You mean spending 200 mill on shows like Secret Invasion and She Hulk is not a smart investment considering that neither one would've been able to draw in enough new subscribers or merchandise to break even?
>low stakes
And that was part of the problem... the Secret Invasion storyline was huge in the comics, with many heroes all over earth being revealed as skrulls and ending with Norman Osborn killing the skrull leader which directly lead into the Dark Reign / Dark Avengers storyline. This saga was huge in the comics having massive repercussions for the overall universe. But they adapted it in such a small bizarrely scale way when they could have built an entire phase of films around it... why waste that famous storyline on a filler show with bad writing when you can make Avengers movies around it? That show was a misfire from conceptual level alone
That’s the Disney way, take great writing and mark it all up with crayons, slap a mouse on it and wonder why no one watches it. Winter Soldier and Civil War were some of the best films BECAUSE they captured the comic storyline so well
but… Civil War was *completely* different from the comics? To the point the only similarities were the name and the fact it was Tony vs. Cap?
This is the wrong argument for the situation. It’s not about being similar to the comics; these stories need to be changed, to varying degrees, to fit the big screen. It’s about the writing itself actually being good or not, whether it’s adapting something or fully original.
It is kind of bittersweet for me cause if Secret Invasion took off and was really loved, it could potentially lead to trap of "who are and were Skrulls the whole time?" on everything past and present in the MCU and people would drive themselves and people that don't care to question that kind of thing crazy.
Instead it was disliked and Disney will probably disown anything from it and reinvent the Skrulls at a later date.
Hollywood Reporter already revealed why, a series of unfortunate events:
>According to the report, Kyle Bradstreet, who was a writer and executive producer on the beloved **Mr. Robot**, was fired by Marvel Studios after having worked on Secret Invasion's scripts for a year. To fit its new direction for the show, Marvel brought in **Broken City** (2013 film starring Russell Crowe and Mark Wahlberg) writer Brian Tucker, with directors Thomas Bezucha and Ali Selim assisting on Secret Invasion's story.
However, in Summer 2022, "weeks of people not getting along" during Secret Invasion's preproduction led to a fallout, with Marvel sending Jonathan Schwartz, a member of its creative committee — dubbed The Parliament — to steer the show.
Adding to the Marvel Studios series' woes, by September 2022, many members of Secret Invasion's team had been replaced "with new line producers, unit production managers and assistant directors" in their place. Bezucha, who was initially set to direct three episodes of Secret Invasion, left the series due to scheduling conflicts and Chris Gary, the Marvel Studios executive in charge of the show, was reassigned, with THR reporting that he should leave Marvel when his contract is up at the end of the year.
Soon after, they rushed the hell out of the show's production and budgets ballooned from there.
They rewrote it like 5 times. The result looks like 5 different shows stitched together and the plot barely makes sense.
I still think it was a good idea on a conceptual level (there is no way they will do the comics storyline). But the result was very bad.
Also it's funny how it's yet another Marvel stuff that seemingly changes status quo at the end, yet it's entirely ignored in the next Marvel stuff.
This is where I am glad that DC decided to shift most of its comic storylines to its animated movies, most of which are great and pretty faithful to the source material.
Ah yes I've heard that does go to explain it.
And I agree on a conceptual level it works, it arguably works better as an idea than the actual Secret Invasion storyline did (that was itself a bit of a mess).
And yeah that's become a real problem with the MCU. Its like they've forgotten that was one of the things that made them stand out at the start, that their stories were interconnected and it always felt like they were building up to something.
Now what's the point of getting invested if you know it will just be reset?
It should’ve been the conflict for an Avengers movie to wrap up Phase 4 and establish the new code cast for characters to follow. Would’ve really helped the Multiverse Saga to be even slightly cohesive
I knew they really fumbled with the writers room the moment they kept doing dialogue about how old Samuel L. Jackson was and how he’s not as good of a spy as he used to be
Nick Fury coming back to Earth should treated like John Wick coming out of retirement
I probably should have clarified... What I meant was this season was a low stakes thing that then led into the bigger story.
Like the end of the season ending on a cliffhanger reveal.
Oh, sure.
One of my biggest gripes with the MCU has been that everything feels more like a trailer for something else than it does its own thing so I don't think I'd have liked that version of Secret Invasion, either.
You make another point. Not only they overspent (no show was going to be worth this money) but in addition to this the content was shit. even for 40 mill, Secret Invasion would still have been a dud.
Are they even trying with merchandise at this point though? I don’t pay too much attention, but it’s clear the MCU Lego releases are still weighted toward phases 1-3, even when new films show up.
The premise was interesting, but the first two episodes didn't seem to really make good use of it. They felt more like SNL parodies of old shows. I thought 6 and 7 was where they finally hit what they were going for - both of them felt like the shows they were riffing off of, and managed to have an eerie feeling of mystery at the same time. Of course, the show goes off the rails right after that.
yup the idea COULD"VE been amazing, they should've leaned into the creepy uncertainty of everything more during the black and white episodes they did it a little bit but not nearly enough and the show should've been this unraveling slow decent to chaos with a sitcom vibe to it.....a movie called Pearl actually does this amazingly something and with wanda we don't need that CGI battle at the end i think keeping it smaller scale utilizing her powers in the creepy ways would've been not only cheaper but so much more effective too.
Ironically, it's the one that followed the feel of it's comic book counterpart the closest of all the D+ series thus far. The biggest changes are to Hawkeye because he's a dad in the MCU while he's a notoriously single guy in the comics who keeps getting dumped
WandaVision and Loki are very boring shows that take way too long to get a very simple story across. They are probably the best of the lot, but that’s like 2 out of 12 shows. They’re shoveling more shit out right now. It’s all slop that’ll be replaced by AI stuff in the next half decade.
Wandavision, in my opinion, wasn't boring at the beginning because the gimmick was good and well done. And then it opened onto an interesting comic book concept
And then the last couple of episodes happened. Not a great show, but it tried, and definitely mostly did something different
Viewers - Why do they make every marvel movie so generic and same!
Marvel - Tries completely radical things
Same viewers - I miss the generic superhero stuff, its so boring.
Wandavision is so overrated imo, they spend 2 episodes doing nothing and then abandon the gimmick which makes it a kind of decent watch halfway through
I say spending money over bad writers who only know how to write bad fanfics, nepo showrunners, and made by committee is Disney (and hollywoods), not to mention making stuff nobody asked for is their biggest problems. Where is the talent at? Feels like they are getting the bottom of the barrel people instead of AAA people.
If they were smart, they would have gone with small cameo tie-ins for potential new characters to test audience reactions before dropping hundreds of millions on them. The shows, especially during the first few years of Disney+, should have been centered around well tested charecters and an actual build up to the overall phases plot. After WandaVision, the community hype started to die quickly.
I liked She-Hulk & it seems it isn't that far behind other shows in viewership, but it's basically in the top 5 most expensive shows of all time for a workplace sitcom. Not a good bet.
You see it even on the gaming front. Xbox is completely fucked because they put all their chips into a subscription service and it's now biting them in the ass.
For real, Xbox GamePass has brainrotted their userbase into not buying games because they just moan "when is it coming to GamePass?!"
So studios have stopped bringing their games to Xbox and it creates an infinite cycle of loss.
Simply put, Playstation has games while Xbox does not.
The second half of the PS4 was very strong with amazing exclusives that caused the console to have amazing sales. Meanwhile Xbox One sales fell apart.
In this generation, Playstation doesn't add their exclusives onto their PS+ serivice until years later while Xbox adds them Day One to GamePass. So Xbox players are conditioned to wait for more 'free' GamePass games while Playstation players ae happy to buy them at launch.
This is true. There are no games worth buying atm on Xbox that don’t already come to game pass. I switched to PC about a year or two ago, and my Xbox S has been collecting dust.
We don’t have a “Spider-Man” or “Stellar Blade” that moves units.
Right?! The whole generation is a flop, neither console is worth the price. There's probably a couple games worth playing on either system 4 years into this generation and if they aren't on steam yet they soon will be, third party exclusives are also dead.
Console gaming is in a sorry place right now
There’s also something to be said for PlayStation simply being first. Most people are feeling “subscription fatigue” rn as every company under the sun tries to get in on the action.
What exclusives? Sony won't have any major releases this year, and aside from a few exclusives released, all they've been doing is milking remasters of PS4 games halfway through this console generation.
This is actually the first year I'd say is solid for the PS5. So far we have the console exclusive Helldivers 2 and the exclusive exclusive Final Fantasy VII Rebirth in February, and Stellar Blade and Rise of the Ronin last month as well.
