Here’s an interesting case study about how Hollywood, and in particular Academy voters, make their choices come Awards season.  It’s 1982 at the 54th Academy Awards.  It was a year that perfectly summed up the transition between old Hollywood and the new.  The movie On Golden Pond won two of the elder icons of the industry their final Oscar wins for Best Actor and Actress; the only one ever for Henry Fonda and the fourth for Kathrine Hepburn.  At the same time, one of Hollywood’s most celebrated new directors, Steven Spielberg, was enjoying his resurgence with the big hit Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), itself a nominee for Best Picture.  But if there was any film that looked like a certainty for the top award at that year’s ceremony, it was the epic historical drama Reds (1981).  Warren Beatty was a firmly established leading man by the time he Directed and Produced this movie biopic about American Communist John Reed and his chronicling of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, but his rise was certainly a by product of the shifting tide in Hollywood.  He was a representative of that transition in the industry, having started under the old Hollywood system and becoming a central figure of the new Hollywood that came up afterwards.  Reds was only his second film as a director after Heaven Can Wait (1978), and it was ambitious to say the least.  A sprawling 3 hour and 17 minute epic with an all star cast that included Beatty as well as Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson.  It was the kind of historical drama that Hollywood often fawns over, and it went into the Oscar season as a heavy favorite.  The movie picked up many Awards on Oscar night, including one for Warren Beatty for Best Director, though he lost out on Actor and Screenplay.  But, Best Director almost always indicates that Best Picture is in the bag as well.  But to everyone’s surprise, and perhaps most of all to Warren Beatty’s, Reds ended up losing Best Picture that year.  And the victor was one that few saw coming; a little British movie about Olympic track runners called Chariots of Fire (1981).

The loss of Best Picture for Reds may have made sense if a movie like On Golden Pond or even Raiders of the Lost Ark had gotten it instead, but Chariots of Fire?  When stacked up against these juggernaut films, Chariots seems trivial, and yet it managed to pull off the upset.  It’s not quite the most egregious upset in Oscar history; no Crash (2005) or Green Book (2018) here.  Chariots was a generally well liked movie by both critics and audiences alike, and that may have been key to it’s last minute victory.  There are a lot of political factors that go into play leading up to Oscar night.  There are Academy voters that certainly put a lot of thought into their selections, but there are also Academy voters that rarely see any of the nominated movies, and their choices are purely made on just vibes alone.  Sometimes, an Academy voters pick for Best Picture may have been the only nominated movie that they had seen that year.  It’s not necessarily about Academy voters being lazy; a lot of them are still actively working in the industry so it’s difficult to find the time to actually watch all the nominated movies.  So, to still be a participating Academy voter, a lot of them purely go by what their gut tells them, and this can sometimes go against what the prevailing winds say about who’s out in front in the race for Oscar.  There’s also the factor of the ranked choice voting system that is used to tally votes in the Best Picture race.  This is where things can get complicated, because Oscar favorites can rise and fall based on the consensus of how well they are liked by the voters.  However, the 1982 Oscars didn’t have that voting system in place.  Back then, it was a purely decided by popular vote, which made the upset all the more impressive.  But, why Chariots of Fire.  It was not a particularly huge success at the box office, and while it was liked by audiences it wasn’t exactly loved either.  Really, the only remarkable thing about it was the Vangelis musical score, with it’s groundbreaking use of electronic synth rhythms, which of course won an Oscar itself.  What helped to carry Chariots of Fire across the Oscar finish line more than anything was that it was a feel good movie, and that has indeed been a winning formula in most Oscar seasons.

Reds was an ambitiously assembled film with grand vision and a lot of passion.  There’s no denying that Warren Beatty did an amazing job directing the film and he certainly deserved that Oscar.  But, it’s a 3 hour epic with a tragic ending, the death of it’s main hero after a steep decline in both his health and well-being.  While Academy voters may be impressed with the technical aspects of the movie, they just don’t seem to want to sit through 3 hours if the endpoint is a tragedy.  Like regular audiences, Academy members like rousing stories of over-coming adversity, and that’s what Chariots of Fire represented.  It was not just a movie about overcoming prejudice, but also a sports flick about underdogs competing in the Olympics.  What it did, and what Reds failed to do, was leave the audience uplifted as the credits rolled.  Of course there was also the political environment at the time, with Warren Beatty’s unapologetic favorable portrayal of a Communist leader in American history perhaps not going over too well with Academy voters during the ultra conservative Reagan years.  Chariots of Fire, by being a safer, less political film made it a less controversial choice.  While this held true in the year 1982, it’s also been evident in many other years throughout Oscar history.  The Academy Awards are often more defined as a snapshot of each year on it’s road throughout history rather than a indicator of the direction of the industry as a whole.  Each year the studios submit what they think is their best shot at the Oscars and then those movies are up to a vote.  There are quite a few movies that indeed have withstood the test of time, and their Oscar wins are just another jewel in their crowns.  But there are plenty of Oscar wins that only make sense in the context of their respective years and have aged very poorly over time.  And the common thing that a lot of those Oscar wins that have aged poorly is that they were the safe choice.

Perhaps the most famous example of the Oscars missing the mark is the year when How Green Was My Valley (1941) beat out Citizen Kane (1941) for Best Picture.  One of the movies was a beautifully made drama from one of Hollywood’s most celebrated directors, and the other would go on to be considered the Greatest American Movie of all time.  How Green Was My Valley had all the things that the Academy valued; John Ford behind the camera, lavish production values and heartfelt performances from established actors.  Orson Welles came into Hollywood as a bit of an outsider and he was using his film Citizen Kane to break down many long held traditions in filmmaking, as well as taking aim at some powerful targets.  It’s very well known that Welles based his Charles Foster Kane character after William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper magnate and one of the most powerful men in the whole of America as well as in Hollywood.  On that Oscar night, a loss for Citizen Kane in the Best Picture category may not have been seen as that shocking given that Welles made a pretty powerful enemy with his unflattering parody of the vindictive Hearst.  But, through the arc of time, Citizen Kane‘s profile has only improved while How Green Was My Valley has been almost completely forgotten.  Safe choices don’t always pan out beyond their moment in time.  Over the years, the greatest movies manage to find their audience and it’s often because they were movies that took chances and moved the needle in Hollywood towards a different direction.  There are plenty of other times when movies with darker themes missed out on the Oscars and have gone on to become heralded as masterpieces; Vertigo (1958), Do the Right Thing (1989), and The Matrix (1999) to name a few.  They all had the disadvantage of being a little harsh for their time, but even if Academy voters turn a blind eye to them, the audiences will ultimately have the final say determining their place in history.

But even darker themed movies can somehow push through to win Best Picture at the Oscars.  It seems that the best way to do it is to be so good that your movie cannot be ignored, even if it is a bit of a downer.  One of the best examples of this is The Silence of the Lambs (1991).  The Jonathan Demme masterpiece managed to defy all expectations and sweep through the Oscars despite it’s dark and often grisly subject matter.  The Academy overlooked all that, even though there were more traditional and safer alternatives that year at the Oscars, like The Prince of Tides (1991), JFK (1991) and Beauty and the Beast (1991).  But Lambs managed to beat them all because it was just that good, and time has only proven the Academy right in their decision as the movie is still viewed as a masterpiece 35 years later.  And it’s a story involving cannibalism and torture where even after the case is solved, a mad serial killer is still on the loose by the end.  Sometimes these movies do luck out by running the table in a year with little competition, but great movies can still win at the Oscars even with uncompromising elements to their stories.  Sometimes a movie can win the Oscar with darker themes at it’s center if they do offer that little glimpse of hope at the end.  Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List (1993) is one of harshest movies ever put on screen with it’s unvarnished look at the horrors of the Holocaust, and yet it offers hope in the end through the inspiring story of how so many Jews’ lives were spared thanks to the efforts of the movie’s main subject, businessman Oskar Schindler.  Spielberg’s movie is a gut punch, but you don’t leave the movie feeling awful in the end.  Even a movie that ends on a downer, like Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer (2023) where it’s main character stresses over how he’s responsible for a nuclear arms race, still had enough moments of triumph beforehand that make the journey to that dark moment still feel worthwhile.  There are certainly these exceptions that prove it’s possible to win over the Academy even when your movie is not a pleasant watch all the way through and it seems that the only way it works is if the movie is exceptionally good.

But, it all depends on the mood of the Academy voters as well.  The voting body of the Academy is made up of mostly actors and also includes industry professionals as well as people of special distinction by the Academy. Just like any other election, campaigning is a crucial part of the process in voting for the Academy Awards.  This includes many different tactics like trade ads and special functions to draw awareness to a film, as well as Academy screenings throughout the season.  But, like I stated earlier, some Academy members don’t have the time to see everything, so they’ll sometimes vote based on vibes or defer to their friends and staff over what they think will be the right choice.  When the span of awareness is limited, what usually ends up happening is that the movie that has the most appeal to the broadest audience possible ends up winning in the end.  A great recent example was in 2022, when the “feel good” movie CODA (2021) picked up Best Picture over the more nihilistic The Power of the Dog (2021).  While objectively looking at both movies, The Power of the Dog was the more impressively assembled film, with great cinematography and standout performances delivering a monumental cinematic experience; but it was also bleak and unforgiving as well.  CODA on the other hand was very unassuming and low budget, but it had heart and warmth to it.  It’s not surprising that CODA appealed to an Academy that was in need of a pick-me-up after the harsh Covid lockdown year prior, though Power of the Dog’s Jane Campion still came away with a Directing Oscar.  When Academy voters are low on awareness of the movies to choose from, they often go with the movie that makes them the happiest.  It’s where the ranked choice voting works the most in favor of “Feel Good” movies.  It’s a voting body motivated by feelings more than by technical merits.  This can sometimes shed a light on some of the inherent biases found in the Academy too.  It was reported that a lot of Academy voters admitted to not having seen the movie 12 Years a Slave (2013), but they still voted for it as Best Picture because they felt it’s message was important.  They’re not wrong to feel that way, but they would’ve been better able to back up their claim of the movie’s importance if they had actually seen the movie and judged it on that.  Unfortunately, it’s that lack of insight that can sometimes cause the Academy to be out of lockstep with the rest of the audience when it comes to these movies.

