Sony Boss Urges Theaters To Stop 30 Minutes of Trailers and Ads Before Movies (variety.com) 152
Sony Pictures chief Tom Rothman urged theater owners to cut down the roughly 30 minutes of trailers and ads before movies. "Get off the ad crack," Rothman told the audience at CinemaCon this week. "Get rid of the endless advertising and substantially shorten the long pre-shows." Variety reports: He noted that frequent moviegoers now show up a half hour late to avoid all the spots (something that reserved seating has made easier than ever before). Rothman said that means many people "don't even see the trailers," which results in "enticements gone to waste." Rothman predicted that the 2026 box office, which has already benefitted from hits like "Super Mario Galaxy Movie" and "Project Hail Mary," will rebound in a big way. But he acknowledged that attendance still trails pre-pandemic levels.
Rothman has been a vociferous defender of the big screen, pushing studios to embrace longer windows so that movies will stay in cinemas longer. That was a theme that Rothman returned to at CinemaCon, pressing exhibitors to hold strong and agree not to show movies that quickly appear on streaming services or on-demand platforms. "Enforce longer windows," Rothman said. "Yes, even if that means you cannot play every film."
In addition to stumping for exhibition, Rothman has practically begged Hollywood to invest in new stories along with all the franchise fare. In a recent New York Times op-ed, for instance, Rothman, the longest-serving studio chief, wrote, "For all the success of films driven by existing intellectual property, originality is essential to movies. Neither movie theaters nor the art form itself can survive without at least some originality. After all, you can't make a sequel to nothing."
Rothman has been a vociferous defender of the big screen, pushing studios to embrace longer windows so that movies will stay in cinemas longer. That was a theme that Rothman returned to at CinemaCon, pressing exhibitors to hold strong and agree not to show movies that quickly appear on streaming services or on-demand platforms. "Enforce longer windows," Rothman said. "Yes, even if that means you cannot play every film."
In addition to stumping for exhibition, Rothman has practically begged Hollywood to invest in new stories along with all the franchise fare. In a recent New York Times op-ed, for instance, Rothman, the longest-serving studio chief, wrote, "For all the success of films driven by existing intellectual property, originality is essential to movies. Neither movie theaters nor the art form itself can survive without at least some originality. After all, you can't make a sequel to nothing."
paying the bills (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:paying the bills (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:paying the bills (Score:5, Informative)
Do theaters still get 0% of the box office and rely solely on ad revenue and dwindling sales of overpriced concessions for all their income? If so, it's easy for this kind of greedy idiot to complain about it, but ultimately meaningless.
Last I checked, it was a changing percentage. First release, 0% for the theater. Second or third week it goes to something like 10% for the theater. As the weeks go on, it continues to climb until you get to the third-run theaters where the percentage is somewhere in the 75-90% theater take, but that's typically after the movie has been out for months already.
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Re:paying the bills (Score:5, Informative)
Well they probably could get off the Ad crack if companies like Sony stopped arse raping them on prices for their movies.
/thread
You nailed it. The theaters cannot cover operating costs without all of the advertising revenue. The vast majority of the ticket sales money goes to the studios. The theaters used to make their money on concessions, but most people don't spend much at the concessions anymore -the exorbitant prices have driven people to other options (bring-from-home or do-without). Theaters are caught in a catch-22 of doing things customers don't want in order to make enough money to operate, but doing these things is lowering attendance.
If studios want theaters to keep showing movies, then studios need to find a way to subsidize theaters. Either lowering their share of ticket sales, or buying theater chains outright. Otherwise the future will be streaming ONLY.
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We could also try allowing them to sell beer.
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AMC sells beer and alcohol. Several other "dinner theaters" like iPic also sell alcohol as well
You can't make a sequel to nothing (Score:3)
But you can sure as hell die trying!
Re:You can't make a sequel to nothing (Score:5, Interesting)
(Well, it was a re-release of Cecil Wayne Ratliff's Vulcan database for CP/M when Aston-Tate bought a license to that, but there never was a "dBASE I".)
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dBASE 0, return of the AI, is in the works i think by disney
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As a Tron prequel, if I recall...
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Let's hope Oracle never buys them out. They'll assert ownership over dBase, defeature it, try to sue anyone who targets it and replace it in the storyline.
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Oh man, that's a name I haven't heard in many decades!
