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Iger has said Disney has built enough capacity to generate more entertainment than the world has cash to consume. The mega machine has become so efficient, they

by gsatic 4y ago

Iger has said Disney has built enough capacity to generate more entertainment than the world has cash to consume. The mega machine has become so efficient, they can produce a new marvel level movie everyday if they wanted too. But there aren't enough customers for it. So the question is, once your corporate mega machine has become this efficient what do you even do next?

elzbardico 4y ago
I don't care about Marvel. What I dream about is a steady stream of new, original science fiction movies, self-contained, without sequels.
coffeebeqn 4y ago
Obviously they’ll start building customers. Soon the robots will out-shop you.
- _carbyau_ 4y ago
  Buying a GPU is very much a competition vs bots...
autotune 4y ago
Hopefully release more movies on Disney+ that remain high quality. I just quit Netflix because their relative output is higher but quality is complete garbage. We need something better.
karp773 4y ago
Diversify. Not everyone is a fan of Marvel. But I would happily watch a new episode of Silicon Valley or Friends level show every day. I wish Mike Judge made a show about FTX and crypto. :) that would be hilarious.
- hnthrowaway1099 4y ago
  Wow brilliant idea, Silicon Valley needs a reboot.
  - karp773 4y ago
    Yeah, the script wrote itself. You simply can't make this stuff up.
  - 29athrowaway 4y ago
    Nah, I am glad it ended. Some characters were well written, others were pretty much a excuse for racism.
    - TaylorAlexander 4y ago
      For sure. I remember really liking Gilfoyle as a character for his deadpan no bullshit and high skill personality. But then I watched a supercut of his "best moments" (at least according to one youtuber) and it was chock full of insults against Dinesh's masculinity, which is both gross from a racism point of view (I have been told that foreign men are often considered less masculine as a kind of racism) and gross from a healthy masculinity point of view (It's okay for men to cry, and have diverse interests, etc). Of course they could update the characters, but they could also just leave that story to rest. All the things we grew up loving were once original stories, and I would love to see more new original content rather than this machine that "efficiently" churns out smoothed over copies of the same hits from last year.
      - 29athrowaway 4y ago
        Jian Yang's character is a pretty offensive depiction of Chinese people. Gilfoyle being a grumpy sysadmin is probably an accurate depiction of a sysadmin. They're all grumpy.
        TaylorAlexander 4y ago
        The grumpyness is what I love about him. But in the supercut I watched, he is constantly specifically attacking other men's masculinity in a way which felt super toxic. There's plenty of healthy ways to present a grumpy character but Gilfoyle's behavior with regard to masculinity just sucks.
- fnordpiglet 4y ago
  Final season of the expanse.
  - avaldez_ 4y ago
    Oh my God. With Disney money we could have all three last books on streaming. Disney could pick up the show ten years from now and the aged actors wouldn't even matter. What a dream.
    - fnordpiglet 4y ago
      You would think with Bezos money we would too. I don’t understand why he bought the series then didn’t bring it to conclusion. I’ve read they didn’t want to deal with aging the actors, but that’s kind of absurd given the state of the art.
- colordrops 4y ago
  Check out Andor. It's under the Disney Star Wars umbrella, but it's nothing like the rest of star wars. Made by the same people that worked on House of Cards, Game of Thrones, the Bourne series, Nightcrawler, and others. It's smart and subtle and insanely entertaining, though it is a slow burn that focuses on character development rather than action. But it has action too... But no light sabers or Jedi. Yet...
  - poisonarena 4y ago
    > It's smart and subtle and insanely entertaining I disagree, I feel like its the same as all the rest but the writers in the board meetings are like.. We need to make Star Wars for 25-40 year old men to feel like adults watching it. > slow burn planned that way not because it is a slow burn high pay off scenario. But because it is planned to drag on so you just keep watching it consistently. Most of these garbage shows in the last 5 years or so have embraced this 'pseudo-slowburn' style to make baby men feel more sophisticated while hooking them into consistently watching. I feel like the writers and decision makers saw all the funko pop marvel watching 30 year open mouth beard consumers and wanted to 'blow their minds' with 'slowburn' to remind them that consuming childrens movies are actually sophisticated and adult
    - bookaway 4y ago
      >30 year open mouth beard consumers and wanted to 'blow their minds' with No one said anything about blowing minds. >But because it is planned to drag on Unfortunately all shows are infected with this garbage. You end up grading this stuff relatively on a spectrum (“don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good” etc) . This the “ads” of the streaming era. It is so ubiquitous people either build a tolerance, tune-out during the interval, or stop watching tv all together in protest. >to make baby men feel more sophisticated while hooking them into consistently watching A more sophisticated show with better writing and actors would indeed make people feel more sophisticated…yes. If, to take another example, somebody pitched me “Better Call Saul, but in space,” I’d probably watch that as well. Frankly, Dune is more a children’s movie than Andor, so you might as well say that 25-40 year olds have no business amusing themselves with science fantasy or sci-fi at all. The litmus test for this seems to be: Make the exact same scifi show (space etc) but without the Star Wars branding. Will it be considered a children’s move? My answer in this case, no. Will it still be decent? Yes it would. Mandalorian, Boba Fett, Obi-Wan are all magnitudes more juvenile than this attempt. A quasi-spoiler perhaps, but I personally find it hilarious that a subplot involves a workers revolt in what could be a Tesla gigafactory 20 years from now…in a tv show produced by Disney.
cowsup 4y ago
Short term? Continue squeezing money to appease your shareholders. Find ways to maximize profits at your theme parks, increase subscribers to your streaming platform, and find to make making movies cheaper. Long term? Impossible to tell. If you'd asked anyone 20 years ago what Disney would look like today, nobody could've imagined Marvel or Star Wars being the way they are, both under the Disney umbrella. And with streaming to boot.
- InTheArena 4y ago
