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on Gopher (inofficial)
URI Visit Hacker News on the Web
COMMENT PAGE FOR:
URI Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis
righthand wrote 5 min ago:
The promise er sorry propaganda used to be âattend the big
blockbuster movies so they can spend the extra money on riskier indie
filmsâ. Essentially trickle down for the movie business. Here we are.
bryan0 wrote 16 min ago:
The only reason I like going to the theater now is to see movies in
"4dx". It's a ridiculous format where the seats move and there are
other special effects including air, water, and smoke which are custom
edited for each chosen movie. It's like a combination between a movie
and one of those amusement park rides. I think most people hate it, but
my kids and I enjoy it. Tickets are ~$30 each though.
Otherwise I would just rather watch a movie on the couch at home. They
come to streaming so quickly there's no problem waiting for it.
Apocryphon wrote 31 min ago:
Every time thereâs an article about the âgood olâ days of
Hollywoodâ I like to trot out this comic strip- looks like last time
I posted it was five years ago: [1] Hollywood has been a franchise and
licensed IP sequel/remake/reboot farm since the â80s, since Star Wars
and Jaws blockbusters killed off the experimental period of New
Hollywood. And even before that it was Cecil B. DeMille bombastic
productions and westerns and musicals everywhere. The movie industry
has always been characterized by crowd pleasers.
URI [1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20201112024059/https://www.gocomic...
Animats wrote 36 min ago:
One new problem for theaters is that entertainment now comes in other
time formats than the 1-3 hour movie or the hour-long TV show. Netflix
is not constrained by the need to push groups of people through a movie
theater.
xyzelement wrote 59 min ago:
I started watching 1960s era movies with my kids and I understand why
Hollywood had the power at the time. Entertainment and solid values
crafted into a "picture".
I can imagine back then eagerly awaiting a new release. Now, who cares.
Some depressing trauma story of someone I can't relate to or rehashed
superhero flick. Yawn.
throwaway81523 wrote 1 hour 3 min ago:
I can hardly wait for "vibe cinema". Type in a prompt and a 2 hour
epic AI slop film comes out. Not much different from Hollywood is now
making the hard way.
chairmansteve wrote 1 hour 7 min ago:
There was a bubble when all the new streaming services started making
content, now there's a bust.
Attendance drops at movie theatres is irrelevant. Most people have
watched movies and tv shows at home for years.
Hollywood will be fine.
socalgal2 wrote 1 hour 16 min ago:
If Sinners and One Battle After Another are up for movie of the year
then it's no wonder no one is going. One is a fun but ultimately
forgettable horror action movie. The other is a movie that just based
on its major theme would attract less then half the country and even in
those remaining is a very polarizing movie. It's up for best picture
because to preach, not because it's actually good.
jmugan wrote 38 min ago:
I just didn't think that either of them were very good. Sinners was
okay, and One Battle After Another was just kind of silly, I think
regardless of your political views.
Apocryphon wrote 43 min ago:
F1 is also nominated whatâs your explanation for that picture
ascagnel_ wrote 1 min ago:
Two organizations that love money (Apple & F1) collaborating to
make a ton more money.
The tech for in-cockpit capture and presentation of the races
themselves was great, but the dialogue and basically everything
off-track was boring or rote.
everybodyknows wrote 1 hour 55 min ago:
> ... California doubled the annual assistance it gives to film and TV
productions to $750 million to stop them from fleeing the state.
750M/38.9M = $19.28 per resident
Why can't we call a taxpayer subsidy by its right name?
cubefox wrote 2 hours 36 min ago:
The most interesting part:
> North Americans are going to the movies about half as often as they
used to a decade ago, based on the number of tickets sold at cinemas in
the US and Canada.
50% down in just 10 years is massive.
ks2048 wrote 2 hours 38 min ago:
Everyone is complaining about movie theater prices. But, I'll also
complain about streaming prices. I want to watch The Secret Agent and
it's $9.99 to rent on Apple TV. It doesn't seem to make sense in
comparison to month all-you-can-watch subscription prices.
cloche wrote 1 hour 45 min ago:
This is one thing I really despise about the streaming world. When
rental stores were a thing you could grab older movies from the
bargain bin to rest for $1 or less. Now all movies are the same
price no matter if it's new or 30 years old.
dredmorbius wrote 2 hours 25 min ago:
Presumably, the business goal is to steer you toward (recurring)
subscription rather than (one-off) pay-to-watch activities.
rimbo789 wrote 2 hours 41 min ago:
Good riddance. It wonât be missed. Very little of Hollywood benefited
humanity - it was mostly a tool of the rich and governments to
propagandize. It was just an another opiate for masses. It was built on
ruthless exploitation of labour and consumers.
Rover222 wrote 1 hour 46 min ago:
This is such a college freshman worldview take, IMO.
boca_honey wrote 2 hours 24 min ago:
Hollywood produced some of the most influential pieces of art of the
last century and it permeated global culture in a way only comparable
to Renaissance-era Florence. Even if your simplistic take stained by
marxist propaganda is true, you shouldn't just casually dismiss the
labor of hundreds of thousands of artists and technicians over a
century simply because you've become jaded by Marvel slop.
heresie-dabord wrote 1 hour 32 min ago:
> some of the most influential pieces of art of the last century
and it permeated global culture in a way only comparable to
Renaissance-era Florence
Not just comparable; easily greater than. US movie business has
easily been more influential than Romanticism. That said... TFA
makes undeniably valid points:
"Morale has been battered by tens of thousands of layoffs, the
exodus of production from California to lower-cost territories, the
waning cultural relevance of cinema versus social media, declining
attendance at theater chains and fears that artificial intelligence
will displace traditional moviemaking.
[...] this yearâs Oscar race has been overshadowed by rival
Paramount Skydance Corp.âs $110 billion deal to buy the company.
Itâs the third time Warner Bros. has been sold in less than a
decade.
[...] Hollywoodâs anxiety â the local industryâs challenges
are often compared to the decline of automaking in Detroit â
isnât misplaced. The crisis has grown to such magnitude that last
year, California doubled the annual assistance it gives to film and
TV productions to $750 million to stop them from fleeing the
state."
rimbo789 wrote 1 hour 52 min ago:
Influential? Yes. Was that influence for the betterment of
humanity? Iâm not sure. Beyond the slop many of the classics were
deeply racist and built on immoral exploitation. Yes all those
artists did great work but they did it in terrible conditions for
where near enough pay.
Take apocalypse now: a great piece of art. Was it worth the pain
and suffering of its production? Absolutely not.
Yokohiii wrote 1 hour 24 min ago:
Terrible historical practices/immoral productions shouldn't the
reason alone for such dismissal. Every industry had it's fair
share of terrible things. Sometimes, we learn to do better. There
are also enough ongoing things to be worried about.
Hollywood should implode and hopefully the art form will
resurrect for the better. But for me the primary reason is that
they don't live up to what they are supposed to do. Creating good
art.
rimbo789 wrote 1 hour 21 min ago:
Hollywood was never about making art. It was about making
money. That some good art came out of it was an accident of the
process.
Do I want movies to survive? Sure. But Hollywood as a thing was
about vacuuming up every penny it could and that I do not
grieve.
Yokohiii wrote 53 min ago:
The greed is the same for all players and industries. I don't
see why hollywood's situation is different. They just failed
to adapt to new conditions.
I agree that the good stuff is just a result of shotgunning,
for every great movie, there are 100 that are forgettable.
But we have the habit of concentrating power in one place, so
I have no clue how it could be otherwise. Sure youtube is an
alternative with myriad of independent creators, but it
produced totally different outcomes.
taftster wrote 2 hours 16 min ago:
Agreed. To say "good riddance" to Hollywood scares me. Like we are
giving up and accepting generated slop and influencers from now on.
There's a lot of bad movies, but just as you said, very few mediums
have thusly pierced through across cultures and societies quite
like Hollywood.
bdz wrote 1 hour 46 min ago:
>To say "good riddance" to Hollywood scares me
It should only scare you if you are ignorant.
>very few mediums have thusly pierced through across cultures and
societies quite like Hollywood
This is laughable if you look at video games and music EVEN if
you ignore everything american. Not mention Asia from Bollywood
to Kpop to anime to HK cinema.
bdz wrote 2 hours 47 min ago:
I watch a film every single day since Covid. There are great films
everywhere every year. I'm not american but the sooner you ignore the
american cultural imperialism is the better (or at least the films
that don't premiere at competition festivals). There is a whole world
outside of America.
boca_honey wrote 23 min ago:
When compared to the nascent asian cultural imperialism, I'd rather
have american media, to be honest. Over here in the global south,
Hollywood was a pretty good influence compared with what I see around
the anime/Kpop crew.
There is a whole world inside America. You can say that about every
single country on Earth, but not every country on Earth produced The
Godfather, Citizen Kane and Toy Story 2.
HelloUsername wrote 1 hour 3 min ago:
Can you tell me your top 3 of every year since Covid?
t1234s wrote 3 hours 11 min ago:
Most recent in theater movie I was was "F1" because I thought the audio
experience would be worth the ticket price. While the audio was good,
seat quality was sub par, popcorn stale and soda was from a Freestyle
machine (YUK!)
rishabhaiover wrote 3 hours 16 min ago:
So many more products are competing for finite attention now. And the
solution to that problem is not to productize your commodity imo, art
created for the sake of selling is not art.
gzread wrote 2 hours 40 min ago:
If you don't productize something you won't make money and then
you'll starve and die.
beedeebeedee wrote 1 hour 37 min ago:
Then UBI. This is a failure of our economy, which creates perverse
incentives. Clean air, clean water, good food, plentiful housing,
and opportunities for sport, contemplation and art are the things
we need, but our economy incentivizes people to pollute, sell slop,
restrict housing, and exploit ourselves and others.
WarmWash wrote 3 hours 18 min ago:
My fiance mentioned we haven't gone to see a movie in theaters in years
and it would be fun to go.
I checked what was playing and:
2 tickets, 2 sodas, 1 popcorn.
$86 dollars.
Don't know if I'll ever go to a conventional movie theater again.
fhdkweig wrote 29 min ago:
I don't know where people get these crazy prices. Try to find a
little hole-in-the-wall theater. I like the local Landmark Cinema.
It is about $8 a ticket and I skip on the junk food.
There is another theater on the other side of town that does midnight
showings of Rocky Horror Picture Show. Those kinds of places are
also cheap.
lordmoma wrote 49 min ago:
if you love cinema enough
projektfu wrote 55 min ago:
Where I go it's about $33 for two tickets bought online and probably
$20 for those snacks, though we usually share a drink and a popcorn.
The theater is still usually empty.
The market-clearing price is nearly zero except for some new
releases. Oppenheimer was sold out in its first weekend, for
example.
Anyone who went to movies before about 1999 remembers them being a
lot more popular.
AbstractH24 wrote 1 hour 5 min ago:
I still go to arthouse movies regularly, mostly because it forces me
to give them undivided attention
Although, Iâll admit I go way less often than two years ago when I
was full time WFH. Which begs the question if I just went for a
reason to leave the house
Tadpole9181 wrote 1 hour 14 min ago:
It's not even price for me - I'm happy to pay for an experience. I'm
more annoyed that the theater is basically the worst place to watch a
movie now.
The silver screen has a contrast ratio in the hundreds. A $300
consumer TV now looks significantly better than the blurry, muted,
and muddled projector image.
Then the audio at theaters is always totally blown out and overly
bassy and siblant. Fine for action, I guess, but it makes listening
to dialogue exhausting.
And unless you get your favorite seat, you have to watch the movie
skewed. God forbid you get a seat in the front and have to crane your
neck the whole hour.
Meanwhile I can stay home, not deal with driving 20 minutes and
interacting with the public, pay less, eat better food, get blitzed
with friends, talk with my wife, have better visuals and audio, etc.
Other than nostalgia, there's just no reason at all to go to a movie
theater. It's become kind of outdated in an era of modern TVs to me.
jasonlotito wrote 1 hour 27 min ago:
$20 for the tickets. $20 for 2x soda and popcorn, but they've always
been on the expensive side compared to tickets.
