Over the past decade, the entertainment industry has seen drastic changes. There has been the rise of streaming services, a focus on big-budget films based on recognisable intellectual property, and an increase in digital media sales at the cost of physical media. In 2023, the Hollywood business model suffered from the detrimental effects of short-term thinking and corporate greed.
The 2010s saw the rise of Disney to be a near monopoly at the cinema. They acquired brands like Marvel, Pixar, and LucasFilm and they were able to dominate at the box office. In 2019 seven of the top ten films at the box office were Disney films. All of them made over a billion dollars and Avengers: Endgame broke Avatar’s box-office record. All ten films were based on recognisable properties: even a bold film like Joker needed comic book dressing to grab the audience’s attention.
Disney doubled down on its projects based on existing intellectual property. They released three Marvel films a year by 2019 and added to the workload by announcing a number of MCU TV shows. There were also plenty of shows based on Star Wars. All of this was done to promote Disney+ and it did succeed since Disney+ has become one of the biggest streaming services in terms of subscriber numbers. However, Disney has run their brands into the ground: the Marvel and Star Wars films and Disney+ shows have suffered from more criticisms from both audiences and critics. Both franchises have experienced a decline, as evidenced by the box office returns for The Marvels.
The current narrative is audiences are suffering from superhero fatigue. Warner Brothers’ DCEU had a poor 2023 with all their films underperforming at the box office and three of the four being met with mixed-to-negative reviews. However, the MCU and DCEU have been suffering from particular issues. The MCU has lacked direction since Avengers: Endgame, and Disney has opted for a quantity-over-quality approach. The DCEU has been a mess for a long time and the DC properties are going to be rebooted with James Gunn’s Superman film, leading audiences to skip this crop of films. The Amazon Prime adaptations of Invincible and The Boys show there’s still interest in the superhero genre, but it can’t coast with generic filmmaking and storytelling.
Hollywood has become too dependent on tentpole films based on recognisable intellectual property. The thought process was audiences only wanted spectacles with characters they recognised. Hollywood spent big on these films and led producers to play it safe. 2023 showed the flaw with this strategy with numerous flops or underperformances at the box office. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, Haunted Mansion, and Transformers: Rise of the Beasts were notable flops. Many of these films were affected by the pandemic, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny had budgets rumoured to be over $290 million because of filming during this period. There were other issues, like the special effects crisis and the rise of streaming.
The visual effects crisis acts as a microcosm of Hollywood’s wider issues. Some major blockbusters have been criticised for having poor visual effects. Prime examples were Thor: Love and Thunder, She-Hulk, and The Flash. Producers have seen visual effects as a shortcut – films could be changed on a whim. There have been horror stories about visual effects artists being overworked and underpaid, to the point that many are now voting to unionise. Cats was the epitome of the visual effects crisis since Tom Hooper was inexperienced with visual effects, which led him to make major mistakes like demanding full renders instead of rough drafts. The film was released with major errors like Judi Dench’s wedding ring being visible, leading to a patched version being sent to cinemas, and at the 92nd Academy Awards there was the infamous skit where James Corden and Rebel Wilson threw the visual effects artists under the bus. Hollywood looked like they learned the worst lessons from Triple-A Video Game Developers.
The biggest films of 2023 were Barbie, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and Oppenheimer. They show audiences wanted something different. Barbie and Super Mario Bros. are new properties since Barbie has never had a cinematic movie and the last Super Mario Bros. was the disastrous live-action film released in 1993. Oppenheimer was an unlikely blockbuster since it was an Oscar-bait biopic that was a passion project for Christopher Nolan. Barbie and Oppenheimer were both successful because their director led projects that were made with passion, whilst The Super Mario Bros. Movie was made of love and respect for the source material. One of the biggest cinematic specials was Taylor Swift: The Era Tour which the studios passed on releasing, so AMC Theater distributed films, and ended up being a profitable endeavour for AMC Theater and Taylor Swift.
The best Marvel film of 2023 was Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and that was due to James Gunn helming the whole series. Gunn had a lot more freedom than other directors for Marvel Studios and he was more confident in his vision, leading Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 to be the best-looking Marvel in a long time. The Creator and Godzilla: Minus One showed that special effects films don’t require budgets north of $100 million. Visual effect works best when realising a director’s vision.
Studios need to have faith in filmmakers, and let them make the films they want to make. Audiences are tired of formulaic films that have blended into a blob of sameness. Studios need to diversify their output; they need to make films of all genres and budgets. It might be risky, but I am of the view that quality will rise to the top. Elemental and Wonka were slow burns at the box office, Godzilla: Minus One and The Boy and the Heron were much bigger than expected in the West whilst The Creator found its audience upon its home release. There will still be business interests, executives, and producers who will still have oversight on big tentpoles, but they can’t treat all their films as content.
Studios’ poor treatment of workers has extended to writers and actors. 2023 saw writers and actors having a simultaneous strike for the first time since 1960. Their concerns included payment of residuals since they were underpaid due to the move to streaming, and the use of artificial intelligence. These strikes lasted for four months and have had ratifications since they stopped the production of films and TV shows, whilst films like Dune: Part Two had their releases delayed. The Writers Guild of America was able to strike a deal that 99% of its members voted for since it led to a rise in their wages and benefits and limited the use of artificial intelligence. However, there are still issues with the SAG-AFTRA since there was more descent over the use of artificial intelligence since the deal had potential loopholes. There were vocal critics like Michael Modine, and 22% of SAG-AFTRA members voted against the deal. So, these issues will flare up again.
