Not saying you might not have some sort of point, but you're going to need to connect the dots a little bit more. It seems to me that any "shrink" in Hollywood productions are 1) a sign of their recent products not catching on, and 2) more likely owed to all of the massive chaos going on in streaming. I would place much less of the blame on California regulations.

FL_Ag1998 said:

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Not saying you might not have some sort of point, but you're going to need to connect the dots a little bit more. It seems to me that any "shrink" in Hollywood productions are 1) a sign of their recent products not catching on, and 2) more likely owed to all of the massive chaos going on in streaming. I would place much less of the blame on California regulations.

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To the contrary. I think you need to connect the dots on how Hollywood would somehow find itself immune from the exact same market forces that have been plaguing every other industry in California (and America). Why would it be magically special? (Answer: it wouldn't)

To answer your question, have you wondered why Hollywood products are not catching on? Besides the obvious wokeness which excludes half (or more) of the consumer base? It's because they have been focusing most of their attention on remakes and sequels. Why? Because they cannot afford to take risks anymore. They HAVE to spend their money on slam dunks. That is directly attributable to highly progressive taxes, and California has the highest progressive income tax in the country. That is on top of our already progressive national income tax and California's high corporate taxes.

When a venture (such as a movie) is risky, then the potential upside has to be high to make the investment worth it. And when taxes steal a big chunk of those earnings away, then the potential upside has to become HUGE to make up for it. So California is effectively ensuring that it is rarely worth it. So studios have to mitigate their risk by spending their big money on sequels and remakes. But now people are getting bored of those, and now those are becoming risky too.

For a thread title containing the words "Hollywood's", "big", and "bust", this thread disappoints bigly.

Seems like a huge leap to make, logic-wise, based on a single data point of a contract Drone Flyer for the entertainment industry. Drones were still unique and novel 2-3 years ago.

Now anyone can get a drone and fly it with relative ease with all the new technology and they are much cheaper. This guy just has tons more competition for his job since the skill-set is not very specialized or needing much expertise.

People paying for five or six streaming services that were losing big money already wasn't ever sustainable. That's the biggest reason for the pullbacks, the business models were badly flawed.

Much like the business of college football is in flux due to a combination of NIL, transfer portal, conference realignments etc, I think Hollywood is will continue to experience a major shake up for the foreseeable future -- the entertainment industry in 10-15 years could be (and I hope will be) very different. Streaming platforms, the 5 minute attention span of everyone 25 and younger, deciding between woke or broke, AI use or lack thereof, the slow decline of cinemas, audiences sick to death of rehashed IPs...it's a lot.

Gonna be seeing a lot more of

Would you rather stick your face in a Hollywood bust or a Georgia peach?

I was asking you to connect the dots more for me in your arguments, which you essentially did, so thank you.

But, I still think your logic is a product of what you wish/hope is the cause rather than the reality of the current entertainment industry.

If you want to provide some inside info/leaks from the studio heads stating they are going to only focus on sequels and established IP's specifically as a way to counter regulatory forces and high taxes in Cali, then by all means I'll listen to your argument.

But until then I'm going to 1) assume Hollywood is used to high taxes, 2) likely gets special treatment and subsidies from state and local governments, 3) and are focusing on sequels and established IPs simply because the studios are run by unimaginative accountant-types who focus more on cost-benefit analysis than creativeness. The unpredictability and untenable nature of the streaming industry right now has them worried way more than high taxes.

I feel like inflation is likely the #1 cause. I have no idea if California's inflation is worse than the rest of country (wouldn't surprise me if it is), but if you look at the cost of a movie ticket compared to just four years ago, and it is substantially higher. The cost of streaming is also higher. The cost increases for entertainment are probably in line with the rest of the economy, but when people need to cut costs, entertainment is the first place they are going to do that. Even if Hollywood was pumping out Godfather quality movies every week, consumers just don't have the money anymore. Add to that, the cost of productions also going up, and it should be no surprise to anyone that cuts are going to be made.

Anytime you flip the switch of a giant machine to the "OFF" position it's going to take time to get all the cogs running again at full steam….

We are still seeing this through covid when essentially the whole dang world was turned off for months….

Things take time to get running again and all you can do is hurry up to stand in line and wait for things to return to normal….

There were business casualties from Covid….and there will be business casualties from this….it sucks…..but I'd guess that a majority of the issues people are seeing is from the backlog and not necessarily from the changes themselves….

FL_Ag1998 said:

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But, I still think your logic is a product of what you wish/hope is the cause rather than the reality of the current entertainment industry.

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It's a product of my hobby being economics. It's also why I was able to predict this long ago.

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If you want to provide some inside info/leaks from the studio heads stating they are going to only focus on sequels and established IP's specifically as a way to counter regulatory forces and high taxes in Cali, then by all means I'll listen to your argument.