Tickets are a bit more for IMAX.
Less than an hour outside Philly. The theater is recently renovated
too and has nice recliner seats, and everyone has their own armrest.
longislandguido wrote 1 hour 34 min ago:
Most if not all the ticket price goes directly into the studio's
pockets.
So the theatres stay alive by selling concessions.
I'd wager everyone here complaining about prices would also wax
poetic about how theatres don't "pay a living wage" to the kids
scooping popcorn and would immediately drive home in their $100k
Rivians or Teslas so they can give a one star review on Yelp or
complain on Reddit about the bathrooms or floors being dirty or
sticky.
These same people wouldn't bat an eye at paying $14 for a food truck
grilled cheese and leave a tip.
You can't have it both ways.
landl0rd wrote 10 min ago:
I don't know with whom you're arguing. I drive a cheap used car for
which I paid cash. I rarely ever eat out because I resent paying
more than $5 for a meal and inflation has largely made such meals
disappear.
I don't particularly care about "living wages", don't leave yelp
reviews, don't use reddit, don't much care if the bathroom isn't
spotless, and couldn't care less about how the theater and studio
divide revenue amongst themselves.
I do not go to the movies, except perhaps rarely as a date, because
I don't care to spend that kind of money and better screens and
sound systems make viewing them at home a better option.
coderjames wrote 13 min ago:
And you'd lose that wager.
I complain about movie costs while I watch movies at home, drive a
VW that was under $40k new, live in a state with a minimum wage
over $17 an hour, and refuse to pay $14 plus tip to a food truck
that doesn't provide seating when I can pay $12 and no tip at a
fast food restaurant that does provide dine-in eating.
Some of us live our principles, we're not all just whinging
hypocrites.
tombert wrote 1 hour 3 min ago:
The reasoning doesn't particularly matter to me, honestly. Whether
or not it they need to charge a second mortgage to cover the cost
of the theater isn't really my problem; these are for-profit
companies, I don't need to do them any favor.
Popcorn cost basically nothing to make at home, especially if you
buy the raw kernels and pop them yourself, and I can rent a 4k
version of a movie for like three dollars on Amazon. My 85" 8k TV
cost me $1200 (refurbished, but still). For the cost of going to
the theater with my wife 15 times, I can buy that TV to watch
movies but also use that same TV for many other things.
Even cheap shitty TVs are pretty ok nowadays, certainly better than
the stuff when I was a kid, and after I have to question the point
of going to an expensive physical theater where there's a risk of
some teenagers talking over the movie and I can't pause if I need
to use the bathroom. The theaters might not like it, but
regardless of whether its fair, they are competing with TVs now.
freedomben wrote 30 min ago:
I've had the same thoughts, also I sure don't miss the theater
experience of having your shoes sticky with soda. God forbid you
drop something on the floor like your phone, and have to feel
around for it in the dark.
The last time I went to a theater, I went to the first showing of
the movie for the day. We were the only people in the theater. 30
minutes into the movie, the projection suddenly shut off and all
the lights turned on. After sitting there for about 10 minutes,
we went out to talk to a staff member about it, and they told us
that the computer said there was no one in the theater so they
should shut it off. Long story short, they did not end up turning
it back on, and referred us to the customer support hotline to
try and get our money back. And this might be a little ageist,
but there's something infuriating about a condescending teenager
acting like this is somehow our fault. Yeah, no thank you.
tartoran wrote 5 min ago:
Wow, thatâs really a never again experience. Regardless of
whether you got your money back or not, your anecdote makes
clear that the movie theater business is on autopilot with
extraction set to high. Last time for me the pre movie high
volume advertising shower totally put me off from ever set foot
in a movie theater again. The volume was so cranked up that it
was distorting the sound so badly it was all unintelligible.
There was nobody in charge to turn that down and it went on
like that for 10 minutes. That was to me a never again
experience.
tombert wrote 19 min ago:
I remember when I was watching Kick-Ass in the theater, there
were some teenagers trying to be funny the entire time.
I initially very politely asked them if they could stop talking
because we're trying to watch the movie, but they didn't take
that very seriously.
After another ten minutes of their commentary I yell very
loudly "SHUT THE FUCK UP!". Extremely loud, I suspect everyone
in the theater heard me pretty clearly. I'm a pretty big guy
and I have a very loud and deep voice, and of course the
theater is dark, so they might have assumed I was more
threatening than I actually am. The teenagers shut up for the
rest of the movie.
The thing is, though, it kind of ruined the rest of the movie
for me. The entire time I'm sitting there, kind of worked up
and annoyed that I had to yell at some kids and ruin their
Friday night.
I've certainly had good times in theaters too, I like movies,
but I've grown a bit tired of it. Now generally the only time I
go to the theater is the live showings of The Room.
pipes wrote 32 min ago:
Everyone I know with an Espresso machine still goes to coffee
shops. Beer is cheaper from a super market but everyone I know
prefers pubs.
For some reason this does not hold with cinemas. I way prefer the
escapism of the cinema to sitting in my house surrounded by my
usual ambient domestic Todo list. Sure I have a very good oled,
amazing surround sound, but I'd take the cinema every time. But I
can't due to kids.
However, I'm the outlier, none of my friends prefer the cinema.
No idea why.
tombert wrote 25 min ago:
I don't drink alcohol or coffee, so I can't really relate to
the others.
I will admit to having good experiences going to the theater
with friends and/or family, but I don't really enjoy watching a
movie with strangers. Nowadays if I want to watch a movie with
friends, I will simply invite them over and we'll watch it
together.
More power to you if you like going to a theater, I'm not
trying to convince you to stop, just that I don't feel the
value-add is worth it to me anymore. Decent TVs have gotten so
cheap that I just prefer to watch movies at home.
telotortium wrote 28 min ago:
> Beer is cheaper from a super market but everyone I know
prefers pubs.
It's a pretty frequent complaint that drinks at pubs, bars, and
restaurants have become extortionately expensive, to the point
that a lot of younger people are drinking less for that reason.
datsci_est_2015 wrote 1 hour 8 min ago:
> These same people wouldn't bat an eye at paying $14 for a food
truck grilled cheese and leave a tip.
This seems weirdly condescending, especially since I think these
two things are very related.
There are two types of $14 food truck grilled cheese in my
experience:
The first type is usually found at farmerâs markets or free city
events where the cheese will be local and artisan, and the bread
will be local and artisan, and itâll be pretty freaking good, and
remind you that you can make incredible food with simple
ingredients.
The second type is where thereâs a captive audience, like a music
festival or a brewery patio. This is no free market: you are
hungry, and youâre about to be exploited.
I find American society increasingly reflected in the second type
of $14 grilled cheese. Movie theaters, sporting events, music
events, video games, tipping culture, hidden fees, etc. etc.
Exploitative business practices to extract profit at the expense of
the customer. Itâs like walking around being shown the middle
finger at all times. And people complain about the breakdown of the
social contractâ¦
stogot wrote 46 min ago:
I was going to say the same thing
the artisan grilled cheese is better than a hotdog thatâs been
overheated for six hours with a stale bun, and stale popcorn with
fake flavoring
wat10000 wrote 1 hour 16 min ago:
Why canât I have it both ways?
If all of those things are true, then the conclusion is that
theaters canât operate in a way that wins my business. That would
be unfortunate, but itâs not contradictory. It also seems to be
that pretty much true, as I see a movie in a theater maybe once a
year.
like_any_other wrote 18 min ago:
> the conclusion is that theaters canât operate in a way that
wins my business
They can, if studios gave them a better deal: "Most if not all
the ticket price goes directly into the studio's pockets."
That is not a fact of nature, but the studio's whim. If they want
to drive theaters out of business and send all their customers to
the pirate bay, they are more than welcome to.
longislandguido wrote 1 hour 4 min ago:
Extending this logic, Netflix should be able to lower prices to
$1.99 if they stopped paying staff $800k/year...
After all, they move 1s and 0s at the end of the day. No screens
or customer-facing capital equipment to maintain outside of DCs.
robcohen wrote 38 min ago:
Actually, yes, I do think that netflix could do their job much
cheaper. I use putflix, which uses put.io for $0.99 per month.
Better quality streaming than netflix, no forced ads, and they
can make it work for $1. Maybe it's the model where my monthly
subscription pays for their entire catalog that's broken. Maybe
it should just be a la carte licensing.
Either way, until the industry lets me pay directly to the org
that literally made the movie, I'll just pirate.
I do want to pay the artists that make the films. I think the
most viable way to do this is via cryptocurrency associated
with social media accounts, and then validate ownership by
having owners post a magic validation link. This way I can send
artists money and it's on them to go get it if they want it.
wat10000 wrote 54 min ago:
What?
The extension of my logic to Netflix would be, if I think their
prices are too high and that causes me not to subscribe, and
their prices are so high because they need to pay very high
salaries, then thereâs just no way that Netflix can exist in
a form that I would subscribe to.
lotsofpulp wrote 56 min ago:
That is not the logic used by wat10000.
I believe they wrote that it is consistent to find sufficient
utility from a $14 grilled cheese sandwich and also find
insufficient utility from a whatever price movie theater
experience.
It isnât written out, but when people complain about the
price of anything, they are complaining the price to utility
ratio. Not exactly profound stuff, but that is basically what
it is, most people donât get a sufficiently better experience
in theaters in todayâs world.
socalgal2 wrote 1 hour 32 min ago:
Correct, you can't give customers a horrible experience at the
theater and expect the theater to do well.
longislandguido wrote 1 hour 28 min ago:
Years ago I was in one of those old kitschy theatres. The seat
was wet.
I prayed it wasn't urine.
tombert wrote 1 hour 0 min ago:
When my wife and I first started dating, we went to one of
those cheap second-run theaters.
I liked that theater because it was super cheap (like seriously
$1.50 for a ticket because it showed out of date movies). One
time when she and I were watching The Purge, I hear this kind
of squishy noise from right behind me.
I turn around, and a guy is getting a handjob. I motion to my
wife that we need to move a few seats over.
You know, The Purge isn't the worst movie ever but I gotta
admit that it's not a movie that ever really turned me on
either. To each their own, I suppose.
From that point forward we always called that the Handjob
Theater.
aaronbrethorst wrote 33 min ago:
You donât happen to live in exurban Denver do you?
tombert wrote 29 min ago:
Nope, this was in Dallas. Well, Garland actually.
I don't live there anymore and haven't for about eleven
years.
bacchusracine wrote 46 min ago:
>I turn around, and a guy is getting a handjob. I motion to
my wife that we need to move a few seats over.
To get a better view, right?
tombert wrote 44 min ago:
We were mostly afraid of substances landing anywhere near
us.
bena wrote 1 hour 52 min ago:
Our local AMC theater would be $13 a ticket, $8 a drink, and $11 for
popcorn (rounding up and assuming the largest sizes, although the
prices are in a narrow band so the price difference between the least
and most is under a dollar).
So, weâre looking at $53. Which is $33 less than wherever youâre
at.
I also donât know how standardized prices are across all AMC
venues. So while Pokopia costs $70 everywhere, the same may not be
true of theater tickets and concessions.
But yeah, itâs typically why we try to avoid theater concessions,
because theyâve always been overpriced
Swizec wrote 2 hours 6 min ago:
> 2 tickets, 2 sodas, 1 popcorn.
> $86 dollars.
> Don't know if I'll ever go to a conventional movie theater again.
We almost never go to regular theaters anymore. IMAX feels worth it
for something like F1 or Top Gun where itâs all about the visual
spectacle, otherwise meh.
We go to Alamo Drafthouse a lot tho. A little pricey but the
experience of watching a movie in comfy seats over a fairly decent
restaurant dinner is fantastic for certain kinds of movies. Peaky
Blinders was the most recent. Tommy Shelby paired with a good
cocktail or two, fantastic.