The early-to-mid-2010s saw the rise of streaming services. Netflix became a big player in the global film and TV landscape and along with Amazon Prime and Hulu, giving audiences access to a wide range of content for a reasonable price. However, Hollywood did what it always does, copy what’s successful. This led many studios and media companies to launch their own streaming services. Warner Bros. launched HBO Max which is now known as Max, Disney has Disney+, Paramount’s streaming service is Paramount+ and Universal/NBC’s service is Peacock. Many of these streaming services had a massive boost from the pandemic and lockdowns since people had free time and were unable to go out. Studios thought this was a permanent change and pivot towards a streaming model and away from theatrical releases. This led to a gold rush with streaming services commissioning more shows and films and writers and showrunners been offered big money to work for them, like Phoebe Waller-Bridge earning $60 million from Amazon Prime, and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle had a $100 million deal from Netflix. Yet corporate greed has ruined the two major USPs of streaming services for costumes: convenience and cost.
This streaming bubble has started to burst. The streaming business was based on perpetual growth, which was accelerated by the pandemic. However, this model was unsustainable and some companies have even seen subscriber drips like Disney+ losing four million subscribers after losing the cricket rights in India. Streaming services are now having to make some difficult choices and some of them have been unpopular. These moves include rising prices in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, which Netflix and Disney+ done in quick succession, cracking down on password sharing, and introducing advertisements where they sent an email to users in the UK. Netflix has cut costs by reducing its animation content, an area the services had been excelling at. Streaming services have had a detrimental effect on studios’ wider business. One of the causes of Disney’s theatrical decline is Disney+ since the short window between the release in cinemas and on Disney+ means audiences could just wait and skip the cinema. A film like Encanto only became popular because of its release on Disney+. Studios didn’t help themselves when during the Pandemic when they pressured cinemas to shorten the window between the theatrical and home releases. Audiences learned that they could wait for the streaming release and studios forgot they needed cinemas as much as cinemas need the studios.
Some companies have started to pull out from the streaming market. Sundance Now (owned by AMC) has pulled out of the UK, and Lionsgate is ending Lionsgate+ in the UK and Australia. Peacock was associated with Sky in nations like the UK, Ireland, Germany, and Italy, but has now shut down in those nations. There will probably be a rise in streaming bundles, like in the UK, ITV Premium, Britbox, and StudioCanal PRESENTS! where all three are bundled together for a package costing £5.99 a month.
Worst of all, streaming services have started to remove content and make them tax write-offs. Warner Brothers’ cancellation of Batgirl and Scoob! Holiday Haunt releases on Max were the first causality and there have been many major shows and films removed from Max and Disney+ like Final Space, Pistol, and Y: The Last Man. The film Crater was only on Disney+ for six weeks before it was removed from the service. Due to a public backlash Disney had to do a partial U-turn by selling Crater on digital outlets. Even Netflix has joined in on the tax write-off craze by shelving the Halle Berry-led sci-fi film The Mothership.
The most notorious attempt at writing off a film was Coyote vs. Acme. Warner Brothers attempted to cancel that film’s release so they could have a $30 million tax write-off, despite the film costing $70 million, based on the Looney Toons property, featured John Cena in the cast, and was produced by James Gunn. The backlash to this move was so huge that Warner Brothers are attempting to sell the film to another studio and Rep. Joaquin Castro has called on the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission to investigate studios for this cynical practice. I would experience a sense of schadenfreude if another company releases Coyote vs. Acme in cinemas and makes a lot of money just to embarrass Warner Brothers.
These content purges and tax-offs will hurt the studios. Brian Duffield, the director of the Hulu horror film No One Will Save You has stated he would not direct a project for Warner Brothers because of this practice. Many directors and writers will think twice about making a streaming service if it means their project could get withdrawn at a whim. The only people signing up to make a streaming film would be the desperate and the most mercenary. Any filmmaker or producer worth their salt would seek guarantees that their films and TV shows wouldn’t be pulled from a streaming service without a backup plan. I am of the view that if a film is removed or cancelled as a tax write-off then the studio/servicing service would rescind ownership, but this is me living in a dream world.
I have been an advocate for physical media since I believe in personal ownership and physical media’s role in film and TV preservation. There have been more voices singing the virtues of physical media. A-list directors Christopher Nolan and Guillermo del Toro have become vocal about the need for physical media, and the website Joblo has been publishing more articles and videos on the subject. Audiences and consumers have seen the pitfalls of streaming oversaturation: 2023 saw a 10% increase in home media sales in the UK, making the sector worth £4.9 billion. HMV has come back from the brink with the company opening more stores in the nation and the physical media market has seen the rise of bouquet labels, like Arrow, Eureka, Criterion, and Shout Factory.
Whilst these facts sound good, there are still some worrying developments. Tesco and Salisbury in the UK have stopped selling DVDs, Blu-ray, and CDs in their stores and Best Buy in the USA has recently ended selling physical media. In Australia and New Zealand, Disney has ended selling physical media after the release of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. This is a troubling development because it could be seen as Disney testing the waters before making a similar move in North America and Europe. It’s awful for film and TV fans in Australia and New Zealand, especially since people from those nations would admit their internet service can be poor. Yet, at the time Disney has released WandaVision, the first season of Loki, and the Hulu film Prey on DVD and Blu-ray, so they see some value in the physical media market.
Studios have pushed for digital home media. This is due to studios getting to keep more money from these sales. But some consumers have discovered the hard way that paying for digital media doesn’t mean ownership, and called me old fashioned, but I believe if you pay for something you own it. Recently Sony and Discovery have entered into a licensing dispute leading to content being removed from the PlayStation Store and people’s digital library. All these moves mean you, me, and everyone we know are being taken for a ride by these companies and it’s no surprise that piracy is on the rise.
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