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That is like asking "please provide inside info/leaks from consumer product CEOs where they said their layoffs were due to that tariffs on their raw materials." The CEOs won't know that. All they know is that their costs have gone up and they then react accordingly. Yet the consequence of tariffs are studied and well understood in economic circles. It is an economic concept called "seen benefits and unseen costs" that was coined in 1850. The "seen benefit" of steel tariffs is that steel jobs are saved. The "unseen cost" of steel tariffs are that even more jobs are lost of manufacturers who use steel.

So in a similar vein... from the studios point of view, their costs have simply gone way up. They don't have economic understanding to realize what underlying principles caused this, and in reality, the "why" doesn't matter to them. All they care about is reacting to the higher costs to ensure continued profitability. So they do things like focus on slam dunks and avoid risky projects that they were more inclined to try in the past.

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But until then I'm going to 1) assume Hollywood is used to high taxes, 2) likely gets special treatment and subsidies from state and local governments, 3) and are focusing on sequels and established IPs simply because the studios are run by unimaginative accountant-types who focus more on cost-benefit analysis than creativeness. The unpredictability and untenable nature of the streaming industry right now has them worried way more than high taxes.

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It's not just taxes paid by studios. It's all the costs imposed on their employees too. That IS new, as evident by the fact that they (ignorantly) went on strike. Those higher costs force employees to demand higher wages (or leave).

And studios always had accountant-types. They didn't ALL become stupid at once. If you were right, then one studio would have fallen and the rest shine. But instead, they ALL are going through very similar problems problem. That is because they are facing the same fundamental cause for their woes. You know who is not having this problem? Studios in South Korea. They are thriving. And they are putting out a lot of good and original content. That is because they don't have the same governmental challenges as studios (and companies in general) have in California.

aTmAg said:

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Quad Dog said:

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The machinists at my employer went on strike for long time several years ago. Maybe longer than the Hollywood strike (I don't quite remember). When they came back, we were basically at full rate production right away. Because the workers simply went back to their old jobs. They didn't require any new training or anything

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Machinists and a movie or show writing process are very different. There is a lot more lead up to the release of a movie or show. Any movie or show that was close to being released (in final edits or whatever) was released after or during the strike. For example Deadpool & Wolverine was in filming during the strike, continued some principal photography that didn't need writer help during the strike, production stopped for a few months, after the strike they filmed the rest of the movie that needed writers onset. Any movie or show in the writing process during the strike that stopped production will need to be picked back up in the same step in that process cycle. It could be weeks, months, or longer until release depending on where they were in the production cycle for it to be released. The same thing happened after the last writers' strike. There was a bit of a lag after the strike until a film in early production cycle was released.

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It's been over a year since the strike ended. Plenty longer than weeks or months.

Not to mention increased wages as a result of the strike will result in higher unemployment in those fields. Those jobs aren't coming back.

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Against my better judgment I'm going to engage with you, only because you're spreading so much verifiable nonsense. Starting with the actors strike, which ended eleven months ago, not "over a year ago" - the effects of which are absolutely still affecting the industry. Release schedule-wise, across both film and TV, Hollywood won't be "caught up" in that regard until early next year. The reason November and December are going to be without certain major hits is because they were delayed due to the strikes.

That is an indisputable fact.

And without that revenue coming in, studios are currently spending less, which is part of what's leading to the issues described in the article you linked to.

Look, you have pieces here and there right. Yes, California's policies are no doubt partly to blame, inflation is a huge issue, etc. But it's also so much more complex than that, with the woes of streaming/cord cutting being the primary culprit, as multiple people are trying to tell you, never mind the myriad experts saying the exact same thing. But in your typical, know-it-all fashion for every subject under the sun, along with your eternal hard-on for hating all things Hollywood, California, and the left, you're missing the bigger picture, along with so many crucial facts and nuances.

Not to mention, things are already on the mend again. I see it first-hand everyday. Slowly but surely studios are starting to buy and make more projects, with 2025 looking to truly take off in both regards. Will the industry ever thrive again as much as it did pre-pandemic? Perhaps not. Will productions increasingly continue to shoot in other states/countries? Probably so. But this isn't a death march, not by a long shot, and so much of your prognosticating so obviously comes from such an blatantly hateful place, trying to bend reality to the conclusion you so desperately want, that it's hard to ever take you seriously in these types of discussions.

Isn't the film industry essentially global at this point? I mean, you can go back to the Star Wars OT and the three movies were filmed in California, England, Tunisia, Norway, and Arizona, with actors from the US and UK. I can't imagine the regulatory environment in London is less costly than CA.

I mean, financially, the studios being home based in CA isn't doing them any favors but it seems like a completely national/global product at this point and to a certain extent has been for decades.

aTmAg said:

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I thought about bumping the strike thread, but this deserves it's own.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj6er83ene6o

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"We were saving to buy a house, we had money, we had done things the right way," he says. "Two years ago, I didn't worry about going out to dinner with my wife and kids and spending 200 bucks."
"Now I worry about going out and spending $5 on a value meal at McDonald's."