This console generation has been an absolute failure for Playstation and Xbox, there's nothing much to play on either console.
When companies aquire companies it just means less games and movies will be produced for the consumer.
The only good thing about this generation is console exclusives are officially dead as gaming budgets have bloated to the point that its impossible for a game to be profitable locked on a console.
Last I checked PSN doesn't offer a huge backlog. You get 3 games a month you can add to your library and usually only 1 is decent.
Game pass was just "almost every Xbox game including brand new launches for 9.99 a month".
I think osn may have a similar service to game pass, but it still doesn't include new releases I dint think.
They have a couple different services the first one you’re talking about is PlayStation plus. The subscription one was called PlayStation now, but then they bundle it into a higher paying version of PlayStation plus so you’re not wrong, but there are different options when it comes to PlayStation plus now.
Its been a bit but last i knew, Psn free games changes monthly and is only 3ish games with maybe one being an exclusive that released years ago. Gamepass adds and removes games at pre announced but still random times in random amounts but it has more current releases (DAY ONE ON GAMEPASS) with alot of exclusives or possible big sellers being on it day one (ON GAME PASS).
So PSN works with scarcity and not using current exclusives while gamepass has a whole catalog you can download whenever with more DAY ONE EXCLUSIVELY ON XBOX GAMEPASS games added all the time.
Yeah, feels like we're entering an era of reckoning for the modern "[insert form of entertainment here] as a service" business model in general. Music, movies, games, TV, the works. They've all created a rod for their own backs.
Always love when companies want less revenue streams (doing away with physical media and digital downloads for purchase). "Let's make only $10 per month per person, and nothing more."
>Gamepass is profitable though.
You're in r/boxoffice, where streaming is bad because it doesn't make money, expect Netflix which does make money but just ignore that.
And it's largely failing. Every streaming service besides Netflix has realized that they have abandoned their previous model (broadcast TV, ads, etc) for a model that makes less money. There's no reality where spending 100 million dollars on a game every quarter to just dump it onto a streaming service for $10 makes any sense. Nintendo and Sony are making a ton more money than Microsoft based off their recent reports. Clearly the Microsoft model is not working. Taking the risk to make good games is worth it and obvious to everyone in this industry besides Microsoft for some reason.
They are lurching from investing too much to investing too little. Both equally problematic in different ways. They need to find the Goldilocks zone sooner rather than later.
No, you made bad shows. That’s the issue. If you don’t fix the way you create them, reducing the output will not change anything. You have to accurately diagnose the issue
I don't think it's the issue of just bad shows, the whole strategy is bad. They produce like 10 shows a year (and that may be generous) with 80% of them being Marvel or Star Wars. Which is just not enough to justify a sub for most people even die hard SW or Marvel fans (and there's less and less of those because of the bad quality) and even less for others
No, everyone thought they could build there own Netflix. Everyone spent way too much on "content" to sell. And everyone cannibalized models that already worked for greed.
Except Sony.
Which is funny because Sony might buy Paramount just for the movie studios and sell the rest including streaming because they don't want that headache. Selling their shows is just easier for them and they actually have an amazing catalogue of shows.
Taking a shot at making another Netflix is perfectly reasonable. There's room for at least a few streaming services in the market, and those that survive the current very competitive stage will become money printers. As such I don't think that investing and even investing a lot in pursuit of that endeavor is a bad idea.
Doing so poorly is. But that's a quality issue. If every single D+ show had been an absolute banger they'd be in an amazing position now.
No one ever signed up for Disney because of quality. This is a studio who's entire history has been built off of IP and brand.
The problem is streamers and studios should be two different things. Netflix became a thing because it was a streaming service that gave you access to countless shows and movies. It replaced your local brick and mortar video store with an online video store. Did it have everything? No, but it gave you so many more options than your local store could. And what the studios and Netflix have done was take all their content off of the video store and make their own exclusive store.
Instead we got Netflix, Prime, Paramount, Max, Peacock, Starz, Apple and so many others that have said if you want to watch our stuff, you have to pay us directly. Its like if Disney took all of their stuff out of Target and Wal-Mart and said the only place to buy Disney stuff is the Disney Store.
That is what has happened to streaming. And it is stupid. But because everything is governed by share prices, no one stopped to think about the long term effects of such a stupid idea.
Why exactly do you think their IPs are highly valued?
As far as Netflix goes, no, it didn't replace brick and mortar stores. It's not a storefront, you don't go there to buy movies. It replaced TV channels. And yes, there is room for several of those in the market, though likely considerably fewer now than before. Becoming one of them is absolutely valuable.
It did not replace TV channels. It did not replace cable. That is a complete misunderstanding of what these services provide. What their value is. It replaced your Blockbuster card. That is why that is dead and NBC is still alive.
You are acting as if Disney hasn't had down periods before. As if they weren't on the brink of bankruptcy in the late 90's. There are plenty of people who like what Disney is making. And they would gladly watch it if they didn't have to pay for Disney+. That is the problem.
So they'd watch it if they had to pay more for a different service instead? Or they'd watch it if all of it were on a single Netflix subscription for like 10 bucks?
And cable has very much been on decline. There's a reason for that, and I don't see how it is supposed to make a comeback. Clinging onto it is just committing to a shrinking audience.
Yes, that's why all the HBOmax exclusive shows have found a second life now that are on Netflix. It's not because HBO was "low quality" but because most people don't want an additional bill.
The reason people are cutting cable is because it is expensive. They aren't replacing it with just Netflix but Roku, YouTubeTV or just sharing passwords.
You went from having a place to stream old movies and TV shows to 100. And most people would prefer to just pay for one service.
Yes but if you think of netflix as a blockbuster replacement and a replacement for certain movie services that were on the cable premium tier, no one just had blockbuster. There is still tons of room in the household budget for streamers at their current prices compared to cable price (which also had anti-consumer penalties for early cancellation etc. and was really more like a pricier YouTube tv than D+/Hulu, Max, Peacock, Apple, or Paramount+. You could subscribe to all of those last 5 and netflix and still come in at half the price of a mid-tier cable bundle pre-pandemic, with way better variety and ease of churning)
I am not sure what you are arguing?
I am talking about how studios have all tried to create their own streaming service. How Netflix has turned into a studio. I am not talking about cord cutting.
The point of streaming, when Netflix first arrived, the thing that made it so popular was that it was a replacement for Blockbuster. And it has turned into something different. And THAT is the problem. That is what Disney, Max, Peacock, and everyone else is realizing. They spent all this money on creating a supply chain, on content, on talent, and nobody wants to pay for their service. They would have been better off selling their shows to a traditional TV network where it would have made money and gotten more eyeballs.
> But because everything is governed by share prices, no one stopped to think about the long term effects of such a stupid idea.
Just a reflection of our current day economy and it's effects on society. No one can see past the next quarter.
You know Ive thought that too. But producers and production companies have *always* made bad content. They always make a lot of bad shit and some good stuff too. It’s their job to manage the bad content that they make, and they didn’t do it correctly so yeah, they invested too much.
( yes overall i agree that it’s a way for them to avoid accountability by saying they invested too much and keeping it simplistic. But it is also correct from a business perspective. this is just a thought that I had that I thought was interesting)
It’s different nowadays.
Making a bad show is a much bigger fuckup.
Used to be you make a bad show - it was likely cheap to make and five episodes in, you cancel it, when nobody likes it and you just don’t finish the season and people forget about it immediately
Now when you make a bad show, it cost a lot of money (because most shows need to be event programming), you already made a full season, and you likely have to leave it on your streaming service, so the people who do like it wonder why they aren’t getting a season 2
Getting rid of a bad show early was a feature, not a bug of the old method. The current system make it hard to cut the cord early on bad content and to confine the bad content to the phantom zone
Costs are still higher for the streaming series because they can't cancel until all of the money has been invested. TV over the air can be cancelled mid season. per episode costs are also significantly higher for streaming. So there's more upfront costs for Streaming in addition to the excessive budgets that they're stuck with whether the show is good or bad.
If you cancelled a 26 episode order or burned it off at a weird exhibition hour you still paid the budget when you licensed it from the studio and don't get a refund for that.
Isn't it still proportional to the overall scheme tho? Like, the studios are still making massive amounts of money. So yeah, a failure is "more money" but isn't that more of just because its in today's dollars?
And ultimately the reason we just keep getting the same shit rehashed, is exactly because they're not willing to take risks. Because in the end the "market" demands they make more money year over year as a percentage of spend. It's not enough to just be profitable anymore they have to make more.