I built my career around dBase, starting in 1986; evolved to Clipper around 1992. My Clipper work kept me busy until nearly 2000, and I was still patching my old Clipper apps well into the first decade of the new millennium as I made the transition from developer to DevOps working primarily in SQL and Powershell.
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Leonard Part 6
Yes, it is a terrible movie, but parts 1 through 5 were so accurate that the CIA blocked their release to protect state secrets! (...or so I was told.)
The volume of ads (Score:5, Insightful)
Turn down the movie too, and compress the audio (Score:2)
I have to wear earplugs to see movies because they are so loud. I think it's because the dynamic range is too broad. The very loud things are so much louder than the very quiet things you're supposed to hear. You can hear the quiet things fine but then the loud things are way too loud.
If they compressed the audio they wouldn't need to crank it up so high and you could hear both the quiet and loud things at a volume that is pleasing, with no need for painful excess loudness.
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Lots of people like the trailers. But ads aren't trailers, they're ads. The ones they run before the official start time, no problem. Most people are talking to their date/kids/whatever and ignoring them anyway. But once the lights go down, there should be no ads.
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Agree, I like the trailers. If they had a showing of JUST trailers, I'd probably go!
The problem with ads is that they're repetitive, and hence boring.
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And a cartoon. We always had a cartoon before the movie. The pre-war Bugs Bunny ones were the best.
I'd mod this insightful, except I can't moderate topics I've posted in!
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Raising the price of ticket really only benefits the studio, who get most of the box office.
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Maybe they can make up for it by dramatically raising prices both of the movie and concessions. /s
Yes, please make the candy bars $10 with a medium drink for $8.99. And can you also make the floor sticky?
Product placement (Score:3, Insightful)
people still go to theaters? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: people still go to theaters? (Score:2)
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why?
There are some films for which a true 70mm IMAX screen cannot be equaled (Nolan is a fanatic about filming for 70mm IMAX). Sure, there are only (about) three dozen of those theaters in the world (I happen to live close enough to one of them), but watching some films in them can be a really enjoyable experience. For a lot of films, watching them on a 6" phone screen is more than sufficient (nothing to see there anyway).
IMAX GT (Score:2)
I only go on 1.43:1 giant IMAX presentations. I am fortunate to have one near me (Manchester UK) that can play both 70mm and the full 1.43:1 format with their dual laser on a huge screen. Other cinemas (including all but very select IMAX) - except maybe 4DX - don't offer a better experience than home IMHO...
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Do you not do the classic date night: dinner and a movie? I guess this just shows my age more than anything else.
I guess these days all activities must be contained within the walls of suburban McMansions, according to some people.
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Sure...
But these days its getting harder and harder to get out on a date without the wife finding out...
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Good one.
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That is the real problem. There are to many movies. There is just so much low quality stuff cranked out. The movies have outside of a few big legacy francises lost their social aspect.
30 years ago EVERYONE saw the same movies, talked about them got excited about them. There were always tons of marketing tie-ins, every kid went to MCDs and got a batman toy. Now it is all to scattered and silo-ed. Even if you do go the movies none of the guys at work saw it too. There is no social incentive anymore.
Add to
Re:people still go to theaters? (Score:4, Insightful)
UK person here - so excuse any local reference... I remember reading Empire magazine a few years ago: its cover was the "summer of sequels". Superheroes, etc.
But... this was 1989. Franchises aren't new: it might feel like they squeeze everything else out - and for many cinemas that might be sadly true - but there are always enough non-generic films to go to. E.g. "H is for Hawk" was lovely, "Marty Supreme" was great, "Sinners" was stunning. Relatively recently there was "Civil War" (although possibly looking more like documentary as time passes), "The Anniversary" (similar), "Bugonia", etc.
Might also help that the local Cineworld (a multiplex chain) has dropped standard ticket prices to £5 and Imax tickets to £7, which for this family of three means it's cheaper to see a new release at the cinema than as a "home premiere" on streaming. (And, yes, I know wait another few weeks and it's the price of a single ticket.)
So, why not? "Hail Mary" - probably the weakest of everything I've mentioned here - was still pretty enjoyable in imax.
Yes, there's lots of "generic" sequel nonsense, but search out the other stuff. It's there, and if things like "Secret Agent" make money in cinemas, more stuff like that might get made.
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Anyone who actually cares even a little can budget for a 60+" 4k display with some basic HRD capability and decidedly ok sound bar.