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I don't know what's more unbelievable, that the guy thinks it's totally normal to go to a dinner with his wife and kids that costs $200 or that he thinks McDonald's value meals still cost $5.

I ate McDonald's for the first time in forever the other day. Got a Big Mac meal (medium size) and a six piece nuggets. Cost me $18 damn dollars. Couldn't believe it.

TCTTS said:

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aTmAg said:

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Quad Dog said:

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The machinists at my employer went on strike for long time several years ago. Maybe longer than the Hollywood strike (I don't quite remember). When they came back, we were basically at full rate production right away. Because the workers simply went back to their old jobs. They didn't require any new training or anything

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Machinists and a movie or show writing process are very different. There is a lot more lead up to the release of a movie or show. Any movie or show that was close to being released (in final edits or whatever) was released after or during the strike. For example Deadpool & Wolverine was in filming during the strike, continued some principal photography that didn't need writer help during the strike, production stopped for a few months, after the strike they filmed the rest of the movie that needed writers onset. Any movie or show in the writing process during the strike that stopped production will need to be picked back up in the same step in that process cycle. It could be weeks, months, or longer until release depending on where they were in the production cycle for it to be released. The same thing happened after the last writers' strike. There was a bit of a lag after the strike until a film in early production cycle was released.

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It's been over a year since the strike ended. Plenty longer than weeks or months.

Not to mention increased wages as a result of the strike will result in higher unemployment in those fields. Those jobs aren't coming back.

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Against my better judgment I'm going to engage with you, only because you're spreading so much verifiable nonsense. Starting with the actors strike, which ended eleven months ago, not "over a year ago" - the effects of which are absolutely still affecting the industry. Release schedule-wise, across both film and TV, Hollywood won't be "caught up" in that regard until early next year. The reason November and December are going to be without certain major hits is because they were delayed due to the strikes.

That is an indisputable fact.

And without that revenue coming in, studios are currently spending less, which is part of what's leading to the issues described in the article you linked to.

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I (and the article) were talking about the writers strike, which was May 2, 2023 to September 27, 2023. You are talking about the SAG-AFTRA strike which was July 14, 2023 to November 9, 2023. Either way, a couple months doesn't make a big difference to my argument.

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Look, you have pieces here and there right. Yes, California's policies are no doubt partly to blame, inflation is a huge issue, etc. But it's also so much more complex than that, with the woes of streaming/cord cutting being the primary culprit, as multiple people are trying to tell you, never mind the myriad experts saying the exact same thing. But in your typical, know-it-all fashion for every subject under the sun, along with your eternal hard-on for hating all things Hollywood, California, and the left, you're missing the bigger picture, along with so many crucial facts and nuances.

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Can you not discuss ANY topic without taking everything personally? Are you capable of that?

And I don't claim to know it all in every subject. Hell in this very thread, I said "I'm not familiar with what is going on in the gaming world." Is that what a "know it all" would say? Of course not.

I do consider myself a (non-professional) expert in economics. Sure enough this is an economic topic. Why wouldn't I express my opinion in MY OWN THREAD?

And my point is that most people (especially you) are missing the big picture. None of the "nuances" matter in the grand scheme of things. A big reason they felt the need to strike in the first place is because they felt they were not paid enough, despite their pay being plenty for places outside of California, New York, and Illinois. That's because the government has pushed the cost of living through the roof in those states. If they were living in a low cost of living state, they would effectively enjoy a 15K pay raise.

To survive in the long term, studios will need to either leave California or California itself will need to reverse course. The latter looks like it will never happen. So that leaves the former. Which is the same thing that many other industries have realized long ago.

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Not to mention, things are already on the mend again. I see it first-hand everyday. Slowly but surely studios are starting to buy and make more projects, with 2025 looking to truly take off in that regard. Will the industry ever thrive again as much as it did pre-pandemic? Perhaps not. Will productions increasingly continue to shoot in other states/countries? Probably so. But this isn't a death march, not by a long shot, and so much of your prognosticating so blatantly comes from such an obviously hateful place, trying to bend reality to the conclusion you so desperately want, that it's hard to ever take you seriously in these types of discussion.

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To the contrary. You are so blinded by the fact that you REALLY WANT me to be wrong that your hatred of any dissent is obvious. But that makes sense, as your job and livelihood is effected. But for YOU to pretend I am the one with the bias is hilarious.

I don't even know if you work in California. For all I know, you live in Georgia. If you do work in California, then I would get the hell out. Keep an eye out for good projects and job openings out of state. I worked in California years ago. I left along with many other people I know. There is not a single person among them who regret that decision. If I hated you, I would tell you to stay. But clearly I do not. So save yourself while you can.

Finally, the pissing contest starts. I was beginning to worry you guys wouldn't get to it.

I think the OP theory is flawed and overreaching in my opinion. As TCTTS has already mentioned, I think it's complicated and can't really pinpoint to one or two factors.

Inflation hasn't helped but I think people just aren't going to the movies anymore in general.