But is this because of a fault of the Hollywood system, or is it because there are few significant movie story ideas left that have not been done?
Neither: revealed preferences of consumers are in favor of reboots so that’s what gets made. That’s only a “fault” if your preferences differ from that of most consumers.
(Although I’ve heard someone argue that piracy made independent films less viable: to the extent consumers would be willing to pay were no pirate option available, but lack of such payments causes fewer films to be made, that would be a market failure argument. I don’t really have enough knowledge to judge that as an explanation.)
Customers can only show revealed preferences based on what studios put out. It is possible that studios don’t put out things that the customers would spend the most money on. (For instance, if studios are risk-averse and would release movies that on the average make less money, as long as the worst case is less likely.)
Although I’ve heard someone argue that piracy made independent films less viable: to the extent consumers would be willing to pay were no pirate option available, but lack of such payments causes fewer films to be made
Piracy is not an issue these days, but the inflexibility of current distribution arrangements still is. Part of the issue is that making a movie—even an indie one—is a lot more costly than most backers would expect, so indie creators generally set inadequate crowdfunding targets, expecting that they’ll be able to make up the difference by signing on to a traditional distributor. However, all this does is compound problems. (Compare this to the games sector, where high-stakes crowdfunding campaigns have in fact become relatively common.)
Yes, you’re definitely right about reboots reflecting the preference of customers. But what leads to shifts in movie customer preferences?
It seems to me that movie audiences want to see a combination of newer, bigger, and better. A movie that doesn’t seem like a new story, or a similar story but a bigger scale, or a similar story told better, doesn’t seem to interest audiences in general. It’s that feeling of “I’ve seen all of this before.”
Is there a limit to how many new stories we can create, how big in scale the stories are, and how well we can tell the stories? Marvel / Star Wars / Disney are having massive success retelling similar stories but in larger scale and with better CGI and technology than before. How can they keep getting bigger or better indefinitely though?
(This is besides other current market factors like a larger international audience which has its own preference for movies which changes demand for certain types of films. Also I don’t mean that we will every stop making movies, just that it will be clear to us that the most significant films are in the past at some point.)
Neither: revealed preferences of consumers are in favor of reboots so that’s what gets made. That’s only a “fault” if your preferences differ from that of most consumers.
(Although I’ve heard someone argue that piracy made independent films less viable: to the extent consumers would be willing to pay were no pirate option available, but lack of such payments causes fewer films to be made, that would be a market failure argument. I don’t really have enough knowledge to judge that as an explanation.)
Customers can only show revealed preferences based on what studios put out. It is possible that studios don’t put out things that the customers would spend the most money on. (For instance, if studios are risk-averse and would release movies that on the average make less money, as long as the worst case is less likely.)
Piracy is not an issue these days, but the inflexibility of current distribution arrangements still is. Part of the issue is that making a movie—even an indie one—is a lot more costly than most backers would expect, so indie creators generally set inadequate crowdfunding targets, expecting that they’ll be able to make up the difference by signing on to a traditional distributor. However, all this does is compound problems. (Compare this to the games sector, where high-stakes crowdfunding campaigns have in fact become relatively common.)
Yes, you’re definitely right about reboots reflecting the preference of customers. But what leads to shifts in movie customer preferences?
It seems to me that movie audiences want to see a combination of newer, bigger, and better. A movie that doesn’t seem like a new story, or a similar story but a bigger scale, or a similar story told better, doesn’t seem to interest audiences in general. It’s that feeling of “I’ve seen all of this before.”
Is there a limit to how many new stories we can create, how big in scale the stories are, and how well we can tell the stories? Marvel / Star Wars / Disney are having massive success retelling similar stories but in larger scale and with better CGI and technology than before. How can they keep getting bigger or better indefinitely though?
(This is besides other current market factors like a larger international audience which has its own preference for movies which changes demand for certain types of films. Also I don’t mean that we will every stop making movies, just that it will be clear to us that the most significant films are in the past at some point.)