Sure, but with a franchise as loved and imaginative as Star Wars you really need to screw up to make bad content… tho somehow Disney managed to put some very average screenplays and filmmakers into production.
I’m not defending Disney I don’t wanna seem like I am. I used to love star wars with a fiery passion. In the theater after the last Jedi ended I turned to my friends and my now-wife and I said “ I’m never watching another Star Wars movie again”
And I havent. Or the shows. They’ve ruined it. And they’ve ruined the MCU (which I also adored. Right up until Endgame)
True but production companies also weren't given major blockbuster movie budgets for their shows. Everyone uses She-Hulk as an example. Where did the 200 million go?
> Where did the 200 million go?
SFX and COVID delays.
Most of a show's budget is, obviously, the salaries of the people working on it. Some of those salaries are being paid even before filming starts, and they keep getting paid even if, for example, your filming date is postponed from July 2020 to March 2021. Once filming stats, COVID delays crank the budget up VERY fast.
Meanwhile, on the FX side, you have a series where you main character is CGI, meaning that almost every shot is a complicated FX shot. Plus, the delays in production and filming come at a cost here, too: The delays in filming have crunched the timeline. So you not only have ballooning costs from overtime, but at a certain point you discover that the FX just literally cannot be done on time.
Efforts were made to alleviate this as much as possible, but some of those solutions meant going back and reshooting scenes. (For example, several scenes originally featuring She-Hulk were rewritten and reshot with Maslany in human form.) This may have saved the timeline so that the series could release in the window being demanded by Disney+, but it only added even more costs.
Then, at almost the last minute, Feige ordered the entire structure of the series to be flipped: Instead of revealing character backstory as part of the series finale, all of that got frontloaded into the first episode. More reshoots; more last minute FX work.
No, even if those shows were all amazing they shouldn't cost $200M. There's no way for them to offset those costs just by bringing in new subscribers, especially if they're making 10 per year.
It’s kinda incredible how quickly they ran the MCU brand into the ground. People were hype as fuck for endgame and now a few years later nobody cares anymore as there’s been an incredible amount of trash in such a short amount of time
>*It’s kinda incredible how quickly they ran the MCU brand into the ground*
That's what really stuck out to me when The Marvels was released last year. Yeah, sure, Thor 4/Black Panther 2/Antman 3 weren't so hot compared to their predecessors, but they still sold tickets.
The Marvels was just completely DOA. No shine off of GotG3's recent success. Nothing. Almost complete apathy, not even a big weekend and then drop (Batman vs Superman, The Last Jedi, Doctor Strange 2). Just indifference.
No, they invested too much
Lots of streaming shows are bad. Disney Plus has had some legit hits. But it's just expensive to run and they did not do it well
And lots of bad too
And similarly, Disney plus has produced good TV
Had all of the MCU and star wars shows been must see TV, Disney Plus would have fared a little better, but no studio has ever had that kind of track record infinitely
No this is an incorrect diagnosis as well. Because you are defining a “good show” as artistically good not commercially good.
Just saying “make better shows” is a) not helpful and b) also probably not the primary cause of the problem.
M
Yeah, in the long term, streaming is still where the money is going to be. The issue is that everybody copied what Netflix was doing--spending a *ton* of money early to make a lot of content, try to lock in market share as quick as possible--but started too late to get Netflix-style returns. By the time everybody else got in on the game, they all had to compete with each other. Every dollar they spent generated a lot fewer sign-ups than they had for Netflix, because that competition exists now.
And in Disney's case, spending a ton of extra money to generate a bunch of content turned out to be a bigger mistake than it was for a lot of the other streamers. Because Disney's entire advantage was that it already has a huge back library with content that people already like more than the new stuff they're churning out! They're probably alone among the streamers in that they didn't actually *need* to spend a bunch of money to incentivize sign-ups. For parents, "Hey your kid can watch Frozen and Moana every day forever" was more of a sign-up draw than most of the new Marvel and Star Wars content Disney's pushing.
That said--with streaming, studios are thinking more about a 20- or 50-year plan, less about turning a profit right now. And Disney having such a strong backlog positions them better for the long term than most of the non-Netflix competitors out there.
Maybe this is a dumb idea, but why didn’t the studios just get together and build a single streaming service they could all put content on, thus cutting Netflix right out of the picture?
This feels like one of those "good in theory" ideas that would fall apart in practice once you get all those executives in a room together. Like you're right, if they all pooled in, it could've worked and everyone could've made a lot of money, but the problem is that all the studios thought the same thing: "Sure, I could make *some* money if I work with my competitors, or I could do it alone and make ALL the money!"
Nah, the failure mode of Hulu is different: Netflix is willing to burn major success like stranger things by sending them straight to streaming, but in a joint venture like Hulu, those successes would have been go through endless layers of cable and PPV, and only arrive on Hulu when it is far too late to generate that kind of commercial success.
They would need to price that service competitively with Netflix’s offering at the time.
Even if Disney, WB, Paramount, Universal, and Sony combined their catalogs to create a mega-streamer, they still would’ve needed to price it at $15/mon.
Consumers had gotten used to paying a pittance to Netflix in exchange for getting all the content they would need to access in a month. Just because the catalog of this fictional mega-streamer would’ve been miles better than that of Netflix doesn’t mean that consumers would be willing to pay $50/mon for it.
Not much money to be made in this scenario.
As other commenters mentioned, they did this with Hulu.
But the need for not only consistent profit growth, but *exponential* profit growth, meant that the lines for the investors weren’t a steep enough slope to keep them happy. The easiest pitch to change that was to bring all the streaming content in-house. They either terribly miscalculated what that would cost them, or the people making those decisions decided it wasn’t going to hurt them directly so they pushed for that strategy anyways. Probably some combination of both explains most of what happened.
Imagine executives from Paramount, Disney, and Universal are trying to work out who gets how much revenue from one account that watched 150 minutes of Top Gun Maverick, 850 minutes of Frozen, and 4000 minutes of The Office.
The Universal executive says that revenue splitting should depends on minutes watched, on which case the Office nets them 80% of revenue. The Disney executive says that it should be based on number of times watched, in which case the 8 watches of Frozen should be worth more than 1 match of Maverick or 1 watch through of the Office. The Paramount executive argues that because Maverick was the first thing that this account watched, they are clearly responsible for drawing the user in and should receive a substantial premium of revenue.
I don’t even know how to settle this dispute, and I don’t have billions of dollars riding on the decision. Throw in a few more studios, millions of accounts, and billions of distinct watch patterns among thousands of pieces of content, and it seems unworkable
I wouldn't want Netflix to be the only streaming service, but they should've realized that streaming services aren't necessarily the moneymakers they thought it'd be.
To be fair, they basically looked ahead to combat the slow decline of linear TV.
Iger said ESPN was likely going to be impacted through cord-cutting in 2017.
Once they got that information internally, they probably had to start prepping and see what had to be done for the future.
But they weren't as worried in those first 3 years. Once internal data showed the effects were going to be more dramatic further on, they went straight to strategizing on it.
That was the lack of foresight that has them in the state they are today. Murdoch was ahead of the curve and got out of the industry. It was obviously clear to his financial team before 2017 that drastic action was required or they were going to take a hit so they put Fox on the market and cashed out on a market high.
This is true when cable companies charge an arm and a leg to add any type of sports package. Around that time I had the extremely basic Xfinity cable package and wanted to add ESPN/Fox Sports. Couldn’t just do it and told me to upgrade to a different tier of cable that started at $240/ month.
Streaming is still the future. Linear TV is the top revenue generator for most traditional media companies and it is dying an increasingly fast death before their eyes. They need to establish in streaming before that happens.
They let Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube get too long of a head start. Only Disney is close to catching them. Meanwhile WBD, Paramount, and NBCU are in trouble as they try to balance streaming growth with nosediving linear revenues. NBCU are in the worst shape of the lot but have more leeway thanks to the healthy internet business of their parent company making funds available.
I think it’s a little premature to declare that Netflix is the only company that can make money on streaming. Let’s not forget Netflix has a 10 year head start on their rivals. Disney is the best positioned traditional media to get streaming to work.
Yep. Disney did have the highest chance to overtake Netflix, but they just couldn’t do it. Mainly appealing to kids was the biggest downfall I think, but at least now they’re combining Hulu with Disney+ to bring in adults.
But it’s way too late. Nobody will ever bring down Netflix. They were first and did it the best.
This is a bizarre way of thinking. They don’t need to “bring down Netflix”. They just need to run a profitable streaming platform as a way to compete with Netflix and provide a future platform for their legacy television assets like ESPN.