I was wandering through my local Walmart the other day, happened across a 75" 4k Samsung on clearance for $350. Being from Walmart, I don't suspect it was anything special, but for that price? Had I brought a vehicle that it would have fit in that TV would have for sure followed me home. To your point: Even not on clearance, a passable 60"+ TV can be had for a couple hundred bucks, and a reasonable soundbar for similar. It's no real mystery why people are going to the theaters less and less.
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A few years ago, I invested in a nice home theater system and haven't looked back. Occasionally I stream something that the media says is "good" and have been consistently disappointed with the dreck being excreted by the movie industry.
This is why I'm fine with my "Black Friday special" TV.
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to disconnect from social media?
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Interstitials (Score:2)
Re:Interstitials (Score:4)
Bring back the intermission.
Those of us who filled up on cola can swap theories at the urinal of how the second half of the movie will end up while those with stronger bladders watch the ads.
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If they stop the movie halfway through to run ads, I'll burn down the fucking theater.
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How would you tell the difference?
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and nobody wants that.
Not true at all. Advertisers want that (of course, you might be classifying them as "nobody," and I won't quibble over that).
They also don't see that as an "or" choice. Why not both?
Advertising (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't use companies that try to monetise my use of them, especially if I'm paying for their service.
On that note...
Why the fuck am I seeing huge ads on Slashdot now for "bolt.new" and other shite when I paid many years ago to "Disable Advertising"?
Re:Advertising (Score:5, Funny)
when I paid many years ago to "Disable Advertising"?
I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further.
Sounds like a job for small claims court.
RIP Slashdot subscriptions (Score:2)
Why the fuck am I seeing huge ads on Slashdot now for "bolt.new" and other shite when I paid many years ago to "Disable Advertising"?
I seem to remember that Slashdot subscriptions lasted a specific number of page views before expiring. Slashdot stopped offering them a couple acquisitions ago. Yours probably expired.
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Nope. No such thing when I paid to have that button first time around.
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Why the fuck am I seeing huge ads on Slashdot now for "bolt.new" and other shite when I paid many years ago to "Disable Advertising"?
Crypto grifters DGAF about keeping promises or the law, and grifters gonna grift.
Re:Advertising (Score:5, Insightful)
There are ads on Slashdot?
I think I saw one years ago. I used to have a checkbox that was labeled "disable advertising" up under my username, but that seems to have disappeared, never saw any ads either way.
Time to switch adblockers if you're seeing them.
Re: Advertising (Score:2)
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Chrome's AdGuard does a pretty fantastic job with them. I pair that with PopUpOff for those annoying popup content blockers where they try to force you to see their ads.
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I hadn't realized that was an ad...actually, I hadn't noticed it until you mentioned it. At least the MongoDB as has gotten less obnoxious. (I though MongoDB was free software, but maybe all the entries in the Debian repository are for drivers or interfaces.
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It will never change (Score:4, Informative)
If we're lucky, the ad industry will drift completely into the virtual world, were AI bots serving ads that other AI bots klick and consume, so humans don't have to be part of the game anymore.
I'd really be interested in how many "interactions" with ads are real humans conciously clicking or reading the bs, let alone "triggering a purchase decision".
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In other news, (Score:5, Insightful)
Easy to say for him (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't movie studios take almost all money from tickets making theaters depend on overpriced food&drinks and those crazy long ad segments as primary sources of income?
Re:Easy to say for him (Score:4, Insightful)
It may be true that studios and theatres have fallen into a counterproductive trap: there's an obviously self defeating race to the bottom if theatres keep getting squeezed and responding by making the theatre experience worse which then reduces ticket sales and makes their fixed costs even less supportable so they make the experience yet worse; but the studios hold far more of the cards than the theatres do here.
What have you done for me lately? (Score:2)
downward spiral (Score:5, Insightful)
it's a classic downward spiral. Like when the local mall is losing stores, instead of enticing new stores with lower rent, they raise rent to make up for their income loss, which drives out more stores.
But here they're getting lower attendance so instead of doing something to entice people to come to the theaters, they're raising ticket prices and piling long ads at the start of the movie, which drives away more patrons.
Are they stupid? With the malls, it's usually a case of the anchor stores having left, which triggers contract clauses that are going to kill the mall in a few years, so it's just a (somewhat) understandable last-minute cash grab before the doors close. But I don't know of any silimar issue with the theaters that would encourage them to press the self-destruct button? Anyone have any good ideas?
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The print ads may not have been effective marketing, but the demo discs that came with the magazines got a few sales out of me.
ads (Score:2)
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But you can never be sure when the movie actually starts.