  I think this strategy - the milking of every single possible dollar out of the parks, and the grow at all cost Strategy of Disney+ are pretty much at an end. the surveys coming out of Disney the last year have gotten more and more desperate as Disney tries to understand why things like the Star Wars hotel and the elimination of fast pass and magical express are deeply unpopular. Disney’s managed to piss off an incredible number of clients on both sides of the isle in Florida - their biggest state for Disney World. Managed to alienate people who were reliable ticket holders with the constant nickle and diming at the same time as Universal is pouring money into their parks and threatening Disney’s Orlando dominance. Disney Managed to charge more for a bit for their premium products even while they have been horribly maintained. A YouTuber recently had an unbelievable video on the state of cleanliness at one of Disney’s most expensive resorts. This kind of short term gain long-term cost is a sickness in American business strangely. Disney in particular seems to go into these patterns. Michael Eisner fell into the same trap before Bob Iger replaced him. The good news for iger is that the bar is set low. He could bring back fast pass or the magical express and roll back some of the planned costs increases and the fans will love them for it. Disney does also risk the Netflix too much crap not enough content problem as well. Marvel has lost its cultural relevance for some of its core audience with the end of the infinity war saga. Everything since it’s been a mess. As a sidenote, Disney just bought the biggest cruise ship ever built for the Asian market. I suspect interesting things are afoot there.
  - kipchak 4y ago
    >As a sidenote, Disney just bought the biggest cruise ship ever built for the Asian market. I suspect interesting things are afoot there. It reminds me a bit of KFC, which for a variety of reasons has left it's North-American presence to flounder while focusing on the rest of the world and Asia in particular. This has been effective so far thanks to their existing scale and being one of the first fried chicken joint to enter the market, but has gone on other domestic and local brands have entered. I have to wonder if Disney is maybe 10 years earlier on this curve and is starting to cash out on NA to some extent. Also as a point of pedantry the Global Dream was intended to be the largest ship by passenger count at 9000, but is being scaled back to 6000 by Disney. By tonnage it will 7th, close behind Royal Caribbean's Oasis class ships and MSC's new world class so while it is quite large, the industry in general seems to be moving that way also. https://robbreport.com/motors/marine/disney-global-dream-seventh-largest-cruise-ship-1234775073/ https://robbreport.com/motors/marine/disney-global-dream-sev...
loeg 4y ago
Return cash to shareholders so they can invest it in other enterprises. Increase efficiency. Pursue other revenue streams.
- InTheArena 4y ago
  Disney has Universal breathing down their necks in Orlando right now. They have to finish up major expansion projects in Asia as well as in France. Now is not the time to return capital.
  - lucasverra 4y ago
    What is happening in France?
    - cju 4y ago
      There is a major expansion of the park near Paris in progress. https://www.disneytouristblog.com/walt-disney-studios-park-paris-expansion-star-wars-frozen-marvel/ https://www.disneytouristblog.com/walt-disney-studios-park-p...
gjsman-1000 4y ago
To me, even if he was a good CEO, that reeks of hubris. Nobody likes films that feel like mass-produced corporate affairs, where the jokes were decided by committee instead of by two brothers writing a script. As for a Marvel movie a day, CGI artists as an industry are overloaded with work right now and it’s even showing in Marvel movies. There aren’t enough workers in the machine for something as ludicrous as that claim. Entertainment lost something when it just became “content.” Bragging that you are excellent at churning out “content” is not something I would be proud of. Are you good at churning out movies that are original, interesting, unique, and creative? Or are you good at producing a dozen Marvel spin-offs and various movie sequels?
- matt-attack 4y ago
  Disney now owns Searchlight Pictures (formerly Fox Searchlight). They have an incredible legacy of unique high quality creative films. Go watch Shape Of Water or The Favorite. They just came out with The Menu, which I’d recommend (saw it in the theater just today). Seeing adult oriented original screenplays is just heavenly. You literally couldn’t pay me to sit through a Marvel movie.
- InTheArena 4y ago
  Honestly, I think it has more to do with the gutting of Pixar and Disney studios after Lassiter was forced out. I believe I heard that that Encanto was the last Lassiter idea that he pitched to Lin Miranda before he left. I think that probably helps explain why it seems cohesive. Versus almost all of the more recent Disney and Pixar stuff feels like poor copies or overly targeted identity flicks. Disney studios is kind of a mess, almost all of the innovation is now happening outside of Disney. Lego movie, spider verse, etc.
  - kranke155 4y ago
    It’s a shame that he was both a genius and an inappropriate / abusive boss.
pr337h4m 4y ago
Develop AAA games, build a Disney metaverse with Mickey Mouse, lightsabers and Captain America, stuff like that ....
- coolandsmartrr 4y ago
  I thought Disneyland was the original "verse," but a metaverse sounds enticing. Disney was quite early in MMPORG scene, with their online game Toontown (which was sunset a couple of years ago). There was a more recent example with a scene in "Wreck-it Ralph 2" that showcased a Disney metaverse. Furthermore, Disney did collaborate with Skylanders. Perhaps expand on that?
  - DerekL 4y ago
    > Furthermore, Disney did collaborate with Skylanders. I don't think that's true. They had their own toys-to-life game called Disney Infinity.
    - coolandsmartrr 4y ago
      That was a mixup. Thanks for the correction.
- deadbolt 4y ago
  I'm honestly not sure if this was said in jest or not, but that sounds absolutely miserable.
- kipchak 4y ago
  Disney Infinity is pretty much this, which has since been cancelled.
carabiner 4y ago
Build a spaceship and leave this planet for Mars.
zaphirplane 4y ago
That doesn’t really agree with Disney+ It can improve along several dimensions
lokimedes 4y ago
I think the whole industry has degenerated to producing uninspiring grub. No wonder they have mastered it. Everything coming out of the company is CGI+emotional response maximization with little new themes. They should revert to making things that don’t scale, hire screenwriters with original ideas that are difficult to translate to movies, etc. A friend of mine regularly compares Quentin Tarantino’s early movies to today’s mass produced boredom. Calling it MBA filmmaking. It reminds me of an industry running on Amazon’s recommendation engine, only making derivatives of existing successes.