Also I donât know how Alamo achieves this, but people there are
really good about noise and other bullshit. I think itâs because
they do in fact kick people out for being annoying.
jghn wrote 2 hours 20 min ago:
For a long time now I've felt that there's only situation where it
makes sense. That's movies where it is something about it would make
it much more enjoyable on IMAX or similar with a professional sound
system. So something in the visual spectacle category.
For any normal movie I'd rather just watch it from my couch. But for
the once in a while, over the top, blockbuster I'll still go to a
theater.
no_wizard wrote 2 hours 8 min ago:
Avatar is a good example.
I enjoyed each one in the theater but I tried watching Avatar: The
Way of Water at home and despite having an entire media room
devoted to good sound, proper lighting well calibrated projector
and such it was not all that great. The movie fell a little flat
without the theater experience to go with it.
I saw the limited run in advance to the 3rd one coming out in
theaters again and it was good in that setting, as a reference
point for my experience
frmersdog wrote 1 hour 34 min ago:
Tent-pole black movies? Basically anything Ryan Coogler or Jordan
Peele are involved in. They're a case where the unfortunate
stereotype might work out in your favor, if you're looking for a
group experience that heightens with shared energy and a
visual-and-sonic spectacle. (Well, assuming it's true.)
Or maybe it's just a horror/Marvel thing. Weapons and Endgame had
a similar audience feel to Sinners and Black Panther.
Definitely not during Chris Nolan films. It's hard enough to hear
his dialogue when it's dead silent.
jghn wrote 1 hour 58 min ago:
Exactly, Avatar was literally what I was picturing when I wrote
that. They're not good movies. But damn they're fun to watch in
3D, on a giant screen, and with great sound.
That's not to say that all movies in this category are *only*
worth watching in the theater like Avatar is. For instance I
would have still enjoyed the recent Dune movies either way but
they were a lot better with all the pomp & circumstance.
onlyrealcuzzo wrote 2 hours 21 min ago:
You can see live theater (albeit without concessions) for less than
that.
I'm not sure who is going to the theater or why, but I hope they are
enjoying themselves!
tyjen wrote 2 hours 26 min ago:
The last movie we attended people were incredibly disruptive
throughout the film, to the point that it was difficult to focus on
the film. Some people enjoy screaming, laughing, and talking as part
of the experience, but it's apparently been normalized beyond my
tolerance threshold. Add in the cost and overall movie quality
decrease of Hollywood productions, and it's difficult to justify.
Presently, we watch foreign movies at home 95% of the time and maybe
a Hollywood production when they manage to find their roots and
create something worth watching.
bloomingeek wrote 21 min ago:
Sort of off topic, but almost the same can be said for music
concerts. During slower or softer songs, people can be heard
talking and laughing loudly. I get it, they paid their money, same
as us, but we didn't pay to hear them.
dylan604 wrote 11 min ago:
A couple of years ago, I went to see Echo & The Bunnymen open for
Violent Femmes. I had seen the Femmes multiple times, but was
really excited to see Echo. These two old biddies that sat in
front of us talked the entire show. In between bands, one of them
dropped their purse without noticing. I picked it up and offered
in exchange for the purse if they wouldn't mind talking through
the next act. They were shocked at the nerve and said they didn't
talk that much. I then told them all about their kids and their
school work and other nonsense that I had to endure. The looked
at each other like "oops". To my luck, the show was not sold out,
and we moved down our row to get away from them. I obviously gave
the purse back
ozim wrote 1 hour 21 min ago:
With current TV setups or projector technology I basically have
cinema in my living room.
As a kid who grew up in 90âs I would say it is easily better than
what cinema had back then.
I donât have that high expectations of sound/video as many people
will point out that streaming kills the quality but for all its
worth still much better than what I need to enjoy a movie.
dylan604 wrote 9 min ago:
One of the criteria for me to go to the theater was the big
screen and big sound would really add to the experience. The last
film I saw in the theater was was so loud that it physically hurt
and ruined the experience.
As you say with the image quality being as high at home now plus
a decent surround system really makes the theater experience at
home very enjoyable.
symfoniq wrote 22 min ago:
As a huge film buff, I sadly agree. And theaters in my area
arenât doing a good job keeping their projection technology
current. When we went to see âWickedâ, my wife leaned over
and whispered that it would probably look better on our 77â
OLED, and she was absolutely right. The theater image was dark
and lacked vibrant color.
alwa wrote 2 hours 4 min ago:
The last time I chose to watch a movie in a theater instead of the
comfort of my home, I went for the raucous audience aspect of the
experience.
aaronbrethorst wrote 34 min ago:
Out of curiosity was it a movie where youâre expected to throw
toast?
dylan604 wrote 4 min ago:
The midnight showing of movies like Rocky Horror Picture show
are fun when everyone knows that audience participation is the
entire reason of going, but that's the only time I want
audience participation.
socalgal2 wrote 1 hour 29 min ago:
There's a middle ground. I go for the laughter and reaction of
the audience. I don't go to hear the 2 people behind me have a
conversation during the movie. Nor do I go to have people
critiquing the movie out loud as we're watching it. I certainly
don't go to watch people pop out their phones and scroll through
social media or check their messages.
nipperkinfeet wrote 2 hours 28 min ago:
It is surprising that such a large number of people continue to fall
victim to fraud at the cinema. High-quality televisions and sound
systems are now available at a reasonable price. It has been 12 years
since I last attended a movie screening. All content will be
available on-demand within a month of the theatrical release. Popcorn
maker at home and drinks.
AIorNot wrote 2 hours 17 min ago:
Unless you have a private theater room its not quite the same thing
as watching first run movie in a darkend crowded theater - and even
that misses the social aspect for an anticipated picture
The communal experience is special
On top of that most people don't have the attention span to sit
through a film without opening their phones - film is supposed to
be about capturing your attention not just entertainment
Otherwise watch it on your laptop for all I care
sfoley wrote 2 hours 25 min ago:
That's not what fraud is.
desireco42 wrote 2 hours 37 min ago:
I can confirm this, it is stupid how much just basic outing to watch
a movie costs. I have 3 kids... I am in Chicago but it is like this
everywhere
g947o wrote 3 hours 8 min ago:
Then I guess you aren't familiar with the 20 minutes of trailers, 1
minute of Cocacola ad and 2 minutes of other completely irrelevant
content before the movie actually begins.
cycomanic wrote 26 min ago:
Well at least it's not Amazon prime where they now interrupt the
movie for the same ad/trailer 3 for weeks unless you pay extra
again.
Fwiw I always enjoyed the trailers at the movies, no the other ads
I could very much do away with (and I used to purposefully come
late to shows to miss the ads).
skeeter2020 wrote 1 hour 37 min ago:
Calling them trailers is a bit of a stretch; and only 3 minutes of
ads? We go to different screenings!
Cerium wrote 1 hour 39 min ago:
Now that reserved seats are the norm, I leave my house at the
specified starting time and never have missed even a minute of the
feature film.
gs17 wrote 2 hours 4 min ago:
And worse, it's not even consistent, they show different amounts of
trailers based on the movie/showing! If you show up 20 minutes
late, you might miss the start for some movies and yet still have
another 15 minutes of trailers for others.
reidrac wrote 2 hours 16 min ago:
I hate this. Like the ticket is not expensive already, they also
feel like feeding you ads.
And then wonder why people don't go to the cinema and wonder if
they can increase the amount of ads to compensate...
bena wrote 1 hour 51 min ago:
Ticket sales typically go to the distributor, those ads are how
the theater makes money
ericd wrote 1 hour 47 min ago:
Sure, that needs to change.
Detrytus wrote 3 hours 9 min ago:
You can watch a movie without popcorn, you know. Not only cheaper but
also healthier. This American obsession with popcorn always seemed
weird to me.
skeeter2020 wrote 1 hour 34 min ago:
I mean you can stay home and have zuchini slices with cottage
cheese instead of nachos too; that's not really the point.
nradov wrote 2 hours 1 min ago:
There's nothing unhealthy about plain popcorn with a little salt.
The added "butter" or other toppings may be problematic.
sowbug wrote 2 hours 55 min ago:
Good point! At home you can watch a movie without being judged on
your choice of snacks.
lanfeust6 wrote 2 hours 56 min ago:
Honestly the stench of theatre popcorn, and all the masticating
around me, grosses me out. Fortunately it usually subsides.
sdoering wrote 3 hours 3 min ago:
German here. I have never not had popcorn when going to the movies
in my younger days. It is just part of the experience.
But in my days it was around 12⬠for a ticket, popcorn and a
coke. And there were cinema days with special deals. Or cheap sneak
previews.
I would never go when paying for me and my SO is equivalent of one
of my subscriptions for a year.
bojan wrote 2 hours 40 min ago:
I don't think that math checks out as the subscriptions got way
more expensive as well.
drstewart wrote 3 hours 6 min ago:
Do Europeans know you can watch soccer without drinking beer? It's
cheaper and healthier. Absolutely bizarre obsession you lot have
with it.
no_wizard wrote 2 hours 4 min ago:
Itâs a communal thing. Itâs more than just the sport itâs
also about being out with other fans, showing support and usually
friendly ribbing of the opposing teams fans from time to time.
That is how it was explained to me when I said something similar
quotz wrote 2 hours 22 min ago:
beer is way cooler than popcorn
DareTheDev wrote 2 hours 42 min ago:
Europeans donât watch soccer. They watch football.
Jtsummers wrote 3 hours 12 min ago:
Where is that? Tickets here are only $7-10 each (except maybe some
IMAX or similar showings) and two drinks and popcorn would be $15-25
for two people (size dependent). This is in Colorado.
EDIT: I was going off of memory, but matinee/child/senior pricing is
apparently $9.75 at the theater I usually go to, evening is $13.25 (I
never go in the evening, had forgotten what that price was). They
have a two drink and popcorn combo for $22.10. So the worst case of
evening prices (again, not considering IMAX, just regular screens and
seats) for two with that combo is $48.60. That's not cheap, but it's
not $86 either. And if you're willing to share the drink and go to a
matinee you can cut the price to $34.80. This is a Cinemark, a pretty
big theater chain.
socalgal2 wrote 1 hour 23 min ago:
Google claims the average price in the USA is $16 with Wyoming
being $9 and NYC being $23. It's $18 at my local theater
czhu12 wrote 2 hours 0 min ago:
I thought tickets had more standard pricing across markets. For a
standard ticket here in SF -- (I know we're comparing probably the
highest end to the lowset end here) -- its $22. For IMAX its about
$30, at your standard AMC. Indie theatres are not cheaper and are
often more expensive.
7 dollar tickets I haven't seen since elementary school
psherman wrote 33 min ago:
Go on a Tuesday or Wednesday and tickets are 50% off at AMC (and
maybe other theaters). While still not cheap, that gets you down
to $16.49 for an imax showing at the metreon AMC and $9.49 for a
standard screen.
underlipton wrote 1 hour 48 min ago:
>here in SF
magicalhippo wrote 2 hours 35 min ago:
Not op, but in Norway, so includes 25% VAT.
IMAX opening week is a lot, $25-35. After a while it can drop to
$20 or so. Regular is more like $20-25 opening week and drops to
$12-15.
I don't bother with popcorn and soda, it's grossly over priced.
Like $10 for a small popcorn the size of a pint. I buy a 0.5L
bottle at the grocery store next to the cinema and some M (our
M&Ms), maybe $10.
Though lately I've been going a lot to the local cinemateque. Not
only are tickets around $7 regardless, they mostly show classic
movies so seldom worse than the new stuff. They show popular movies
too, recently saw Heat there, first time I saw it at the big screen
since the premiere. Still packed a punch.
wafflemaker wrote 1 hour 44 min ago:
I thought that you're being a little too critical. Others should
know that Norway is a country with relatively high costs of
living.
The minimum wage for a cleaner is 46k per year ($23\h). And your
boss better not try any shenanigans, because you're most likely
unionized and shouldn't really be messed with.
I've found $18 ticket for opening week for Hail Mary in my city.
Most of them were at $23, but that's for the premium sall, with
shaking seats or other fancy stuff.
So a person with a job looked down upon in most other countries
can still get one ticket for an hour of work.