So, looking at this year’s Academy Awards, does this “Feel Good” formula still apply.  As of this writing a couple weeks prior to the Academy Awards of 2026, the front-runner appears to be Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another (2025).  It’s not too surprising, given that it’s not exactly a harsh movie to watch, often filled with enough levity to keep things entertaining throughout.  But, it’s also a movie that doesn’t pull it’s punches either, being shockingly prescient with today’s headlines involving authoritarian acts by the government and the everyday resistance that the citizens of this country are trying to enact to fight back against oppression.  It’s legacy over time will be interesting to watch, but for right now the movie is connecting at the right time by being a dark mirror of our current world.  But, even with it’s darker elements, it still has a story that comes across as a “feel good” one.  It’s a traditional good vs. evil storyline, where the bad guy loses and the good guys win, even if the larger backdrop of the movie’s setting still paints a bleak picture.  The micro, intimate main plot gives us that traditional story of triumph, as Leonardo DiCaprio’s father figure character does reunite with his daughter by movie’s end.  One Battle After Another seems unique in this way amidst the field it’s up against in the Best Picture race.  It’s main competition, Sinners (2025), has a lot of incredible moments in it, but it’s also a movie where all but one of the main characters is either dead at the end or turned into a vampire.  Movies like Sentimental Value (2025) and Hamnet (2025) spend most of their run times dealing with characters processing their grief.  And then there’s also Marty Supreme (2025), which is a story of triumph for the worst kind of person in the world.  From the looks of it, the odds favor One Battle After Another because it does come the closest to matching that “feel good” formula, but this race is still undecided for now.  In the end, it helps to be the most entertaining of the nominated films, because it leaves the best final impression.  It may not be a great indicator of how well the movie might age over time, but it certainly makes a difference when the choice needs to be made in the moment by Academy voters.

Movies by design are meant to be appealing; otherwise what’s the point in making them.  The best movies take risks, and sometimes that can be enough to gain the attention of the Academy voters when they are choosing Best Picture.  But most of the time, what matters in the moment is how this relatively small voting block feels while they watch a movie.  For some Academy members it’s what matters most.  Back in 2012, actor and singer Meat Loaf (who was an active Academy member with voting privileges) confessed that he voted for the Steven Spielberg movie War Horse (2011) for Best Picture purely because it was the movie that made him cry that year.  If that was the determining factor for him, then all the power to him; at least he voted for a movie he had watched.  But the bigger problem is disengagement from the voting members of the Academy, where they just go by vibes rather than making educated choices based on what they watched.  There may have been a variety of factors that could’ve contributed to Warren Beatty losing out on Best Picture to Chariots of Fire; his political stances, the entrenchment of old Hollywood in the Academy, the fact that Warren may have burned a few bridges over the years to get where he was at the time.  The judgement over time is that the Academy was ultimately making the safe choice that year and picked the least controversial film in the pack.  What Warren also represented (the outspoken voice of New Hollywood) also may have ruffled a few old time Academy members as well.  Thankfully, requirements for Academy membership has changed, and the Academy now has a broader, more diverse voting body than it did decades ago.  This has helped lead to more risk taking movies winning Best Picture, such as Everything, Everywhere, All at Once (2022) and Anora (2024), but even still, those were movies with that were crowd-pleasing in the end, with a lot of “feel good” elements.  Unless you are one of the best movies ever made, you’ll be all but forgotten if you don’t leave a positive impression on your audience.  Happy Academy voters are generous Academy voters, and in the nearly century long history of the Academy Awards, this has been the formula that has most often brought home the gold.

For generations, the Muppets have been entertaining audiences with their good natured and yet slightly chaotic sense of fun.  And the remarkable thing is just how broad their fanbase has become.  They are truly an audience of all ages pleaser, from grown ups to young toddlers.  For many of us, Generation X’s all the way to Gen Alpha, they have always been there as a part of growth as individuals.  We learn the ABC’s and 123’s from the likes of Big Bird and all of his friends on Sesame Street during our youngest years and eventually we grow up to appreciate the delightfully absurdist and subtly adult humor of the Muppet Show.  Kermit the Frog may be the most recognizable character to represent a whole brand across the whole world since Mickey Mouse.  And the Muppets can even count people like Elton John and Quentin Tarantino among their biggest fans.  But what has made these characters who are just puppets made of felt so beloved by so many.  The Muppets weren’t the first puppet characters to become household names.  Puppeteering has been an artform for centuries, going all the way back to the Punch and Judy days.  But what seems to have set the Muppets apart has been the way they are presented to us.  The men and women behind the Muppets are not just great puppeteers, they are also skilled in the art of filmmaking as well.  The Jim Henson Company has been just as instrumental over the years as Industrial Light and Magic and the Stan Winston Studio in changing the way that movies are made.  What started as just a place to build and craft new types of puppets has grown into a visual effects workshop where some of the most creative minds in the industry can experiment with new ways to make the impossible possible.  And yet, even with all the technical advancements that have been employed by the Jim Henson Company to create all their brilliant practical effects over the years, the Muppets which are still puppeteered by hand are still their most magical creations.

To understand the reason why this kind of “Muppet Filmmaking” is special, it helps to understand the man who made it all happen.  The company’s namesake, Jim Henson, was a true original creative genius.  Born in Mississippi and raised in Maryland, Henson always dreamed of becoming a filmmaker.  While in high school, he found a creative outlet in creating puppets and performing with them.  He attended many workshops over the years where he would meet other puppeteers that shared his interests, including a fortuitous meeting with a future collaborator named Frank Oz.  After college, Henson and his small band of fellow puppeteers created a short form comedy for a local Baltimore TV station called Sam and Friends.  The puppets in the show were very simplistic, often lacking in much detail and character, but one puppet modeled after a frog that Henson puppeteered himself managed to stand out from the rest.  The other Sam and Friends puppets faded into obscurity, but Kermit as he became known lived on and would become the catalyst for what was to follow.  In 1968, Jim Henson’s workshop was hired to develop puppets for the new public broadcasting show for children called Sesame Street, a show that took the nation by storm and quickly became a institution for young audiences everywhere.  All the while, Henson was developing more and more elaborate puppets, which by now were being called Muppets.  In 1976, Henson and his team were given a prime time slot on television with The Muppet Show, and it became his biggest breakout hit yet.  Not only was the Henson Company making it big with their success as puppeteers, but they were also doing so while take bold experimental swings with what they could do with puppets on television.  They weren’t just bringing puppets to life, they were making them feel alive.  On the Muppet Show and Sesame Street, the most magical trick that Henson and his team pulled off was to make you forget you were watching puppets at all.  The Muppets feel like real living characters and that’s largely due not just to how they are performed, but the way they are staged as well.

Jim Henson, surprisingly, never considered himself a family friendly entertainer.  It was never his ambition to make anything just for children.  He always saw himself more as an Avant Garde filmmaker; someone using the medium of film to experiment with the illusion of life.  And while we may view the Muppets as a mainstream entity today, what Henson saw with his popular characters was a way to do things in film that no one would have ever thought was possible.  After the success of The Muppet Show, Henson was granted his greatest wish which was to direct a feature film, naturally starring the Muppets.  The Muppet Movie (1979) may seem like a fun comedic romp starring Kermit and the gang, but when you take a step back and think about some of the scenes in the movie, especially those where the Muppets are out in the real world, you start to realize just how experimental the film acutally was.  It’s simple things like Kermit and Fozzie the Bear driving around in a car that you don’t think are out of the ordinary until you realize they had to rig a car to drive on it’s own just so they could fit Jim Henson and Frank Oz into the front of the car to make it look like the Muppet characters are really driving.  There are many other incredible illusions found throughout the film, including in the opening shot where Kermit sits on a log in a real swamp playing his banjo, which involved Jim Henson cramming himself tightly into a hidden submersible that they then placed into swamp water so it would leave Jim hidden from view.  But perhaps the most mind-blowing sequence that the Henson Company ever put into one of their movies was in 1981’s The Great Muppet Caper, where the Muppets all ride bicycles through a park.  This sequence baffled visual effects experts for years wondering how they managed to get Muppets to look like they are really riding bicycles.  It was revealed that there was a hidden marionette rig just out of frame that helped to create the illusion, but it’s just another great example of how the Jim Henson Workshop was taking both filmmaking and puppeteering and elevating both artforms at the same time.

But the Henson Company wasn’t just keeping these tricks strictly in house either.  They were gladly aiding other filmmakers in developing more imaginative worlds for the big screen.  They worked on movies like The Witches (1990) and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990), creating creatures that could believably exist in the real world, while still being entirely out of this world at the same time.  Perhaps the strongest example of just how well the Jim Henson team’s talents had grown over the years was found in the galaxy far, far away known as the world of Star Wars.  While Star Wars creator George Lucas was getting help from many different visual effects companies from all over the industry, he saved a very special assignment for Henson and his crew.  In the second film of the trilogy, The Empire Strikes Back, Lucas created this important new character called Yoda; a centuries old, diminitive alien creature who would end up training the hero of the story, Luke Skywalker.  It would’ve been impossible to cast any human actor in the role, so he knew that he had to turn to puppeteers to bring Yoda to life.  And who better to turn to than the greatest workshop for lifelike puppets in the entire world.  Yoda would be a lot different than the other Muppets.  Instead of felt, he would be made of foam and plastic, with highly detailed features sculpted into his face so that he would feel more lifelike.  To bring him to life, Frank Oz would be doing the honors of giving Yoda voice and movement.  The results were beyond successful, as Frank Oz and the Jim Henson artists proved that their Muppet characters could not only hold their own acting opposite human characters, but that it was also possible to have them give dramatic performances as well.  Yoda’s even sharing the screen with an acting titan like Alec Guiness and he still doesn’t feel out of place.  George Lucas tried and failed to campaign for an Oscar nomination for Frank Oz’s performance as Yoda, but regardless of a nomination or not, the creation of the character proved just how far the artform had progressed to where an acting nomination didn’t seem like too much of a stretch for a Muppet character.

One of the key things that really helps to make these characters come alive is the way real human actors interact with them.   It’s not just the case with Yoda holding his own with his Star Wars co-stars.  The collection of Muppet films over the years also demonstrates many different examples where the human actors truly make you believe that talking directly to a puppet is completely ordinary.  It’s honestly not a difficult thing to do, because the Jim Henson puppeteers are so good at their craft that they can bring the illusion of life easily into these characters just through personality alone.  There are so many examples you can find through interviews and special appearances made by the Muppets over the years where your eye is drawn directly towards the character and not at the performer puppeteering them, even when they are visible too.  These puppeteers just know how to make these felt creations feel alive in front of you and that’s helpful for the actor on the opposite end.  It’s easy to see how The Muppets have attracted so many talented people to appear beside them in both the Muppet Show series and in their films.  Sometimes, you even get performances from the human actors in the movie that actually shine through beyond what is called for in a movie where Muppets are their co-stars.  Some of the most special cases are Charles Grodin’s hilariously over the top villainous role in The Great Muppet Caper, as well as Michael Caine’s surprisingly straight forward performance as Ebenezer Scrooge in Muppet Christmas Carol (1993).  The fact that Caine’s performance as Scrooge would feel right at home in any other serious adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic novel is all the more remarkable when he’s acting opposite Kermit the Frog.  It’s always a great thing that these Muppet movies have human actors that are selling the illusion alongside their puppet co-stars.  Keeping the artiface up only helps to make us see these characters as genuinely alive, and it’s remarkable how well that translates even into the real world.