- karp773 4y ago
  100%. While we are at this, I am happy to share my heuristic for sifting "uninspiring grub" from quality shows. Two words: theme song. If the protagonists wander around in silence on a CGI generated background, that's a hard pass right away. Unfortunately, most of Netflix originals fall into this category.
  - silvester23 4y ago
    Could you give an example of such an intro? I'm not entirely sure what style you are referring to and am quite curious.
    - moritonal 4y ago
      Dur dir duh, der der der. duh duh duh, dih dih dih dih dih! - Indiana Jones Duh.. Duh.. Dih dih dir! Dir Di dih dih dir dir du du duh! - Star Trek - Next Gen
    - bombcar 4y ago
      dead ant, dead ant, dead ant, dead ant, dead aaaaaaaaaaaaant
    - karp773 4y ago
      The Bourne Identity, Skyfall, Game of Thrones, Pirates of the Caribbean, and so on. It does not have to be original. And I don't mean only the intro but the entire soundtrack. Often, the theme song is reused over and over during the film with many variations to set the tone of a scene. Bad movies skimp on soundtracks.
anshumankmr 4y ago
Marvel isn’t infallible. Their latest phase is an example of that. Their numbers are great when compared to other studios, but it has not seen the level of critical success that it once did, despite being somewhat more inventive in its the stories being told. I enjoyed quite a bit of their movies, like the latest Black Panther movie or the third Spider-Man movie, but overall, its really taken a step back in terms of quality in almost every other project they have made. They also lost one of their biggest creative auteurs, James Gunn to their biggest rival, as well as the guy who made their Spider-Man movies and the Russo who made the previous two Avenger movies (though it could be these guys return). Ryan Coogler doesn’t seem interested in doing the penultimate (?) Avengers sequel, they aren’t going to trust Taika Waititi or Sam Raimi or Joss Whedon with that movie. They have resorted to getting Hugh Jackman back for a final (?) paycheck as Wolverine for the upcoming Deadpool sequel and apart from that don’t seem to have a plan on bringing their other most famous IP into their franchise, the X-Men. And also the other big development is that they have lost the Chinese box office marker, though this seems largely out of their control as China is an aggressive geopolitical adversary of the US and is also strictly against LGBTQ representation, and Marvel is (rightfully so) not budging on the edits suggested by Chinese censors. And then there’s also the case for superhero fatigue, and I am saying this as a fan of most of these movies, (I watched most of their previous movies during high school and college almost religiously), but the amount of content they dumped on Disney+ which was of varying quality was too much for me to really watch. I skipped half their shows and most of their movies (waited for Disney+ for most of the movies except for Spider-Man and BP2). I genuinely don’t feel interested in most of their upcoming lineup, except maybe GoTG 3 and Captain America 4 (if it’s any good). I might be speaking for only myself here, but I potentially see that happening more so in future with general audiences.
- drw85 4y ago
  I liked the earlier movies, but to me the biggest problem is that they are now all connected and thus all required to watch. I skipped a bunch of them and had no idea what was happening in the latest Avengers. There were so many characters popping up that i had no knowledge of and weird sideplots that i hadn't seen. It just ended up confusing and frustrating.
zxcvbn4038 4y ago
Next focus on quality instead of quantity. Less She-Hulk and more Loki. Maybe every single Star Wars character doesn’t need a six or ten episode backstory. Maybe Cars doesn’t need four sequels. The Lone Ranger has kept his mask on since 1933, the Mandalorian couldn’t do it five episodes.
dirtyid 4y ago
Considering how much they've squandered Star Wars video game IP, or video game IP in general, probably leaving billions on the table. That said, maybe it's to prevent cannibalizing other divisions, but it's hard to imagine type of media more extractive than micotransctions. IIRC Fifa + Madden made like 1.5B revenue last year.
- riversflow 4y ago
  > microtransactions I think Disney got soured off of gaming when the fan and critical response was so harsh against Battlefront 2. They tried microtransactions and ended up going down as the most downvoted comment in reddit history.[1] [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattlefront/comments/7cff0b/comment/dppum98/?context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattlefront/comments/7cff0b...
  - dirtyid 4y ago
    I remember. IMO they tried outrageous microtranstions on fanbase who were demographically resistent which TBH some practices are more acceptable 5 years later. Disney also has other women oriented franchises that seems to have big mobile potential. Also never too late to acclimizate the young, the parks already nickle and dime like crazy. Of course I don't want this, but I think it's something they can milk. Video games compete with sleep, casual games with everything.
- ryathal 4y ago
  giving big exclusive contracts was a huge mistake by Disney for video games. It's easy to just sell everything to EA, but it doesn't actually result in good publicity for them, which they learned the hard way with Battlefront 2. When you have a massive IP that has tons of different periods and openings for various games, you really need to license out smaller chunks all over the place. Games Workshop is a really good model that Disney should have followed.
nebula8804 4y ago
You develop an AI to automate the process and expanding on this process eventually the company is essentially a bunch of code running in the cloud that generates a film on demand that fits the needs of each customer perfectly. (Obviously you separate out the real world business like Theme Parks).
- rahkiin 4y ago
  You should watch She-Hulk ;)
  - aikendrum 4y ago
    No one should have to watch She-Hulk.
  - nebula8804 4y ago
    The process of developing the AI will have bumps in the road but I am talking about the end state not the journey.
s3000 4y ago