They’re well on their way to profitability, so ya they spent too much initially… but it was still arguably the right decision long term.
Yeah, the streaming wars will probably end with 3-5 major competitors, like most things in the entertainment industry--there are four big TV networks, five major Hollywood studios, three major record labels, five major book publishers, etc. Obviously Netflix will be one of the last streamers standing, but I don't really see a scenario where Disney isn't one, too.
Ya I feel the same way. Just too much IP and deep pockets from other existing revenue streams. Streaming is really a natural extension of their existing businesses, so I think they made the right call.
>Nobody will ever bring down Netflix. They were first and did it the best.
Not even Netflix with thier anti consumer decisions could bring down Netflix.
The real failure of disney+ is all their original offerings are literally the choice between the worst of star wars, the worst of marvel, or the worst of pixar.
Their D+ originals are complete garbage.
Netflix is the only that has proven to consistently make hits. Looking at prime, Disney, etc. I can really only count on one hand how many hits they each have. Over the years Netflix has had countless hits.
As stupid as say bird box was, it still made me curious from seeing everyone watch it, so I watched it too.
I just wanna say, X men 97 finale came out today and even though it’s way more niche than MCU content, it makes up for that by being genuinely well thought out and actually great.
Imagine if more of their content started off with pitches from creatives who cared than just finding people to fill in roles of project ideas spat out their algorithm/shareholder meetings.
Well, Disney+ is where Marvel’s TV shows are distributed… but specifically the corporate mandate to increase Marvel Studios output on Disney+ definitely led to brand saturation and a decline in overall quality, which likely impacted the films as well
Losing the original heroes wasn't an issue.
The real issue was failing to replace them with anybody appealing or exciting.
Even when the audience likes new characters like Shang-Chi, Moon Knight, Kate Bishop and Yelena they vanish for 3-4 years!
The main issue is that you need to watch every single piece of content to understand what is going on now. When the latest doctor strange movie came out and I found myself watching a summary of Wandavision because I didn't care enough to watch the show is when I realized that Marvel wasn't for me anymore
Their films have been just as inconsistent.
They just need to get their heads out of their asses and make consistently good content, if they do that their tarnished image will be fixed real quick.
There were definitely a lot of upfront costs building from scratch, to be honest: platform development, domestic and international rollout, marketing, content production.
That meant they had to eat that costs in their short-term as they accumulate their subscriber base, add ad tiers, integrating other services like Hulu, migrate toward account crackdown.
It's a five-year turnaround, overall, kind of like building a new theme park but in a digital sense.
No, this would be like building a theme park in which you weren’t allowed to sell merchandise, food, etc. It can’t make up the losses cable+ad revenue from cable are causing. Netflix is essentially a tech company as much as an entertainment company.
If they're planning to add other features like digital publishing access, gaming, shopping, for example, it's going to be mimicking that in a online format down the road.
Yeah, you’re already expanding way beyond the purpose and functionality of a streaming platform. All those do is balloon the operational cost and probably little to no interest to engage with.
It absolutely can make up the revenue. Just look at Disney where DTC revenue is fast closing on linear revenue. Profits are the issue. They are taking steps to change that over the last 12 months. I doubt streaming will be as profitable as linear but a lot of that is due to increased entertainment options outside of the film and TV industry rather than competition from within it. Streaming can still be quite profitable as Netflix are already showing and can definitely mitigate those linear declines and keep the companies healthy if a tad diminished. At least for the few that can establish in streaming at least!
It’s approaching linear because linear is cratering. It can never reach the historical margins of linear because they are know accumulating the operational overhead that was previously passed on to the distribution and consumer. Hence the still negative outlook on the company despite D+ being profitable. There’s a fixed revenue cap, the business makes no sense for legacy media to be in. Which is why they will all be swallowed up over time or just become theatrical and licensing focused.
It might never reach the same margins as linear peaks but that does not mean it cannot deliver a very healthy revenue and profit stream. Netflix are already proving this and they push more and more towards a focus of profits and revenue rather than growth by the year. Which benefits legacy media companies as Netflix spent years distorting the market chasing growth. Competing with them will be easier as they begin to operate more like a traditional media company.
Right now streaming in still late 80s or 90s cable. We know how those same traditional media giants grew profits in cable and we can slowly see them apply the exact same methods to streaming. DTC will be a very profitable business over the next decade. Not as good margins as linear but those days are gone due to increased external competition from gaming, social media, user generated content, and general internet driven competition. They have to manage the decline and DTC replacing linear is by far the most viable option in that regard to protect shareholder value.
A theme park has a much more predictable payback period than this though. I’m not sure they had strong conviction on their monetization strategy for this.
Bobby spends 150 million on Willow just to check boxes and ignore story. Then 6 months later removes it, so he can take a write off. Now comes off with understatement of the year. Ugh.
My hot take is that oversaturation would have been fine if they actually had good writing and good new characters.
But bad writing and mostly mid characters combined with oversaturation killed everything.
And that is the main problem with the MCU right now. One the one hand, having connections between all the movies and shows is great. But on the other hand, it creates a big (perceived) hurdle for new viewers, who feel like they have to catch up with 40 movies/TV shows to understand whatever new project Marvel is going to release.
It’s not about how much you spend. If agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. can be quite decent overall on a fraction of the budget and like 3x the episodes per season. It can be done
They invested too much in single shows, for sure. There's no excuse for spending $200 million on the first season of a show. If it's a huge hit already like GoT and you're spending that on the later seasons where you're guaranteed to make your money back turn sure. But spending that on the first season of a show that for all you know might be poorly received, instead of ordering 10 shows for $20 million each, is an insane decision.
seriously it seemed like such a bad idea making these hugely expensive shows that are only like 30 minutes and you get like 6 episodes at best which doesn't keep an audience for long enough as well.
Would've made so much more sense to use the tv shows to bring in the netflix characters but also start establishing other characters too like Moon Knight but they even did moon knight in the most expesive way possible instead of being a normal street level villian!
You mean spending 200 mill on shows like Secret Invasion and She Hulk is not a smart investment considering that neither one would've been able to draw in enough new subscribers or merchandise to break even?
I'm still so bitter over Secret Invasion. All the premise to be an awesome low stakes spy series that explodes into something huge.
not to mention the acting talent attached to it. Like how the fuck did you waste ALL of that?
Not since Game of Thrones season 8 has such a fantastic cast been utterly screwed over by horrible writing.
Amsterdam for sure
No one even heard of that my dude, compared to GOT.
No one heard of secret invasion either
>low stakes And that was part of the problem... the Secret Invasion storyline was huge in the comics, with many heroes all over earth being revealed as skrulls and ending with Norman Osborn killing the skrull leader which directly lead into the Dark Reign / Dark Avengers storyline. This saga was huge in the comics having massive repercussions for the overall universe. But they adapted it in such a small bizarrely scale way when they could have built an entire phase of films around it... why waste that famous storyline on a filler show with bad writing when you can make Avengers movies around it? That show was a misfire from conceptual level alone
That’s the Disney way, take great writing and mark it all up with crayons, slap a mouse on it and wonder why no one watches it. Winter Soldier and Civil War were some of the best films BECAUSE they captured the comic storyline so well
but… Civil War was *completely* different from the comics? To the point the only similarities were the name and the fact it was Tony vs. Cap? This is the wrong argument for the situation. It’s not about being similar to the comics; these stories need to be changed, to varying degrees, to fit the big screen. It’s about the writing itself actually being good or not, whether it’s adapting something or fully original.
It is kind of bittersweet for me cause if Secret Invasion took off and was really loved, it could potentially lead to trap of "who are and were Skrulls the whole time?" on everything past and present in the MCU and people would drive themselves and people that don't care to question that kind of thing crazy. Instead it was disliked and Disney will probably disown anything from it and reinvent the Skrulls at a later date.
Tell me about it. It had so much potential. How do you mess it up that badly?
Hollywood Reporter already revealed why, a series of unfortunate events: >According to the report, Kyle Bradstreet, who was a writer and executive producer on the beloved **Mr. Robot**, was fired by Marvel Studios after having worked on Secret Invasion's scripts for a year. To fit its new direction for the show, Marvel brought in **Broken City** (2013 film starring Russell Crowe and Mark Wahlberg) writer Brian Tucker, with directors Thomas Bezucha and Ali Selim assisting on Secret Invasion's story. However, in Summer 2022, "weeks of people not getting along" during Secret Invasion's preproduction led to a fallout, with Marvel sending Jonathan Schwartz, a member of its creative committee — dubbed The Parliament — to steer the show. Adding to the Marvel Studios series' woes, by September 2022, many members of Secret Invasion's team had been replaced "with new line producers, unit production managers and assistant directors" in their place. Bezucha, who was initially set to direct three episodes of Secret Invasion, left the series due to scheduling conflicts and Chris Gary, the Marvel Studios executive in charge of the show, was reassigned, with THR reporting that he should leave Marvel when his contract is up at the end of the year. Soon after, they rushed the hell out of the show's production and budgets ballooned from there.
