The Film Business’ Recent Inflection Points
A new edition of an excerpt from a past post.
This was part of a prior post (6/14/23) that I needed to make easier to find for myself. I trust it will be useful for you too. I had to update it with a few semi-recent observations. Let me know what I missed.
And please tell me, what do you think will happen next?
The Film Business’ Recent Inflection Points
1970-1980 New Hollywood & Tentpole Takeover (Inmates run a more lucrative asylum)
1980-1990 Home Video Fuels Both Indie & Studio Growth
1982-1994 The birth to death of American Playhouse, public television’s sole ongoing support for feature length narrative films.
1990-2000 International Sales Fuels Indie & Studio Growth
1990-2005 Cable Television’s Domestic Reign
1991 EL MARIACHI helps launch no-budget feature filmmaking as a global phenomenon.
1994 The Death of True Indie Dreams (Masquerading as success).
GO FISH sells is the first film to sell in the first half of Sundance Film Festival, forever dooming it to being an acquisition-oriented sales market more than a festival.
Meanwhile PULP FICTION is released to tremendous success, raising the bar for box office and stars, and thus changing the indie game forever.
1990-202…. Online Gaming Becomes The Most Popular Leisure Time Activity (With No Sign Of Diminishing)
1993 Clinton Administration abolishes the Financial Interest and Syndication Rules (“fin-syn”) “causing a merger boom of content and distribution.”
“Immediately, for instance, Castle Rock Entertainment, the production company behind shows like Seinfeld, sold out to Turner Broadcasting, which in turn sold out to Time Warner. Disney bought ABC, and then rolled-up a series of rivals to acquire large amounts of well-known intellectual property - like Marvel and Star Wars.”
1993 Supreme Court essentially legalizes predatory pricing, the tactic Netflix will eventually use to gain market share and dominance.
1995-2015 Consolidation of US Movie Theater Chains:
“In 1995, the top five movie chains owned a third of U.S. theaters, with the biggest, Carmike, owning around 2,500. By 2016, the top five held over 53% of the movie theaters in the country, with the largest, AMC, owning 8,380.” “as theater operators played the biggest hits on several screens at once. Films began to do most of their business in the first few weeks, so well-branded tent pole movies with strong IP - aka Marvel-style movies - displaced word of mouth.”
2000-2008 Indiewood Consumes The Alternative Both in US & Globally
2004 New York State (and others) initiate tax credits for film and television, giving American filmmakers & their financiers a second wind.
2005-2020 User-Generated Content Takes Over Leisure Time (Other Than Gaming). YouTube launches February 14, 2005. Facebook launched the year prior.
2006-2016 Infinite Scroll is invented by Aza Raskin and then popularized by Facebook in 2011 and Twitter & Instagram in 2016.
2008-2012 World Financial Collapse & Thinning of the Herd, pt 1. Many film companies start to go out of business.
January 29, 2011 (majority) - March 19, 2013 (full ownership) Comcast buys NBC: “When Comcast bought NBC, Netflix, then a minor player, feared it would lose access to content from studios. So it began buying its own movies and shows, combining distribution and production as the first studio-streamer.”
2010-2022+ Private equity buys into the ecosystem, turning it from a sustainable passion-driven industry to a Wall St. shell game, hellbent at growth at any cost, including destruction of our industry (and planet?). “In 2010, TPG Capital made the first (a reported $166 million) of several investments into CAA, and by 2014, it owned a controlling stake (it reportedly poured in an additional $60 million, putting the total investment somewhere around $225 million for its 53 percent chunk”.
2012- 2020 Peak Series Content: In 2013, Netflix release the entire first season of HOUSE OF CARDS on the same day. After initiating the biggest spending spree in the history of the industry, Wall Street rewards them by forgetting about profit and revenue concerns, and drinks the kool-aid of unlimited growth and market share. Now it is dead.
2012-2022 The End Of Profit Sharing. The talent agencies and streamers find common ground in treating everything as a hit, agreeing to back end buyouts which gives everyone something extra except those that actually make hits.
2019-2022 Global Streaming Pivot And Associated Diversity Considerations. Netflix released SQUID GAME worldwide to great success on Sept 21, 2021. Having reached customer saturation in the US, it becomes clear they must serve all audiences and it is great businesses. Streamers all diversify their programming, but not because of social or political aims, but because it is good business. Global audiences want global perspectives.
2019 -2022 Thinning Of The Herd, Pt 2: 2019, Disney buys Fox. 2022 Discovery buys Warner Bros. Less distributors, less releases — more consolidation of power.
As Matt Stoller makes clear: “Consolidation, combining both production and distribution, and shrinking the number of studios, led to budget cuts. For writers, this meant smaller writer rooms, shorter seasons, and worse terms. Writer pay fell by 14% over the last five years, with sweatshop conditions even for those with the most creative control, the showrunners. Others felt it too; independent TV production houses, such as firms who create reality TV shows, struggled. They no longer have any choice but to sell to one of a few studio-streamers. Streamers demanded the intellectual property of anything they bought, which meant independent production houses began working as contract players for a fee, almost like chicken farmers or gig workers. There was no point in creating something great, since all the upside went to the streaming giants.”
March 2020 -2022 Global Covid Pandemic leads “experts” to believe audiences now favor convenience over authentic or unique experience, and perhaps they do. The US lost 2000+ screens amid the Pandemic.
November 2020 - present: the rise of ambient TV and general drift in total mediocrity for the GSPS.
Summer 2022: Netflix’s share price drops 35% after 200,000 subscribers cancel. Be it gas prices or just food, the cost of a subscription may be what’s gotta go. All of sudden other Studios start to question if it was worth killing the three-headed golden goose of past profit: advertising, distribution, and syndication. The 180 degree pivot kicks in. Is Streaming doomed? Peak TV over? Can it get worse? Yup.
November 30,2022 — Chat GPT is released ushering in the Machine Era where those that can not effectively demonstrate the value of being human must change their jobs. The Machines are allowed by the Greedy Overlords to steal from artists and creators without proper compensation until they… ?
2022- Present: Streamers pull out of the documentary market. Political “truth to power” films and anything other than true crime, celebrity or sports docs have no home.
May 2023: WGA strikes for the 1st time in 15 years, coinciding with the reveal of the obscene salaries Industry CEO’s make. With AMPTP being so heartless and evil, and the Hollywood CEOs tendency to “loot the store”, the creative community recognizes we now need a real alternative to Hollywood — or at least I wish it was so!
2024 — ?: Is Indie TV really going to be a thing?
January 2025 - present: Big Tech kowtows to Trump, sacrificing DEI and democracy in favor of hopes of a better tax rate.
Spring 2025 — America’s theatrical box office is in the toilet
Isn’t it curious how that latter points are all series related? I wonder what that is all about?
I have also tried to map out a more complete history of how we got here too. I am a bit like a dog with bone. Give me enough time and I will gnaw and gnaw, until the last scrap is gone.
If you are curious of such steps we took on this path to possible disaster, perhaps you want to check this out:
Wow this was hugely insightful!! Love the timeline aspect as it helps us understand what the future may hold. More of this 😍
HUGELY insightful, thank you. Nothing like a good 360 to get us all on the same wavelength.