>Iger has said Disney has built enough capacity to generate more entertainment than the world has cash to consume. In other words, they have distorted the market because over-capacity should let prices fall. But even if they keep their prices, cash doesn't have to be the limiting factor. The available cash is not fixed. If they spend their income instantly, 'new' cash is available to the market, and Disney can sell more entertainment. >So the question is, once your corporate mega machine has become this efficient what do you even do next? Expand to other markets. They know everything about human perception. They can leverage that to make more games or VR applications. They can build better education platforms or even create new cities. They could even try to convince Apple, Amazon and Google to open up the declining personal assistant market [1]. However, stable diffusion threatens their position. Who needs Disney's capacities if other algorithms can do it better? Disney will have to enter the AI race and spend all their money on developers and researchers. Unfortunately for them, they haven't used the last 20 years to create something like an online Cinderella university to globally identify young geniuses and funnel them into their company. [1] Amazon Is Gutting Its Voice-Assistant Alexa https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33680904 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33680904
- tsimionescu 4y ago
  > Expand to other markets. They know everything about human perception. They can leverage that to make more games or VR applications. They can build better education platforms or even create new cities. They could even try to convince Apple, Amazon and Google to open up the declining personal assistant market An extremely well-oiled movie-making machine is not a good games-making machine, VR or not. And while there may be some cross-over with game-making, there is certainly no cross-over with voice assistants, where did you even think of that? Home assistants don't actually assist you in the home, they are mostly a device you buy to serve you ads (and occasionally switch the music when your hands are dirty). > However, stable diffusion threatens their position. Who needs Disney's capacities if other algorithms can do it better? Disney will have to enter the AI race and spend all their money on developers and researchers. You really don't understand the AAA movie business if you think Stable Diffusion is anywhere near threatening Disney. They just explained that they've gotten so good at making blockbusters, they don't have enough clients for how many blockbusters they can make. Even if Stable Diffusion was any good at making AAA movies (they're a few decades away from that), someone trying to use it to compete with Disney would quickly find they have no power whatsoever to actually market their movies - that is where Disney truly shines. And it's not about movie posters and reviews, marketing in the business is greatly tied to creating stars. People arent just coming to see Iron Man, they're coming to see Robert Downey Jr, or Chriss Pratt etc. AI-generated movies have no hope to compete with the marketing power of a big-name celebrity.
johnywalks 4y ago
Except that they produce rubbish.
durnygbur 4y ago
> generate more entertainment than the world has cash to consume But the world doesn't have will to look at it.
waltbosz 4y ago
I find the Marvel movies boring and insulting to my intelligence. Which isn't really surprising since they are made for mass appeal and I generally don't like that sort of stuff. However, and this statement is made with no actual knowledge of the economics of Disney content creation budgets, but I like to imagine that one positive thing that comes from the monetary success of the Marvel movies is the Pixar Shorts that are being made for Disney+ . If you haven't seen them I recommend them. They are these original ~4 minute short films that are pet-projects by various creatives working at Disney/Pixar. The shorts include a small interview from the creator where they discuss their inspiration and the fun they had working on the project. I remember a line from the Daily Show when it was still Craig Kilborn. The show had just gotten a nice newly renovated set, and Kilborn thanked South Park for the money to pay for it. I suspect (again with no real knowledge) that the Pixar Shorts are financed from the success of the Marvel movies. Or maybe it's just Disney+ subscriber fees.
- Hnrobert42 4y ago
  The Marvel movies are awful, but from my understanding, they are made for mass audiences++. That is, they want to make movies that are easy to sell in China and India. That means less dialog because most people don’t want to read lots of subtitles, broad humor because it has to make sense in all cultures and languages, and themes that won’t offend the sensibilities of the various cultures. The Disney shorts are a good suggestion. I will track them down. Thanks.
  - BryantD 4y ago
    Within limits. The new Black Panther didn't release in China; neither did Shang-Chi. China's an important market for Disney but they're not afraid to ignore it from time to time.
    - htrp 4y ago
      that may be more political than business driven
- silisili 4y ago
unsupp0rted 4y ago
If it turned out 3 years ago Disney developed an AI that writes and generates Marvel Phase IV movies all “in-machine” with no human input, writers, directors or actors whatsoever nobody would be surprised. We’d be impressed but not surprised.
- alternatetwo 4y ago
  They actually made this joke on She-Hulk ... K.E.V.I.N. (totally not GLaDOS) is an AI that leads the MCU storylines.
  - akiselev 4y ago
    Side rant: Worst fourth wall break in history. If they really wanted to do the K.E.V.I.N. storyline they should have made the show a grittier legal/detective thriller (a la Jessica Jones) with a season long conspiracy arc about K.E.V.I.N. taking over Disney by infiltrating Marvel. Bonus woke points if they imply that K.E.V.I.N. is a sexist AI made by SV techbros that’s sabotaging She-Hulk’s series.
    - unsupp0rted 4y ago
      Kevin Feige didn't want this whatsoever. https://www.cbr.com/she-hulk-wanted-kevin-feige-cameo-mcu-boss-refused/ https://www.cbr.com/she-hulk-wanted-kevin-feige-cameo-mcu-bo... You can imagine how pleased he was with any of the K.E.V.I.N stuff in the show at all.. or the show itself.
devoutsalsa 4y ago
Pay dividends. When investing back into the business doesn’t provide a meaningful return for shareholders, you give the money to the shareholders.
nazka 4y ago
You start to conquer another sector/industry. You can see that with Apple, Amazon..
misslibby 4y ago
I think I cut undercut their price for producing a movie nobody wants to see every day.
alt227 4y ago
Focus on increasing quality?
bilsbie 4y ago
I think they’re priced out most consumers though with a day pass a $120+. I’d imagine a theme park less than $70 per day could attract a lot of people.
ericmcer 4y ago
Go off-script and make something that actually feels new and original? If they really have turned art and entertainment into an assembly line they definitely have the bandwidth to try some weird stuff. Although it would be hilarious if they just started releasing a new superhero movie every week. The Marvel universe is pretty deep.