Unfortunately, many films today don’t seem to try as hard in making the impossible feel real like these Jim Henson enhanced movies have over the years.  When Henson died suddenly in 1990 at the age of 53, he left a big hole in the world of visual effects.  No one quite had the same intuitive ability to think of ways of doing things differently the way he did.  A large reason why the Henson Company is now a part of the larger Walt Disney Company today is because Henson agreed to have them operate the management of his company while he would continue doing the things he loved the most, which was crafting in his workshop.  He wanted to create bold new things, and having the responsibility to run a company was getting in the way of that.  Sadly as a result of his absence, the industry began to move away from his workshop’s very DIY method of filmmaking.  One of the big things that changed was the advancements in computer generated imagery, which unfortunately was making the need for handcrafted puppetry obsolete in the creation of fantastical creautres on screen.  Ironically, it was a filmmaker who helped to give them one of their big breaks that was also leading the change that would hasten their downfall.  When he decided to create his prequel trilogy to the original run of Star Wars, George Lucas didn’t return to the Henson company to have them craft new and imaginative alien Muppets to populate his film.  Instead, he had his team rely heavily on CGI, including with the creation of characters in the film.  Jar Jar Binks would be a break through creation in character animation through computer animation, and sadly even Yoda would be given a CG make-over in the series (albeit still voiced by Frank Oz.  Now, Jim Henson was never opposed to embracing new technology to help improve the work that his team was doing.  In fact, Henson was already starting to experiment with a new rigging system that would allow him to animate a CGI character by hand the same way he would do with a puppet in something they called Project Waldo.  However, the only time this experiment was ever used was in Jim Henson’s last ever project before he died; the Muppet Vision 3D attraction found at the Disney Hollywood Studios at Disney World.

Since then, the need for these felt puppets in live action films began to wane, as CGI was giving filmmakers better and more lifelike results.  Even still, the Muppets never truly went away.  Sesame Street still provides valuable educational entertainment to young children even after being on public broadcasting for over 50 years.  The Muppets have also continued to make movies over the years, though many of them don’t have the same high quality as the ones that came out during Jim Henson’s time.  And though they keep trying, the Walt Disney Company doesn’t to know quite what to do with the Muppets that are now under their control.  They’ve tried to reboot the characters in many different ways, but audience interest seems to have waned considerably.  There really hasn’t been an adequate replacement at the Jim Henson Workshop since the sudden loss of Jim Henson himself.  Frank Oz had already left the workshop to pursue his own career as a film director and Jim’s son Brian didn’t last very long at the time top before leaving to pursue other things as well.  It also didn’t help that Henson’s hand-picked successor to play Kermit after him, Steve Whitmire, was fired by Disney due to toxic workplace complaints leveled against him by Workshop staff.  The Jim Henson Company has been in search of an identity in the years since Jim’s death, and sadly it has led to a long decline where the their influence in the world of visual effects has considerably waned.  And yet, there is still an appetite for Muppet related content.  The visual wonder of the movies made by Jim Henson during the 1980’s, including his more mature films like The Dark Crystal (1982) and Labyrinth (1986) have a strong nostalgic value, especailly as more and more people are getting bored with what CGI has been offering us lately.  And who knows what will happed to the Muppets in the AI era of visual effects. What really made the Jim Henson visual effects stand out is the fact that so much of the creativity comes through in the construction of the visuals.  Unlike other movies today, the Henson visual effects team are building things that are tangible and present in front of the camera. And that’s what’s getting audiences more interested again in the practice of Muppet Filmmaking; the fact that what we are seeing is present in the scene itself, even when it’s a talking Frog or Pig.

There are strong signs that some filmmakers want to bring back more physical effects into their movies.  And when your movie or show is filled with alien style creatures, the Henson Company  has a proven history in delivering on that.  This was definitely evident in parts of the Star Wars sequel trilogy, with J.J. Abrams incorporating many puppeteered aliens to fill out his scenes in The Force Awakens (2015), and Rian Johnson bringing back the non-CGI, Muppet version of Yoda in The Last Jedi (2017).  Sticking with the practical effect of having a Muppet style puppet in Star Wars properties, the popular Mandalorian series also won over many audiences with the introduction of Grogu (aka Baby Yoda), a true fully puppeteered character just like the original Yoda.  But the real test of the future will be whether the Muppets manage to survive the shifting sands of the movie industry.  As a counter balance to the rise of AI, more and more people are valuing the things that are tangible and real in their consumption of media, and the Muppets fit right into that.  Even as AI media generation improves, the appeal of the hand-crafted Muppets is enough to help boost it’s profile into a whole new generation of audiences.  One would hope it’s not just the characters themselves that are gaining popular traction with audiences; that the inventive thinking that enabled the Jim Henson company to take bold artistic risks also spills over into the general visual effects field as well.  There’s a reason why the original Muppet projects like the Movie, The Great Muppet Caper, Muppet Christmas Carol and Muppet Treasure Island still hold up and it’s not just the characters alone.  Jim Henson knew that audiences needed to be dazzled by visuals often never achieved before by special effects.  Muppet Filmmaking may be undervalued at the moment by the industry, but audiences are coming to realize it’s value, and it is shifting movie studios towards considering more practical approaches to creating imaginative special effects without the aid of computers.  Regardless of the shifting priorities in Hollywood, we know that there are still enough people out there who have been raised their whole lives with the Muppets being an especially fond part of our childhood memories.  Tmes will change, but there will always be a place in our culture  for Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear and Gonzo to keep us looking for that rainbow connection.

It’s been only a couple of months into this back and forth battle between two media titans in Hollywood over the ownership of another media titan.  After declaring it’s intent on taking ownership of Warner Brothers last fall, the new Paramount media empire under the leadership of Skydance opened up a pandoras box that may likely change the make-up of Hollywood and movie-making in general forever.  Paramount’s intentions were ambitious, but ultimately they found themselves out maneuvered by Netflix, which put in the more lucrative bid for Warner Brothers CEO David Zaslev.  Netflix’s intentions were to bid as high as Paramount was in their first pitch, but say that they only were looking into buying the parts of Warner Brothers that weren’t connected to television broadcasting.  Since the merger with Discovery Networks in 2022, Warner Brothers has struggled to keep their massive media empire in top form, so they were looking to re-split the company up and sell each part for profit to new owners.  Warner Brothers would retain it’s movie production infrastructure, it’s studio lot, and it’s legendary library, while Discovery would be bundled together with all of the cable channel assets that Warner Brothers already held, such as networks like TBS and TNT, as well as the new channel CNN.  Paramount’s new owners, the Ellison family who had created Skydance Entertainment, were intent on collecting the entire package of both Warner Brothers and Discovery, but Netflix’s very huge offer to buy just the WB side of the business perhaps may have put Paramount out of reach.  They may still be able to purchase the spun off Discovery side, which will be worth significantly less, but from the actions that the Ellison family has taken in the wake of their dismissed offer indicates that they are still intent on winning the entire thing.

David Ellison, the new CEO of Paramount Skydance, and son of Oracle founder Larry Ellison, escalated things pretty heatedly by trying to circumvent David Zaslev’s agreement with Netflix, and go directly to the Warner Brothers Discovery shareholders in what is known in the business world as a hostile takeover.  But there’s still the flaw in their overall plan as they try to appeal to the shareholders with new bids to buy out the company with an assessment that still falls short of the value that Netflix has put on the Warner Brothers side of the business alone.  As it currently stands, Warner Brothers shareholders seem to be backing Zaslev’s plan to split the company up and secure two profitable sales instead of just the one.  Paramount may soon try to double up their offer if they truly want to gain the whole thing, but by that point, they may put themselves so deep in a debt hole that it could thwart any long term plans they have in building up their business.  This is the same situation that Disney has found itself in after they bought (and some would say overpaid) 20th Century Fox.  Disney beat out Comcast for the ownership of the legendary movie studio, but the cost was so high that it has put Disney into a debt whole that they’ve been trying hard to dig themselves out of.  Disney isn’t suffering too much, but having to deal with Covid on top of paying down the debt they accumulated from the acquisition of Fox led to many severe cut back over the last decade, and it’s led to a loss in quality control with many of their properties like Star Wars and Marvel.  Also, they own the massive Fox library of movies and shows, and have barely done anything with it.  Eventually things will be sorted out at Disney, and signs have recently shown that they are balancing out already for the studio, but it was after years of cost cutting, layoffs, and damage to the brand.  Whoever ends up getting Warner Brothers in the end will likely have to deal with some of the same problems, and it’s a symptom of one of the larger problems facing the industry as a whole, which is the trend of media consolidation negatively affecting the artform of movie-making.

Much like the banks, communications, and airlines, Hollywood is an industry that has fallen into the trend of consolidation as a means of generating profits for shareholders at the expense of the consumers.  This isn’t something new to the business however.  Movie studios have risen and fallen, and sometimes it was the regulating power of the government that had to step in to make the movie studios play more fair.  Ironically, one of the biggest regulatory smackdowns that affected Hollywood for years also involved Paramount Pictures.  The Paramount Decision delivered by the Supreme Court in 1948 broke up the monopoly that movie studios had over distribution in the early years of cinema.  Before the decision, the studios owned the movie theaters that their films played in, meaning that they had completely control over the programming.  It was great for the Studio system, but bad for the consumer, because depending on the market, your access to the movies would be limited by who owned the theaters in your area.  It also shut out independent theater owners from having access to movies that were in high demand.  So, recognizing that the movie studios wielded too much power over the access to the movies they made, the Supreme Court broke up their monopolies, which in turn led to the rise of the movie theater industry that ran independently from the studios.  This led to new exhibition innovations over the years that would in turn help to revolutionize Hollywood, such as the creation of multiplexes and large formats like IMAX being used for blockbuster films.  Had the Paramount Decision not been laid down, cinema would be very different today, and likely wouldn’t have proliferated like it had and become consumer driven.  For an industry to survive, it needs competition, and the more of it the better.  Monopolies only end up stifling innovation, because when fewer and fewer companies own a giant percentage in the market, they have less incentive to make changes that lead to improvement in their industries.

Unfortunately over the years, the regulatory restraints that helped to keep Hollywood in a competitive nature for a while have lessened, and we are seeing a renewed push to consolidate our media landscape again so that more power is in the hands of fewer people.  One of the biggest moves that has caused this in recent years is the rise in streaming.  Streaming offered Hollywood a new way of distributing their products; one which faced fewer regulatory restrictions than distributing through movie theaters and home video.  Netflix jumped on board this new technology early and it has grown them to such a level that they are now making a play to buy a big chunk of the old Hollywood with Warner Brothers.  All the other studios tried to jump in to compete, but Netflix has still managed to outpace them all.  Unfortunately, it’s all coming at a cost, with the movie theater industry suffering a significant reduction in revenue as they have had to adjust in this new streaming dominated environment.  In many ways, Netflix and streaming’s rise in general is Hollywood’s way of clawing back some of that monopoly like power they had before the Paramount Decision was thrust on them.  And indeed, the Paramount Decision has been defanged over the years, to the point where it no longer is enforced.  Movie studios have been able to own individual theaters across the country in years past, such as Disney buying up the El Capitan and Netflix buying Grauman’s Egyptian Theater (both in Hollywood), but in the last couple years we saw one major studio buy up an entire chain of theaters when Sony Pictures became the new owners of Alamo Drafthouse.  On the plus side, an institution as beloved as the Alamo Drafthouse has been save from bankruptcy, but on the other hand, they are now beholden to a mega corporation like Sony.  Is it possible that we might see more studios buying up more theater chains.  Alamo Drafthouse doesn’t quite have the same reach as say Regal or AMC, but it’s not that far off to think of a media conglomeration like Apple or Amazon buying up those chains just like Sony did.