The stated time should be when the movie actually begins. If I feel like watching previews and ads, I'll arrive early.
Percentage (Score:2)
Does Sony demand 100% of ticket sales for the first two weeks like LucasFilm was reported to do? Harry Potter via WB too IIRC and other big properties?
Without asking why these ads run and why a popcorn and soda is $11, nothing will change and more theaters will go under.
I just learned that my local theater now has free refills on both popcorn and soda . This is a good idea as the goal is to get the $11 and if materials cost is $0.50 or $2 that doesn't really matter vs. no sale.
FWIW that theater ran two tra
Let's go out to the lobby... (Score:2)
....and have ourselves a snack.
Intermissions used to be a thing. Being able to take a leak and grab another snack/drink halfway through the film used to be a thing.
Hell. For longer films like Titanic or Lord of the Rings, that would be a blessing. Even the "cheap" theater in my hometown is all-digital now so it's not even a matter of splicing more film in. Maybe concession prices could even be lowered since volume would go up?
I'd still probably sneak snacks in, though... as if I even went to theaters anymor
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Intermissions are still a thing in concerts, plays, theater, musicals, and in many types of Indian cinema.
The break lets the audience stretch, visit a toilet, talk about what they've seen, and buy the high-priced concessions. Run for about an hour, have a break, finish it up. Or a 3-act, with two breaks.
It makes a change for the writers, with a one-act movie there is a continuous momentum from beginning to end, with breaks the writing can be more episodic. Neither is really going to be right or wrong, jus
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3 trailers should be the limit. (Score:3)
Theatres need to lean into the experience (Score:2)
It is not rocket science
- Reduce prices on weeknights to get people in the door.
- When things feel over-priced, it greatly harms the experience and results in less return visits. Reduce margins on snacks. The prices are insane right now and literally out of reach for many families. Two parents and their kids with basic popcorn are looking at like $150+ to see a movie right now in some markets it is INSANE. If prices were more reasonable, then a lot more people would go and you'd make it up on volume, more i
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If prices were more reasonable, then a lot more people would go and you'd make it up on volume, more importantly they would leave with a POSITIVE experience.
They'd also have to kick out phone fuckers and people who won't shut the fuck up ("why did he do that?") and also actually adjust the volume to avoid both distortion and blowing out people's eardrums. The last couple times I went to movies in normal theaters they failed at both things.
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One does not make money by kicking out paying customers.
If I'm going to watch a movie, I want it in an environment where I control the lighting, the food, the temperature, and the sound level, and I can hit pause if I want to grab a fresh drink. So I'm probably never going to a movie theater again. The "phone fuckers" (whatever that means) and people who have no interest in you wanting them to shut up are their paying customers now.
Let it go, watch movies at home.
Copyright Duration (Score:2)
Reduce copyright to 10 years. Maybe we will be spared the low-effort sequels, spin-offs and remakes. I mean, how much can you squeeze out of Star Wars, Marvel and Oceans nn?
Be afraid, be very afraid (Score:2)
James Bond is alive and kicking as a franchise; the zombies you mention seem unlikely to end soon.
Much ado about nothing. (Score:2)
Not a chance (Score:3)
As a consumer though honestly you're just going to show up 20 minutes late for showing and browse on your phone until the ads stop.
But you are still the closest to an old school captive audience and AD man can get. That's the real problem with television ratings dropping traditional advertising is looking for a place they can just kind of force people to watch their ads for a bit. Internet ads just don't work unless it's a influencer pretending to be your friend.
Tom Rothman is behind the times though. (Score:2)
30 Minutes of ads and moviegoers showing up late? That was something I started about 20 years ago. Then theaters stopped selling tickets as soon as show times (with ads) started, so now you either watch the ads or wander the theatre lobby. I'd like a little more light during the ads so I can write down the movie titles I might like to see since I'm not going to remember any of the ads after the movie completes.
Ads are only part of the problem... (Score:2)
There are so many other problems that theaters have:
At this point it has to be a really big movie for me to go see it in a theater, otherwise it is just way better to wait a few weeks and rent it or stream it to watch a
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Overpriced snacks
Just sneak [ifunny.co] your own candy into the theater.
I like the trailers (Score:2)
I just want the trailers to be consistent in total length. Thirty years ago, when I was living in Europe, movie theaters listed two times for every showing. The time the lights went down, and the time the feature started showing. Iâ(TM)ve wanted that in the US ever since but never seen it.