Reason I've felt compelled to reply was because cinema tickets
always felt cheap to me in Norway, compared to more like 2h of
work for minimum wage worker in Poland where I originally come
from. Compared to any other prices like $15 for a beer at a bar
or $30+ for a bottle of vodka in the alcohol shop* they just
always felt like a steal. YMMV OFC.
*Interesting trivia: The alcohol shop is called Vinmonopolet and
it really is a monopoly. The only company allowed to sell alcohol
above 4.7% is run by the state. They have shops in towns, and if
you live far from one (like most of northern Norway past the
polar circle) you're most likely getting your alcohol from
homebrew mafia instead.
magicalhippo wrote 1 hour 33 min ago:
I wasn't trying to be critical actually, as for non-opening
weeks I agree, it's not bad at all. I mainly just wanted to
provide a point of comparison.
IMAX opening week is a bit more but are comparable to mid-range
concert tickets. And it really is a big screen, so can
definitely be worth it.
The snacks and drinks at the cinema is wild though I think. As
a comparison the M's they sell are twice the price and half the
size of that from the grocery store. I get that they want to
make some money on it, but 4x the price is just too much for
me.
femiagbabiaka wrote 3 hours 13 min ago:
Support small theatres, you wonât get charged like this.
bdangubic wrote 3 hours 4 min ago:
unfortunately they are dying faster than malls⦠I live in urban
area and my small theatre options re dwindling
g947o wrote 3 hours 6 min ago:
If they exist. None exists the in 15 mile radius of where I live.
deadbabe wrote 1 hour 46 min ago:
In the millennial suburbs some people have converted their
garages into small indie move theaters with good sound systems
and people from around the neighborhood show up to watch obscure
movies together and eat barbecued food.
1shooner wrote 38 min ago:
Is this actually a broad trend, or more just your personal
experience? There is very little that could get me to move back
to the suburbs, but this kind of thing is compelling.
skeeter2020 wrote 1 hour 35 min ago:
pre-millennial here; we call this a party, rather than a
"suburban prosumer boutique theatre".
gzread wrote 2 hours 48 min ago:
You could become the first.
ctkhn wrote 3 hours 13 min ago:
What theater is that at? Sounds like a mega chain like AMC or Regal.
The local indie theater we go to in one of the 5 largest American
cities has never been over $15 per ticket and adding popcorn and a
drink is maybe $10 more on top.
SoftTalker wrote 1 hour 58 min ago:
Do they get first-run releases? Around here AMC has some sort of
exclusive on that. And their theatres are disgusting. Sticky
floors, dirty seats, just gross.
I haven't been to a movie in a theater in at least 10 years.
tuna74 wrote 43 min ago:
If you are expressing your judgement based on experiences from
more than 10 years ago you are not really contributing to the
discussion.
jimbo808 wrote 3 hours 31 min ago:
Maybe I'm insane or it's my age, but I can't watch new movies/shows
without just seeing propaganda agendas at every turn. Really kills it
for me.
dredmorbius wrote 2 hours 20 min ago:
To be fair, there's plenty of that in older films and TV series as
well, particularly "golden age" material from the 1940s -- 1970s,
which played strongly off WWII, Cold War, and pro-business themes,
with occasional ventures into counterculture works for the latter.
The original Top Gun (1986) was describe at the time as the US Navy's
most successful recruiting campaign ever, noted in this 2004 account
citing 1990 correspondence with then Secretary of Defence Dick
Cheney: < [1] >. Similarly endless war, cowboy, biblical, and
rom-com films of that period.
URI [1]: https://archive.org/details/operationhollywo00robb/page/180
msabalau wrote 21 min ago:
That's certainly why the Navy supported Top Gun.
At the same time, you certainly could reasonably read the film as
being very dubious about the military. It opens with the
psychological collapse of Maverick's wingman when a MiG locks on to
him, Cruise's character has to defy orders to save him, and gets
chewed out for doing so.
Maverick's original motivation is clearing his father name, not
patriotism. Goose dies in a pointless accident. The final dogfight
is random "rescue mission" against an unnamed foe in "hostile
waters" in the Indian ocean, and Cruise's character almost abandons
the fight due to PTSD.
Yeah, the almost pornographic love the camera shows to the jets
probably made the actual story all be irrelevant to the Navy's
recruiting success. But it's easy to imagine all the whining from
the Fox news personality cosplaying as Secretary of "War" about
such a film if it were made today.
Cheney was sensible enough to take the win.
whartung wrote 40 min ago:
> The original Top Gun (1986) was describe at the time as the US
Navy's most successful recruiting campaign ever, noted in this 2004
account citing 1990 correspondence with then Secretary of Defence
Dick Cheney: < [1] >.
Sure, but was that the intent of Tony Scott when he made the film,
or was it just a side effect of watching exciting air wing navy
operations portrayed on the big screen?
I can easily see a young man wanting to be not just a fighter
pilot, but one of those guys on deck standing in the wind, dancing
and pointing and saluting F-14s off the catapult.
Or, maybe they just like volleyball.
URI [1]: https://archive.org/details/operationhollywo00robb/page/18...
m-hodges wrote 3 hours 20 min ago:
Should art not of a point of view?
radiator wrote 1 hour 12 min ago:
That is the whole point. Since decades, it has a single point of
view, failing to represent the majority of the people.
manphone wrote 45 min ago:
And what point of view does all art have now?
ludicrousdispla wrote 1 hour 27 min ago:
Should a sentence have a verb?
christophilus wrote 21 min ago:
Not all sentences.
m-hodges wrote 1 hour 5 min ago:
You caught my typo. Gold medal.
dmitrygr wrote 2 hours 29 min ago:
> Should art not of a point of view?
It can, sure. However, I will not pay to be lectured to on topics I
have no interest getting lectured on. I'll keep my money, they can
keep the sermon. Let's see who has more to gain from listening to
the other. If they want my money, what I want to hear/see matters a
whole lot more than what they want to preach to me.
They simply forgot the golden rule: he who has the gold -- makes
the rules. Let them rediscover it.
gzread wrote 2 hours 39 min ago:
Some is reasonable and then some is obviously just what rich people
want you to think. Like America paid Hollywood a lot to always show
the US armies being macho and always on the right side of wars.
delichon wrote 4 hours 53 min ago:
The little dinosaurs are ignoring the great big elephants in the room:
gaming. The article doesn't mention it. The market for video games in
2024 was around $225B, compared to movies at around $33B. Hollywood has
worked very hard not to realize that their industry has become niche
and have succeeded.
My last week may be an indicator. I've watched zero TV or movies but
have spent about 40 hours helping a small colony of scrappy hard
working beavers survive on post apocalyptic earth. Steam got my money,
Hollywood didn't.
frmersdog wrote 40 min ago:
They're trying to avoid thinking (or at least talking) about it
because they don't control it. They're hoping that the next downturn
(which will almost certainly include a partial collapse of the game
industry as we know it) will present an opportunity to scoop up
incumbents. At that point, they'll be open about their relationship
to, and ambitions, for gaming. Until then, the most you'll hear is
A24 stuff, Kojima stuff, and tut-tutting about Ubisoft (almost
certainly their first target).
fraXis wrote 54 min ago:
That game sounds interesting. What is it called? I only saw Beavers
Be Damned when I searched Steam.
fatuna wrote 40 min ago:
Not OP, but I think they meant Timberborn. It just hit 1.0 release
. I tried it a while back, definitely a fun premise for a game.
natebc wrote 46 min ago:
Timberborn. It's fantastic!
gbnwl wrote 47 min ago:
Not the original commenter but they could be talking about
Timberborn. Don't have it but have friends who play.
ebbi wrote 1 hour 35 min ago:
The time I used to spend watching movies is now spent on YouTube.
With the high quality cameras and drones at approachable prices, it's
amazing to watch individuals create videos at such high quality but
also has a bit of that DIY vibe that makes it more relatable and
enjoyable.
My current fav is watching 4X4 overlanding videos of people driving
along some stunning landscapes.
epolanski wrote 1 hour 46 min ago:
The biggest competition for movies is actually from Youtube.
While the streaming business led to a growth of the movie industry,
pre Covid and pre strikes at least, it's difficult to compete when
millions of people can produce good content for low prices.
On top of that, it doesn't help that movies stopped innovating, 2025
box office was entirely dominated by prequels and sequels.
I don't care about avengers, I really don't, the first bored me
enough.
msabalau wrote 56 min ago:
Maybe one could reasonably blame on-line video and or video games
if this were a global phenomenon.
But it isn't. China and India are going gangbusters. Japan is
thriving and doing strong work. Nigerian cinema is projected to hit
3 million ticket sales for the first time this year. The UK--is at
least stealing work from Hollywood with tax breaks. Korea had a
rough patch, which they turned around by doing more mid-market
films.
The US studios problems are unique, which at least suggests that
the answer lies in the failures of their leadership. Perhaps their
long project of abandoning original mid-market films to push
bloated huge special effects heavy franchises was ill-advised. It's
almost Like having a portfolio of 10-20 reasonable original bets is
better than investing everything in a single expensive "sure-thing"
sequel it increasingly seems like no one actually wants to see.
So I agree that Hollywood has stopped innovating, but am dubious
that any other problems has much to do with Youtube (as much as I
enjoy YouTube).
telesilla wrote 2 hours 46 min ago:
I don't game at all but watch at least one movie a day as my relaxing
time: criterion collection, mubi etc. I go to an indie cinema about
once a month, often to see older movies as much as new ones. The
cinema is rarely full but they have a good café and affordable
subscriptions and I'm guessing some municipal funding, they won't
ever run out of films to show. Though the day A24 goes out of
business will be my sad day.
ndesaulniers wrote 38 min ago:
When you buy movie tickets, you go see the movie.
When I purchase a game, I generally don't have time to play it.
We are not the same.
This may be why gaming is a few multiples larger an industry than
film.
WastedCucumber wrote 1 hour 56 min ago:
I don't watch a movie a day, but I'm at my friendly local indie
theater at least once a month. It's got a more comftorable
audience, more consistently interesting films, and it costs less
than the big theater. If I went just a bit more often, I'd for sure
get a subscription. There's already so many good films, and so many
good indie films being made, I just don't need the big cinemas.
lanfeust6 wrote 2 hours 52 min ago:
As I wrote elsewhere, I think TV is what is actually consuming
cinema's lunch. The average hours spent watching TV have only gone up
over the years, but the same is not true of film. Gaming as a
"primary" hobby is also quite male-coded (women tend to play on their
phones, but they spend by far the most amount of time watching trash
tv and Bridgerton or whatever).
BeetleB wrote 3 hours 8 min ago:
The gaming industry has been bigger than the film industry for
decades. This isn't new.
blell wrote 3 hours 19 min ago:
Thatâs because Hollywood makes movies, not videogames. You also
spent a few hours driving but Hollywood hasnât done anything about
it because they are not in the business of making cars.
jonas21 wrote 3 hours 3 min ago:
They are substitute goods. A common failure mode is not realizing
this until it's too late.
mycocola wrote 2 hours 47 min ago:
They're entertainment, yes, but really not the same. I'll look
for a specific game to play, I'll look for a specific movie to
watch, and I won't play a game when I want to watch a movie.
lanfeust6 wrote 2 hours 53 min ago:
Yes, and yet by the counts, Westerners watch more televised
content than ever.
If anything the substitute has been TV. Gaming is big, sure, but
that doesn't appear to crowd out time reserved for watching
media. I expect that the marathoner gamer who plays for hours
daily is a comparatively smaller demographic.
simonklitj wrote 3 hours 16 min ago:
Well, sure, but theyâre both in the entertainment space.
bilbo0s wrote 3 hours 14 min ago:
I think I have to agree with HN User Blell here.
I mean, the NFL, at root, is in the business of entertainment
also, and it makes more than Hollywood as well all in.
But why would Hollywood care?
dredmorbius wrote 2 hours 32 min ago:
NFL and related sport are, at least putatively, unscripted.