That’s the other big fear being cast over Hollywood; the groups that are coming in to buy up these legacy studios.  It’s not unusual for the big Hollywood studios to have been part of some larger conglomerate.  At one point, Paramount Pictures was owned by an oil company called Gulf+Western, and this was during a time when Paramount was experiencing it’s Golden Age in the 60’s and 70’s, with movies like The Godfather (1972) coming from their studio.  Warner Brothers at one point was owned by AT&T and Columbia Pictures of course is now just referred to as Sony Pictures.  Out of all the major movie studios in Hollywood, only one has managed to retain it’s own independence throughout it’s whole history, and that’s Disney, which in a way has become a conglomerate in it’s own right.  One way or another, Hollywood has done what it need to do to keep the showbiz rolling along, including many of it’s most storied studios having to sell to outside interests.  The only hope that we can get from this shuffling around of ownership in Hollywood is that the studios themselves will manage to maintain an identity through all of it and still deliver for audiences.  Gulf+Western managed to succeed with Paramount during it’s time because they had someone like Robert Evans in charge of production; a guy who could pick all the right films to make.  But, when a bad leadership team is in place, one that usually is put in by a corporation that doesn’t know how to run a movie studio, it leads to some disastrous results.  A major reason why Warner Brothers is in the position of being bought out now is because of poor management in the past, especially after the disastrous launch and re-branding of HBO Max and the Project Popcorn initiative that saw them suffer heavy financial losses.  But bad management alone is not the only worry.  A lot of the new suitors that are trying to consolidate power in Hollywood are making changes that will fundamentally change Hollywood, and not always for the better.

Coming back to Paramount Skydance again, there are some troubling signs about what might happen to both Paramount and Warner Brothers if both were to come under the control of the Ellisons.  Larry Ellison is a major figure in the world of big tech, and one of his most recent business ventures has been to invest heavily in the field of AI.  This has boosted his net worth making him one of the richest men in the world as his Oracle data centers and cloud services have been instrumental in building the rise in AI.  And with his son David now calling the shots at Paramount, it’s very possible that AI is going to be integrated into the productivity of that studio to a very invasive degree.  It’s something that we are already seeing being played out at another massive data driven company that also now owns a legacy studio.  Amazon became the owners of MGM 2021, which itself was already a heavily diminished brand from it’s heyday, and in the years since people have noticed that they’re movie output has leaned very heavily on Amazon product placement.  The notorious straight to streaming remake of War of the Worlds (2025) was ridiculed heavily for it’s shameless incorporation of Amazon branded products, but it doesn’t just stop at the things we buy off their website.  Amazon is also a web hosting platform for much of the internet, and they are very much trying to jump on that AI bandwagon.  Their most recent action film release, Mercy (2026) starring Chris Pratt and Rebecca Ferguson, is just straight up pro-AI propaganda, and that is a tad bit concerning.  It’s also very sad given that it’s an MGM release, further tarnishing that legendary brand.  At this moment, we don’t know what the Ellisons may end up doing with Paramount because they have only just started there.  And it’s not a good sign when David Ellison’s first action as a studio head is to aggressively pursue the acquisition of another studio.  He should honestly prove himself at Paramount first before we think he would do a good job of running Warner Brothers as well.  The meddling from Larry Ellison is also not a great bode of confidence, given his shady ties with fellow financers.

Netflix being the other top contender isn’t ideal either.  If their streaming business model were to be applied to a studio like Warner Brothers, it would be Armageddon for the movie theater and home video industries.  Netflix Productions CEO Ted Serandos has publicly put it out there that he would honor the same theatrical window that Warner Brothers already has for all their future projects, but what guarantee do we have that he’ll keep that promise?  Netflix is also another mega corporation that’s built on collecting data, and they are not opposed to incorporating more AI technology into their platform.  One of the more disturbing ideas that has been floated around with regards to places like Netflix and Paramount is a thing called User Generated Content.  The movie studios basically want to turn their streaming platforms into another YouTube space, with more of the platform being devoted to short videos made with AI to boost the content available on their platforms.  It’s one of the reasons why Disney allowed OpenAI to use their IP characters for their video generating AI software Sora.  Disney at some point wants to host these AI videos on their streaming platform, creating more user engagement similar to the traffic that YouTube sees on a regular basis.  Unfortunately, it minimizes what makes streaming worthwhile in the first place, which is to have movie and TV shows on demand.  By turning these platforms into YouTube clones, with lower quality AI videos as their main draw, it continues to devalue media in general.  It’s already bad enough that movies and shows have been reduced to being called content.  Now they’ll have to compete for attention with AI shorts, which by the way the users on the platform will never be able to own for themselves, because these streaming giants will own all the rights.  That’s one of the disturbing realities of tech companies starting to move in an take over Hollywood.  It’s a further erosion of the things that made movies special.  You just know that this AI driven stuff is what will be boosted by the algorithms, and the movies that were made by hand and employed hundreds of people are going to be push into obscurity.

In any case, the most immediate problem is that Hollywood is going to feel a lot smaller.  No matter who ends up with it, Warner Brothers will no longer be independent, and it may end up loosing it’s identity in the process, like how 20th Century Fox has now just become 20th Century Studios, a subsidiary of the Disney Company.  Every time there is one of these consolidations in Hollywood, it makes it all the harder to get anything made because one more buyer has been taken out of the market.  But, it’s something that can’t be stopped at this point.  By law, Warner Brothers must be sold to the highest bidder in order to please their shareholders.  The fact that such a transaction is so insanely expensive that only the biggest corporations in the world would have the kind of capital to make it happen is itself another troubling aspect of all this.  More and more money is in fewer hands these days, and the ones with the kind of capital to buy a legendary, 100 year old studio like Warner Brothers are also the ones with not the greatest intentions for running a studio the way it should be run.  A lot of these acquisitions usually leads to a loss over time in the original studio’s identity.  MGM is a shell of it’s former self, and Amazon is not exactly helping to restore it to glory.  We don’t even know how Paramount will be under the Ellisons because all they’ve done is try to buy more of the pie that is Hollywood.  Netflix could have kept growing to become a competitor with all the other major studios, but instead they’re using their capital to move into a legacy studio.  In the end, whoever gets Warner Brothers will then have ownership of one of the greatest movie libraries in Hollywood, if not the greatest one.  But the cost will be severe for the industry, as many people will be laid off due to redundancies and the competition between studios will be reduced.  Like I said before, industries see better innovation when there is competition.  When the number of studios in Hollywood is reduced by one, we get less needs from those remaining studios to improve on their own output.  Eventually, prices will rise while the “content” becomes less appealing, because there is less care put into them.  That push for User Generated Content is one of the most troubling new trends, though hopefully the failure of Quibi showed that consumers are not interested in paying premium prices for short form content.  It’s up to us the consumer to keep the standards up with our demands of the studios, and let’s hope that we’ll make our demands heard depending on who ends up with Warner Brothers in the end, because that’s what a studio with it’s great legacy of making our lives better with it’s movies deserves.

This last month, as people all over the world were ringing in the New Year, another event was taking place both on the big and small screens.  Netflix’s flagship series Stranger Things was ending it’s 9 year, 5 season run and unlike other premieres on the streaming platform, it wasn’t rolling the season out with all episodes available at once.  Instead, they released the final episodes of the show in three batches; four episodes during the Thanksgiving holiday, the next three on Christmas Day, and the final episode would premiere on New Year’s Eve.  Clearly Netflix wanted to allow their audience to savor this moment over a longer period of time, allowing anticipation to build before the final episode would drop.  But that wasn’t all they were doing.  In select theaters across the country, they would also be playing the final episode on the big screen at the same time it premiered on the platform.  This was especially impressive, given Netflix’s traditional aversion to the theatrical experience.  There are only a few TV shows that could generate this kind of anticipation for it’s final episodes, and especially rare for it to warrant four walling the experience in a theater.  But Netflix wanted this show to go out with a bang, and now the world has had a chance to digest this final run for the series.  And the response has been, well to put it lightly, lukewarm.  In general, the final episode’s response has garnered generally positive remarks, but the consensus is also that it was more good than great.  And there is also a fairly vocal contingent of viewers out there who were really let down by the final episode.  But, what is especially interesting is seeing just how extreme the reactions can sometimes be.  There are tons of videos online slamming the final episode of Stranger Things as a betrayal to the fans, that the show is now considered a failure because it didn’t end the way they wanted.  Stranger Things is only the recent big franchise to face this kind of scrutiny, as bringing a long running series to an end has become an increasingly difficult thing to do in today’s media landscape.

There’s something that should be understood about any development of a television series and that it’s not as easy as it may seem.  Coming up with a killer concept for a show and then selling that to a network or streamer almost seems like the easy part.  After that comes the execution of that idea, and this is where things can get complicated.  What is true for most shows is that they have the benefit of novelty in their first season.  That was definitely the case for The Duffer Brothers, the duo behind Stranger Things.  Their hybrid of Spielbergian adventure tropes and Stephen King style horror really caught the attention of audiences when it first premiered on Netflix in 2016.  It wasn’t authentically unlike anything else on television at that time.  And it quickly grew a following, becoming a true cultural phenomenon.  The thing that really helped the show develop it’s quick rise in esteem with audiences was the fact that it had a very easy entryway into it’s story.  The 80’s era aesthetic was great nostalgia bait, and the tightly scripted story kept the plot moving at a strong pace.  Not only that, but it was also exceptionally well cast, especially with it’s child stars, most of whom were making their debut with this show, as well established veterans like Winona Ryder and David Harbour who saw this show propel them to new heights.  If the show never got a second season, you could still tell that it felt like a complete work in it’s 8 first episodes.  But, like most successful shows, there inevitably needs to be more.  Stranger Things got a second season renewal fairly quickly, and that puts a whole new level of pressure on the creators of a show.  Not only do you need to do it all again, but you have to make it even better.  There has been talk that the Duffer Brothers didn’t have a plan past season one, but that is almost never true of anyone who sells a show.  All writers who pitch shows knows that they need to have long term strategies in their pockets just in case their show lasts beyond it’s first season, especially if they are telling a serialized story.  Throughout it’s 9 year run, the Duffer Brothers have always had to prove themselves to get that next season greenlit and keep it going for one more run.  But, they were also well aware that it could all just stop without warning.

