Over a shockingly short period of time, Hollywood intentionally abandoned a one-hundred-year-old system for making, releasing and profiting from the theatrical distribution of motion pictures that had served the industry and its audiences very well.
What makes you think they're paying any attention at all to actual customer feedback? And it's not just movies, it's everything that is even remotely storytelling. Novels, music (maybe not quite as bad a most media), TV shows, podcasts, ads, whatever.
For me the problem is that almost all "decision-makers" don't really understand data. I spent about 35 years 'teaching' statistics to college students. From the most simple basics to some very advanced techniques. What I have found is that maybe, maybe, 5-10% actually understand what the data actually is, let alone why various methodologies 'work.'
Look. Data is not exactly Real. Data is a reflection, frequently warped and or out of focus of some underlying Reality. And as such is inherently a bit difficult to understand or interpret.
Previously, box office receipts presumably reflected things like how much an audience enjoyed a movies and those saw it more than once and/or encouraged friends and family to pay to see it. It probably still does that to a degree today. But it doesn't get those like me, who for one reason or another can't or don't go to theaters and thus wait to see it on TV or online or something.
I haven't dug deeply (maybe they should hire me to), but I'm not sure what any of the streaming data is reflecting from Reality. In fact, the things you mention are a deliberate attempt to distort the reflection for some personal gain. cooking the data is never a good idea.
I see, from time to time, numbers like "minutes watched". That is a terrible variable. What, precisely, is the definition? How, really, is it measured, and why? You've pointed out that just because it's streaming doesn't mean anyne is watching or cares.
And finally, for me, the storytelling. Or maybe the no-storytelling. Evidently somehwere "writers" are being churned out with no idea of the basics of storytelling that go back before recorded history. We rarely anymore get actual stories. We gets 'hints' and 'vibes' and vignettes unconnected to much of anything. And of course we get a huge helping of MESSAGE!!!!
I'd rather spend my time and money reading substacks or tweets on X than on almost all of the no-storytelling pushed at me today, and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone.
All great points... I've written a lot about the messaging and the bad storytelling and will continue to do so. What I wanted to do here in this little three-part miniseries was talk about some of the business decisions I see being made that are hurting the quality of the movies that are being produced... even though those decisions often have little, or nothing, to do with the creative development of those movies. Stay tuned, I think I have a lot of interesting points to make.
What makes you think they're paying any attention at all to actual customer feedback? And it's not just movies, it's everything that is even remotely storytelling. Novels, music (maybe not quite as bad a most media), TV shows, podcasts, ads, whatever.
For me the problem is that almost all "decision-makers" don't really understand data. I spent about 35 years 'teaching' statistics to college students. From the most simple basics to some very advanced techniques. What I have found is that maybe, maybe, 5-10% actually understand what the data actually is, let alone why various methodologies 'work.'
Look. Data is not exactly Real. Data is a reflection, frequently warped and or out of focus of some underlying Reality. And as such is inherently a bit difficult to understand or interpret.
Previously, box office receipts presumably reflected things like how much an audience enjoyed a movies and those saw it more than once and/or encouraged friends and family to pay to see it. It probably still does that to a degree today. But it doesn't get those like me, who for one reason or another can't or don't go to theaters and thus wait to see it on TV or online or something.
I haven't dug deeply (maybe they should hire me to), but I'm not sure what any of the streaming data is reflecting from Reality. In fact, the things you mention are a deliberate attempt to distort the reflection for some personal gain. cooking the data is never a good idea.
I see, from time to time, numbers like "minutes watched". That is a terrible variable. What, precisely, is the definition? How, really, is it measured, and why? You've pointed out that just because it's streaming doesn't mean anyne is watching or cares.
And finally, for me, the storytelling. Or maybe the no-storytelling. Evidently somehwere "writers" are being churned out with no idea of the basics of storytelling that go back before recorded history. We rarely anymore get actual stories. We gets 'hints' and 'vibes' and vignettes unconnected to much of anything. And of course we get a huge helping of MESSAGE!!!!
I'd rather spend my time and money reading substacks or tweets on X than on almost all of the no-storytelling pushed at me today, and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone.
All great points... I've written a lot about the messaging and the bad storytelling and will continue to do so. What I wanted to do here in this little three-part miniseries was talk about some of the business decisions I see being made that are hurting the quality of the movies that are being produced... even though those decisions often have little, or nothing, to do with the creative development of those movies. Stay tuned, I think I have a lot of interesting points to make.
Lasers...
Yas!!!