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  • 🔥 Why Hollywood needs more Mavericks

🔥 Why Hollywood needs more Mavericks

Plus: Adeleworld + PGA's Creator Cup

Author

Oli Thomas
August 06, 2024

It's August, it's sunny, half of Europe is on holiday and the other half are watching the Olympics. So well done if you made it here 👏

This week there has been a bit of noise around how safe (some might say ‘boring’) media companies, and particularly Hollywood Studios, are becoming in their approach to new content.

Vince Vaughn called it out during an interview - "you have to have an IP" to get a film signed off now. Its fair to assume that some of his classic comedies - from Wedding Crashers to Old School would not have passed this test. 

A quick scan of the top 20 highest grossing movies says it all - the last film to make it in there as an original story (i.e with no existing IP attached), was 15 years ago - Avatar in 2009. And the only other one is Titanic, from 1997. The other 18 films in the list are sequels or based on other existing IP (Barbie, Harry Potter, Marvel, etc).

So why are media owners so scared of investing in new IP? 

Partly because of the volume of content now. Releasing a movie or a show 20 years ago was like opening a new shop on a prime high street spot. Most people went to the cinema. Most people watched TV. There was high demand for a limited amount of content. Releasing content now is like setting up a stall at Glastonbury. There is an abundance of choice. The best way to cut through that choice is with a recognisable brand. 

And partly due to financials - globalised economies with high competition, high talent costs, and a squeeze on funding. Business cases need a quick return. The risk of a failed show is simply a lot greater than the rewards of breaking new IP.

This trend is driving a bifurcation between the mainstream content (becoming more mass market and arguably more repetitive) and the niches, which are boldly going where Wall Street and Boardrooms won't let the big guns go.

And that is also where the opportunity has arisen for the Creator Economy to take a stronghold.

The sad truth is that the bar is now higher than ever for big companies to break new IP. But on the flip side, the bar is lower than ever for someone to break new IP from a laptop in their bedroom.

Vamos 👍

Ps. the newsletter is taking a well-earned break next week, back on the 20th…

Adele takes centre stage

Adele doesn’t visit the people, the people visit Adele. Or at least that’s what is happening in Germany.

Live Nation are building a temporary concert venue for Adele’s upcoming 10 date ‘tour’ of Germany.

Rather than moving around the country, assembling and dismantling the stage each time, the plan is to create a massive live experience in one place - including both the concert arena with an 80,000 capacity and ‘AdeleWorld’.

The future of live events for big artists?

Source: Florian Wieder

Read more here

Hollywood taking less risks

Despite the success of Deadpoll & Wolverine and Inside Out 2 (the latter now being in the top 10 highest grossing films of all time…) 2024 box office revenues are still down nearly 20% on 2023 YoY.

This is partly due to fewer superhero movies this year.

But its also because there has been a decline in cinema visits - down around 30% since pre-Covid and nearly 50% since the peak in 2002.

Hollywood’s response is to take less risk and to shift away from ‘preaching a message’.

But AI could also help - if it brings down production costs sufficiently to allow for the Studios to take a few more punts on ‘mid-tier’ movies.

Read more here

Golf’s Creator Cup

The PGA announced the ‘The Creator Classic’ competition which will take place on August 28th, the day before the PGA Tour starts.

Golf is in a bit of a resurgence right now, and is gaining in popularity, particularly amongst younger demos.

And so bringing together some of the biggest influencers to play the sport whilst live streaming it across YouTube, PlutoTV, and broadcast TV, makes a lot of sense.

Read more here

Best of the Rest

CREATORS:The Olympics buzz on social media is being driven more by ‘Aura’ than gold medals, with viral moments coming from athletes demonstrating a cool energy and ‘winning the internet’ in the processs

ADVERTISING: Disney’s advertising revenues got a boost with a 5% increase in upfront commitments. Growth was attributed to sports, the Disney+ ad tier, and the strength of first party data.

STREAMING: Netflix admits it used a fair amount of creative licencing in Baby Reindeer, and there were no stalking convictions in real-life. Uh oh…

CREATORS: Podcasters earned a total of $350 million from Patreon memberships last year, according to the platform, with over 40,000 podcasters earning money from fans.

MUSIC: Doodles, the Web3 originated Entertainment Company with Pharrell Williams on the mgmt team, has launched Doodles Records to release original music which will be accompanied by animated music videos.

Pick of the posts

Ok…this was mine. But its 10 years old today. And yet, some ‘traditional TV companies’ still aren’t fully embracing the data opportunity…