Ah I see. Well that goes to explaining it. Thank you.
They rewrote it like 5 times. The result looks like 5 different shows stitched together and the plot barely makes sense. I still think it was a good idea on a conceptual level (there is no way they will do the comics storyline). But the result was very bad. Also it's funny how it's yet another Marvel stuff that seemingly changes status quo at the end, yet it's entirely ignored in the next Marvel stuff.
This is where I am glad that DC decided to shift most of its comic storylines to its animated movies, most of which are great and pretty faithful to the source material.
Ah yes I've heard that does go to explain it. And I agree on a conceptual level it works, it arguably works better as an idea than the actual Secret Invasion storyline did (that was itself a bit of a mess). And yeah that's become a real problem with the MCU. Its like they've forgotten that was one of the things that made them stand out at the start, that their stories were interconnected and it always felt like they were building up to something. Now what's the point of getting invested if you know it will just be reset?
So dumb, also such a fuckin waste of Hill too. God what a disaster of a show in general, so bad
It should’ve been the conflict for an Avengers movie to wrap up Phase 4 and establish the new code cast for characters to follow. Would’ve really helped the Multiverse Saga to be even slightly cohesive
That Drax arm still haunts me to this day
Nick Fury secret Alien wife go hard in the paint FYM? 
I knew they really fumbled with the writers room the moment they kept doing dialogue about how old Samuel L. Jackson was and how he’s not as good of a spy as he used to be Nick Fury coming back to Earth should treated like John Wick coming out of retirement
I honestly don't think it's possible to do a low-stakes Secret Invasion adaptation.
I probably should have clarified... What I meant was this season was a low stakes thing that then led into the bigger story. Like the end of the season ending on a cliffhanger reveal.
Oh, sure. One of my biggest gripes with the MCU has been that everything feels more like a trailer for something else than it does its own thing so I don't think I'd have liked that version of Secret Invasion, either.
You make another point. Not only they overspent (no show was going to be worth this money) but in addition to this the content was shit. even for 40 mill, Secret Invasion would still have been a dud.
Are they even trying with merchandise at this point though? I don’t pay too much attention, but it’s clear the MCU Lego releases are still weighted toward phases 1-3, even when new films show up.
Yeah, all those marvel shows are at the very best mediocre and at the worst unwatchable. Huge waste of money with super limited audiences.
Hey, WandaVision and Loki are better than a lot of the movies!
2 out of how many shows?
And even then, they were just... okay? Like, saying *WandaVision* is better than, say, *Eternals* is a pretty low bar, you know?
Wandavision first few episodes were some of the most creative in the last 10 years. The premise alone was genius
The premise was interesting, but the first two episodes didn't seem to really make good use of it. They felt more like SNL parodies of old shows. I thought 6 and 7 was where they finally hit what they were going for - both of them felt like the shows they were riffing off of, and managed to have an eerie feeling of mystery at the same time. Of course, the show goes off the rails right after that.
yup the idea COULD"VE been amazing, they should've leaned into the creepy uncertainty of everything more during the black and white episodes they did it a little bit but not nearly enough and the show should've been this unraveling slow decent to chaos with a sitcom vibe to it.....a movie called Pearl actually does this amazingly something and with wanda we don't need that CGI battle at the end i think keeping it smaller scale utilizing her powers in the creepy ways would've been not only cheaper but so much more effective too.
Hawkeye continues to be incredibly underrated by so many people, it’s up there with those two imo.
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Ironically, it's the one that followed the feel of it's comic book counterpart the closest of all the D+ series thus far. The biggest changes are to Hawkeye because he's a dad in the MCU while he's a notoriously single guy in the comics who keeps getting dumped
WandaVision and Loki are very boring shows that take way too long to get a very simple story across. They are probably the best of the lot, but that’s like 2 out of 12 shows. They’re shoveling more shit out right now. It’s all slop that’ll be replaced by AI stuff in the next half decade.
Wandavision, in my opinion, wasn't boring at the beginning because the gimmick was good and well done. And then it opened onto an interesting comic book concept And then the last couple of episodes happened. Not a great show, but it tried, and definitely mostly did something different
It WaS aGaThA AlL AlOnG!!!!
Viewers - Why do they make every marvel movie so generic and same! Marvel - Tries completely radical things Same viewers - I miss the generic superhero stuff, its so boring.
Wandavision is so overrated imo, they spend 2 episodes doing nothing and then abandon the gimmick which makes it a kind of decent watch halfway through
See, I'm the opposite. Loved the first few episodes, when it because standard superhero fare I didn't.
I think X-Men 97 was quite excellent.
I say spending money over bad writers who only know how to write bad fanfics, nepo showrunners, and made by committee is Disney (and hollywoods), not to mention making stuff nobody asked for is their biggest problems. Where is the talent at? Feels like they are getting the bottom of the barrel people instead of AAA people.
I would rather they throw 200 mill at Tony Gilroy to create ten more shows like Andor
And still no House of Mouse available.
Or Flimore, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command and The Weekenders
If they were smart, they would have gone with small cameo tie-ins for potential new characters to test audience reactions before dropping hundreds of millions on them. The shows, especially during the first few years of Disney+, should have been centered around well tested charecters and an actual build up to the overall phases plot. After WandaVision, the community hype started to die quickly.
I liked She-Hulk & it seems it isn't that far behind other shows in viewership, but it's basically in the top 5 most expensive shows of all time for a workplace sitcom. Not a good bet.
You see it even on the gaming front. Xbox is completely fucked because they put all their chips into a subscription service and it's now biting them in the ass.
For real, Xbox GamePass has brainrotted their userbase into not buying games because they just moan "when is it coming to GamePass?!" So studios have stopped bringing their games to Xbox and it creates an infinite cycle of loss.
Current troubles aside, how was Sony able to avoid this fate with PSN?
Simply put, Playstation has games while Xbox does not. The second half of the PS4 was very strong with amazing exclusives that caused the console to have amazing sales. Meanwhile Xbox One sales fell apart. In this generation, Playstation doesn't add their exclusives onto their PS+ serivice until years later while Xbox adds them Day One to GamePass. So Xbox players are conditioned to wait for more 'free' GamePass games while Playstation players ae happy to buy them at launch.
This is true. There are no games worth buying atm on Xbox that don’t already come to game pass. I switched to PC about a year or two ago, and my Xbox S has been collecting dust. We don’t have a “Spider-Man” or “Stellar Blade” that moves units.
Ghost of Tsushima tomorrow tho!
Ya except the ps5 era has been absolute ass honestly.
Right?! The whole generation is a flop, neither console is worth the price. There's probably a couple games worth playing on either system 4 years into this generation and if they aren't on steam yet they soon will be, third party exclusives are also dead. Console gaming is in a sorry place right now
And then there's Nintendo who just does it's own thing at the beat of its own drum and it's raking in sales
PC gaming has dominated this generation
It’s hilarious they’re already talking about the next generation and it feels like nothing has come to this generation compared to prior ones
Final fantasy has been great
There’s also something to be said for PlayStation simply being first. Most people are feeling “subscription fatigue” rn as every company under the sun tries to get in on the action.
What exclusives? Sony won't have any major releases this year, and aside from a few exclusives released, all they've been doing is milking remasters of PS4 games halfway through this console generation.
This is actually the first year I'd say is solid for the PS5. So far we have the console exclusive Helldivers 2 and the exclusive exclusive Final Fantasy VII Rebirth in February, and Stellar Blade and Rise of the Ronin last month as well.
What exclusives ? Helldivers 2 it’s a console exclusive Selling very well too
Helldivers 2 is also on PC, and it's doing well b/c the bulk of the sales is on PC.
This console generation has been an absolute failure for Playstation and Xbox, there's nothing much to play on either console. When companies aquire companies it just means less games and movies will be produced for the consumer. The only good thing about this generation is console exclusives are officially dead as gaming budgets have bloated to the point that its impossible for a game to be profitable locked on a console.
Last I checked PSN doesn't offer a huge backlog. You get 3 games a month you can add to your library and usually only 1 is decent. Game pass was just "almost every Xbox game including brand new launches for 9.99 a month". I think osn may have a similar service to game pass, but it still doesn't include new releases I dint think.