Which might be raised in relation to gaming as well, but I'd
argue that gaming elements share much more in common with
cinema, particularly in the contexts of world design, character
development, backstory, and of course, CGI.
justonceokay wrote 3 hours 3 min ago:
Itâs funny in tech itâs generally understood that that
attention economy apps are in competition even though they
ostensibly are not direct competitors. But when it comes to
entertainment (the original attention economy) we donât think
of it in the same way.
alephnerd wrote 3 hours 17 min ago:
> Thatâs because Hollywood makes movies, not videogames
Not true. Most media conglomerates own both video game and movie
production. The big players like Disney, Sony, Comcast, Universal,
etc all have ownership stakes in video game companies and most TMT
funds invest in both as a same bucket.
blell wrote 3 hours 15 min ago:
Yes. Those conglomerates also do TV. But Hollywood makes movies,
and not talk shows. Many of those conglomerates also have
internet access businesses. But Hollywood doesnât lay fibre.
alephnerd wrote 3 hours 14 min ago:
"Hollywood" is a metonym/catch-all term for the media industry
just like how "Silicon Valley" is for the tech industry and
"Wall Street" is for finance.
closewith wrote 3 hours 3 min ago:
Silicon Valley is a not a catch-all term for tech?
dredmorbius wrote 2 hours 27 min ago:
Metonym & Toponym < [1] > < [2] >.
"Silicon Valley":
As more high-tech companies were established across San
Jose and the Santa Clara Valley, and then north towards the
Bay Area's two other major cities, San Francisco and
Oakland, the term "Silicon Valley" came to have two
definitions: a narrower geographic one, referring to Santa
Clara County and southeastern San Mateo County, and a
metonymical definition referring to high-tech businesses in
the entire Bay Area.[citation needed] The name also became
a global synonym for leading high-tech research and
enterprises, and thus inspired similarly named locations,
as well as research parks and technology centers with
comparable structures all around the world.
< [3] >
URI [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metonymy
URI [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toponymy
URI [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley
alephnerd wrote 3 hours 33 min ago:
> The little dinosaurs are ignoring the great big elephants in the
room: gaming
Partially, but a massive issue has been the offshoring of Hollywood
[0].
UK, Canada, EU states like Ireland and Poland, and others match
dollar-for-dollar in subsidizes to incentivize local production, and
factoring in lower salaries are able to outcompete even Georgia.
After COVID and the WGA/SAG-AFTRA strike, production completely left
Hollywood.
Film production is high risk and expensive, so margins really matter,
so the double whammy of the COVID shutdowns and then fhe
WGA/SAG-AFTRA strike became existential.
California has been trying to reincentivize onshoring [1], but it's
too little too late. Hollywood even lobbied the Trump admin [2] for a
100% tariff on foreign produced films [3] which more diversified
media companies pushed back.
[0] - [1] - [2] - [3] -
URI [1]: https://milkeninstitute.org/content-hub/research-and-reports...
URI [2]: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/06/gavin-newsom-hollyw...
URI [3]: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/15/hollywood-lobbying-...
URI [4]: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g78e809zqo
Trasmatta wrote 3 hours 38 min ago:
Didn't The Game Awards receive more viewers than the Super Bowl? It
used to be referred to as, like, "the Oscars for video games", but
now it's immensely more popular than the Oscars.
NeutralCrane wrote 3 hours 25 min ago:
There is absolutely no way The Game Awards got more viewers than
the Super Bowl. Iâd love to see a source because I have serious
doubts.
Trasmatta wrote 1 hour 52 min ago:
See the sibling reply for sources. A big part of it is that TGA
is a worldwide thing.
lazystar wrote 3 hours 17 min ago:
games are global - NFL is solely american.
bryanrasmussen wrote 2 hours 31 min ago:
OK, but how many markets are Games Awards actively televised
in? I believe they have been watched more on YouTube, when I
hear watched more than NFL in context of TV discussion I don't
think YouTube is the distribution channel, however I followed
the wikipedia link and it says "streams" which OK, not how I
thought it was being ranked.
If we are ranking on streams however, does this take into
account streams of parts of each media? For example streams of
Bad Bunny's halftime show, streams of important plays, versus
streams of individual awards being presented?
I don't actually care either way, much, since I don't like
American football, don't generally like team sports, and don't
spend time gaming, but somehow I think the comparison between
the two in online streams throws the metrics off.
zimpenfish wrote 3 hours 26 min ago:
> Didn't The Game Awards receive more viewers than the Super Bowl?
To be fair, barely anyone (in global terms) watches the Super Bowl.
You are correct though - [0] claims 171M for TGA with [1] claiming
125M for the Superb Owl 2026.
[0] [1]
URI [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_Awards_2025
URI [2]: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/...
mmooss wrote 1 hour 26 min ago:
There's no cite for the 171 million, which is a bit hard to
believe. There are cites (which I didn't check) for these claims.
Maybe they are counting people watching clips on Twitter?
According to Streams Charts, the ceremony peaked at 4.4 million
concurrent viewersâthe most in its history and a 9% increase
from 2024âincluding 1.4 million viewers on the official YouTube
broadcast (an 8% increase) and 1.8 million on Twitch. On YouTube,
the ceremony peaked at 2.4 million total concurrent viewers (a 9%
increase), including a record 8,600 co-streams.[6] More than
16,500 creators co-streamed on Twitchâa record for the show,
representing a 50% yearly increaseâwith total unique viewers
and hours watched each increasing 5% from 2024.[6][114] On
Twitter, posts about the show increased by 12%, with more than
1.79 million posts from December 10â12, while the broadcast and
related videos received over 60 million views.[6]
the__alchemist wrote 4 hours 41 min ago:
Of note here too: There's been a lot of (social media at least)
backlash against AAA studios lately. Anecdote: 2025 had a number of
great (High quality, popular, award winners/nominees etc), and they
weren't from big studios. There seems to be a niche middle-budget
level that produces wonders. Just to limit scope to 2025: KCD2,
Expedition 33, and Blue Prince were all incredible games. Expedition
33 has my favorite sound track (Or album in general?) of all time.
Death Stranding 2 is another great one. By a big studio, but let a
creative person run wild with it.
I suspect the problem with AAA games is the same one movie studios
face; mass-market appeal and profit-driven-design degrades the
experience.
no_wizard wrote 2 hours 0 min ago:
The difference between games and movies is how easy it is for
entrants comparatively.
Indie / small studios have an infinitely easier time going to
market than one would with making a film or especially a TV series.
You just make an account on a platform, sometimes submitting some
additional information and paying a small fee, and thatâs it. You
may not even need actors like for text based games (Shovel Knight,
Balatro etc)
Movies is so much more. And the cost of production is higher.
Also, the other big thing to realize is by far what games many
people play is dominated by a handful of highly successful live
service games. I have friends who only play Fortnite and have for a
long time. They donât play much else other than a few casual
games when they take small breaks from Fortnite.
Itâs not universal but there is a reason theyâre always top of
charts for revenue. Millions play every day.
The one other thing Iâll say is that seemingly unlike other media
there is enough sufficient customer diversity that one business
model doesnât completely choke off all other types. Look at
Expedition 33 for example
the__alchemist wrote 1 hour 54 min ago:
I also suspect this is the core reason. There are plenty of bad
books, video games etc, including some for the same reasons we
have bad movies. But the lower barrier-to-entry allows great ones
to exist too!
zdc1 wrote 3 hours 9 min ago:
There's definitely been an enslopification of both. Endless
sequels. "Franchises" with meaningless stories and common tropes.
Maybe it's survivor bias when I think back on older works, but
nothing just seems that exciting these days.
the__alchemist wrote 1 hour 52 min ago:
Right, but you can ignore them, as they don't stifle the good
stuff. You can ignore Ubisoft, Bethesda etc and still have a nice
selection.
willmeyers wrote 5 hours 23 min ago:
I mean when you have Larry Ellison and other goons pledging investments
in these major studios, it's no wonder people who actually enjoy
watching movies don't want to give their money+time to watch some
dumbed down bottom of the barrel slime that AI has decided people will
sit through.
Thankfully, filmmaking is becoming more and more independent. It's
never been easier and cheaper to make a movie and share it to millions
of people on YouTube or Vimeo. Why go through Hollywood, investors, or
give money to festivals for a chance at success when you can just
upload the thing and see what happens?
kmfrk wrote 5 hours 40 min ago:
A few years ago, someone on Twitter had a really cool proposal for how
to revamp the entire format of the Oscars, even taking the importance
of commercials into account, but I can't for the life of me find it
anymore.
jt2190 wrote 5 hours 46 min ago:
Original:
URI [1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-13/hollywood-s...
eitau_1 wrote 5 hours 47 min ago:
Here's a great video-essay on adjacent topic: Why The Movies Don't Feel
The Same Anymore
URI [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoldOz5YyAw
the__alchemist wrote 5 hours 59 min ago:
My 2c: They should stop concentrating on appealing to the broadest
audience. Formulaic heros' journeys, franchises, predictable characters
acted by the same narrow set of the the most-attractive people etc.
Safety and mass-market appeal over creativity.
For contrast: Books, non-AAA video games, and movies from smaller
studios still produce high-quality, creative efforts I continue to be
excited about. Big-budget movies (and games), and Netflix shows are
mostly bottom-feeder stuff.
baxtr wrote 27 min ago:
I miss the inner journeys mostly. The heroic journey is boring if the
hero doesnât change.
madaxe_again wrote 1 hour 40 min ago:
Sure, but Spider-Man CXXVI is a sure bet for a safe ROI. Nobody knows
what Chopper Chicks in Zombietown will yield.
Books are a great example - even popular books will now have a
readership in the tens of thousands, at most. Nobody makes money -
itâs an art, not an industry.
mpbart wrote 2 hours 53 min ago:
There are some studios who do this already (A24 for example who have
produced a number of relatively popular films). But agreed that the
big studios have focused on sequels and formulaic content for the
most part
awongh wrote 5 hours 47 min ago:
Except that pretty much as soon as movies started being made, people
have said this about movies :)
xp84 wrote 5 hours 54 min ago:
I think itâs the finance people. They have decided every creative
movie made represents resources and time that canât be used for a
âsure-thingâ franchise schlock movie.
echelon wrote 5 hours 55 min ago:
- Theatrical releases are how movies make most of their money, not
giving them away for free on streaming. Box office margins are huge,
but renting licenses to streamers is limited and fungible with all
the other mountains of content they license.
- Box office optimizes for novelty, streamers optimize for "don't
churn" - very different criteria for investment.
- Disney cannibalized the box office with Marvel Star Wars, which
killed the mid market and killed innovation. This is your point.
Disney's success and tentpole successes in general killed innovation
and diversity and made the market more winner-takes-all. Comedy
movies barely exist anymore. There are few $50-75M films now. Little
original content. Now films are engineered for maximum audience
penetration and maximum box office revenue. This changes how films
are written and who they are written for. The answer is "everyone",
and that means "safe", "predictable", and "repeatable". No gambles.
Everything else has to fight for table scraps.
- End of ZIRP puts us back in 2000. Money used to be free. Now it's
expensive. It's not as easy to underwrite productions anymore. Less
innovation.
- Dopamine machines fit into your pocket and suck up time and
attention. Gaming is also huge now. Less people going to the movies
because plenty of alternatives exist.
- The $400 80'' plus Netflix versus the expensive theater,
concessions, and rude people have made theaters unattractive.
Theaters are where film margins come from. Without that revenue,
expensive movies will be scaled back.
- Labor costs less in Europe and Asia, even with ample tax subsidy.
The LA and American jobs and infrastructure are drying up. These are
lifelong careers that are ending.
- Global audiences want global stories. American culture isn't local,
and local talent can now make high quality productions. Asia is
turning out banger after banger.
- Youth want youth mediums. Movies feel slow and boring. TikTok is
where it's at.
- AI is now a thing.
All of the fundamentals have changed.