by gsatic 4y ago

elzbardico 4y ago

I don't care about Marvel. What I dream about is a steady stream of new, original science fiction movies, self-contained, without sequels.

coffeebeqn 4y ago

Obviously they’ll start building customers. Soon the robots will out-shop you.

_carbyau_ 4y ago
Buying a GPU is very much a competition vs bots...

autotune 4y ago

Hopefully release more movies on Disney+ that remain high quality. I just quit Netflix because their relative output is higher but quality is complete garbage. We need something better.

karp773 4y ago

Diversify. Not everyone is a fan of Marvel. But I would happily watch a new episode of Silicon Valley or Friends level show every day. I wish Mike Judge made a show about FTX and crypto. :) that would be hilarious.

hnthrowaway1099 4y ago
Wow brilliant idea, Silicon Valley needs a reboot.
- karp773 4y ago
  Yeah, the script wrote itself. You simply can't make this stuff up.
- 29athrowaway 4y ago
  Nah, I am glad it ended. Some characters were well written, others were pretty much a excuse for racism.
  - TaylorAlexander 4y ago
    For sure. I remember really liking Gilfoyle as a character for his deadpan no bullshit and high skill personality. But then I watched a supercut of his "best moments" (at least according to one youtuber) and it was chock full of insults against Dinesh's masculinity, which is both gross from a racism point of view (I have been told that foreign men are often considered less masculine as a kind of racism) and gross from a healthy masculinity point of view (It's okay for men to cry, and have diverse interests, etc). Of course they could update the characters, but they could also just leave that story to rest. All the things we grew up loving were once original stories, and I would love to see more new original content rather than this machine that "efficiently" churns out smoothed over copies of the same hits from last year.
    - 29athrowaway 4y ago
      Jian Yang's character is a pretty offensive depiction of Chinese people. Gilfoyle being a grumpy sysadmin is probably an accurate depiction of a sysadmin. They're all grumpy.
      - TaylorAlexander 4y ago
        The grumpyness is what I love about him. But in the supercut I watched, he is constantly specifically attacking other men's masculinity in a way which felt super toxic. There's plenty of healthy ways to present a grumpy character but Gilfoyle's behavior with regard to masculinity just sucks.
fnordpiglet 4y ago
Final season of the expanse.
- avaldez_ 4y ago
  Oh my God. With Disney money we could have all three last books on streaming. Disney could pick up the show ten years from now and the aged actors wouldn't even matter. What a dream.
  - fnordpiglet 4y ago
    You would think with Bezos money we would too. I don’t understand why he bought the series then didn’t bring it to conclusion. I’ve read they didn’t want to deal with aging the actors, but that’s kind of absurd given the state of the art.
colordrops 4y ago
Check out Andor. It's under the Disney Star Wars umbrella, but it's nothing like the rest of star wars. Made by the same people that worked on House of Cards, Game of Thrones, the Bourne series, Nightcrawler, and others. It's smart and subtle and insanely entertaining, though it is a slow burn that focuses on character development rather than action. But it has action too... But no light sabers or Jedi. Yet...
- poisonarena 4y ago
  > It's smart and subtle and insanely entertaining I disagree, I feel like its the same as all the rest but the writers in the board meetings are like.. We need to make Star Wars for 25-40 year old men to feel like adults watching it. > slow burn planned that way not because it is a slow burn high pay off scenario. But because it is planned to drag on so you just keep watching it consistently. Most of these garbage shows in the last 5 years or so have embraced this 'pseudo-slowburn' style to make baby men feel more sophisticated while hooking them into consistently watching. I feel like the writers and decision makers saw all the funko pop marvel watching 30 year open mouth beard consumers and wanted to 'blow their minds' with 'slowburn' to remind them that consuming childrens movies are actually sophisticated and adult
  - bookaway 4y ago
    >30 year open mouth beard consumers and wanted to 'blow their minds' with No one said anything about blowing minds. >But because it is planned to drag on Unfortunately all shows are infected with this garbage. You end up grading this stuff relatively on a spectrum (“don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good” etc) . This the “ads” of the streaming era. It is so ubiquitous people either build a tolerance, tune-out during the interval, or stop watching tv all together in protest. >to make baby men feel more sophisticated while hooking them into consistently watching A more sophisticated show with better writing and actors would indeed make people feel more sophisticated…yes. If, to take another example, somebody pitched me “Better Call Saul, but in space,” I’d probably watch that as well. Frankly, Dune is more a children’s movie than Andor, so you might as well say that 25-40 year olds have no business amusing themselves with science fantasy or sci-fi at all. The litmus test for this seems to be: Make the exact same scifi show (space etc) but without the Star Wars branding. Will it be considered a children’s move? My answer in this case, no. Will it still be decent? Yes it would. Mandalorian, Boba Fett, Obi-Wan are all magnitudes more juvenile than this attempt. A quasi-spoiler perhaps, but I personally find it hilarious that a subplot involves a workers revolt in what could be a Tesla gigafactory 20 years from now…in a tv show produced by Disney.

cowsup 4y ago

Short term? Continue squeezing money to appease your shareholders. Find ways to maximize profits at your theme parks, increase subscribers to your streaming platform, and find to make making movies cheaper. Long term? Impossible to tell. If you'd asked anyone 20 years ago what Disney would look like today, nobody could've imagined Marvel or Star Wars being the way they are, both under the Disney umbrella. And with streaming to boot.

