The studios once owned the theaters. That's why you see old "Warner" and "Paramount" theaters in some big cities. That monopoly was broken by an antitrust lawsuit by the Syufy chain, which, among other things, built the domed theaters seen around Silicon Valley.<p>With antitrust enforcement so weak today, Disney could probably buy theaters. They probably wouldn't. The margins are not very good.<p>The Marvel Overextended Universe looks tired. Star [Wars|Gate|Trek] has been done to death. Coming up from Disney: another Winnie the Pooh movie, another Wreck-It Ralph movie, another Mary Poppins movie, another Aladdin movie, another Toy Story Movie, another Avengers movie, another Lion King movie, another Frozen movie... Disney used to have an official Crap Sequels Division called Disneytoons, which cranked out Cinderella 2, Lion King 2, Mulan 2, and other direct to the DVD bargain bin products. Disneytoons was supposedly shut down after the Pixar acquisition, but the Disneytoons sequel mania seems to have taken over the company.<p>They're in a rut in beautiful downtown Burbank.
As someone who doesn't like the Marvel movies and is losing interest in Star Wars it feels like the are fewer movies for me to enjoy in the cinema than there was even just a year ago. There were times my wife and I went to the cinema twice on one weekend because there was so much stuff we wanted to see. This year we've watched Isle of Dogs. Before that was Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri which was in December. Last summer we had Dunkirk, Babydriver and shortly after the new Blade Runner. This year everything seems dominated by Marvel and SatWars. Even upcoming movies on IMDb look bleak to me.
I don't mean to be glib, but is there a positive side? I mean, I know it is positive to the share holders, but what benefit does Mega-Disney have for the regular person? Regular-Disney got us the 95 year copyright, so the public doesn't need any more Disney power.
Disney pretty much killed the Star Wars franchise by making "best of" remixes and putting people in charge who seem to be tone deaf and/or actually despise the originals. Several fans I know have sworn off seeing another one after seeing The Last Jedi. It's gotten so bad that even Disney has noticed and they've paused production of future installments.<p>This is exactly the kind of movies you would expect to be created by a vast entertainment conglomerate that is too big to fail.<p>The industry is greatly in need of a shake up.
These days it seems movie making is about taking the least risk. Most if not all the big budget flicks are either fantasy/scifi or reboots of old franchises or superhero movies or a combination of them. There seems to be a lack of a tight script and good storytelling. The last movie which was not a marvel/dino/superhero genre and enticed me to watch in the theatre was "gone girl". I wish we see more of those movies again.
I just want to recommend people read the Alvin Toffler quadrilogy as he described decades ago the changes that would take place due to technology.<p>In The Third Wave he provides a historical context and background for the evolution of technology and it's impact on society; In Future Shock he talks about the growing pains as technology enables the individual to do things the group (government, education, business) could only do before; In Powershift he discusses the shift in power from those at the top to the individual; In Revolutionary Wealth he discusses the new producer-consumer business models.<p>If you look at social media and businesses such as YouTube, Kickstarter and Patreon they are the future, and traditional businesses can only survive by embracing and capitalizing on their value to these new models, or by clinging to the old models as they die off which means Disney buying up as much content as possible as distribution costs drop and channels approach infinity. They are trying to lock up as much popular content as they can for the built in audience and brand because they are a goliath that can't compete with an army of Davids.<p>This has all happened before, all you have to do is look at the history of print, live performances, radio, television, cable, even web portals. It's a predictable cycle of growth and consolidation with an existing system as it spawns new systems independent of but predicated upon the systems that came before it. Marshall McLuhan spoke a lot about such things as well as Neil Postman.
Movies have always been bad. Always. Look at how many movies are made in Hollywood each year. Hundreds and hundreds. Maybe 10 each year are worth the time to watch. Maybe 1 will end up having enduring value. The rest just disappear.<p>Tropes get recycled, new genres come and go, are rediscovered, and then fade. Formula has always been important in cranking out the volume of productions. The odds are stacked against any one movie being a success, either critically or financially. Who would have thought that Spielberg would follow up Jurassic Park with such a stinker?<p>The studio system was no ideal world; actors were stuck in their contracts and had horrible bargaining power. Censorship was the norm, writers were not given much leeway. Today's movie industry is far healthier, with more outlets, more customers, and more opportunities.<p>The problem today isn't on the distribution side, but on the production side. Creating a movie is just so expensive. Same problem facing the video game industry. Think you can create a movie for $4M? That's the inflation adjusted budget for American Graffiti. Or Star Wars at $47M. Not a chance. The FX alone would probably cost that. Rogue One was over $200M...
Whenever I see a movie synopsis that contains "zombies", "murder", "detective", "race against time", I just move on.
Maybe movie theatres will become extinct, and Disney will have to funnel their unoriginal, sterile, monotonous, CGI-based movies exclusively through their competitive streaming platform to Netflix, thus allowing people to choose to either watch an independent movie, or a blockbuster, or another type of movie, without forcing business owners to do anything.<p>Despite my love for movie theatres and the feel good sensation they used to provide me in the past, they have moved away from this and the experience has become less enjoyable than an actual home watch. The endless amount of brainwashing commercials prior to the actual movie when going to the theatre is only one of the problems. The lack of choice in movies is another.<p>One can hope that theatres will first become extinct because of streaming platforms coming up, then will get reborn as proper theatre with a renewed purpose of showing movies rather than brainwashing people with commercials, force-feeding them that Deutsche Bank is a great bank for their next mortgage, and having them waste their money on 10 EUR nachos/soda bundles, etc...
Utterly ignoring the content of disney/marvel movies for this post...what is the proper response to this problem?<p>Theatres that just elect to follow the requirements lose money if they are small markets. Theaters that refuse the requirements also lose money. Consumers dont get to make the choice, and suffer only variations of the consequences. (I may be annoyed that nothing else is showing, or I may be annoyed that I have to go to another theater to see what I want, but DISNEY isnt likely to be impacted by how my theaters decision impacts me.<p>What is the proper response here? And not just here...if Pepsi and Coke both incentivise exclusive contracts, they aren't the ones to suffer if my favorite restaurant goes with the one I prefer least. Etc.