I will debate one point you raised:
> most-attractive people
Most people prefer to look at attractive people. It's an almost
universal preference. Tried and tested throughout time. In film,
those attractive people also need charisma.
cyanydeez wrote 5 hours 56 min ago:
not appealing to the masses is DEI; perfect robotic formula are just
common sense.
Obviously.
philwelch wrote 6 hours 14 min ago:
They have no one to blame but themselves, judging by the quality of
Hollywood movies in recent years.
iammjm wrote 6 hours 16 min ago:
Actors being this wealthy and famous has always been a mystery to me.
Oh so you are a good looking person that recites other people's words
for money while faking emotions? And you can take as many takes as you
can and your fuckups will be corrected in post-production anyway? Well
I guess the work you do totally merits the hundreds of millions of
dollars you've amassed.
Like even kicking a ball or whatever makes more sense to me because
there is an objective measurement of what it means to do it well, while
with actors its mostly about sympathy or preference
miki123211 wrote 2 hours 47 min ago:
Actors have a kind of legally-enforced monopoly. They're not
employees you hire, they're products you buy.
If you want to make a movie staring Nicole Kidman, you have to pay
whatever Nicole Kidman wants you to pay. You're legally forbidden
from hiring an "off-brand" person and making her look
indistinguishable from Kidman.
If you want to hire a Scala programmer, there's plenty of
easily-replaceable people willing and able to do that job. No single
person dictates how much money Scala programmers make.
Famous actors are basically a category that they're the only member
of, and so they can set their prices. You can switch to a different
category )(just as you can switch from Scala to Typescript) if one
becomes too expensive, but that too carries some expense.
Franchises have a similar problem. If all your friends are watching
Game of Thrones, you too want to watch Game of Thrones, even if there
are other shows which are just as good. This means the Makers of GoT
can dictate GoT prices, because the government gives them a legal
monopoly on GoT distribution.
worksonmine wrote 4 hours 44 min ago:
I don't want fame, but if I did I would want a lot of money to give
up my freedom to be chased by paparazzi for the rest of my life.
ndsipa_pomu wrote 5 hours 20 min ago:
There's certainly a lot of actors that seem to just phone in a
performance and are mainly hired due to their looks and high
profiles, but don't forget about the actors that can elevate just
about any role that they're in due to their skills and artistry.
paulryanrogers wrote 6 hours 9 min ago:
It's celebrity. People want to imagine themselves like these icons
they've built, even if only through the laziest of efforts. I wonder
if it's an innate human trait to aspire to be like those we admire.
artyom wrote 6 hours 16 min ago:
Nobody else to blame but themselves. Of course, Hollywood is full of
narcissists so they'll blame everyone else, e.g. streaming, prices,
etc. but the reality is of the last 10-15 years of mainstream US cinema
is:
- Scripts that sound more like an HR meeting than a good story.
- Blockbuster superhero movies that are all the same movie.
- Lots of remakes that added modern CGI flare and destroyed the
artistic value of the original.
- As consolidation of studios happens, way more "safe" stories that aim
to not offend anyone. I think the only one able to get away with it
right now is Tarantino.
Prices, streaming, theaters, etc. -- they're all accessory to the
problem. People went to the movies for enjoyment, why would they go to
endure them? There's no cultural collective experience anymore in the
sense of going to see Lord of the Rings or Matrix with your friends for
the first time.
Also this is happening throughout all media. Music and video games have
the same kind of discussions.
pclmulqdq wrote 3 hours 14 min ago:
Hollywood seems to have never realized that the point of works like
LotR and Star Wars was to take the ridiculous extremely seriously.
The bad CGI didn't matter because every actor took it seriously. A
marvel-ized star wars with great CGI is still a bad movie because
nobody on screen takes it seriously despite how realistic the
graphics are.
pkorzeniewski wrote 6 hours 18 min ago:
I haven't been in cinema in the past ~10 years and to be honest I
wouldn't care if no more movies were ever made, simply because there
are hundreds, if not thousands, amazing movies made since the beginning
of the cinema that I didn't watch. Most of the new movies are crap
anyways, so why waste time and money when I can watch a classic movie
instead which has a much higher probability of me enyjoing it.
expedition32 wrote 5 hours 53 min ago:
I went to see Avatar. I only go to the movies once a year its a kinda
tradition on New Year's Day.
It cost me 50 eurodollars for two tickets. And people complain
Netflix is expensive!
jrjeksjd8d wrote 5 hours 55 min ago:
Theatres don't just show new movies. There's something very special
about being locked in a dark room with a big screen to watch Alien or
Barry Lyndon. Older movies especially look great in a theatre and
some of the magic is lost on a smaller screen.
90% of any content is crap but you're missing out if you like movies
and you haven't seen Sinners, The Bone Temple, or NOPE (to name a few
recent great theatre watches).
echelon wrote 5 hours 58 min ago:
Young people are going to prefer content that caters to their
cultural zeitgeist and worldview. This is why new media is
continually made and we don't all just listen to Mozart.
Everything changes and evolves. Fashion, music, games, young adult
fiction, memes.
You wouldn't limit yourself to your grandparents' taste, would you?
(I didn't say parents because some kids are instilled with parental
preferences. I grew up around kids in the 00's who said the Beatles
were the peak of music - obviously learned preferences straight from
their parents.)
You might not understand youth culture because you grew up before
them and have different tastes. We're imprinted with preference and
nostalgia for our youth, and we can see changes to that as a hideous
affront. The next generation is meanwhile going through the same
cycle we did.
shrubby wrote 6 hours 1 min ago:
Enshittification seems to be the modus operandi in every business.
The music and the movies from current era feel like they're made for
idiots.
vachina wrote 6 hours 1 min ago:
There is very little incentive to make good movies now, especially
when zoomers' attention spans are maximum 2 minutes. I still enjoy a
classic movie or two but I'm running out of movies to watch even
then.
Larrikin wrote 6 hours 4 min ago:
This is a boring opinion. It's the equivalent of what happens to many
older adults when it comes to music. All of the best songs came out
in their teens to about 30 so what's the point of listening to
anything new? It assumes there is no innovation and the person just
traps themselves in the past.
You could say there hasn't been any good new music since 1970 and
humans have been making music for thousands of year. Or you could try
out the many new genres and eventually find something new and
exciting.
it just seems like a very boring way to live out your life.
pkorzeniewski wrote 5 hours 12 min ago:
I didn't say there're no new great movies coming out, I simply
stated that there are enough of great old movies than I PERSONALLY
don't need new movies.
> it just seems like a very boring way to live out your life.
Quite the contrary, I constantly discover interesting old movies
from a wide variety of genres and different parts of the world.
xp84 wrote 5 hours 39 min ago:
To test whether youâre right, please list 10 movies made in the
last 10 years that will stand the test of time as truly great
movies. If fewer than one per year is worth watching, itâs a hard
sell to say that we should spend our time sorting through the chaff
trying to find it.
Itâs entirely possible that weâre in a period where most of
those with creativity have just stopped making movies.
Interestingly, I find TV has everything movies are lacking,
creativity, originality, even big name actors that used to make
movies.
Larrikin wrote 4 hours 20 min ago:
List ten movies that will stand the test of time in the time
frame of the decade after you turned 25. This will make it less
biased to stuff you think is good just because you had never seen
anything similar.
Any list will be subjective so instead of taking your initial
bait for you to subsequently tear down, people (but probably AI)
can construct a list to your personal taste.
Teknomadix wrote 5 hours 50 min ago:
That's funny. I was having this similar discussion with my 16 year
old niece, and I was asking her what she's been listening to as a
50 year old trying to broaden my musical horizons. She pulled out
her Spotify and shared some of her playlists with me, and I was
astonished to see that most of the music that she had been enjoying
was produced in the late 1960s to the mid-1980s. We had a good
laugh about it, and bonded over some of the classic music that I
love that I was suprised to find that she loves. There were some
modern things interspersed, and I did learn about some new artists
and experimental genres. Seems like a clear example of the Law of
diminishing marginal returns in the cinema and music industries in
Southern California â leading to those industries collapsing. AI
and generative crap being a big evidence point for the argument.
SamuelAdams wrote 6 hours 13 min ago:
The same argument could be made for the book industry, where there
are centuries of content available. And yet, people still read new
books.
PaulDavisThe1st wrote 5 hours 31 min ago:
I think book sales are significantly down compared to most periods
in the last 50-100 years? Still a culturally significant thing, but
economically not what they used to be ...
edgyquant wrote 5 hours 43 min ago:
It often is made, an the vast majority of new books are slop
bombcar wrote 6 hours 1 min ago:
IIRC the book merger lawsuits, they donât really read many new
books. Many are published few are bought.
rdtsc wrote 6 hours 20 min ago:
There just arenât as many good new movies. Most movies we watch at
home are from decades ago. If we didnât have streaming maybe weâd
go to the movies more often, but itâs hard to say.
A few movies we watched are not worth the money. To stay afloat they
have to raise ticket prices, but if weâre paying so much, the movie
better be absolutely outstanding, and the are just not usually, so we
stopped going.
vl wrote 1 hour 52 min ago:
> There just arenât as many good new movies.
Is this true, or you just canât discover them anymore because
everything else competes for your attention? Arguably in the last
decade more great content in both movies and TV shows produced than
ever, itâs just so much, that itâs hard to choose.
olivierestsage wrote 1 hour 37 min ago:
Whenever someone says online that something's declining (Hollywood
movies, video games, UX experiences in desktop environments, etc.),
I see a variation on this argument: "actually the options are even
better today, they're just buried" (often accompanied by: "you were
just younger then and everything was new and that's why you liked
it").
Sometimes, cultural decline actually does happen, usually
eventually followed by some kind of renaissance. Anyone who has
studied the cinema, literature, etc. of a certain country in the
past knows that there are "hot" periods and "cool" ones. When we
see this phenomenon in the past, it doesn't tend to trigger the
same defensive reaction, I guess because it doesn't feel as
personal.
jrowen wrote 1 hour 41 min ago:
I recently watched A League of Their Own and Die Hard. In my
opinion, these movies are just categorically different from what's
being made today, are still totally compelling start to finish, and
really capture the magic and the high art of the golden age of
cinema. I truly believe movies were just better 30-40 years ago.
That was the era of "every second counts." Every second has meaning
and purpose and adds something to the narrative. The Fifth Element
is another good example, and almost 30 years old. Now in the age of
binging, where a 2 hour plot is stretched into 17 hours of TV,
there is SO much filler and downtime and it's honestly just
offensive in comparison.
I kind of enjoyed Pluribus, I liked the concept and what they did
with it, but there's way too much forgettable filler that dilutes
it into a slog. The movies I mentioned are (again, IMO) absolutely
gripping and just lean and mean storytelling vehicles.
raw_anon_1111 wrote 5 hours 27 min ago:
We pay $6 tickets for first run movies on Tuesdays at the Studio
movie grill as a cheapish date night with movie + dinner + drinks and
reserve seating
Movie theatres hardly make any money from ticket sales with 80% of
the ticket price going to the studio during the first two weeks and
then declining. They make money off of concessions
embedding-shape wrote 6 hours 10 min ago:
> To stay afloat they have to raise ticket prices, but if weâre
paying so much
What are you paying when you go to the cinema? Just went to the
cinema today to see Hoppers, and was slightly surprised that the
tickets were only 8 EUR per person, then we spent maybe 5-10 EUR per
person on snacks too, so ended up paying maybe ~15 EUR per person
overall. This was outside a metropolitan city in South-Western
Europe, maybe that's why, or I've just lost track of what's
expensive/cheap.
rdtsc wrote 4 hours 33 min ago:
About $18 latest price if we go in the evening, and for a the whole
family it adds up. Given the HBO subscription is about $20/month
for the whole household, you can see the movie has to be really
good to be worth it, and most of them are not that good.
soared wrote 6 hours 3 min ago:
Just checked AMC - $18.50 in the app for a normal adult ticket.
($16 + $2.50 fee for using the app). An icee and popcorn would be
ballpark $18 as well.
xp84 wrote 5 hours 47 min ago:
About the same where I am. A matinee used to be cheap, now itâs
the price you said, and more like 20 for the full price show.