InTheArena 4y ago
I think this strategy - the milking of every single possible dollar out of the parks, and the grow at all cost Strategy of Disney+ are pretty much at an end. the surveys coming out of Disney the last year have gotten more and more desperate as Disney tries to understand why things like the Star Wars hotel and the elimination of fast pass and magical express are deeply unpopular. Disney’s managed to piss off an incredible number of clients on both sides of the isle in Florida - their biggest state for Disney World. Managed to alienate people who were reliable ticket holders with the constant nickle and diming at the same time as Universal is pouring money into their parks and threatening Disney’s Orlando dominance. Disney Managed to charge more for a bit for their premium products even while they have been horribly maintained. A YouTuber recently had an unbelievable video on the state of cleanliness at one of Disney’s most expensive resorts. This kind of short term gain long-term cost is a sickness in American business strangely. Disney in particular seems to go into these patterns. Michael Eisner fell into the same trap before Bob Iger replaced him. The good news for iger is that the bar is set low. He could bring back fast pass or the magical express and roll back some of the planned costs increases and the fans will love them for it. Disney does also risk the Netflix too much crap not enough content problem as well. Marvel has lost its cultural relevance for some of its core audience with the end of the infinity war saga. Everything since it’s been a mess. As a sidenote, Disney just bought the biggest cruise ship ever built for the Asian market. I suspect interesting things are afoot there.
- kipchak 4y ago
  >As a sidenote, Disney just bought the biggest cruise ship ever built for the Asian market. I suspect interesting things are afoot there. It reminds me a bit of KFC, which for a variety of reasons has left it's North-American presence to flounder while focusing on the rest of the world and Asia in particular. This has been effective so far thanks to their existing scale and being one of the first fried chicken joint to enter the market, but has gone on other domestic and local brands have entered. I have to wonder if Disney is maybe 10 years earlier on this curve and is starting to cash out on NA to some extent. Also as a point of pedantry the Global Dream was intended to be the largest ship by passenger count at 9000, but is being scaled back to 6000 by Disney. By tonnage it will 7th, close behind Royal Caribbean's Oasis class ships and MSC's new world class so while it is quite large, the industry in general seems to be moving that way also. https://robbreport.com/motors/marine/disney-global-dream-seventh-largest-cruise-ship-1234775073/ https://robbreport.com/motors/marine/disney-global-dream-sev...

loeg 4y ago

Return cash to shareholders so they can invest it in other enterprises. Increase efficiency. Pursue other revenue streams.

InTheArena 4y ago
Disney has Universal breathing down their necks in Orlando right now. They have to finish up major expansion projects in Asia as well as in France. Now is not the time to return capital.
- lucasverra 4y ago
  What is happening in France?
  - cju 4y ago
    There is a major expansion of the park near Paris in progress. https://www.disneytouristblog.com/walt-disney-studios-park-paris-expansion-star-wars-frozen-marvel/ https://www.disneytouristblog.com/walt-disney-studios-park-p...

gjsman-1000 4y ago

To me, even if he was a good CEO, that reeks of hubris. Nobody likes films that feel like mass-produced corporate affairs, where the jokes were decided by committee instead of by two brothers writing a script. As for a Marvel movie a day, CGI artists as an industry are overloaded with work right now and it’s even showing in Marvel movies. There aren’t enough workers in the machine for something as ludicrous as that claim. Entertainment lost something when it just became “content.” Bragging that you are excellent at churning out “content” is not something I would be proud of. Are you good at churning out movies that are original, interesting, unique, and creative? Or are you good at producing a dozen Marvel spin-offs and various movie sequels?

matt-attack 4y ago
Disney now owns Searchlight Pictures (formerly Fox Searchlight). They have an incredible legacy of unique high quality creative films. Go watch Shape Of Water or The Favorite. They just came out with The Menu, which I’d recommend (saw it in the theater just today). Seeing adult oriented original screenplays is just heavenly. You literally couldn’t pay me to sit through a Marvel movie.
InTheArena 4y ago
Honestly, I think it has more to do with the gutting of Pixar and Disney studios after Lassiter was forced out. I believe I heard that that Encanto was the last Lassiter idea that he pitched to Lin Miranda before he left. I think that probably helps explain why it seems cohesive. Versus almost all of the more recent Disney and Pixar stuff feels like poor copies or overly targeted identity flicks. Disney studios is kind of a mess, almost all of the innovation is now happening outside of Disney. Lego movie, spider verse, etc.
- kranke155 4y ago
  It’s a shame that he was both a genius and an inappropriate / abusive boss.

pr337h4m 4y ago

Develop AAA games, build a Disney metaverse with Mickey Mouse, lightsabers and Captain America, stuff like that ....

coolandsmartrr 4y ago
I thought Disneyland was the original "verse," but a metaverse sounds enticing. Disney was quite early in MMPORG scene, with their online game Toontown (which was sunset a couple of years ago). There was a more recent example with a scene in "Wreck-it Ralph 2" that showcased a Disney metaverse. Furthermore, Disney did collaborate with Skylanders. Perhaps expand on that?
- DerekL 4y ago
  > Furthermore, Disney did collaborate with Skylanders. I don't think that's true. They had their own toys-to-life game called Disney Infinity.
  - coolandsmartrr 4y ago
    That was a mixup. Thanks for the correction.
deadbolt 4y ago
I'm honestly not sure if this was said in jest or not, but that sounds absolutely miserable.
kipchak 4y ago
Disney Infinity is pretty much this, which has since been cancelled.

carabiner 4y ago

Build a spaceship and leave this planet for Mars.

zaphirplane 4y ago

That doesn’t really agree with Disney+ It can improve along several dimensions

lokimedes 4y ago

I think the whole industry has degenerated to producing uninspiring grub. No wonder they have mastered it. Everything coming out of the company is CGI+emotional response maximization with little new themes. They should revert to making things that don’t scale, hire screenwriters with original ideas that are difficult to translate to movies, etc. A friend of mine regularly compares Quentin Tarantino’s early movies to today’s mass produced boredom. Calling it MBA filmmaking. It reminds me of an industry running on Amazon’s recommendation engine, only making derivatives of existing successes.