To their credit, they knew that this couldn’t go on for very much longer.  While it was only 5 seasons long, with less than 50 episodes in total, each season came with lengthy breaks in between.  Seasons 1 and 2 followed in quick succession, but then it took 2 years to get the third season, then three years to get season 4 (mainly because of Covid) and then another three years after that to get the final season.  And in all that time, the cast themselves were also growing older.  The child stars were now all in their 20’s, and it was becoming harder with each passing year to make us believe they were still teenagers.  So, there clearly needed to be an endgame, and it was time to execute.  But what is particularly interesting about each progressive season of Stranger Things is that each season keeps building in scale.  If you watched seasons one and five back to back, you would be amazed as the scaling up the show went through.  Netflix opened up their wallets for the final 8 episode run of the show, putting nearly half a billion into the season.  That makes it one of the most expensive shows ever produced, which is remarkable given how it started as just a small nostalgia driven horror series.  But, when things scale up at this rate, this is where some shows begin to fall apart.  For the Duffer Brothers, the question that keeps being asked about how they handled the final season was if this was truly their vision from the get go, or were they being mandated by Netflix to go big and loud in their final season.  The biggest criticism levied at the final season was that it felt bloated and lacked the tight scripting of the first couple seasons.  Most of the final season involved a lot of talking about the plot rather than characters actually doing anything.  But, even with everything as big as it is in the final season, the Duffer Brothers still executed a plan to tie everything up.  This often becomes the biggest problem with most shows that try to come to a satisfactory end.  Sometimes the story becomes too big and unwieldy to ever be wrapped up in a way that pleases everyone.  The fact that even though it ran for nearly a decade Stranger Things didn’t have too many episodes over that span of time, making the overall story far less of a quagmire to regin in.

We have a good many other examples in recent years of shows and franchises that have attempted to close the book on their stories to varying degrees.  The year 2019 in particular was especially noteworthy for franchise capping finales, and it also showed us the different extremes between how to end the story the right way and the wrong way.  On the good side, we had the Marvel Cinematic Universe close out what would be known as their Infinity Saga with the record-shattering blockbuster Avengers: Endgame (2019).  Pretty much across the board, the movie was hailed for it’s exceptional handling of how it ended it’s story, which spanned over 20 movies over ten years.  No other film in the world was more anticipated than this one, especially after it’s predecessor Avengers: Infinity War (2018) shocked us with one of the most devastating cliffhanger endings in movie history.  But the reason it worked was because there was a plan from the get go about where Marvel wanted their multi-franchise spanning narrative to go, with seed planted across multiple films, all culminating in this final event.  The same couldn’t exactly be said about the other major two franchises that closed their stories that same year.  Game of Thrones was undoubtedly the biggest television series in the world during it’s run in the 2010’s.  And through seven seasons it was unwavering in it’s audience appreciation.  But it’s eighth and final season was a different story.  Something was off about the final stretch of episodes, like it was speed running through too many important events in order to get the show over with much quicker.  The short and oddly paced final season of Game of Thrones felt like a different show entirely from all the seasons that came before it and audiences felt that the they weren’t being rewarded for all the time they invested in this story.  Part of why things were so disjointed was because the show had far exceeded the source material it was based on, the original books by author George R.R. Martin, who gave show runners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss the broad strokes, but not all the details about how the series would end, so a lot of it was up to their interpretation, which probably ran contrary to what fans wanted.  And then there was the unmistakable failure of Star Wars Episode IX -The Rise of Skywalker (2019), a movie that is a clear representation about the dangers of executing a multipart story without commitment to a plan.

The two latter examples are perfect illustrations about the risks involved in developing a story to span many years without a clear idea about how to execute the final phase of that story.  It’s easier to fly the plane than it is to bring it down for a safe landing, to use an apt metaphor.  While it is fun to build anticipation and provide twists and turns that can change the course of the story at any moment, eventually every story needs to come to an end, and this can often be the trickiest part.  One of the most basic lessons in screenwriting is learning the three act structure.  Sure some writers play around with linear storytelling and try to break free of act structure, but the vast majority of stories told follow this principle, where the first act introduces character, their world and the inciting incident, then act two proceeds with ascending action until the story reaches a turning point, which then leads to a climatic third act that brings the story to an end.  Most popular shows get that first act right and then has a little too much fun in that second act, losing too much focus leading into that third.  It’s hard to bring the story to a close when you’ve set up so many side characters and subplots to fill out that middle part of the story.  For Game of Thrones, things got a little too complicated, with so many main characters that became fan favorites populating the storyline.  In order to bring closure to all that, the show would’ve need at least a full 10 episode season rather than the 6 that it got.  Unfortunately for Benioff and Weiss, they never expected to be the ones to bring this story to a close.  They were adapting Martin’s novels, and unfortunately he hasn’t published a new volume since 2011, the same year that the show started airing.  So they had to improvise in the last stretch of the show, interpreting the broad strokes that Martin had given to them.  They clearly didn’t deliver for most people, but it was almost an impossible mission to accomplish.  It should have been easier for The Rise of Skywalker, but that was a whole different level of failure in execution.  It’s been pretty well reported that the Sequel Trilogy of Star Wars was put into motion without a clear endgame about how it would end.  It started off strong with The Force Awakens, but Rian Johnson’s trope killing second chapter The Last Jedi took some bold swings that divided many fans, and in a panic Lucasfilm decided just a year and a half out from release to scrap what they were doing for Episode IX and start from scratch, creating a wholly unsatisfactory finale that tries to please everyone and instead does the opposite.  Improvisation only gets you so far as long as you can “yes and” each segment of your story correctly, and Star Wars did not do that.

A lot of these major franchises have to balance between being bold in their final acts while at the same time being mindful about what the audience wants.  Sometimes, one is taken into consideration more than the other.  One thing that often becomes a problem in the final stretch of writing a long form story is getting too attached to the things you create.  This is particularly true with the characters.  Something that a lot of people have noticed about shows that run for a long time is that you can tell who the most popular characters are by how much plot armor they have in the story.  Plot armor is where characters seem to defy the odds a little too well in the story and survive situations that otherwise would’ve been their downfall in any other case.  For a show like Game of Thrones, this is something that really separated the early seasons from it’s latter years.  The show was notorious for killing off main characters in sudden shocking moments, like the now infamous Red Wedding scene.  Then in the later seasons, popular characters would manage to survive in the most convoluted ways possible.  To a lesser extant, this is a criticism leveled at Stranger Things too.  But, not every story should be so ruthless to it’s characters in order to tell a compelling story.  There is a term used in writing called “kill your darlings” which is the way of telling writers to not be so protective of something they love in their story when it’s actually acting as an impediment to plot progression.  But, this saying doesn’t mean that telling a compelling story involves actually killing off characters either.  The struggle of writing is to follow the story as it progresses and find that balance that works in it’s service, even if it means being a little ruthless.  But stories need to inspire too, and sometime that involves doing something to please the audience as well.  As the story gets bigger, this balancing of plot also gets more complicated, and many writers find working with that pressure to be a bit too much.  That’s often why the longest running shows are the ones that are open-ended, where each episode is one self-contained story.  A show like The Simpsons still keeps going for over 30 years with no end in sight because there was none to start with.  It’s just a show that lets us observe one adventure at a time with the citizens of Springfield and makes every episode a continuation of that formula.

One thing that showrunners and their team of writers also have to deal with in the execution of their final episodes is the proliferation of fan theories.  The longer a show goes and the bigger a hit it is, it will inevitably bring a lot of discussion by fans around how they think it’s all going to come to a close.  Sometimes the theorizing takes on life of it’s own, and shows unfortunately end up disappointing fans because it didn’t meet the expectations that they had created in their own heads about how the show would end.  Stranger Things ran into this scenario, which resulted in a rather bizarre fan theory that there was going to be a secret final 9th episode that would be the true ending of the series, instead of the one that we actually got.  Suffice to say, the “Conformity Gate” theory proved to be nothing but a hoax, and the Duffer Brothers specifically went out of their way to say that their finale was indeed the end of the show.  For a lot of fans, it’s hard to say goodbye, and making up excuses for things not going the way you wanted it to go doesn’t mean that the show betrayed you.  Writers try their best to wrangle together a story the best they can, and then it’s a coin flip as to whether it will please everyone or not.  The only situations where it’s appropriate to criticize the work of the writers is when it’s clear they did not put the effort into making their endings work.  The way that Benioff and Weiss seemed to check out early in the writing of the final season of Game of Thrones is worthy of criticism, as is the corporate meddling and the lack of a plan that derailed The Rise of Skywalker.  But, fandoms can also get a little out of hand in the way it assesses the ending of a long running series.  A lot of people sharply criticized the final episode of The Sopranos when it ended with a non-ending as the screen cut to black abruptly in it’s final moment.  But over time, that abrupt cut has sparked numerous discussions about it’s meaning, and now it’s proclaimed as one of the most memorable finales of all time.  Oftentimes, it takes a moment to sit with the ending of a show to come to terms with how you feel about it.  In time, what we feel as a betrayal by the show with how it didn’t meet our expectations will over the years be looked at as exactly the way it should have always ended.

For many things, it isn’t just the journey that matters but also the destination.  For Stranger Things, not everything about the fifth and final season was perfect.  It had many problems to be sure and probably could have been trimmed down considerably; especially with many of those sitting around and talking moments.  But, for me as a fan of the show since it started, I do have to say that they nailed the final scene of the show.  We met our main characters as little kids playing a game of Dungeons and Dragons in a basement game room, and in it’s final scene, Stranger Things has those same characters once again playing D&D in a the basement.  It’s a full circle finale that ties it all together; these are the same characters, but they are fully reshaped by the adventure they’ve been through, and the game now hits very different for them.  It reminded me a lot of the way one of the greatest franchise finales, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) also ended.  In that movie, adapted from J.R.R. Tolkien’s novels, the Hobbits also return to their unspoiled home forever changed.  Life goes on, but it will never be like it once was.  The final scene of Stranger Things finds that same note and executed it perfectly.  In the end, for someone like me, it makes it all worth it if you get that final note right, even if everything before it wasn’t the tidiest.  Honestly, it what defines the greatest finales from the ones that are either bad or forgettable.  No one really remembers everything that happened in the final episodes of Cheers, Newhart, or The Sopranos, but we all remember Ted Danson telling a late bar patron “sorry, we’re closed,” or Bob Newhart waking up and realizing it was all a dream, or the lights literally going out on Tony Soprano.  That’s the sign of great storytelling, where the ending just feels right.  It will take time for us to fully assess where Stranger Things lies in the history of franchise finales.  It may not have been the smoothest landing, but it still got the job done.  Sure it was a tad too long, and a little overblown with big bombastic moments, but that tender final scene of friends bonding over a game they love is what brings it to a satisfactory close and that’s something that the Duffer Brothers clearly should feel proud of.  They tackled one of the most difficult jobs in all of writing and left us with something that more than anything feels full and complete.