You donât have to pay the app âconvenience feeâ but they
added assigned seats to pressure you to do so. If you wait till
the day of and buy on the big kiosk in the lobby, what if all the
good seats are gone? (Hint: they wonât be, the theaters are
always mostly empty)
garbawarb wrote 3 hours 32 min ago:
Not even good seats, but if you're in a group you may not be
all able to sit together. Or if you get your tickets and
someone wants to join you later, there could be nothing left
near you. I'm not a fan of assigned seating for those reasons.
awongh wrote 6 hours 34 min ago:
The cultural relevance of movies, and American made movies isn't going
anywhere anytime soon, but I think the economics of streaming is
finally playing out in the loss of the geographical concentration of
power in Hollywood and California.
This is the endgame of the feedback loop of streamers causing industry
consolidation... the direct connection of dollars people spend to sit
in a theatre seat was slowly declining, but now I think it's gotten so
small that it no longer matters- and once the whole box-office feedback
loop disappears a lot of the economics of how films are produced are
being forced to change.
One of the reasons that people have loved to make fun of Hollywood for
literally it's entire existence (besides the fact that the meta talk is
self-indulgent artist stuff) is that making movies with so much money
and waste is fundamentally ridiculous.
The optimistic viewpoint is that maybe new AI production tools will
trigger a re-democratization of creative movies in the next wave, like
in the 70s and the 90s indies.
epolanski wrote 1 hour 45 min ago:
Small but important correction: the biggest issue for the movie
industry aren't streaming services or them filming in locations with
good tax incentives like UK or Australia but Youtube.
It's hard to compete with millions of videomakers, some of them
extremely skilled and able to produce interesting content on a
budget.
closewith wrote 3 hours 0 min ago:
The cultural relevance of all kinds of American media has been
declining as the U.S. is not cool or aspirational anymore.
awongh wrote 1 hour 4 min ago:
It's easy to say that because the whole idea of "movies" has been
fundamentally linked to the USA for the last 60-70 years. So if
nowadays there are a few other countries who also have "movies",
you could say it's true, but it speaks more to the level of
cultural dominance and soft power USA movies have held up to this
point than anything.
HerbManic wrote 1 hour 50 min ago:
For some nations there is still a sort of paternal fixation with US
influence but it does seem to be fading with time. Couldnt point to
any one factor than maybe just an overall sort of boredom of it.
jrowen wrote 1 hour 50 min ago:
Can you comment further on this? As an American it's kind of hard
to see that. Is this just kind of a temporary reaction to the Trump
administration or a larger trend? What is taking its place? Are
there more localized media pockets (e.g. is there a significant
German-language Instagram influencer world)? Geographically which
areas are you talking about?
cnobody wrote 3 hours 14 min ago:
American movies suck.
jrowen wrote 3 hours 29 min ago:
I think the issue is that content creation and distribution has
already been fully democratized. How many hours do people spend
watching videos shot by individuals on their phones in their
apartments?
Combined with streaming, there's just an overabundance of "good
enough" content at everyone's fingertips. The moat that protected
big-budget feature films is gone. You don't see a trailer for a movie
and salivate and wait for it to come out, it just blends in to the
stream of 5000 other things you can watch right now.
awongh wrote 3 hours 20 min ago:
Like I said elsewhere, I think people still want to watch 1+ hour
fiction stories that are compelling. This is a broad category that
I think people still want that's differentiated from 30sec vertical
video, and that should exist in the cultural conversation.
It doesn't feel fully democratized because if it was, you'd see
more indie things in this same format competing with "big budget"
movies on the same playing field.
epolanski wrote 1 hour 44 min ago:
> I think people still want to watch 1+ hour fiction stories that
are compelling
Might be an anecdote, but I've noticed several friends and family
unable to focus on a movie and lately even on a tv show without
pulling their phones every few minutes.
jrowen wrote 3 hours 2 min ago:
> I think people still want to watch 1+ hour fiction stories that
are compelling.
I mean, "want to" is one thing, but the numbers show what they
end up doing. Instagram and TikTok, like video games as someone
else mentioned, have taken a significant share of the
"entertainment hours" budget. I feel like the impact of the
low-to-no-budget content creator is undeniable (this traces back
to ebaumsworld and early YouTube, it was just internet dorks
then, now it's been industrialized. Gen Z probably wholeheartedly
prefers this type of content).
My point was that content creation has been democratized --
unfunded individuals can now compete -- not that making
traditional Hollywood-style movies has been. It's gone so far
they've been phased out, the entire premise is largely untenable
at this point. That specific sector was actually somewhat more
democratized in the late stages of the heyday, when a Hollywood
movie called Dude, Where's My Car was made, and indie films did
flourish because the industry was healthy enough to support them.
epolanski wrote 1 hour 42 min ago:
> Gen Z probably wholeheartedly prefers this type of content
I think it's virtually all demographics below 70.
My 60/70 years old family are all too distracted by the phones
to watch a movie, and so are millenial friends.
jrowen wrote 25 min ago:
True but I think a lot of them would be in the "I totally
want to watch feature films" camp. By wholeheartedly I meant
that the kids don't even have that pretense.
the_af wrote 6 hours 13 min ago:
> The optimistic viewpoint is that maybe new AI production tools will
trigger a re-democratization of creative movies
I don't think so.
Part of the downfall of movies -- blockbusters movies anyway, the
kind where being a box office hit matters -- is that they have seemed
produced like AI slop even before AI. Making it easier to produce
more slop isn't going to fix this.
Then there's one thing making noise in my brain. It's not polite to
say it, but here it is anyway: should movies be democratized? And art
in general? Maybe people without the means of making art that reaches
millions shouldn't be enabled by AI. Maybe it's ok that not everyone
can produce this kind of art. Maybe the world is saved from a crapton
of, well, garbage. More than what's currently being produced, anyway.
As for non-blockbuster art, it's already democratic. Everyone can
grab a phone camera or a paintbrush and create art for their friends
and family. And that's ok.
ThrowawayR2 wrote 1 hour 23 min ago:
Democratization is a specious argument. The artistry in an AI
assisted work is the part that the human contributes as opposed to
the the part that the AI contributes. If the human contribution is
negligible, the artistry is negligible and there is no meaningful
democratization because there was only token artistic intent in the
first place.
And what's actually happening with AI? Someone mentioned in
another submission that 7500 new books _per day_ are being released
on Amazon Kindle. The wave of low quality AI submissions to HN was
so severe that the HN mods had to restrict them. Whatever
democratization is actually happening is drowned out by those
taking advantage of the low cost of AI slop for profit.
SoftTalker wrote 1 hour 55 min ago:
For me the "blockbuster" movies use so much CGI that it's
impossible to suspend disbelief. They've gone too far and ruined
the experience. AI will only make it worse.
awongh wrote 5 hours 56 min ago:
In the end people have limited number of hours to watch content,
and only a few things bubble up to the popular attention.
What I meant is that I don't see truly indie-produced feature films
reach the zeitgeist anymore.
I don't mean AI slop, but the next gen of creative tools that will
allow people to make cool and creative and compelling stuff without
the backing of 100's of millions of dollars.
It seems like movies are just another cyclical creative industry
and this has already happened multiple times before- with each new
technology and distribution platform there's the potential to get a
wave of creative output that wasn't possible before.
Another aspect could be that the hollowing out of the top /
polarization of the industry is another catalyst.
It could be enough that people who don't work on 100's of million
dollar budget films get funding to do the next 1 million dollar
film that looks great and is amazing.
That's more analogous to the SaaS startup boom that happened in the
previous gen of tech startups. Initial costs went down and platform
access went up.
raw_anon_1111 wrote 3 hours 36 min ago:
They donât have to reach the zeitgeist. Tyler Perry has made
a good living producing crappy movies and plays that appeal to
certain demographic. Itâs a lot easier to get 5x ROI on a $5
million movie than a $200 million movie.
Before the pearl clutching starts - yes Iâm Black.
the_af wrote 5 hours 40 min ago:
> What I meant is that I don't see truly indie-produced feature
films reach the zeitgeist anymore.
Maybe they shouldn't. Maybe word of mouth from among those in
your circle of friends that have good taste is enough. I'm not
sure that blockbuster cinema reaching millions is tenable, or a
good thing.
As for "watching content"... yuck, I hate the word "content".
gzread wrote 2 hours 41 min ago:
Saw this link posted elsewhere on HN: [1] Summary: it's okay to
talk about "content" if you're a "content plumber" like some
kind of backend video engineer or sysadmin, someone whose job
is to help the bits get to the viewers and doesn't need to care
what the bits represent. It's not okay if you're a director,
actor or viewer, someone who's actually interacting with the
the specific piece of content.
URI [1]: https://fgiesen.wordpress.com/2025/07/06/content-creat...
awongh wrote 3 hours 5 min ago:
> Maybe they shouldn't
looking at the last 4 years of world events, I think some
people already have some nostalgia for a shared cultural
experience, instead of everyone being in their own
algorithmically and socio-culturally / demographically
segregated bubbles. Or maybe it's just looking back with rose
colored glasses shrug
vl wrote 1 hour 59 min ago:
Arguably this existed for the limited time in history with
invention of over-the-air TV and ended with advent of cable.
Event before internet streaming nobody watched same stuff
anymore.
the_af wrote 2 hours 37 min ago:
To be honest, I'm ambivalent about it. I do value a shared
experience (contradicting somewhat what I wrote earlier). I
don't have everything figured out...
jl6 wrote 6 hours 3 min ago:
Anton Ego in Ratatouille gives this take on what democratization
should mean:
Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come
from anywhere.
the_af wrote 5 hours 42 min ago:
That's a pretty good take, I think.
What I object to is this notion that everyone should make art,
and that AI empowers them. As in (and yes, I've read this, I'm
not making this up) "people without writing skills can now write
novels". That seems wrong to me. People without writing skills
(or drawing, or movie making) should not be making those things.
mentalgear wrote 5 hours 31 min ago:
I would distinguish: they could make them for their own
entertainment, but should not market them. But come to think
about it, how much non-AI slop is out there that has become
popular from entities with no or mediocre talent in it: generic
Hollywood blockbusters, supplements, yellow papers, influencers
... all slop that became popular not due to its quality but
secondary resources in form of marketing, placement and
persistence of the propellants.
the_af wrote 3 hours 55 min ago:
Yes, I thought of this too: the industry was full of slop way
before AI. We spoke of "Netflix's algorithm", but even before
Netflix blockbuster movies were done with a cookie cutter.
Transformers (to pick one example) existed way before this
brand of AI. Movies like it are perfect candidates to be
prompted and built by an AI, since they were almost there
anyway.
I can't help but think this "AI empowerment" will make it
even easier for studios to produce more garbage at an
unprecedented pace. And they won't have to even let actors
age gracefully and die; now we can have Tom Cruise (or
whomever, pick your poison) forever.
fullshark wrote 6 hours 27 min ago:
Cultural relevance of movies is already greatly diminished. Maybe
these AI tools will trigger a reversion of movies to the days of the
nickelodeons where plot, story, and character are irrelevant and
people just shell out money (attention) as long as the moving image
looks cool.
awongh wrote 6 hours 17 min ago:
Can't it be both? In Marvel movies the plot, story, and characters
are irrelevant and it's still the current greatest American
cultural export.
marcosdumay wrote 4 hours 38 min ago:
You may want to watch again the movies that created the
franchise.
All the successful Marvel movies are completely based on the
characters.
bluefirebrand wrote 3 hours 32 min ago:
A lot of the best Marvel movies are really other genres wearing
a marvel skin
Look at Captain America: The First Avenger. It's a pulpy world
war 2 film, really. If you took Captain America out it would
still be a fun film. Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a
spy thriller
Ant Man is a heist movie, like Oceans 11. Guardians is a sci fi
comedy.
