I don't know how WBD is going to recover from this.
They lost trust with their consumers and the talent working for them.
Sure, WB was in debt even before the merger but their new CEO Zaslav made everything so much worse.
They went from profitable AT&T subsidiary, to an already dying merged company with Discovery. I swear if WBD has to look for a buyer or something similar this quickly, I'll laugh my ass off.
@HotGoomba It still is profitable, it's the debts that are the problem which are inherited. Companies with high revenue/profits go bust all the time as cash is king but revenue isn't the same thing as money.
@TheJGG I wouldn't say it's not feasible. I know someone who has worked on a few major Star Wars, Marvel and a live action Disney princess movies and shows and this person was telling a film buff who has kids about it but the film buff hadn't seen any of them, which is a fairly common reaction not through any conscious bias or lack of awareness of what Disney is but because they'd rather watch other things. This I must absorb any and all Disney films/shows is really more abnormal for adults than not watching any Disney things at all.
Cool story, thanks for sharing it! It speaks to how large Disney is though, that someone can actually do that. Also to how Disney has clearly divided their child-focused and adult-focused content through their different labels, like 20th Century Studios, et cetera. But the problem is that a lot of the complaints we give to one set of Disney movies are applicable to almost every other Disney-owned movie.
Being the movie escapist I am, I ran away and got absorbed in Studio Ghibli films, almost completely immune to the countless issues and political baggage that drag Western films down. In some ways I rediscovered my love for films thanks to this more purist form of moviemaking.
So you do admit that their target audience is today's kids then? Cool. That was my point. Grooming kids into buying their merch. Whether the Renaissance films were watchable by anyone else is irrelevant.
I never tried to argue against that point. I wanted to comment on how the older films are more appreciable than the ones made today due to their timelessness. The merch cycle is a little more obvious nowadays because the movies have gotten just a little worse.
@Snatcher I agree with your comment about Disney's older movies being enjoyable for all. Especially the 2000s Pixar films, though those aren't Disney specifically. The reason those Pixar ones worked so well was the multi-layered storytelling and humour, that wasn't infantile nor over-mature.
@Mioaionios Absolutely, I dunno if anyone would want to work with WB for the foreseeable future now that this kind of potshotting is common. It's an artist's worst nightmare.
I don't really like Marvel movies and large studio films that use tons of CGI anymore. Not because they're all bad (they're not), it's because I don't like what's been going on with the CGI studios they hire and with Marvel pumping movies out like a factory, the people working at these (somewhat) small studios have been pretty much living in their offices working 8 days a week.
I don't like to be negative but this is getting bad and with everything needing CGI it will only get worse.
@Kermit1
Yeah... it's a big problem and the only solution I can think of is unionization.
Lots of industries in the US need to unionize by the way. Still don't understand why so many Americans are against it. Here in Europe it's a pretty standard practice.
@Mioaionios we need a UPA for CGI. If animators unionise, I can see the press taking it in a completely different direction and make it "w0k3" because people want fair work. We have guilds but those are not the same as a union.
I think people here in the US (I live in Canada, cousin to Europe) are scared to step up, because of many things.
Not to derail this but right now in Canada we can't even afford food and they want us to buy electric cars. To buy a bag of apples is $9.00 without tax, a Nintendo Switch game is $80.00 without tax (almost $100 to buy a game).
Woah, people are talking about actual politics rather than silly fluff that people call politics in the thread for once.
The movie industry is already heavily unionized and it's one of the reasons why London has a lot of major Hollywood productions being made there to get around it plus they get a tax cut and there's even addition movie lots being built here to take on even more work in the future.
The issue with Marvel is they are sub-contracting a lot of the visual effects rather than keeping it all in house, these sub-contractors are putting pressure on the employees to come in on budget and on time to keep Marvel happy so they get more work from them in future. Not that Marvel are without blame as the FX director on the Marvel film should be managing the workflow a lot better.
In a sense, saying workers should be in a union is like saying that you should come home safe and well from work every day. It's obvious, but corporate responsibility conspired against the workers.
As for America, it's due to the way that Maths is singular and Lego is pluralised - it's fundamentally wrong.
Unions in the UK are not as strong as they used to be, due to government tactics on unionisation, the reduction in industry (another govt tactic), and the reduction in civil service headcounts (... another govt tactic).
@Rambler yep, one of they key points of Brexit was to get out of legislation which protected workers rights as seen recently with the P&O lay offs where UK staff were sacked so they can hire cheaper foreign workers whilst the EU/French staff at P&O stayed as they can’t sack due then to EU protection laws. But hey-ho erm….fancy blue passports (which are made in Poland lol) for the win!
American seems to be turning a corner though with Starbucks and Amazon have just started getting unions is some locations, hopefully they pay attention long for them to see the benefits before they get distracted with more stupid fluff politics.
Sucker Punch (Pluto TV) - This was an interesting one. A girl is thrown into an insane asylum with an abusive staff after accidentally killing her sister while trying to save her, and her desires to break out manifest as her going on imaginatively stylish action packed adventures (like taking part in a steampunk version of WWI) that represent her escape attempts. It was a really unique experience & am glad I found it.
Piranha DD (Tubi) - I've heard it was infamously bad, but it's leaving Tubi soon so I figured it couldn't hurt to give it a go. It's absolutely grade A schlock, but it absolutely knows it's terrible & runs with it. From the absolutely gratuitous gore & nudity, to the decidedly B grade CGI, and crazy scenarios (like the exploding cow, genital chomping piranha scene, and the prosthetic shotgun leg), it's not a good movie, but a fun time nonetheless (also, how can anyone dislike a movie that has Dr. Emmet Brown himself, Christopher Lloyd, still playing the role of a wide eyed scientist).
Currently Playing:
Switch - Blade Strangers
PS4 - Kingdom Hearts III, Tetris Effect (VR)
@Gryffin
It's a form of in media res, but yes, IMHO, it is sometimes used to jazz up a film or episode if the plot or action is lacking.
One episode of CSI: Something or Other that I saw had an opening like that, and the only reason I could see for it was that the the episode was especially poor and this was a ham-fisted way of generating interest.
I'm kind of on a roll right now.
Pixels
Maya and the Three
Shrew's Nest
We Can Be Heroes
The Superdeep
Everything Everywhere All At Once
That's My Boy
Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
Little Nicky
Only Murders in the Building Season 2
In the Mood for Love
Sucker Punch (Pluto TV) - This was an interesting one. A girl is thrown into an insane asylum with an abusive staff after accidentally killing her sister while trying to save her, and her desires to break out manifest as her going on imaginatively stylish action packed adventures (like taking part in a steampunk version of WWI) that represent her escape attempts. It was a really unique experience & am glad I found it.
I absolutely love Sucker Punch. One of my favorite movies of all time. There are very very few movies I rewatch, but this is one of them. I've seen it maybe 10 times. I'm glad you appreciated it.
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