karp773 4y ago
100%. While we are at this, I am happy to share my heuristic for sifting "uninspiring grub" from quality shows. Two words: theme song. If the protagonists wander around in silence on a CGI generated background, that's a hard pass right away. Unfortunately, most of Netflix originals fall into this category.
- silvester23 4y ago
  Could you give an example of such an intro? I'm not entirely sure what style you are referring to and am quite curious.
  - moritonal 4y ago
    Dur dir duh, der der der. duh duh duh, dih dih dih dih dih! - Indiana Jones Duh.. Duh.. Dih dih dir! Dir Di dih dih dir dir du du duh! - Star Trek - Next Gen
  - bombcar 4y ago
    dead ant, dead ant, dead ant, dead ant, dead aaaaaaaaaaaaant
  - karp773 4y ago
    The Bourne Identity, Skyfall, Game of Thrones, Pirates of the Caribbean, and so on. It does not have to be original. And I don't mean only the intro but the entire soundtrack. Often, the theme song is reused over and over during the film with many variations to set the tone of a scene. Bad movies skimp on soundtracks.

anshumankmr 4y ago

Marvel isn’t infallible. Their latest phase is an example of that. Their numbers are great when compared to other studios, but it has not seen the level of critical success that it once did, despite being somewhat more inventive in its the stories being told. I enjoyed quite a bit of their movies, like the latest Black Panther movie or the third Spider-Man movie, but overall, its really taken a step back in terms of quality in almost every other project they have made. They also lost one of their biggest creative auteurs, James Gunn to their biggest rival, as well as the guy who made their Spider-Man movies and the Russo who made the previous two Avenger movies (though it could be these guys return). Ryan Coogler doesn’t seem interested in doing the penultimate (?) Avengers sequel, they aren’t going to trust Taika Waititi or Sam Raimi or Joss Whedon with that movie. They have resorted to getting Hugh Jackman back for a final (?) paycheck as Wolverine for the upcoming Deadpool sequel and apart from that don’t seem to have a plan on bringing their other most famous IP into their franchise, the X-Men. And also the other big development is that they have lost the Chinese box office marker, though this seems largely out of their control as China is an aggressive geopolitical adversary of the US and is also strictly against LGBTQ representation, and Marvel is (rightfully so) not budging on the edits suggested by Chinese censors. And then there’s also the case for superhero fatigue, and I am saying this as a fan of most of these movies, (I watched most of their previous movies during high school and college almost religiously), but the amount of content they dumped on Disney+ which was of varying quality was too much for me to really watch. I skipped half their shows and most of their movies (waited for Disney+ for most of the movies except for Spider-Man and BP2). I genuinely don’t feel interested in most of their upcoming lineup, except maybe GoTG 3 and Captain America 4 (if it’s any good). I might be speaking for only myself here, but I potentially see that happening more so in future with general audiences.

drw85 4y ago
I liked the earlier movies, but to me the biggest problem is that they are now all connected and thus all required to watch. I skipped a bunch of them and had no idea what was happening in the latest Avengers. There were so many characters popping up that i had no knowledge of and weird sideplots that i hadn't seen. It just ended up confusing and frustrating.

zxcvbn4038 4y ago

Next focus on quality instead of quantity. Less She-Hulk and more Loki. Maybe every single Star Wars character doesn’t need a six or ten episode backstory. Maybe Cars doesn’t need four sequels. The Lone Ranger has kept his mask on since 1933, the Mandalorian couldn’t do it five episodes.

dirtyid 4y ago

Considering how much they've squandered Star Wars video game IP, or video game IP in general, probably leaving billions on the table. That said, maybe it's to prevent cannibalizing other divisions, but it's hard to imagine type of media more extractive than micotransctions. IIRC Fifa + Madden made like 1.5B revenue last year.

riversflow 4y ago
> microtransactions I think Disney got soured off of gaming when the fan and critical response was so harsh against Battlefront 2. They tried microtransactions and ended up going down as the most downvoted comment in reddit history.[1] [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattlefront/comments/7cff0b/comment/dppum98/?context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattlefront/comments/7cff0b...
- dirtyid 4y ago
  I remember. IMO they tried outrageous microtranstions on fanbase who were demographically resistent which TBH some practices are more acceptable 5 years later. Disney also has other women oriented franchises that seems to have big mobile potential. Also never too late to acclimizate the young, the parks already nickle and dime like crazy. Of course I don't want this, but I think it's something they can milk. Video games compete with sleep, casual games with everything.
ryathal 4y ago
giving big exclusive contracts was a huge mistake by Disney for video games. It's easy to just sell everything to EA, but it doesn't actually result in good publicity for them, which they learned the hard way with Battlefront 2. When you have a massive IP that has tons of different periods and openings for various games, you really need to license out smaller chunks all over the place. Games Workshop is a really good model that Disney should have followed.

nebula8804 4y ago

You develop an AI to automate the process and expanding on this process eventually the company is essentially a bunch of code running in the cloud that generates a film on demand that fits the needs of each customer perfectly. (Obviously you separate out the real world business like Theme Parks).

rahkiin 4y ago
You should watch She-Hulk ;)
- aikendrum 4y ago
  No one should have to watch She-Hulk.
- nebula8804 4y ago
  The process of developing the AI will have bumps in the road but I am talking about the end state not the journey.