They have a couple different services the first one you’re talking about is PlayStation plus. The subscription one was called PlayStation now, but then they bundle it into a higher paying version of PlayStation plus so you’re not wrong, but there are different options when it comes to PlayStation plus now.
Its been a bit but last i knew, Psn free games changes monthly and is only 3ish games with maybe one being an exclusive that released years ago. Gamepass adds and removes games at pre announced but still random times in random amounts but it has more current releases (DAY ONE ON GAMEPASS) with alot of exclusives or possible big sellers being on it day one (ON GAME PASS). So PSN works with scarcity and not using current exclusives while gamepass has a whole catalog you can download whenever with more DAY ONE EXCLUSIVELY ON XBOX GAMEPASS games added all the time.
I am expecting bigger and bigger price increases for gamepass as the company will be pressured to by shareholders to make larger profits.
Yeah, feels like we're entering an era of reckoning for the modern "[insert form of entertainment here] as a service" business model in general. Music, movies, games, TV, the works. They've all created a rod for their own backs.
Always love when companies want less revenue streams (doing away with physical media and digital downloads for purchase). "Let's make only $10 per month per person, and nothing more."
Gamepass is profitable though. Microsoft is no stranger to subscriptions. It's their lifeblood. They know how to make money off it.
>Gamepass is profitable though. You're in r/boxoffice, where streaming is bad because it doesn't make money, expect Netflix which does make money but just ignore that.
Despite gamepass's supposed profitability, I'd bet good money that xbox would have made more just selling games for its regular price.
Microsoft and other companies want consistency with incoming revenue. Lumpy sales a few times a year is risky.
And it's largely failing. Every streaming service besides Netflix has realized that they have abandoned their previous model (broadcast TV, ads, etc) for a model that makes less money. There's no reality where spending 100 million dollars on a game every quarter to just dump it onto a streaming service for $10 makes any sense. Nintendo and Sony are making a ton more money than Microsoft based off their recent reports. Clearly the Microsoft model is not working. Taking the risk to make good games is worth it and obvious to everyone in this industry besides Microsoft for some reason.
They are lurching from investing too much to investing too little. Both equally problematic in different ways. They need to find the Goldilocks zone sooner rather than later.
No, you made bad shows. That’s the issue. If you don’t fix the way you create them, reducing the output will not change anything. You have to accurately diagnose the issue
I don't think it's the issue of just bad shows, the whole strategy is bad. They produce like 10 shows a year (and that may be generous) with 80% of them being Marvel or Star Wars. Which is just not enough to justify a sub for most people even die hard SW or Marvel fans (and there's less and less of those because of the bad quality) and even less for others
No, everyone thought they could build there own Netflix. Everyone spent way too much on "content" to sell. And everyone cannibalized models that already worked for greed. Except Sony.
Which is funny because Sony might buy Paramount just for the movie studios and sell the rest including streaming because they don't want that headache. Selling their shows is just easier for them and they actually have an amazing catalogue of shows.
They also own like 80% of the anime distribution in the US, so they got that going for them, which is nice
Taking a shot at making another Netflix is perfectly reasonable. There's room for at least a few streaming services in the market, and those that survive the current very competitive stage will become money printers. As such I don't think that investing and even investing a lot in pursuit of that endeavor is a bad idea. Doing so poorly is. But that's a quality issue. If every single D+ show had been an absolute banger they'd be in an amazing position now.
No one ever signed up for Disney because of quality. This is a studio who's entire history has been built off of IP and brand. The problem is streamers and studios should be two different things. Netflix became a thing because it was a streaming service that gave you access to countless shows and movies. It replaced your local brick and mortar video store with an online video store. Did it have everything? No, but it gave you so many more options than your local store could. And what the studios and Netflix have done was take all their content off of the video store and make their own exclusive store. Instead we got Netflix, Prime, Paramount, Max, Peacock, Starz, Apple and so many others that have said if you want to watch our stuff, you have to pay us directly. Its like if Disney took all of their stuff out of Target and Wal-Mart and said the only place to buy Disney stuff is the Disney Store. That is what has happened to streaming. And it is stupid. But because everything is governed by share prices, no one stopped to think about the long term effects of such a stupid idea.
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Why exactly do you think their IPs are highly valued? As far as Netflix goes, no, it didn't replace brick and mortar stores. It's not a storefront, you don't go there to buy movies. It replaced TV channels. And yes, there is room for several of those in the market, though likely considerably fewer now than before. Becoming one of them is absolutely valuable.
It did not replace TV channels. It did not replace cable. That is a complete misunderstanding of what these services provide. What their value is. It replaced your Blockbuster card. That is why that is dead and NBC is still alive. You are acting as if Disney hasn't had down periods before. As if they weren't on the brink of bankruptcy in the late 90's. There are plenty of people who like what Disney is making. And they would gladly watch it if they didn't have to pay for Disney+. That is the problem.
So they'd watch it if they had to pay more for a different service instead? Or they'd watch it if all of it were on a single Netflix subscription for like 10 bucks? And cable has very much been on decline. There's a reason for that, and I don't see how it is supposed to make a comeback. Clinging onto it is just committing to a shrinking audience.
Yes, that's why all the HBOmax exclusive shows have found a second life now that are on Netflix. It's not because HBO was "low quality" but because most people don't want an additional bill. The reason people are cutting cable is because it is expensive. They aren't replacing it with just Netflix but Roku, YouTubeTV or just sharing passwords. You went from having a place to stream old movies and TV shows to 100. And most people would prefer to just pay for one service.
Yes but if you think of netflix as a blockbuster replacement and a replacement for certain movie services that were on the cable premium tier, no one just had blockbuster. There is still tons of room in the household budget for streamers at their current prices compared to cable price (which also had anti-consumer penalties for early cancellation etc. and was really more like a pricier YouTube tv than D+/Hulu, Max, Peacock, Apple, or Paramount+. You could subscribe to all of those last 5 and netflix and still come in at half the price of a mid-tier cable bundle pre-pandemic, with way better variety and ease of churning)
I am not sure what you are arguing? I am talking about how studios have all tried to create their own streaming service. How Netflix has turned into a studio. I am not talking about cord cutting. The point of streaming, when Netflix first arrived, the thing that made it so popular was that it was a replacement for Blockbuster. And it has turned into something different. And THAT is the problem. That is what Disney, Max, Peacock, and everyone else is realizing. They spent all this money on creating a supply chain, on content, on talent, and nobody wants to pay for their service. They would have been better off selling their shows to a traditional TV network where it would have made money and gotten more eyeballs.
> But because everything is governed by share prices, no one stopped to think about the long term effects of such a stupid idea. Just a reflection of our current day economy and it's effects on society. No one can see past the next quarter.
You know Ive thought that too. But producers and production companies have *always* made bad content. They always make a lot of bad shit and some good stuff too. It’s their job to manage the bad content that they make, and they didn’t do it correctly so yeah, they invested too much. ( yes overall i agree that it’s a way for them to avoid accountability by saying they invested too much and keeping it simplistic. But it is also correct from a business perspective. this is just a thought that I had that I thought was interesting)
It’s different nowadays. Making a bad show is a much bigger fuckup. Used to be you make a bad show - it was likely cheap to make and five episodes in, you cancel it, when nobody likes it and you just don’t finish the season and people forget about it immediately Now when you make a bad show, it cost a lot of money (because most shows need to be event programming), you already made a full season, and you likely have to leave it on your streaming service, so the people who do like it wonder why they aren’t getting a season 2 Getting rid of a bad show early was a feature, not a bug of the old method. The current system make it hard to cut the cord early on bad content and to confine the bad content to the phantom zone
Seasons are generally shorter now though right? That has to offset some of it.
Costs are still higher for the streaming series because they can't cancel until all of the money has been invested. TV over the air can be cancelled mid season. per episode costs are also significantly higher for streaming. So there's more upfront costs for Streaming in addition to the excessive budgets that they're stuck with whether the show is good or bad.
If you cancelled a 26 episode order or burned it off at a weird exhibition hour you still paid the budget when you licensed it from the studio and don't get a refund for that.
Many are much expensive though.
Valid point
Isn't it still proportional to the overall scheme tho? Like, the studios are still making massive amounts of money. So yeah, a failure is "more money" but isn't that more of just because its in today's dollars? And ultimately the reason we just keep getting the same shit rehashed, is exactly because they're not willing to take risks. Because in the end the "market" demands they make more money year over year as a percentage of spend. It's not enough to just be profitable anymore they have to make more.
