This is something we discussed a great over the last year.
It is now a viewpoint not espoused by some bald person on the Internet. Jerry Seinfeld is one of the most recognized (and successful) people in the field of entertainment. His sitcom was one of the popular of all time.
Seinfled is embarking upon territory by making a film. He is also still doing his standup routine which is still highly successful.
The point is he is getting a close up view of what is taking place.
“It was totally new to me. I thought I had done some cool stuff, but it was nothing like the way these people work,” Seinfeld said. “They’re so dead serious! They don’t have any idea that the movie business is over. They have no idea.”
Asked to elaborate on a more serious note, Seinfeld continued: “Film doesn’t occupy the pinnacle in the social, cultural hierarchy that it did for most of our lives. When a movie came out, if it was good, we all went to see it. We all discussed it. We quoted lines and scenes we liked. NOW we’re walking through a fire hose of water, just trying to see.”
There are a number of reasons for this. Like most things, we cannot point to a singular incident. Some want to point to the political viewpoints espoused. That is not inaccurate but it is lazy. Another is the COVID lockdowns. Again, there is an element to that but we see other events where people gather back to their pre-COVID levels.
Instead, we are dealing with a few factors that I think are having a major effect.
The first is the quality of the productions. In short, they stink on average. The stories are weak and the entire industry got lazy.
Most of the success of the last decade came from the rolling out of established franchises. These were guaranteed money makers, at least for a while, for the movie studios. Hence we have 10 Fast and Furious films. This is an example of a franchise that should have stopped at 5.
Marvel was obliterated. LucasFilms got crushed. The creativity from the industry has been mostly non-existent.
When we look at the numbers, for every Barbie film, there were 3 big budget busts over the past couple years. Disney led the pack in 2023, lost almost a billion dollars.
Without storytelling that grabs hold of people and captivates them, people turn away.
The other factor is technology. This is the main reason why I proclaim Hollywood dead.
Here is where we have a timing issue. The hit to Hollywood is based upon the past. My death sentence ifocuses upon the future of technology.
Omitting the forecast element, we will simply focus upon what already took place. The distribution of content shifted over the last 30 years. What Hollywood missed was the fact that their monopoly was broken. When it comes to Hollywood studios, look who is in the lead with streaming.
Disney, Peacock, Paramount, and Max (HBO) are way down the list. Hulu, which is owned by Disney, at least in part, is also trailing. YouTube is the top dog, with a 9.3% share (it jumped to 9.7% in March 2024). Netflix, which most of Hollywood wanted to emulate is at 7.8%.
The industry is shell shocked. At least this is the view that Seinfeld presents.
So what, if anything, has replaced film? “Depression? Malaise? I would say confusion. Disorientation replaced the movie business,” he answered. “Everyone I know in show business, every day, is going, ‘What’s going on? How do you do this? What are we supposed to do now?'”
Try bartending. This is what one writer is turning to.
“People are scared. I’m trying to go back to bartending,” she says. “A lot of people are wondering what other jobs they can do. I’m close with my old showrunners, and they’re supportive of me, but they’re looking for jobs.”
Across the TV landscape, buying has cooled dramatically and many writers now find themselves in situations like Cheever, with opportunities shrinking as the industry shifts from Peak TV to an era of contraction and austerity — a wave of downsizing that kicked off last year when the priorities of Wall Street changed from a focus on subscriber growth to profitability. As streamers like Netflix and Max right-size their slates, the broadcast pipelines for Peacock, Hulu and Paramount+ are drying up. A decade ago, broadcasters collectively ordered as many as 98 pilots; today, that number can be counted on one hand.
Remember the two strikes in 2023 where the writers and actors both walked. One of the major issues was the use of AI (this in addition to wages which is always one of the topics). The unions walked in an effort to fight the studios use of this.
Ultimately, an agreement was reached. The writers deal was applauded as it was agreed more writers would be hired for each project, at increased pay. This was viewed as a victory.
As a result, the top writers are making more money. The rest, well they are finding themselves out of work. When the projects dry up, there is nothing to do. Those who have a history of winners are sound investments. Here is where the money is going.
The problem is as Seinfeld described. They were fighting future technology not realizing the end was coming due to what already took place.
Today, anyone with a smartphone or a laptop can become a video creator. While none of it is feature film quality, it is good enough to garner some eyeballs. Collectively, this takes a toll.
Look at the above chart. Broadcast and cable account for 50% of the television. It should not be overlooked, however, that YouTube is making progress in this field also.
A prime example is Mandalorian. This was a big budget production by Disney. To contrast, we have a genre called 'game movie". There is a channel on YouTube that has a film it created which garnered 3.2 million views.
Is it the quality of a LucasFilm production? No. Is the storyline at that level? Perhaps not.
This isn't my field of expertise since I am not into this type of stuff but it is a 2 hour, computer generated film that people can watch. With 3.2 million views, that is a lot of attention.
Seinfeld is right. People are going to gravitate towards craftmanship. If something is a commodity, that is how people will treat it. Video has become commoditized. That means we are seeing a massive explosion of the amount generated outside the industry.
And judging by the numbers, it is getting the attention. That means someone else is suffering.
We know who is taking it on the lip.
Sadly, for Hollywood, the technology boom for content creation is only getting started. It is going to have another issue to deal with in the not too distant future.
If it thinks things are bad now, just wait a couple years.
