In this piece I want to talk about the decline of Hollywood and how I believe the way we perceive and think about celebrities and the films industry in general is on course to rapidly change over the next few decades.
To break this down into two distinct sections, it will be changes to cinema as a whole first and then celebrities and stardom.
There is nothing I can say about the changing nature of the industry that hasn’t already been said. People, thanks to streaming and the pandemic, have become more and more accustomed to watching films at home, not just that but also having access to big screen releases immediately after they have come out in cinemas on VOD services. This won’t change, if anything the current 30- 45 days release window will likely shrink further, and though studios will still bring out big films in cinemas they can see the writing on the wall hence why they have all, except Sony, gone in on streaming services. There will always be big filmmakers who will work out different agreements with studios to get their films in cinemas but even then it won’t be for as long as it was in the past. You can give me all the piracy figures or say how this is killing cinema, but frankly piracy will always happen and is accounted for and these changes in release are not killing cinema just changing it in a more consumer friendly direction.
If you want to know what is actually killing cinema it is the bloated chains that think they can get away with charging close to 20 pounds for a single ticket, and that don’t care a lick about the cinema going experience.
As of the day of writing this the news is that Netflix is losing subscribers, and cinema purists are lording this as a win, it is not. Netflix’s loss of subscribers will have been accounted for, they knew people were angry at the price hikes and the cracking down on sharing passwords, they also knew that big series like Daredevil were leaving. This is not the loss for them that some people think it is, more shows will be cut and the infamous policy of greenlighting everything will most likely end.
Now onto celebrities, the old guard of movie stars are on their way out and those who are replacing them in the public eye aren’t really the same as classic movie stars, more often than not they are either influencers or activists. The latter of those two types is another reason I think that cinema has not bounced back to pre-covid levels, people are tired of millionaire actors telling them how to live their lives, or how to think. People want to be entertained by the films they watch not be lectured to. The reason why Marvel films and more broadly superhero films are able to keep cinema afloat, and make no mistake that is the case, is because for the most part they are apolitical. I know this won’t be a new take but many films now are more focused on delivering a social message and virtue signalling then they are on telling a story or actually being good- this is being picked up by audiences. Moreover, films that preach on American specific politics always lose interest with the rest of the world because though Americans think they are the centre of the world they really aren’t, and a lot of people turn off for a film that spends its time bashing either side of the American political spectrum.
I think due to this disillusionment towards the attitudes and statements of some celebrities more and more people are looking elsewhere for entertainment, this can be to classic shows on streaming services or to YouTube, Twitch or more widely social media, as such I don’t think Hollywood will ever bounce back to the pre-covid days.
This is a new era and like it or not there is no going back.
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