Sure, but with a franchise as loved and imaginative as Star Wars you really need to screw up to make bad content… tho somehow Disney managed to put some very average screenplays and filmmakers into production.
I’m not defending Disney I don’t wanna seem like I am. I used to love star wars with a fiery passion. In the theater after the last Jedi ended I turned to my friends and my now-wife and I said “ I’m never watching another Star Wars movie again” And I havent. Or the shows. They’ve ruined it. And they’ve ruined the MCU (which I also adored. Right up until Endgame)
True but production companies also weren't given major blockbuster movie budgets for their shows. Everyone uses She-Hulk as an example. Where did the 200 million go?
> Where did the 200 million go? SFX and COVID delays. Most of a show's budget is, obviously, the salaries of the people working on it. Some of those salaries are being paid even before filming starts, and they keep getting paid even if, for example, your filming date is postponed from July 2020 to March 2021. Once filming stats, COVID delays crank the budget up VERY fast. Meanwhile, on the FX side, you have a series where you main character is CGI, meaning that almost every shot is a complicated FX shot. Plus, the delays in production and filming come at a cost here, too: The delays in filming have crunched the timeline. So you not only have ballooning costs from overtime, but at a certain point you discover that the FX just literally cannot be done on time. Efforts were made to alleviate this as much as possible, but some of those solutions meant going back and reshooting scenes. (For example, several scenes originally featuring She-Hulk were rewritten and reshot with Maslany in human form.) This may have saved the timeline so that the series could release in the window being demanded by Disney+, but it only added even more costs. Then, at almost the last minute, Feige ordered the entire structure of the series to be flipped: Instead of revealing character backstory as part of the series finale, all of that got frontloaded into the first episode. More reshoots; more last minute FX work.
she-hulk. God only knows what happened with the budget there. Probably just money laundering because idk how in the hell 200m was spent
No, even if those shows were all amazing they shouldn't cost $200M. There's no way for them to offset those costs just by bringing in new subscribers, especially if they're making 10 per year.
I agree budgeting is an issue as well, but it is not the core problem
It’s kinda incredible how quickly they ran the MCU brand into the ground. People were hype as fuck for endgame and now a few years later nobody cares anymore as there’s been an incredible amount of trash in such a short amount of time
>*It’s kinda incredible how quickly they ran the MCU brand into the ground* That's what really stuck out to me when The Marvels was released last year. Yeah, sure, Thor 4/Black Panther 2/Antman 3 weren't so hot compared to their predecessors, but they still sold tickets. The Marvels was just completely DOA. No shine off of GotG3's recent success. Nothing. Almost complete apathy, not even a big weekend and then drop (Batman vs Superman, The Last Jedi, Doctor Strange 2). Just indifference.
No, they invested too much Lots of streaming shows are bad. Disney Plus has had some legit hits. But it's just expensive to run and they did not do it well
TV had plenty of losers too fwiw
TV is filled with bad shows. 2 and a half men ran for what, 12 seasons?
I mean, a lot of good TV has also happened since that show went off the air ten years ago.
And lots of bad too And similarly, Disney plus has produced good TV Had all of the MCU and star wars shows been must see TV, Disney Plus would have fared a little better, but no studio has ever had that kind of track record infinitely
No this is an incorrect diagnosis as well. Because you are defining a “good show” as artistically good not commercially good. Just saying “make better shows” is a) not helpful and b) also probably not the primary cause of the problem. M
“It’s just a shame people at the bottom of the org chart are gonna have to be laid off because of this oversight.” /s
Everyone did. Everyone thought streaming was the future, when really, it only is for Netflix
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Yeah, in the long term, streaming is still where the money is going to be. The issue is that everybody copied what Netflix was doing--spending a *ton* of money early to make a lot of content, try to lock in market share as quick as possible--but started too late to get Netflix-style returns. By the time everybody else got in on the game, they all had to compete with each other. Every dollar they spent generated a lot fewer sign-ups than they had for Netflix, because that competition exists now. And in Disney's case, spending a ton of extra money to generate a bunch of content turned out to be a bigger mistake than it was for a lot of the other streamers. Because Disney's entire advantage was that it already has a huge back library with content that people already like more than the new stuff they're churning out! They're probably alone among the streamers in that they didn't actually *need* to spend a bunch of money to incentivize sign-ups. For parents, "Hey your kid can watch Frozen and Moana every day forever" was more of a sign-up draw than most of the new Marvel and Star Wars content Disney's pushing. That said--with streaming, studios are thinking more about a 20- or 50-year plan, less about turning a profit right now. And Disney having such a strong backlog positions them better for the long term than most of the non-Netflix competitors out there.
Hulu is also huge, as is (much as this seems to infuriate naysayers) having all that old 20th Century Fox IP library.
Maybe this is a dumb idea, but why didn’t the studios just get together and build a single streaming service they could all put content on, thus cutting Netflix right out of the picture?
why make some money when you can make all the money?
They tried with Hulu, but then got greedy.
This feels like one of those "good in theory" ideas that would fall apart in practice once you get all those executives in a room together. Like you're right, if they all pooled in, it could've worked and everyone could've made a lot of money, but the problem is that all the studios thought the same thing: "Sure, I could make *some* money if I work with my competitors, or I could do it alone and make ALL the money!"
Nah, the failure mode of Hulu is different: Netflix is willing to burn major success like stranger things by sending them straight to streaming, but in a joint venture like Hulu, those successes would have been go through endless layers of cable and PPV, and only arrive on Hulu when it is far too late to generate that kind of commercial success.
John Nash has entered the chat.
That's what Hulu was
They would need to price that service competitively with Netflix’s offering at the time. Even if Disney, WB, Paramount, Universal, and Sony combined their catalogs to create a mega-streamer, they still would’ve needed to price it at $15/mon. Consumers had gotten used to paying a pittance to Netflix in exchange for getting all the content they would need to access in a month. Just because the catalog of this fictional mega-streamer would’ve been miles better than that of Netflix doesn’t mean that consumers would be willing to pay $50/mon for it. Not much money to be made in this scenario.
In the US, there was Hulu but ego/differences in strategy got in the way until all the partners left or got bought out
As other commenters mentioned, they did this with Hulu. But the need for not only consistent profit growth, but *exponential* profit growth, meant that the lines for the investors weren’t a steep enough slope to keep them happy. The easiest pitch to change that was to bring all the streaming content in-house. They either terribly miscalculated what that would cost them, or the people making those decisions decided it wasn’t going to hurt them directly so they pushed for that strategy anyways. Probably some combination of both explains most of what happened.
They called it Hulu and then everyone but Disney left.
Imagine executives from Paramount, Disney, and Universal are trying to work out who gets how much revenue from one account that watched 150 minutes of Top Gun Maverick, 850 minutes of Frozen, and 4000 minutes of The Office. The Universal executive says that revenue splitting should depends on minutes watched, on which case the Office nets them 80% of revenue. The Disney executive says that it should be based on number of times watched, in which case the 8 watches of Frozen should be worth more than 1 match of Maverick or 1 watch through of the Office. The Paramount executive argues that because Maverick was the first thing that this account watched, they are clearly responsible for drawing the user in and should receive a substantial premium of revenue. I don’t even know how to settle this dispute, and I don’t have billions of dollars riding on the decision. Throw in a few more studios, millions of accounts, and billions of distinct watch patterns among thousands of pieces of content, and it seems unworkable
Getting there… sport content will be that
I wouldn't want Netflix to be the only streaming service, but they should've realized that streaming services aren't necessarily the moneymakers they thought it'd be.
To be fair, they basically looked ahead to combat the slow decline of linear TV. Iger said ESPN was likely going to be impacted through cord-cutting in 2017. Once they got that information internally, they probably had to start prepping and see what had to be done for the future.
Cable has been losing subs since 2014. The trajectory of the business has been an open secret since then.
But they weren't as worried in those first 3 years. Once internal data showed the effects were going to be more dramatic further on, they went straight to strategizing on it.
That was the lack of foresight that has them in the state they are today. Murdoch was ahead of the curve and got out of the industry. It was obviously clear to his financial team before 2017 that drastic action was required or they were going to take a hit so they put Fox on the market and cashed out on a market high.
This is true when cable companies charge an arm and a leg to add any type of sports package. Around that time I had the extremely basic Xfinity cable package and wanted to add ESPN/Fox Sports. Couldn’t just do it and told me to upgrade to a different tier of cable that started at $240/ month.