s3000 4y ago

>Iger has said Disney has built enough capacity to generate more entertainment than the world has cash to consume. In other words, they have distorted the market because over-capacity should let prices fall. But even if they keep their prices, cash doesn't have to be the limiting factor. The available cash is not fixed. If they spend their income instantly, 'new' cash is available to the market, and Disney can sell more entertainment. >So the question is, once your corporate mega machine has become this efficient what do you even do next? Expand to other markets. They know everything about human perception. They can leverage that to make more games or VR applications. They can build better education platforms or even create new cities. They could even try to convince Apple, Amazon and Google to open up the declining personal assistant market [1]. However, stable diffusion threatens their position. Who needs Disney's capacities if other algorithms can do it better? Disney will have to enter the AI race and spend all their money on developers and researchers. Unfortunately for them, they haven't used the last 20 years to create something like an online Cinderella university to globally identify young geniuses and funnel them into their company. [1] Amazon Is Gutting Its Voice-Assistant Alexa https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33680904 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33680904

tsimionescu 4y ago
> Expand to other markets. They know everything about human perception. They can leverage that to make more games or VR applications. They can build better education platforms or even create new cities. They could even try to convince Apple, Amazon and Google to open up the declining personal assistant market An extremely well-oiled movie-making machine is not a good games-making machine, VR or not. And while there may be some cross-over with game-making, there is certainly no cross-over with voice assistants, where did you even think of that? Home assistants don't actually assist you in the home, they are mostly a device you buy to serve you ads (and occasionally switch the music when your hands are dirty). > However, stable diffusion threatens their position. Who needs Disney's capacities if other algorithms can do it better? Disney will have to enter the AI race and spend all their money on developers and researchers. You really don't understand the AAA movie business if you think Stable Diffusion is anywhere near threatening Disney. They just explained that they've gotten so good at making blockbusters, they don't have enough clients for how many blockbusters they can make. Even if Stable Diffusion was any good at making AAA movies (they're a few decades away from that), someone trying to use it to compete with Disney would quickly find they have no power whatsoever to actually market their movies - that is where Disney truly shines. And it's not about movie posters and reviews, marketing in the business is greatly tied to creating stars. People arent just coming to see Iron Man, they're coming to see Robert Downey Jr, or Chriss Pratt etc. AI-generated movies have no hope to compete with the marketing power of a big-name celebrity.

johnywalks 4y ago

Except that they produce rubbish.

durnygbur 4y ago

> generate more entertainment than the world has cash to consume But the world doesn't have will to look at it.

waltbosz 4y ago

I find the Marvel movies boring and insulting to my intelligence. Which isn't really surprising since they are made for mass appeal and I generally don't like that sort of stuff. However, and this statement is made with no actual knowledge of the economics of Disney content creation budgets, but I like to imagine that one positive thing that comes from the monetary success of the Marvel movies is the Pixar Shorts that are being made for Disney+ . If you haven't seen them I recommend them. They are these original ~4 minute short films that are pet-projects by various creatives working at Disney/Pixar. The shorts include a small interview from the creator where they discuss their inspiration and the fun they had working on the project. I remember a line from the Daily Show when it was still Craig Kilborn. The show had just gotten a nice newly renovated set, and Kilborn thanked South Park for the money to pay for it. I suspect (again with no real knowledge) that the Pixar Shorts are financed from the success of the Marvel movies. Or maybe it's just Disney+ subscriber fees.

Hnrobert42 4y ago
The Marvel movies are awful, but from my understanding, they are made for mass audiences++. That is, they want to make movies that are easy to sell in China and India. That means less dialog because most people don’t want to read lots of subtitles, broad humor because it has to make sense in all cultures and languages, and themes that won’t offend the sensibilities of the various cultures. The Disney shorts are a good suggestion. I will track them down. Thanks.
- BryantD 4y ago
  Within limits. The new Black Panther didn't release in China; neither did Shang-Chi. China's an important market for Disney but they're not afraid to ignore it from time to time.
  - htrp 4y ago
    that may be more political than business driven
silisili 4y ago

unsupp0rted 4y ago

If it turned out 3 years ago Disney developed an AI that writes and generates Marvel Phase IV movies all “in-machine” with no human input, writers, directors or actors whatsoever nobody would be surprised. We’d be impressed but not surprised.

alternatetwo 4y ago
They actually made this joke on She-Hulk ... K.E.V.I.N. (totally not GLaDOS) is an AI that leads the MCU storylines.
- akiselev 4y ago
  Side rant: Worst fourth wall break in history. If they really wanted to do the K.E.V.I.N. storyline they should have made the show a grittier legal/detective thriller (a la Jessica Jones) with a season long conspiracy arc about K.E.V.I.N. taking over Disney by infiltrating Marvel. Bonus woke points if they imply that K.E.V.I.N. is a sexist AI made by SV techbros that’s sabotaging She-Hulk’s series.
  - unsupp0rted 4y ago
    Kevin Feige didn't want this whatsoever. https://www.cbr.com/she-hulk-wanted-kevin-feige-cameo-mcu-boss-refused/ https://www.cbr.com/she-hulk-wanted-kevin-feige-cameo-mcu-bo... You can imagine how pleased he was with any of the K.E.V.I.N stuff in the show at all.. or the show itself.

devoutsalsa 4y ago

Pay dividends. When investing back into the business doesn’t provide a meaningful return for shareholders, you give the money to the shareholders.

nazka 4y ago

You start to conquer another sector/industry. You can see that with Apple, Amazon..

misslibby 4y ago

I think I cut undercut their price for producing a movie nobody wants to see every day.

alt227 4y ago

Focus on increasing quality?

bilsbie 4y ago

I think they’re priced out most consumers though with a day pass a $120+. I’d imagine a theme park less than $70 per day could attract a lot of people.

ericmcer 4y ago

Go off-script and make something that actually feels new and original? If they really have turned art and entertainment into an assembly line they definitely have the bandwidth to try some weird stuff. Although it would be hilarious if they just started releasing a new superhero movie every week. The Marvel universe is pretty deep.