When I went to see Hail Mary the biggest surprise was the feature starting 12 minutes after the scheduled time instead of the usual 25 to 28 minutes. If Iâ(TM)d been expecting the longer time I might have missed
Re: I like the trailers (Score:2)
I see more movies than most people I know, and have been disappointed that thereâ(TM)s been nothing Iâ(TM)m interested in seeing released since Hail Mary, so itâ(TM)s been several weeks since Iâ(TM)ve been in a theater.
Go for originality while pointing at... (Score:2)
The Super Mario movie as a cornerstone or revival.
And I wonder, how many of the movies in the 30 minute ad block are Sony movies?
Fuck off with your product placement then, Sony (Score:3)
However, back on topic, Sony is historically one of the worst abusers of product placement. Never in my fucking life have I seen a Sony laptop in the wild, but they're in every movie...same with Sony phones. It's weird and jarring, but I don't honestly care too much...if the movie is good enough, I barely notice. It's especially obnoxious when they frame the shot to ensure that Sony logo is visible on protagonist's computer monitor and laptop...like when the soda companies would ensure the actors had the soda can perfectly framed, centered, and they endured to mention it a few times.
I'm a grown up and know that you have to pay millionaire producers salaries somehow...as well as the massive crews needed to make a traditional movie. But you're charging theaters massive and unsustainable fees....and then putting ads in your movies....as well as mostly releasing dogshit in the last 25 years...lame unoriginal blockbuster attempts...that just keep flopping.
So you're not wrong....30 min of ads suck...but hearing it from Sony is like hearing Mark Zuckerberg calling to respect user privacy and have corporations stop meddling in elections.
When I saw the re-releases of Dogma and Holy Grail (Score:2)
Both ran without preceding ads. At both, just before the films started, I was thinking the theaters were awfully empty. Then, about 20 minutes in, people started coming in.
Fuck off Sony (Score:2)
You've made exactly two good movies since 2010 and are one of the main reasons theaters need ads to survive on top of already being the most expensive way to watch a movie.
Hilarious (Score:2)
I laughed...I haven't been to a movie theater in a decade or more and I have zero intention to ever go to one again.
It's too expensive, too crowded, too many people yelling and jabbering non-stop, and it'll cost me at least $5 just to drive there and back.
No thanks, I'll pass.
Your ads are drowning out our ads! (Score:2)
Live theater is a much better value (Score:2)
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100% This. I (re)discovered local theater years ago and would highly recommend it. The quality of the product is typically really fantastic. Even the seemingly smaller, theater productions leave me wondering why the leads aren't on Broadway or Hollywood already. As the OP noted, this is a place for adults, so the viewing atmosphere is 100x better than going to the Cineplex. There aren't that many productions every year, sadly a lot of companies permanently closed after pandemic.
I'm not much into
Sony (Score:2)
Perhaps Sony can supply the theaters with free thumb drives to hand out to patrons that contain the ads. As a bonus you'll get a free rootkit installed on your computer.
trailers vs ads (Score:2)
Trailers I don't mind so much, because it helps me plan out future trips to the cinema, if any.
The ads have to go.
Remember the forced ads we had to contend with on DVDs? I wonder what happened to those.
Don't go into the theater until (Score:2)
20 Minutes after the supposed "Start Time"
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lectures about how my sex and race are evil
You heard "white people did bad things" and decided they were saying you're evil because you want to do those same things.
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Perhaps you should consider being a bit more selective about the films you choose to see? When my wife and I go to the cinema, the ratio of previews is about 10:1, films I wouldn't want to see vs films that look interesting. Not at all interested in the latest Marvel/DC/comic book retread, which by itself eliminates a lot of unwatchable trash. That means we don't go often, but than in itself makes it more of a treat.
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Don't you think if a market for these types of movies exists then the studios would take advantage? I hear Kevin Sorbo, Melissa Joan Hart, and that chick they fired from The Mandalorian were into that style. You haven't watched any of their fine work?
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The glaring flaw in your argument is that people are just fine with watching the exact sort of content you're bitching about, over on Netflix.
It's probably just that people don't want to deal with the hassle and expense of going out to watch something that will be on streaming in a few weeks. Yeah, as TFS says, the studios could take their ball and go home, but that might just backfire when people decide to watch Tiger King 2.0 - Now with More Tigers! instead of Big Budget Hollywood Slop Film Electric Boog