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- Stop Making Blockbusters For Olds
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Stop Making Blockbusters For Olds
A few caveats before this week’s newsletter begins: this is not strictly a Hollywood+technology issue, which is most of my “beat,” if you can consider half-assed opinions a beat. However, it is relevant in the general sense that Hollywood/ entertainment as an industry relies on the cultivation of “new” audiences in order to keep itself alive. I write about this often!
Also, I speak this from the perspective of an “old” myself. I was born in the 1980s, I am old! Please spare me finger-wagging emails about how I’m only as old as I feel. I remember what I used to think of guys in their 40s with strong opinions: old!
All this preface is for me to wax philosophically on this piece in The Wrap, What Does ‘Masters of the Universe’ Failure Mean for Other ’80s-Based Projects?, which I view as a sort of corollary to the few-weeks-ago befuddlement over the massive success of A24’s Backrooms. As I wrote then:
The idea of the Backrooms isn’t just an “internet meme,” it is itself an “established brand and franchise,” one that the film’s director has spent years exploring in his webseries, along with other online creators. The difference is that it’s not 20, 30 or 50-year old IP targeted at the aging Gen X and millennial moviegoing audience around which Hollywood has rotated since the 2000s. It’s also not a franchise owned and controlled by a multibillion dollar corporation. Uh-oh!
Masters of the Universe fits right in that list of aged IP, being 40+ years old, ancient enough that I got Castle Grayskull for Christmas in the early 80s! This is obviously a movie with somewhat niche, older-skewing appeal, yet The Wrap writes about it like this:
On paper, it had the makings of a hit. The property boasts a fanbase that grew up on the combination toy line/animated series that thrived in the deregulated Reagan ’80s, the same period in which “Transformers” thrived.
The implication here is that it’s mysterious Masters of the Universe would fail while Transformers — another 1980s cartoon/toy property — would result in a successful blockbuster film series because they’re both the same thing, right?
This elides the tiny difference that the first live-action Transformers film came out almost 20 years ago in 2007! Of course young audiences flocked to Transformers, the IP was still relevant to the people most likely to want to go to the movies. I was in my mid-20s when Transformers hit theaters. But it’s nearly two decades later and they’re still trying to make blockbuster movies for the exact same audience!
The poor reception to the film, which came as YouTubers-turned-directors Curry Barker and Kane Parsons found success with younger audiences keen to see “Obsession” and “Backrooms,” respectively, raises questions about the viability of 1980s-inspired features and whether that nostalgia fare has any relevance in today’s theaters.
While some Gen X male moviegoers are showing up to watch these movies, they’re dwarfed by the wave of younger audiences seeking something fresh.
Said one top talent agent of the ripple effect the “Masters of the Universe” failure may have on the wave of films yet to come this year: “Gen X nostalgia IP is likely a thing of the past. I would think the rest of them bomb,” they said. “I just think Gen Z audiences want stuff that’s more grounded and less escapist and any super hero and most big IP are not grounded; they’re pure escapism.”
Do Gen Z audiences want stuff “that’s more grounded and less escapist,” or do they, like all audiences, simply want stories to which they have easy access on their own terms instead of relying on the warm fuzzy feelings of being 8 years old in the 1980s? Is this really that hard to figure out?
I suppose it is, because I had sudden flashbacks to the year 1990 and the release of the film Dick Tracy, itself a blockbuster adaptation of then-almost-60 year old IP (now almost 100!), filmed in a few primary colors for the purpose of replicating the look of old comic strips. How did that go? Let’s ask 1990 Jeffrey Katzenberg:
Mr. Katzenberg suggested that in making "Dick Tracy," starring Warren Beatty and a host of other major stars, Disney itself had been guilty of the very practices he was criticizing. That movie, which grossed just over $100 million in the United States but cost nearly the same amount to film, market and promote, "made demands on our time, talent and treasury that, upon reflection, may not have been worth it."
Good talk everyone, excited to see you all again in 2050 for the release of Grumpy Cat: The Return!
Kernels (3 links worth making popcorn for)
Here’s a round-up of cool and interesting links about Hollywood and technology:
Google’s A24 AI investment. (link)
Instagram’s smart TV expansion. (link)
Enough with AI company “doom trolling”! (link)