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Comment by cardanome | Hacker News Reader

If it were just about making money I would expect film-makers to go the way of least resistance. What perplexes me is that often viewer-hostile decisions get made despite being more work.

For example in movie adaptations of known franchises changes are made just for change sake so that the writers can show off how smart they are. It would be LESS work to just follow the source material. To be clear: I am NOT talking about changes to better fit a specific medium. I am talking about "look how smart I am, you couldn't predict this twist"-kind of writing that does not improve the story. Still, ego-driven writing seems to be very much accepted?

Same with lighting. No viewer has ever complained about unnatural lighting. This stuff is only made to impress peers.

Why is this kind of behavior so common the industry?

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> If it were just about making money I would expect film-makers to go the way of least resistance.

The way of least resistance in an industry controlled by capital is to cave to the interest of the capital.

I wouldn't bet on ego-stroking as the main driver: my impression is that much of this stuff is marketing strategy, to drive internet discussion. Remember "Lost"? That strategy might have a stronger effect on the on the next installment than on the current one, but that won't stop them.

I explicitly write "internet" because that's what can be measured. And those studios probably have a metric for that and writers go full Campbell's Law on it. I write Campbell's, not Goodhart's, because I suspect that it still works just fine, economically.

(I think I know which kind of movies you mean and I don't feel drawn to those at all. Perhaps in part because of all the "clever change" drama that I read about and that I know would be completely lost to me, so maybe it's not that far from Goodhart's after all?)

>It would be LESS work to just follow the source material.

But the source material might be less marketable and therefore less profitable. So it might be less work, but it would also mean less money, hence the changes.

I'm not sure that such a path of least resistance will necessarily be obvious from the outside.

Likewise, I'm not sure that (from the audience's perspective) one can so easily infer simple and exact reasons for why an adaptation differs from the source material.

I'm sure many of the people hired to work on a film, adaptation or otherwise, do want to have an impact on the production, or 'leave a mark'. Deviating from the source material might even be the path of least resistance.

>"look how smart I am, you couldn't predict this twist"-kind of writing that does not improve the story

This can improve engagement, fandoms/audiences picking over little details trying to "beat" the next twist. Keeps people talking about your movie/series which helps drive more eyes to it.

> movie adaptations of known franchises changes are made just for change sake

Franchise movies are cash grab paint-by-number productions. You can already rule out any kind of passion from anyone involved. Writing changes are made to appeal to international audience not to look smart.

It is possible the writers know what they are doing. In the end, what matters is if the audience shows up. Who wants to see the same thing again without any new twists or ideas?

The studios seem to think "everybody", judging from the 100s of sequels, prequels, reboots, and nth installments of movies, where everything is a "franchize"...

If we look here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_films_of_2022

The top ten highest grossing films are all franchise movies. So that looks like a good indication of hat the public wants to watch. If you look at the rest, there's a decent number of non-franchise films that studios financed but audiences evidently didn't show up for in such large numbers.

I can see how we might come to this conclusion, but we would also need look at which films were marketed the most, which films had wider distribution, which films had better casting budgets, etc…

If franchise and rehashed-to-death-IP films all had more marketing, wider distribution, and more famous actors/crew, of course they’re going to get a higher viewership.

There are plenty of examples of heavily marketed films which flops.

> Who wants to see the same thing again…

apparently marketing departments seem to think it’s everyone… so many of the movies, games, etc studios have been pushing over the past few years have been rehashed IP over and over again.

> For example in movie adaptations of known franchises changes are made just for change sake so that the writers can show off how smart they are.

That's hilarious considering how bad the average writer seems to be these days.

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