maybe at this point.

[0]: https://twitter.com/adeleblim?lang=en

Separate from all that, I don't understand your larger point about Lim. She went from Crazy Rich Asians which grossed over 200 million, and then went directly to work on Raya, which grossed over 100 million, and now is directing and producing her own movie with hand chosen writing talent. Where exactly is she struggling? And where are writers being forced on her?

One thing I realized from "Everything Everywhere All At Once" is that although I never heard of the directors before (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniels_(directors)), and never would have predicted that movie and it content, the moment I started watching it, I realized there was another pair of people to put on the List of People I Trust To Make Good Stuff. For example, I'd like them to go back and make Cat's Cradle, or even better, Sirens of Titan.

How many other second-tier directors who could make great films are out there not getting funded?

> How many other second-tier directors who could make great films are out there not getting funded?

I don't know, how many? Your example of Daniels is interesting because Daniels were discovered, so it doesn't help me understand how many people are out there that could do a great job but don't have the opportunity.

I've consumed a lot of amateur writing, music, and comedy. Most people just suck at creative endeavors. On the other hand, I once saw the most beautiful performance by a girl busking on the street. Fast-forward a few years, and now she's doing world-wide tours constantly and has a great musical career. With YouTube, Twitch, Spotify, and TikTok, it's never been easier for talented young artists, writers, and directors to rise up from obscurity.

There is enough "better content". Unfirtunately it is not available on Netflix.

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