After a while they started to all just become "Marvel Movies"
and that's the point they stopped being nearly as fun imo
underlipton wrote 17 min ago:
A lot of them are only "Marvel Movies" in their final act,
which still leaves a lot of room for fun genre-surfing and
-bending, before they have to get back to the business of,
"This is part of a franchise." But even on that note, I don't
think they get enough credit. Phases 1-3, Marvel et al.
managed to wrangle a dozen films of varying genres, working
through the stories of just as many main characters, into a
single series with a coherent, overarching narrative. It was
the biggest spectacle ever created in the Spectacle Industry,
yet with a handful of examples of genuine cinematic sublimity
(if not entire films, at least a few scenes), to boot.
And people would rather hate than just ride the wave.
awongh wrote 3 hours 25 min ago:
Right, most of the context of who the original characters
were and represented in the comic books are washed away in
the movie versions- it's just a marketing thing that draws
people in.
Batman and the different actors and directors over the
different versions of the franchise is another example.
fullshark wrote 6 hours 5 min ago:
There will be some creative people that can now tell stories they
couldn't before with AI, but I think by and large the major use
case is to create short form video clips to get attention on the
internet (advertising). I don't foresee a "movie" (meaning
narrative story told via visuals and sounds in 1-3 hours)
renaissance happening, in part because I think the form is fully
mature and there's not really much more that can be done with it.
It's essentially gonna be where Jazz music is today in 40 years,
it will have its fans, and there will be talented practitioners,
but every year it will be more and more culturally irrelevant.
awongh wrote 5 hours 51 min ago:
It could be "film" as a medium is dead- but most likely 1+ hour
video fictional story telling as a medium is just a very broad
category and will probably continue to exist as a format that
people enjoy.
It could be that in 20 years the Oscars are like the Jazz
awards (the Grammys? - I listen to Jazz but I can't name a
single Jazz Grammy winner)
underlipton wrote 10 min ago:
Samara Joy, famously, for the past few years. [1]
URI [1]: https://www.facebook.com/CBSMornings/videos/start-yo...
URI [2]: https://www.cbsnews.com/video/saturday-sessions-sama...
whycome wrote 3 hours 7 min ago:
You mean the Gramophone awards where they hand you a little
mini gramophone statue.
philwelch wrote 6 hours 8 min ago:
They might have been in the last decade, but now itâs just yet
another franchise audiences have stopped caring about.
sbarre wrote 6 hours 28 min ago:
As much as I support unions and labour rights, the last SAG-AFTRA
strike mostly just helped the big studios realize they could do more
with less.
Hollywood is a factory town at the end of the day, and we all know
what happened to most factory towns in America. This one is just
getting there a few decades after the others.
ThrowawayR2 wrote 3 hours 9 min ago:
Ironic that pro-unionization people on HN frequently use SAG as an
example of what a software industry union could look like.
Ignoring that that's absurd (no other engineering union I know of
works like that), just as the parent highlights, unions won't make
a difference when the economics of an industry no longer make sense
and that is what is happening to software right now.
awongh wrote 1 hour 25 min ago:
One of the main differences I've heard referenced is that acting
and being a movie star means that the work is fundamentally
differentiable via the end-product, where producing software is
meant to have the same outcome no matter who creates it.
That is just not the case with acting, where the end product
being differentiable is part of the inherent value of the
product.
Also, it's probably true that SAG's loss of industry power has
very much to do with the loss of the power of movie stars in
general.
shimman wrote 2 hours 50 min ago:
Don't really see anyone doing this, more like the pro-union
arguments I see on HN are mostly about getting paid for on-call,
wanting a worker elected member to the board, and having
leadership actually held accountable for their decisions.
Getting paid for being on-call seems straight forward to me.
awongh wrote 6 hours 5 min ago:
This is definitely another case where a union could either
understand where the bigger economic forces are headed (in this
case globalization, IP licensing, residuals that no longer make
sense, attention economy fracturing the marketplace etc) and adapt
to how people will consume content in the future, or double down on
an economic model that is one generation behind.
In theory the union is the only org capable of standing up to the
streamers' buying power, but it has to make sense within a business
model where consumers pay one monthly fee for content. I'm not even
sure what that really looks like in the end.
Maybe it's also that the FTC allowed all this monopolization to
happen, and turns out that having three media companies in the US
is bad.
raw_anon_1111 wrote 5 hours 36 min ago:
How will unions help stand up to streamers? Many of the
âNetflix originalsâ are already just co financed or licensed
foreign films and many others are filmed in Canada.
People always think unions are magic when I saw in my small town
where I grew up in South GA was that when union demands got to
onerous - factories just picked up and left.
Just like software engineers scream unionization when tech
companies can just expand departments overseas and as a bonus,
they donât have to worry about H1B shifting policies
mpalmer wrote 6 hours 34 min ago:
Another victim of the efficiency of the market.
Market forces know no culture except what consumers pay for. Absent
real care, stewardship and focused investment, the product will always
get cheaper.
And of course consumers' tastes are under attack from another
direction: their attention spans.
Some load-bearing pillars of human culture are weakening.
morkalork wrote 6 hours 36 min ago:
Is this article a weird cut-paste of older content? This passage makes
no sense in the rest of the context, the tense is all wrong.
>Starting in 2029, the Oscars will also be streamed globally on
YouTube, which the academy hopes will attract new audiences and
reinvigorate the ceremonyâs popularity after years of declining
viewership.
Edit: I read 2019 not.. 2029. That's actually incredible. Are they
going to get in on tiktok for 2039 next?
embedding-shape wrote 6 hours 7 min ago:
What exactly doesn't make sense? The Oscars are moving to streaming
the event globally on YouTube (bunch of TV channels has said they'll
stop broadcasting it in 2029), and the viewership of the Oscars has
been declining for years. I'm not sure I see what's wrong in there.
stavros wrote 6 hours 7 min ago:
Hm, what's wrong with it?
woeirua wrote 6 hours 36 min ago:
$100 to go to the movies for a family of four. No thanks. Thereâs no
mystery why the movies are dying. Theyâve priced themselves out and
then they give away the product on streaming several months later
anyways.
If they want theaters to come back then theyâll have to put movies
behind a paywall again.
dominotw wrote 3 hours 38 min ago:
thats so much cheaper for a family of 4 for 3 hrs compared to other
options.
what are the other cheaper options? going to free parks and museums?
i am sure going to free museum will be a big hit with the kids :]
lucaspm98 wrote 2 hours 40 min ago:
People are living in entirely different cost of living realities
outside of NYC and the Bay Area.
Within 5 miles of me with 2 adults and 2 kids and $100, you could
go to a trampoline park, ropes course, bowling, hours at an arcade,
water park, race go-karts, several months of pool membership, or 5+
museums. Possibly 2 of those activities.
For free thereâs dozens of playgrounds, courts and fields for any
sport, community and religious-sponsored events, and after you can
get a nice sit down meal with money leftover from your $100 budget.
$100 would be above many families entire entertainment budget for a
week.
derwiki wrote 3 hours 31 min ago:
Even not free parks. Our Zoo and Cal Academy memberships amortize
down to $50/trip for 4.
dominotw wrote 2 hours 45 min ago:
yes we have those too but you can go there only so many times.
dgrin91 wrote 5 hours 50 min ago:
And its $100 minimum... at least in NYC. Right now its 20-25 a head
and that doesn't include transportation or food.
FreeKill wrote 5 hours 52 min ago:
Yeah, I think the prices also have resulted in a massive change in
how consumers decide to go to movies as well. With the price so high
for a family of four, people rely much more heavily on positive word
of mouth/reviews before making a decision.
So people are much more risk adverse. I've never understood why they
don't do tiered pricing based on the type of movie it is. If it's not
a mega blockbuster type film, reduce the price a bit to make it
easier for people to take a risk and try out a movie without it being
a 90%+ rating on rotten tomatoes. I'd personally probably go a lot
more if a movie like say Marty Supreme was $10 instead of $20.
lanfeust6 wrote 6 hours 21 min ago:
The missing middle from 20 years back is rentals. That was $5-10 a
pop, people rented almost weekly. The option is there digitally now
but its not in the public conscience for the same reason as cinema,
people can just wait for the streaming option as the turnover is so
short. (And granted, more people went to the cinema back then)
Meanwhile consumers are whining about the increases in streaming cost
and diffusion, and low quality content. It had to happen, the math
wasn't working out. In the social media bubbles users argue they will
"just pirate again", over and over as though those who would care to
don't already do so. Its toothless. Average people are not going to
pay for a VPN and navigate things they don't understand just to
pirate. They will eat the cost, whether it be streaming or renting
johnnyApplePRNG wrote 6 hours 31 min ago:
So do you want to pay more, or less? I am confused.
delecti wrote 1 hour 55 min ago:
I think it's more about being unwilling to pay so much when a free
version is just a few months away. Streaming is too good and too
cheap compared to the theatrical release.
righthand wrote 24 min ago:
âFreeâ but you pay a monthly subscription. No one seems to
know what free means anymore.
lotsofpulp wrote 6 hours 33 min ago:
I doubt increasing the price of their goods will work when the supply
of alternative ways to spend time at almost zero cost is near
infinite.
xp84 wrote 5 hours 45 min ago:
Youâre probably right. Big franchises would survive, a bunch of
people would pay modestly for each new Marvel movie if it were
never coming to streaming. But the films that do still exist that
have no marketing, would probably do even worse without having any
streaming release.
thefounder wrote 6 hours 39 min ago:
The main issue was the content the movie industry produced which looked
like a lot like some AI slop. I think the DEI lecturing was another
nail in the coffin. Unless that changes and they magically add
something new to the cinema experience I think they will keep diving
into irrelevance because now everybody can produce AI slop.
raw_anon_1111 wrote 5 hours 22 min ago:
Yes they should never had a Black lady playing an orange alien from
Tamarin on the Titan TV series. It just wasnât realistic.
We should just have all White males leading movies
the__alchemist wrote 4 hours 22 min ago:
Could you please explain this? I'm having a hard time following.
Ty.
raw_anon_1111 wrote 4 hours 9 min ago:
[1]
URI [1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-44966851
URI [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfire_(Teen_Titans)
chuckadams wrote 6 hours 52 min ago:
I put more stock in the the Sundance and Cannes jury prizes: even if
they're comprised of the elites who can afford to go to these
festivals, they've still got far more artistic sense than the ossified
corporate board that the Academy has always been.
rurban wrote 6 hours 18 min ago:
Cannes is free to attend for film professionals. Always was. You only
have to find a hotel.
At Sundance you could stay in Salt Lake City or Heber City and have
fun. Free busses.
Oscars are not about the arts, nor about quality. Never was.
PaulHoule wrote 7 hours 37 min ago:
The Oscars are the heart of the problem. One definition of
âcelebrityâ is âperson who is celebratedâ
Hollywood is so used to getting high on its own supply that it really
thinks we want to see an AI slop video of Brad Pitt fighting Tom
Cruise. People there just donât have any information at all about
what anybody outside their bubble thinks so of course they make samey
big budget pictures and samey small budget pictures. Unless they shut
down their communications channels and disperse geographically they are
going to keep doing the same thing over and over again and be wondering
why they keep getting the same results.
And that gets us to why they will never reform, they know their numbers
are terrible but think this is (1) cyclical and (2) due to
technological changes so theyâll never get it that running ads that
make it sound like somebody else cares about Tom Cruise doesnât
really make people care about Tom Cruise, it just makes them ignore
advertising messages.
add-sub-mul-div wrote 6 hours 29 min ago:
"Hollywood" thinks we want AI slop in the way that hackers think we
want video with unskippable ads.
fullshark wrote 6 hours 40 min ago:
I think it's the opposite problem, they have too much information and
data, which means they aren't making lots of gambles on new/different
scripts anymore but making very safe bets because everyone is
terrified of losing their cool high paying jobs.
hackyhacky wrote 6 hours 41 min ago:
> AI slop video of Brad Pitt fighting Tom Cruise
The video you are referring to was not produced by Hollywood, it was
created by Irish director Ruairi Robinson, basically as a test of the
new Seedance AI.
I'm not saying that Hollywood isn't out of touch, I'm just saying
that nothing about Hollywood can be inferred from that video.
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