The year was 2010.  Netflix had grown into a massive media company off of their business model of through the mail movie rentals.  Their success over the years even eliminated their prime competition, Blockbuster Video, who were unable to adapt to the shifting market.  But, Netflix wasn’t done disrupting the media market just yet.  They saw the growing potential in streaming after watching the rapid growth of YouTube.  If there was an appetite for watching short videos over the internet, what was keeping the industry from producing long form content as well.  Netflix began their initial dip into streaming in 2007, with low quality video of films and shows that were also available to rent on disc.  In 2010, they were ready to provide a full, high definition streaming platform for a separate fee to their subscribers.  Eventually, the disc based service would be eclipsed by the more robust on demand digital service.  But, a lot of people in the entertainment business were unconvinced by this newer model, especially when Netflix announced that they were going to begin making original programing exclusive for their platform.  Netflix was still green to the whole production side of filmmaking, and they were going up against the big entrenched studio system that had run Hollywood for over a century.  Most notably, the then Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes, who was in control of Warner Brothers, notoriously dismissed Netflix’s potential to be a threat to Hollywood, saying “Is the Albanian army going to take over the world?”  Well, not long after Bewkes made his statement, Netflix premiered the show House of Cards, a buzzworthy drama that Time Warner passed on for their HBO channel, and it not only gave Netflix the industry cred it needed to prove itself, but it even set off a chain reaction that will possibly be the end of Old Hollywood as we know it.

15 years after Jeff Bewkes made his dismissive insult Netflix is now on the cusp of taking ownership of his old studio.  In September 2025, David Ellison, the CEO of the newly formed Paramount Skydance, made the first initial offer to buy Warner Brothers Discovery.  Coming so quickly off their own mega merger, Paramount Skydance was ready to expand even further, making a play to develop a mega studio that would be more competitive with the likes of Disney/Fox and Netflix; the two current leaders in the streaming market.  With backing from other investors, including Saudi royals, Ellison made the first pitch of $78 billion.  Of course, Warner Brothers had to declare their intentions to sell in accordance with the law, but they weren’t ready to strike a deal just yet with Paramount Skydance.  They believed that they could sweeten the pot for their shareholders by holding out for a better bid from other interested parties.  And they were right.  Soon after, Netflix and Comcast (the parent company of NBC Universal) began their own campaigns to bid for Warner Brothers.  No matter who was going to come out on top, the truth is that Warner Brothers worth is certainly of high value.  The victor would be gaining a century old library of some of the most important and celebrated movies and shows that have ever come out of Hollywood; not to mention some very valuable present day brands like Harry Potter and DC Comics.  A lot of people believed that Paramount would still come out on top, but surprisingly it now looks like Warner Brothers has favored someone else.  On December 5, 2025 it was revealed that Warner Brothers has accepted a $82 billion dollar deal from Netflix, which in turn has gotten much of Hollywood buzzing, as well as worrying.

The streaming wars of the last several years was born out of the Hollywood studios seeing Netflix as a threat to their decades old business models of distribution, and they were desperate to adapt to this new normal.  Even Warner Brothers got in on it by establishing their own streaming platform, which went from being called HBO Max to just MAX and then back to being HBO Max.  Despite the brand name confusion, Warner Brothers did manage to rise up to third place in the streaming market, falling just behind Disney+ and far behind Netflix.  But, with Netflix now on the cusp of owning Warner Brothers, they now have essentially become the undisputed victor of the streaming wars.  Even if Disney and Hulu combined continued to steadily grow into one platform, they still won’t have the combined subscriber reach that Netflix and HBO Max now will pull together.  And this is what worries a lot of people in Hollywood.  Netflix is essentially removing a huge competitor from the marketplace, and it is giving them a huge chunk of the market share, which will give them more of a monopoly over streaming in general.  In a studio system that has increasingly become more homogenized through mergers and acquisitions, many believe that this move will only make it harder for new inventive ideas to emerge in the entertainment industry.  We’ll have one less place to pitch a screenplay or show idea to and not only that, but two powerhouse production companies coming together means that many people are going to lose jobs out of redundancies.  It’s a scenario that we already saw play out when Disney bought Fox, which resulted in the latter essentially being hollowed out and turned into just a production label called 20th Century Studios, minus the Fox.  A lot of people on the Warner Brothers lot are probably worrying about their future in the months ahead.

This deal has only happened in the last couple days as of this writing, so a lot of the details haven’t been fully revealed just yet.  We don’t quite know what Netflix studio head Ted Sarandos and Warner Brothers Discovery CEO David Zaslav agreed to that made the deal happen, and what that means for the future of both companies.  One theory is that Warner Brothers Discovery still intends to go through with their plan to divide into two separate companies, and that Netflix’s bid is just for the half that includes the famed studio.  David Ellison’s bid of $72 billion was for the whole pot, studio and networks, but Netflix put up an even bigger bid for just the half that they want, which means that Ellison would have to double his bid in order to buy everything.  All of this is probably why Warner Brothers is confident in Netflix’s bid, because they are better able to back it up and help bring extra value to the Discovery Networks side, once they decide to put that half up for sale.  But, this is just a theory.  One thing for sure is that David Ellison is not happy and plans to take legal action against Netflix if they follow through with it.  The deal still has to go through a year’s worth of federal review before it can be finalized.  Now, the current administration has been less restrictive towards mergers and acquisitions, but that’s largely due to gaining special favors from the parties involved in a rather corrupt quid pro quo way.  This is what happened to finalize the Paramount Skydance merger, where the Paramount owned CBS Network cleared a big chunk of their newsroom of journalists who were critical of President Trump, especially on the program 60 Minutes, hired on a new news team that was more politically aligned with the administration, and even prematurely cancelled the the long running show of vocal Trump critic Stephen Colbert.  All of this spotlights a pretty clear reason why it’s a good thing Paramount Skydance isn’t getting a hold of Warner Brothers, which among other things is the parent company of CNN and other crucial news outlets.  But, there is the worry that in order to ease the review of their own acquisition, they’ll concede a lot of favors to the administration like the Ellison family did that will involve among other things censorship of critical voices.

That’s the sad state of our media landscape, and sadly there really is no good option out there.  If not Netflix, Warner Brothers would be absorbed into another studio if it were to join Paramount Skydance or Comcast, where it would destroy both itself and Universal together.  As of right now, the most vocal critics in the industry are the Guilds and Unions.  The WGA already put out a statement condemning the move, and they were quickly joined by the Teamsters, both of which are rightfully worried about the loss in competition this will bring to the industry.  One less player in the market means fewer job openings for film sets and writers rooms.  For an industry that’s already reeling from a pandemic and a lengthy strike, this will be yet another blow against recovery.  This move is not likely to strengthen the job market in Hollywood.  If anything it’s going to put more people out of work with the layoffs due to redundancy.  The one silver lining with Netflix is that they are a competitor to Warner Brothers solely through the streaming market.  What Netflix has been lacking that all the other studios have had is a distribution division that brings their movies to national theaters.  Instead of growing their own organically, Netflix has instead been trying to bend the industry to their video on demand model.  They’ll be inheriting Warner Brothers’ long standing distribution organization that has been working with theater chains around the world.  The only question is, is Netflix willing to keep it or is that going to be the first thing to go as Warner Brothers is forced to conform to Netflix’s business model?  It would be a very expensive department to just buy up to destroy, but perhaps that’s part of Netflix’s way of forcing more conformity in Hollywood to their model.  One would hope that more of Warner Brothers’ way of doing business rubs off on Netflix and remains in tact.

That’s what has a lot of other people worried about this potential merger; the downstream effects it will have on other industries.  Movie theaters have been desperately trying to hold onto their deals with the movie studios to release new films on their screens.  Thus far, they’ve been managing to scrape by, but streaming has been drying up the products available to present on the big screen.  Netflix has especially made it difficult with their business model, which they proclaim is the better option to guarantee filmmakers that their films will get seen by a bigger audience.  It would be devastating to the movie theater industry as a whole if one of the biggest studios suddenly stopped showing their movies in theaters.  And Warner Brothers has had a good year at the box office in 2025, with movies like Sinners (2025) and Weapons (2025) being especially profitable.  Imagine if movie theaters this year didn’t see any of that revenue.  It’s not just that, but physical media collectors are also worried that Netflix would also be abandoning physical releases of Warner Brothers movies, dealing a death blow to an already diminished marketplace.  For a lot of different industries, this would feel like Netflix is kicking them while they are already down.  Is it all but certain that such a deal would kill off these beleaguered industries for good.  It all depends on what was involved in the deal that was struck.  It would be difficult to end theatrical distribution as a whole at Warner Brothers, given that it involves so many longstanding contracts that will take years to finalize.  Netflix has been dipping their toes a bit more with theatrical in recent years, with KPOP Demon Hunters winning them their first box office weekend title, and their plan to put the Stranger Things series finale on the big screen this New Year’s Eve.  But, would acquiring Warner Brothers finally give them the reason to go all in, or will we be seeing Netflix forcing Warner Brothers to comply.

One thing that could be a big factor in determining the future for both Netflix and Warner Brothers is what the creatives in the industry have to say.  Netflix has managed to get some filmmakers to consent to having their movies premiere through the direct to streaming method, such as David Fincher and Richard Linklater.  But, if Warner Brothers were to follow Netflix’s lead and stop releasing their movies in theaters, there would be significant pushback to that.  Some filmmakers, such as Quentin Tarantino and Christopher Nolan would never sign on to a deal that excluded a theatrical premiere.  In fact, Christopher Nolan ended his long time partnership with Warner Brothers over this very issue, after they planned to go against his wishes and release Tenet (2020) straight to streaming without a theatrical window.  He wanted them to wait until movie theaters were re-opened after the pandemic shutdown so that the movie would get a proper theatrical release, but Warner Brothers weren’t willing to sit on this film for another year, so what ended up happening was Tenet got a small theatrical release in whatever theaters were open during the pandemic (which excluded big markets) and it still was quickly rushed onto streaming soon after, just so Warner Brothers could fulfill the minimal requirements of the contract.  That’s why Nolan today is set up now at Universal, which benefitted in getting his Oscar winning Oppenheimer (2023) and next year’s The Odyssey (2026).  Nolan and many others would likely have it written in their contracts that their movies must have theatrical releases, and if Netflix doesn’t accept that, then they would be loosing out on many coveted projects from many established and up-and-coming filmmakers.  Recently, such a situation happened when Weapon’s director Zach Cregger walked away from developing a new film at Netflix because they couldn’t guarantee a theatrical release.  Greta Gerwig, whose developing a new adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia book series with the streamer, even went behind Netflix’s back to secure a theatrical window for the film with the IMAX corporation.  If Netflix were to force Warner Brothers to conform to their streaming first model, they would be alienating themselves even further from some of Hollywood’s most creative people, and it would make them lose out on what could ultimately be the next billion dollar idea.