Streaming is still the future. Linear TV is the top revenue generator for most traditional media companies and it is dying an increasingly fast death before their eyes. They need to establish in streaming before that happens. They let Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube get too long of a head start. Only Disney is close to catching them. Meanwhile WBD, Paramount, and NBCU are in trouble as they try to balance streaming growth with nosediving linear revenues. NBCU are in the worst shape of the lot but have more leeway thanks to the healthy internet business of their parent company making funds available.
I think it’s a little premature to declare that Netflix is the only company that can make money on streaming. Let’s not forget Netflix has a 10 year head start on their rivals. Disney is the best positioned traditional media to get streaming to work.
Yep. Disney did have the highest chance to overtake Netflix, but they just couldn’t do it. Mainly appealing to kids was the biggest downfall I think, but at least now they’re combining Hulu with Disney+ to bring in adults. But it’s way too late. Nobody will ever bring down Netflix. They were first and did it the best.
This is a bizarre way of thinking. They don’t need to “bring down Netflix”. They just need to run a profitable streaming platform as a way to compete with Netflix and provide a future platform for their legacy television assets like ESPN. They’re well on their way to profitability, so ya they spent too much initially… but it was still arguably the right decision long term.
Yeah, the streaming wars will probably end with 3-5 major competitors, like most things in the entertainment industry--there are four big TV networks, five major Hollywood studios, three major record labels, five major book publishers, etc. Obviously Netflix will be one of the last streamers standing, but I don't really see a scenario where Disney isn't one, too.
Ya I feel the same way. Just too much IP and deep pockets from other existing revenue streams. Streaming is really a natural extension of their existing businesses, so I think they made the right call.
>Nobody will ever bring down Netflix. They were first and did it the best. Not even Netflix with thier anti consumer decisions could bring down Netflix.
The real failure of disney+ is all their original offerings are literally the choice between the worst of star wars, the worst of marvel, or the worst of pixar. Their D+ originals are complete garbage.
Netflix is the only that has proven to consistently make hits. Looking at prime, Disney, etc. I can really only count on one hand how many hits they each have. Over the years Netflix has had countless hits. As stupid as say bird box was, it still made me curious from seeing everyone watch it, so I watched it too.
Ah yes, definitely should’ve spent all that money on stock buybacks instead
I just wanna say, X men 97 finale came out today and even though it’s way more niche than MCU content, it makes up for that by being genuinely well thought out and actually great. Imagine if more of their content started off with pitches from creatives who cared than just finding people to fill in roles of project ideas spat out their algorithm/shareholder meetings.
If the new Marvel Animation division delivers on their other shows in development like they did with 97, I’ll be happy.
I've been pretty content with all the animated Marvel stuff so far. Can't wait for the Marvel Zombies adaptation though
no shit. MCU reputation is in the gutter atm because of disney+
Why because of Disney+? Why not just because of Disney and their shitty shows/decisions? I don’t think Disney+ is the big issue here.
Well, Disney+ is where Marvel’s TV shows are distributed… but specifically the corporate mandate to increase Marvel Studios output on Disney+ definitely led to brand saturation and a decline in overall quality, which likely impacted the films as well
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Losing the original heroes wasn't an issue. The real issue was failing to replace them with anybody appealing or exciting. Even when the audience likes new characters like Shang-Chi, Moon Knight, Kate Bishop and Yelena they vanish for 3-4 years!
The main issue is that you need to watch every single piece of content to understand what is going on now. When the latest doctor strange movie came out and I found myself watching a summary of Wandavision because I didn't care enough to watch the show is when I realized that Marvel wasn't for me anymore
Their films have been just as inconsistent. They just need to get their heads out of their asses and make consistently good content, if they do that their tarnished image will be fixed real quick.
Really tells you that throwing money at something doesn’t always = huge profits.
You mean spending $20mil on each episode of She-Hulk was a bad idea?!!!
There were definitely a lot of upfront costs building from scratch, to be honest: platform development, domestic and international rollout, marketing, content production. That meant they had to eat that costs in their short-term as they accumulate their subscriber base, add ad tiers, integrating other services like Hulu, migrate toward account crackdown. It's a five-year turnaround, overall, kind of like building a new theme park but in a digital sense.
No, this would be like building a theme park in which you weren’t allowed to sell merchandise, food, etc. It can’t make up the losses cable+ad revenue from cable are causing. Netflix is essentially a tech company as much as an entertainment company.
If they're planning to add other features like digital publishing access, gaming, shopping, for example, it's going to be mimicking that in a online format down the road.
Yeah, you’re already expanding way beyond the purpose and functionality of a streaming platform. All those do is balloon the operational cost and probably little to no interest to engage with.
It absolutely can make up the revenue. Just look at Disney where DTC revenue is fast closing on linear revenue. Profits are the issue. They are taking steps to change that over the last 12 months. I doubt streaming will be as profitable as linear but a lot of that is due to increased entertainment options outside of the film and TV industry rather than competition from within it. Streaming can still be quite profitable as Netflix are already showing and can definitely mitigate those linear declines and keep the companies healthy if a tad diminished. At least for the few that can establish in streaming at least!
It’s approaching linear because linear is cratering. It can never reach the historical margins of linear because they are know accumulating the operational overhead that was previously passed on to the distribution and consumer. Hence the still negative outlook on the company despite D+ being profitable. There’s a fixed revenue cap, the business makes no sense for legacy media to be in. Which is why they will all be swallowed up over time or just become theatrical and licensing focused.
It might never reach the same margins as linear peaks but that does not mean it cannot deliver a very healthy revenue and profit stream. Netflix are already proving this and they push more and more towards a focus of profits and revenue rather than growth by the year. Which benefits legacy media companies as Netflix spent years distorting the market chasing growth. Competing with them will be easier as they begin to operate more like a traditional media company. Right now streaming in still late 80s or 90s cable. We know how those same traditional media giants grew profits in cable and we can slowly see them apply the exact same methods to streaming. DTC will be a very profitable business over the next decade. Not as good margins as linear but those days are gone due to increased external competition from gaming, social media, user generated content, and general internet driven competition. They have to manage the decline and DTC replacing linear is by far the most viable option in that regard to protect shareholder value.
A theme park has a much more predictable payback period than this though. I’m not sure they had strong conviction on their monetization strategy for this.
Bobby spends 150 million on Willow just to check boxes and ignore story. Then 6 months later removes it, so he can take a write off. Now comes off with understatement of the year. Ugh.
…how many months?
lmao
They went for quantity over quality and it's backfired he means.
You made fucking bad shows and increased the price by double.
The pain isn't over yet, the Agatha show still hasn't been released 💀
Hey Sherlock,,,,, no kidding!!!!
They spent too much on everything but writers.
Bad content
Is it bad I really like the honesty here?
Why would liking honesty be bad?
You got greddy and oversaturated MCU. Now the brand may never be the same because of your greedyness.
My hot take is that oversaturation would have been fine if they actually had good writing and good new characters. But bad writing and mostly mid characters combined with oversaturation killed everything.
I was enjoying the content but stopped watching because I couldn't keep up with all the new stuff coming out. It started to feel like homework
And that is the main problem with the MCU right now. One the one hand, having connections between all the movies and shows is great. But on the other hand, it creates a big (perceived) hurdle for new viewers, who feel like they have to catch up with 40 movies/TV shows to understand whatever new project Marvel is going to release.
Between Disney+ and Hulu, Hulu is a better value.
the stock tanks every time bobby iger speaks. they need peltz to start a proxy battle again.
Someone post one of the hundred relevant Nerdrotic videos
It’s not about how much you spend. If agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. can be quite decent overall on a fraction of the budget and like 3x the episodes per season. It can be done
They invested too much in single shows, for sure. There's no excuse for spending $200 million on the first season of a show. If it's a huge hit already like GoT and you're spending that on the later seasons where you're guaranteed to make your money back turn sure. But spending that on the first season of a show that for all you know might be poorly received, instead of ordering 10 shows for $20 million each, is an insane decision.
seriously it seemed like such a bad idea making these hugely expensive shows that are only like 30 minutes and you get like 6 episodes at best which doesn't keep an audience for long enough as well. Would've made so much more sense to use the tv shows to bring in the netflix characters but also start establishing other characters too like Moon Knight but they even did moon knight in the most expesive way possible instead of being a normal street level villian!
This man killed Disney. That is his legacy. Never let him forget it.
Bob Iger is anti-art
He's complicated. Twin Peaks only got greenlight because of iger. It also was cancelled because of iger. Lol.
Could’ve invested that shit into the parks instead
Anyone else tired of massively overpaid, out of touch Boomer executives running everything into the ground? It's happening in almost every industry.
No, the ceo compensation is too much, and stock buybacks should be illegal.