Hollywood in Chaos

Living in the golden age of television my brain is on overload. There's too much good content to see it all! What to watch? I'm hooked on Yellowstone and its spinoffs but have no time to watch Succession. I love All Creatures Great and Small but likely will have no time to watch Stranger Things. Some streaming shows you just have to watch, right? The Squid Game, Better Call Saul, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones... but then, not all people agree that these are "must watches." What a change it is from the 1960's when I cut my teeth watching TV. Then, almost everyone watched Johnny Carson, Get Smart or the Carol Burnett Show. TV programming in the 1960's linked most Americans together by common TV viewing experiences. Implications of this viewership fractionalization are subject for another blog.

What of traditional movies? From the '70's the major studios (Paramount, Warner Brothers, Disney yada) got hooked on blockbusters... Star Wars, Marvel Comics themes, Superman etc. Greedy as the studios were, they started commandeering theaters to ensure that only their blockbuster films would be shown. Theaters stopped showing creative, independent content. Independent film avatar Sundance is ailing with no major sales taking place this year. Sundance still has a purpose. They continue to do a good job in mentoring new filmmakers, but the glory days of independent film are gone due in no small part to the decline of theater going. Aside: Covid didn't help theater attendance either.

The confident story tellers from the old movie days are suppressed by the big blockbuster only studios. Yet, the blockbuster strategy has failed, because banking on one major film a year to ensure studio success became risky business (no pun intended!). Top Gun: Maverick is the exception that proves the rule. The major studios are now in their death throes, propped up by corporate acquirors who charge thirty-year-old MBAs with making content calls... usually bad content calls. Woke corporation studio owners don't understand artist management and audience preference. Too top it all off, a writers' strike is looming.

Ah... but, look over there! A better mousetrap! Streaming! Netflix changes the game. The "golden age of television!" Writer/producer Taylor Sheridan tried to go the studio route, but his Yellowstone hypothesis was rejected. Reminds of Ray Foster, the EMI records executive who refused to release Queen's non cookie cutter song Bohemian Rhapsody. Enter Paramount Streaming, which trusted Sheridan's judgement on audience preferences and the rest (Sheridan's overwhelming success with the Yellowstone franchise) is history.

Major movie stars, for whom acting in streaming presentations was once taboo, have been rushing to star in streaming productions. Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren have become major streaming actors. Stars have been born in streaming: Bob Odenkirk and Brian Cranston (Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul).

Too much of the streaming content is overly politically correct which diminishes viewership and further stresses streamers' bottom lines. The success of the Yellowstone franchise, Jack Carr's Terminal List, and Breaking Bad attest to audience demand for realistic content without PC stereotypes (women beating the crap out of men and a surfeit of nontraditional sexual hook ups). What's bad about Wonder Woman, say, showing tears, vulnerability, and a sense of humor at her own expense? Extol traditional family values storytelling and get the wildly successful All Creatures Great and Small.

As the studio business model has failed, the streaming model is now stressed... by having too much content and by woke material that diminishes viewership. More money is going out the door than is coming in. The streamers are now retrenching. Apps, YouTube, Rumble, Daily Wire and other internet applications are chipping away at the streamers' market by producing content audiences want, not what woke corporate/studios think they should hear. With studios and theaters neutered, independent films struggling, and the streaming business model out of kilter, what's next? Hollywood is in chaos to put it mildly.