We’ll have a clearer idea what this deal will entail over the next year as this acquisition goes through review.  What we know as of right now is that this deal is being met with a great amount of skepticism.  People are worried, rightfully so, about what it could mean for the future of Hollywood.  Warner Brothers has been an enduring fixture in the history of Hollywood.  It was one of the bedrocks of the studio system, and is undeniably one of the most valuable libraries of movies and television shows in the entire industry.  By buying Warner Brothers, you have access to characters as varied as Bugs Bunny to Batman.  But, there’s one thing that is undeniable about Warner Brothers and that is they go big.  Their movies deserve to be seen in the biggest way possible, so it would be a shame if the only place you could watch them is from a small screen at home.  Warner Brothers’ history shouldn’t be reduced down to a thumbnail on a streaming app.  If that Warner Brothers golden badge doesn’t grace the silver screen again, it would be a great loss.  One hopes that part of Zaslav’s negortiations with Netflix to broker this deal was to keep that legacy in tact and secure Warner Brothers ability to continue screening movies on a big screen.  Say what you will about Zaslav’s tenure as CEO of Warner Brothers; he didn’t abandon the movie theater industry, and in fact he doubled down on it over the last couple years.  We’ll see if Netflix eases up on their insistence on straight to streaming.  So many of their own movies should have been given more robust theatrical releases over the years; maybe now they’ll be convinced to give it a chance.  One thing is for sure; Hollywood will never be the same again if this deal goes through.  Warner Brothers thought it could dismiss the threat of Netflix before, and now they are about to become a part of them.  The Albanian Army is indeed about to conquer the world, and it shows you should never believe yourself to be untouchable in this business.  One hopes that Netflix will be a good steward to the legacy of Warner Brothers, but there is a lot of justifiable skepticism that is surrounding this deal and people should worry.  At a time when the movie industry should be getting bolder and bigger, we are instead unfortunately seeing it shrink even more.

Over the last 30 years, there has been a lot of debate regarding the legacy of Mel Gibson’s Braveheart (1995) and it’s place in cinema history.  The movie did not exactly light up the box office when it was first released in the Summer of ’95, but strong word of mouth helped to carry it all through Awards season, where it ultimately took away 5 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, beating out what many considered the early favorite, Ron Howard’s Apollo 13 (1995).  And from there, the movie continued to build a reputation as a prime example of epic filmmaking that was starting to die out at the turn of the millennium.  But while the movie still earns plenty of praise for it’s craft, it also has faced a lot of scrutiny for the way it has misrepresented the history of it’s subject.  And then there is also the cloud of controversy that surrounds Mel Gibson himself.  People’s attitudes towards Braveheart today mainly comes down to how well they can disassociate the movie from the man who created it.  For some, the movie stands on it’s own, but for others whose opinion of Gibson today becomes too much of a distraction, often can bring themselves towards seeing the movie without bias.  And there is validity to people’s opinions in this manner; art is subjective and no one should be forced to like or dislike a movie based on the way others feel.  But there is no doubt that Braveheart is a complicated movie for a variety of reasons.  I myself have my own complex feelings about the movie itself.  For the longest time, Braveheart was one of my favorite movies, and for the most part I still have a lot of affection for it.  But as I have grown older, and have come to terms with some aspects of myself and where I stand on issues, I have been taking a more scrutinizing look at Braveheart and what it stands for.  It’s what people usually refer to as a “problematic favorite,”  which is something that by all accounts should be a piece of media that I should like or approve of, and yet I still do.

One of the more interesting things about Braveheart is that it both feels like a product of it’s time, and yet it was very much ahead of it’s time as well.  The movie started out as spec script written by writer and filmmaker Randall Wallace.  It told the story of famed Medieval Scottish freedom fighter William Wallace and his rebellion against the oppressive British occupation of Scotland that eventually led to it’s independence in the 14th century.  The script was eventually picked up by producer Alan Ladd Jr., who eventually got it into the hands of Mel Gibson.  Gibson in the 1990’s was near the height of his popularity.  He had been the star of many blockbuster franchises like Mad Max and Lethal Weapon.  In 1989, he and his producing partner Bruce Davey co-founded Icon Productions, which would be the springboard for Gibson’s next big career move, which was directing.  He chose for his directorial debut a little drama called The Man Without a Face (1993), but it was clear that he had bigger aspirations as a filmmaker.  One of Gibson’s favorite movies is Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus (1960), and he was searching for a story that had the same kind of epic sweep as that film had.  It’s easy to understand Mel’s desire to direct something big and epic, given that his filmmaking role models from his early years in Australia were George Miller and Peter Weir, some of the greatest epic filmmakers of their time.  For Mel, Braveheart was just the perfect fit for his ambitions, but initially he was hesitant to step in front of the camera.  He only wanted to direct the movie, and he initially considered actors like Brad Pitt and Jason Patrick for the role of William Wallace.  But to secure financing from the studio, Gibson had to agree to starring in the movie, helping to guarantee the film had star power behind it.  And so, Gibson now had his opportunity to make the big sweeping epic that he always wanted to make.

The movie was by no means a guaranteed hit, even with Mel’s name on the marquee.  Historical epics in the 1990’s were seen as more awards bait than box office gold.  There were some movies that did break that track record, like Kevin Costner’s Dances With Wolves (1990), but other historical epics around that time, including Ridley Scott’s 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992) were huge financial and critical busts.  Add this to the fact that Gibson had never attempted to direct something on this scale before.  It could have fallen apart very easily, and yet Mel Gibson was able to deliver something quite exceptional.  It helped that his production had a stellar team on board.  Cinematographer John Toll, fresh off his Oscar win for Legends of the Fall (1994), captured the majesty of the wild Scottish Highland locations in his photography.  Editor Steven Rosenblum also did a masterful job of making this 3 hour long epic hum along with exceptional pacing and nary a sense of any scene wasted.  And then there is the musical score by James Horner, which in itself may be the most beloved part of the movie with it’s haunting Gaelic styled melodies.  What also really made the movie memorable was the cast that Mel assembled to perform alongside him.  Many actors were able to get their big break by appearing in the film, including Brendan Gleeson, David O’Hara, Tommy Flanagan, and Angus McFadyen, while other veteran actors like Brian Cox and Patrick McGoohan were able to show off a different side to their talents.  Patrick McGoohan, who before this was most famous for his starring role in the series The Prisoner, pretty much steals the movie with his memorable villainous performance as King Edward “Longshanks,” and it was a role that helped to revitalize his career as an actor.  To this day, Longshanks is still one of my personal favorite movie villains, and that’s largely due to brilliant casting choice of McGoohan in the role.  The movie’s five Academy Awards were all deserving, including Mel’s for his direction, which was quite an achievement for someone on their sophomore film as a director.

Many films peak at the point of their Oscar wins, but for Braveheart it seemed like the Oscars were only the beginning.  Braveheart would continue to have a strong influence on filmmaking in the years ahead.  The groundbreaking way that Mel Gibson staged the battle scenes in the movie, shooting them in almost a documentary style with the camera caught in the thick of the action and not shying away from the intensity and gore of combat, would go on to influence so many other films with similarly staged battle scenes.  One has to think that the battle scenes in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy borrowed a lot of their staging from what was seen in Braveheart.  The TV series Game Of Thrones even has a very direct shout out to Braveheart in one particular shot of a horseback cavalry charging toward the camera in slow motion in the episode called “The Battle of the Bastards.”  The movie also worked it’s way into pop culture.  There were so many parodies made over the years of the pre-battle pep talk speech given by William Wallace, with Mel shouting his lines with that blue streak of war paint across his face.  Mel even got to poke fun at his own movie with a hilarious guest spot on The Simpsons years later, where he and Homer Simpson end up mooning studio execs like the moment in the battle scene.  The film also gets quoted quite a bit, especially Gibson’s guttural yell of “Freeeeeedoooommm” from his final scene.  But perhaps the movie’s most striking legacy may be the effect it had on the people of Scotland itself.  Before the movie, referendums on Scottish Independence from the United Kingdom never gained much traction amongst the Scottish people, but after the movie’s release calls for Independence have grown more and more louder.  In 1998, the UK Parliament responded to the rise in Scottish Nationalism with the Scotland Act, which granted Scotland the ability to form it’s own Parliament with a great degree of self-governing powers, but in exchange for maintaining the union that makes up the modern United Kingdom.  The extant to which Braveheart led to this is uncertain, but given that the sudden change in the Scottish political climate happened so soon after the film’s release shows that the movie helped to inject a bit of Scottish pride into the conversation that was happening in those fateful years.

But of course, over the years, the movie has been scrutinized quite a bit, with many complaints certainly coming with merit.  Most of the criticisms directed at the film certainly stem from it’s many historical inaccuracies.  Scholars of Scottish history have been especially pointed in their attacks on the film.  The first thing they will call out is the fact that the Scottish characters are all wearing kilts.  The kilt wouldn’t be common attire for Scottish men until at least the 17th Century, so the fact that it’s part of the costuming of this medieval set film is definitely a historic falsehood.  If anything, Mel and his team had the Scots wearing kilts 500 years too early as a shorthand way of differentiating them culturally from the English, and nothing says Scottish like a kilt.  There’s also a lot of historical inaccuracies with regards to the battles shown in the movie.  There’s one glaring problem with the depiction of the Battle of Sterling Bridge: the movie forgot to include the bridge.  Why Mel and his team decided to excise the part of the battle that gave it it’s namesake is unknown, but it certainly has become a slight against the movie for some historians.  Another controversial choice in the movie is the depiction of one of Scotland’s other historic icons; Robert the Bruce.  The Bruce is revered in Scotland as much as William Wallace and is celebrated as the father of their nation.  But, in the movie, Robert is portrayed as a betrayer of William Wallace; fighting against him as many Scottish nobles had historically so that they could maintain their connections to the English crown.  Of course, in the movie we see Robert (played wonderfully by Scottish actor Angus McFadyen) get redeemed as he picks up Wallace’s mantle after he’s gone and leads the Scots to victory.  But, for some, having Robert start off as a betrayer of Wallace seemed to be a insult to a national hero for the Scots.  There are valid criticisms to be made about how the movie deals with the details of real historical people and events, but at the same time, there are so many other beloved historical films that also play fast and loose with history; even more so than Braveheart.  Mel Gibson himself said that the movie he was making was first and foremost to entertain, then to inspire more interest in the subject of the story.  Gibson wanted to shine a light on the person of William Wallace, who’s history is often built more on legends than actual facts, and that’s how he approached the telling of Wallace’s story; by making him a legend.

