Posts Tagged ‘Pixar’

Hollywood Out of Ideas, Money, Jobs

Thursday, April 18th, 2024

Sunday I watched Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire at the local Alamo Drafthouse. All of the trailers shown before the movie were for sequels or reboots:

  • Furiosa
  • Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
  • The Crow reboot
  • Bad Boys Ride or Die
  • Twisters
  • I understand there’s a certain amount of irony in complaining that all the trailers were a sequel or a reboot before a movie that was a sequel to a sequel to a sequel to a sequel to a reboot, but usually Alamo has more varied trailer fare.

    But that lack of originality, along with wokeness, the red ink carnage of the streaming wars, and the lingering effects of the most recent strikes, has led to a deep recession in Hollywood, so much so that Deadline has a regular Hollywood Contraction feature.

    How bad is it? “Employment in “motion picture and sound recording” has grown nationwide, but the share of workers in LA or New York went from just under half at the beginning of 2023 to just one-third earlier this year.”

    All this activity peaked in 2022, when 600 original scripted shows were in production, according to the network FX. That gave lots of opportunities to everyone who makes a film shoot possible: Writers, crew members, caterers, and actors, like Haddad Tompkins. But it didn’t last.

    “When the beginning of 2023 happened, it seemed like there was this chill on production and making things and buying things,” she said.

    Per FX’s count, the number of scripted shows dropped to 516 last year. Studios pulled back for a few reasons, according to Patrick Adler, an assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong and head of the consulting firm Westwood Economics, which issued a recent report on the film industry workforce.

    First, investors started feeling the effects of rising interest rates.

    “Wall Street just got significantly less patient with the spending by the studios on streaming platforms as soon as money started to be more expensive,” Adler explained.

    Second, he said, studios realized that consumers might not have as much capacity as they anticipated for lots of new streaming subscriptions.

    Then, in May of last year, the Hollywood writers’ union went on strike, followed by the actors’ union…

    The resulting work stoppages effectively shut the industry down for six months. But once both unions reached contract agreements with studios, many people in the industry expected production would pick back up. Maybe not to the level of the streaming bubble, but an uptick.

    But in LA and New York, that hasn’t really happened. Actor Janie Haddad Tompkins said when studios were pumping out shows in the midst of the streaming bubble, she’d get one or two auditions per week.

    “Now, it’s like I’ve had maybe one a month,” she said. “So it’s been bleak.”

    The studio whose wokeness seems to have wrecked hardest is Disney. “Its last four high-profile releases bombed at the box office, losing over $1 billion between them. Once Hollywood’s most successful film studio, Disney was dethroned last year by Universal Pictures.” And Elemental was the worst performing film in Pixar history.

    It’s so bad that even Hollywood regulars who tick all the proper intersectionality boxes are being laid off. Quel dommage! Here’s a Critical Drinker round-table on the subject.

    “Every IP is dead. The snake has eaten its own tail. There’s no more tail left to eat.”

    If Disney just could have avoiding injecting wokeness, it could have milked Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar and its own IP for decades. Instead, its wokeness and poor quality has alienated its core demographics, possible for a decade or more. And the rest of Hollywood hasn’t been far behind.

    LinkSwarm For January 19, 2024

    Friday, January 19th, 2024

    Trump wins Iowa (and picks up Ted Cruz’s endorsement), Democratic party popularity becomes ever more selective, Hunter Biden’s laptop confirmed as Hunter Biden’s laptop (not that we ever had any doubt), two shithole countries exchange airstrikes, and a science fiction legend dies. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Donald Trump won the Iowa Caucuses in convincing fashion, winning 51% of the vote. Ron DeSantis came in second with 21%, and MSM-and-Never Trump darling Nikki Haley pulling in 19%, and Vivek Ramaswamy a distant 4th with 7.6%. (Ramaswamy then endorsed Trump.) The most satisfying part of this result is seeing the Hindenburg of Haley puffery crash and explode.
  • Ted Cruz has endorsed Trump. “‘I’m a big believer in letting democracy play out,’ Cruz said. ‘I’ve got to say Trump’s victory was across the board. He won 51 percent of the vote. He won 98 of the counties. Congratulations to President Trump on that dominating victory.'” Despite DeSantis many strengths as a governor, he did not run a good campaign. And remember, Cruz actually beat Trump in Iowa in 2016, and ran a competitive campaign into May. That’s not going to happen this year. Trump seems likely to win all the primaries in every state.
  • “Americans Identifying As Democrats Hits Record Low.”

    A Gallup poll released on Friday reveals that a record low percentage of Americans who identify as Democrats in 2023 hit a record low, when independent ‘leaners’ are excluded.

    Just 27% of Americans self-identify as Democrats, the smallest figure in the party’s history according to the survey. That said, self-identifying Republicans also hit 27%, though it did not mark the lowest figure in the party’s history – which was in 2013 when just 25% of Americans identified as such. The previous low for Democrats was in 2017 and 2015 at 29%.

    Independents, meanwhile, take the cake – with 43% of Americans identifying as such.

  • “Jim Jordan Demands Answers After Biden Admin Caught Flagging “MAGA” And “Trump” To Track Political Opponents’ Financial Transactions.” This is the sort of thing EFF used to freak out over, but refuses to do so now that it’s targeted at Republicans…
  • “Oregon cannot trace $426 million in Covid money.” Of course not. But I bet a lot of friends of powerful Oregon Democrats made out very well indeed…
  • Not that any of us ever had any doubt, but DOJ confirmed that the “Laptop from Hell” is in fact Hunter Biden’s laptop, and that they knew that all along:

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • Things that make your blood boil: “Texas man arrested in connection with videos showing seven men who sexually assaulted toddlers at a public mall.”

    A Texas man is in federal custody after the FBI linked him to videos from the dark web depicting group sexual assault on toddlers in a mall.

    Arthur Hector Fernandez, 29, was arrested Dec. 18, 2023 in Kingwood, TX as the result of a Dec. 14 criminal complaint filed in federal court in Houston, records show.

    The FBI were led to Fernandez as a suspect after viewing videos of an assault of a three-year-old child; a relative of the child “recognized the bracelets an individual in the video was wearing as belonging to Fernandez.”

    Hanging’s too good for him…

  • Speaking of child sex offenders, director of California LGBTQ+ center busted in child sex sting.

    The executive director of the Rainbow Resource Center, a prominent LGBTQ+ support center based in Modesto, has been identified as one of 17 men apprehended on suspicion of attempting to engage in sexual activities with a minor.

    The revelation was first reported by the Modesto Bee.

    Gerad Slayton, 42, was taken into custody during a sting operation organized by the Turlock Police Department, targeting individuals believed to be seeking illicit encounters with minors. Slayton, recently appointed as the executive director of the Rainbow Center, a local nonprofit dedicated to providing resources for LGBTQ+ individuals across all age groups, faces allegations of pursuing sexual activities with minors.

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • Special Incompetence Unit.

    Rape kits that should have been analyzed by the NYPD but were left in storage at hospitals across the city are now part of a sprawling Department of Justice probe into the department’s Special Victims Division, The Post has learned.

    The revelation comes after The Post revealed the snafu, which meant that an unknown number of cases were not fully investigated, victims didn’t get justice, and countless rapists could be roaming free.

    (Hat tip: 357 Magnum.)

  • Pakistan and Iran have traded airstrikes in each other’s territory. “The unprecedented attacks by both Pakistan and Iran on either side of their border appeared to target Baluch militant groups with similar separatist goals. The countries accuse each other of providing a haven to the groups in their respective territories.”
  • Crazy doppelganger murder trial begins.
  • The Disney magic seems to extend everywhere. “Pixar is planning on MAJOR layoffs this year, up to 20% of employees could be dismissed.” Under Jobs it made money hand over fist, but after Disney went woke it’s produced one flop after another.

  • Speaking of layoffs, Sports Illustrated lays off everybody. Wait, you mean putting fat women and trannys on the cover of your swimsuit issue and fluffing Colin Kaepernick weren’t tickets to success? Who knew?

  • Emmy Award show rating hits all time low.
  • Science fiction legend and personal friend Howard Waldrop died over the weekend. Howard was one of the greatest short story writers the field has ever produced. Since you can’t make a living from short stories, Howard was never far from penury, and he spent six months living in a spare room in my house. Pretty much everyone in the field loved him, and he will be missed.
  • Also dead this week: PDQ RIP.
  • “If you give a 19-year-old millions of dollars and international fame, you’re going to end up with Caligula like 90% of the time.”
  • TIAA Bank Field send out query as to how Jacksonville Jaguar fans enjoyed the Wild Card game they never hosted after they missed the postseason:

  • “New Film Adaptation Of ‘1984’ To Feature Big Brother As The Good Guy.”
  • “FBI Warns Of Extremist MAGA Plot To Go To A Polling Location And Vote For Preferred Candidate.”