But, there are things about the movie that over time have gone on to reflect poorly on it’s legacy that go beyond historical inaccuracy.  And one of those things has personally affected my own viewing of the movie, which has caused me to acknowledge this as a problematic favorite.  The movie, objectively, has an unfortunate homophobic slant to it with regards to it’s depiction of Prince Edward II in the movie.  Showing that Edward II was a homosexual in the movie is not the issue; there are plenty of historical accounts that show that Edward II had male lovers before and after he assumed the throne as king.  The problem is that the movie portrays Edward as very fey and as a weakling, leaning into so many stereotypes that were leveled against gay men in media for decades.  Irish actor Peter Hanly tries his best to make the character more than just a stereotype, but the film unfortunately treats the character as a punchline with regards to his sexuality, standing in stark contrast to the very masculine depictions of the Scots.  As I’ve grown older and have come out of the closet myself, it has indeed changed my perspective on the film, where it’s treatment of homosexuality is undeniably out of touch and prejudiced; treating it as thing to be ridiculed.  How much of this is intentional on Mel Gibson’s part is under suspicion too.  It’s become common knowledge that Gibson is a fundamentalist follower of the Catholic Church, which would lead one to believe that he shares many of the Church’s less than favorable views on homosexuals.  And yet, at the same time, one of his closest friends in Hollywood is out and proud lesbian actress and filmmaker Jodie Foster.  Gibson has leaned more into his fundamentalist faith in recent years, but at the time he made Braveheart, he was largely quiet about what he really believed and for the most part was on friendly terms with people of all creeds, political affiliations, and sexual orientations.  He may indeed be correct when he claims that the depiction of Edward II in the movie was not intentionally meant to demean gay people, but the fact that the portrayal still leans into so many stereotypes common from that time still shows that Gibson still had some built in ignorance of the LGBTQ population that over time has aged poorly for the film, and only looks worse after seeing Gibson fall deeper into extremism over the years.  There’s still a lot for me to love about Braveheart, but this is the part of it that makes it hard to love.

While the movie is undeniably flawed, there is still something about it that makes it rise above all of it’s problems.  What I think helps the movie still hold up is the fact that it represents the kind of rousing spectacle that seems to have disappeared from Hollywood over the years.  The 1990’s seemed to be the end of an era for the historical epic.  From Gone With the Wind (1939) to the glorious widescreen spectacles of Ben-Hur (1959), Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Patton (1970), these were the movies that made us connect with history in a compelling way.  Over time, the grand historical epic became more niche and subdued, and by the time the blockbuster era came around, they had all but disappeared from the cinemas.  Once in a while, you would see something like Gandhi (1982) and The Last Emperor (1987) stand out, but these movies were more revisionist than their predecessors, and certainly were not box office draws in the same way.  But, starting with Dances With Wolves, the historical epic began to see some life in Hollywood once again.  It was shown that audiences could be compelled to sit for 3 hours or more in a theater if the story was compelling enough.  Mel Gibson found that in William Wallace’s story and he delivered an epic that really did feel like the kinds of Hollywood epics of old, while still modernizing it for the present day, especially when it came to the battle scenes.  With Braveheart’s help, Hollywood felt more comfortable investing in movies that helped to bring history back to life on a grand scale.  But even this was temporary.  James Cameron’s Titanic (1997) would go on to set box office records, and Ridley Scott’s Gladiator (2000) likewise also found success.  But it would be a bit mixed for Gibson in the aftermath of Braveheart, as his Revolutionary War epic The Patriot (2000) received a mixed reception, and his biblical film The Passion of the Christ (2004) would receive massive box office wins while at the same time tarnishing his image due to it’s controversies.  Eventually, historical epics once again flamed out, due in part to failures such as Troy and Alexander (both 2004) and the rise of fantasy epics like The Lord of the Rings, which ironically was inspired partially by Braveheart.  Though as brief as it was, the movie Braveheart showed that it was possible to make historical movies on a grand scale like it work in the Hollywood machine.  Gibson set out to make his own Spartacus, and there’s no doubt that he accomplished that goal.

Watching Braveheart today, it is still easy to get swept up in the cinematic grandeur of it all.  Say what you will about Mel Gibson as a person (which can be a lot) but there is no denying that he put a lot of passion into Braveheart with the primary intent to make a movie that took full advantage of what is possible with the medium of film.  The majestic scenery captured in John Toll’s Oscar winning cinematography; James Horner’s haunting musical score; the standout performances from both new and familiar faces.  It’s just unfortunate that the movie is also still strongly tied to a filmmaker who over the years has become more controversial and extremist.  Is the movie a representation of who Mel Gibson is today?  Not really, but it is hard to separate the art from the artist, especially when he’s there in front of the camera as well.  And there are plenty of things that haven’t aged well about the movie, particularly it’s depiction of homosexual characters in the narrative, which this out gay writer can’t just dismiss as it cuts close to home.  I acknowledge that the movie doesn’t treat people like myself in a dignified way, but the movie itself was not alone in the 1990’s in it’s portrayal of queer characters in popular media.  Braveheart was made at a time when visibility for queer characters in general was pretty poor across the board, so one has to account for the fact that it was a product of it’s time.  Also, even if the movie and by extension Mel Gibson have less than positive attitudes towards LGBTQ people, that doesn’t mean that all involved in the making of this movie share those same beliefs; not Brendan Gleeson, nor Angus MacFadyen, and especially not Brian Cox.  Braveheart is a movie in the end that shows just how special a historical retelling can be when done with the right amount of passion.  A good contrast to make is in comparing it with another epic movie taken from a page in Scottish history.  A movie about Robert the Bruce called Outlaw King (2018) covered much of the same ground as Braveheart, and yet even though it was an hour shorter and made with a lot more gloss and historical accuracy, it turned out to be quite dull, sluggishly paced and largely forgotten.  Despite it’s flaws, Braveheart will be remembered fondly for a long time because even though it plays fast and loose with history it feels larger than life and takes us on a ride as it weaves it’s narrative.  As William Wallace states, “Every man dies; not every man truly lives,” and what Braveheart does for us is make it’s legend come alive.

For the last few years, the entertainment industry has gone through a massive upheaval, chasing after a brand new online based revenue stream.  This “streaming war” involved a huge amount of capital being poured into creating the infrastructure as well as the exclusive content that would draw audiences to these new platforms.  For the longest time, Netflix was alone as a streaming provider, and Hollywood was taking notice of just how much money they were making on monthly subscriptions.  Netflix continued to grow even more as they had gained the ability to form their own production wing, and were not as reliant on all the licenses that they were paying the movie studios for in order to play their movies and shows.  As Netflix continued expanding, the movie studios (in particular the Big 5 of Disney/Fox, Paramount, Warner Brothers, Universal and Sony) began to consider that it would be in their best interest to take Netflix’s formula and repeat it under their own umbrella.  The expense of setting up all of these streaming platforms was not unsubstantial, but Hollywood believed that it was an investment worth making for the long term, as it seemed that streaming was the future of entertainment.  But, what ended up happening was that the pool of potential subscribers was split up among the separate streamers and many of them couldn’t reach the lofty growth projections that they hoped to reach.  Even with the assist of the pandemic forcing many people to turn to streaming as a sole outlet for entertainment over the course of that turbulent year, many of the streaming platforms struggled to find their footing.  Now, over half a decade in and only one of the studio run streaming platforms (Disney+) has managed to reach profitability, and just barely.  What Hollywood failed to see was that another factor in the streaming content market was also affecting the viewership patterns of the audience pool that the studios were hoping to capitalize on.  The user generated video streaming site YouTube has not only emerged as a primary player in the streaming wars, but possibly also it’s victor.  And the truth behind it’s dominance all comes down to economics; particularly when it comes to the audience itself.

YouTube of course existed long before there was any concept of streaming entertainment.  When it launched in 2005, home entertainment was still dominated by the likes of Blockbuster Video.  Netflix had only just started it’s DVD by mail service, and it would be another 6 years before they would make their first jump into streaming.  And yet, YouTube would instantly make an immediate splash in the online world.  The concept of “Viral Video” stemmed from the way user uploaded videos would suddenly gain attention not just in the online community, but in the whole pop culture zeitgeist itself.  Google, which clearly saw the potential of YouTube’s ability to generate buzz worthy content, purchased the platform for a then substantial $1.6 billion.  With Google’s backing, YouTube was able to expand it’s revenue through advertising monetization program, which enabled people who uploaded to the platform to make money off of the content they created.  Being a YouTube content creator could actually help people earn a living, and in some cases, people who were able to gain a massive subscriber base could become multi-millionaires.  But, to get to that place is difficult, and a large part of YouTube content creation is trying to figure out how to manage the algorithm and get noticed in a competitive market.  That’s why so many YouTubers are working a hustle in all their videos, asking people to like and subscribe to their channel.  The constant pressure to meet quotas for viewership in order to make money off of the platform has also led to a lot of creators burning out over time.  But, even with all that, YouTube still has managed to evolve into something that not only provides plenty of material for broadcast on a daily basis, but many of the creators on the platform has improved the quality of their content so much that it rivals much of what we see on linear television itself.  One big factor that helped to make YouTube even more of a worthy competitor to television itself was in 2010 when they removed the time limit for video uploads.  Before then, all content creators were bound by a ten minute ceiling, but afterwards the sky was the limit.

Now people regularly go to YouTube for any kind of entertainment they desire, and creators could take advantage of the creative freedom allowed on the platform.  YouTube became a place for underground outlets of journalism and experimental film-making.  Of course, terms and conditions set by YouTube and their parent company Google applied, but YouTube content creators found that this platform afforded them an outlet that could reach a totally different audience than they would’ve through traditional media.  The barriers to getting noticed were also smaller, as it didn’t matter if you had a foothold in the entertainment business beforehand; you could reach a massive audience and become famous if you managed to stick out in the algorithm.  Even Hollywood was taking note.  While viewership numbers for linear TV shows have been declining for years, those same shows can still retain relevancy if the clips on their YouTube channel still get a lot of views.  The Nielsen ratings, once the major barometer for judging the success of television show, now only tells half of the story.  The viewership patterns for NBC’s Saturday Night Live are a good example of this, as their TV ratings make it look like the show is falling off every single season due to dwindling broadcast numbers.  And yet it’s cultural relevance still has not waned, because it also enjoys a massive following on YouTube.  It has a 16 million large subscriber base, and their clipped videos almost continually do millions of views even in the course of a week after airing.  And in case of some of their more viral videos, like the “Lonely Island” music videos they’ve put out, they can reach far more viewers than they ever would’ve during their late night broadcasts.  YouTube has significantly changed the way that people consume television, with a lot people opting not to check out these shows live when they were originally scheduled, but instead on their own time, and repeatedly if they are viral enough.

But there is a much bigger factor in what has ultimately made YouTube the true king of streaming; that it’s free to use.  Where all the other streaming platforms derive revenue from monthly subscriptions, YouTube is primarily funded through ad revenue.  Sure, there is a YouTube Premium service available where people can subscribe to watch their content ad-free, but for the most part, people have largely accepted the ad service model as a way of getting content at no cost to them.  This is why YouTube is the second largest trafficked website on the planet, because there is no barrier to logging in and watching.  And as stated before, the quality of the content has risen so much over the years that YouTube channels are now competitive with what we see on television.  Sure, network television is still made free for the public, and also supported by add revenue, but the number of stations is limited to just a handful of networks; ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, CW, and Public Broadcasting.  Cable Television was created as a paid alternative to give viewers more choices in programming, but the fact that it’s pay walled has diminished it’s value over time, especially in competition with what streaming provides.  One thing that we have seen the big studios struggle with in the last couple of years is what to do with linear television, as the ad revenue they can generate from their holdings have shifted to other places like YouTube.  Advertisers have learned that more eyes are going to streaming instead of the networks and cable channels, so that’s where they are putting their money now.  Disney, whose holdings include ABC and ESPN, has had to reshuffle their corporate structure in order to meet the new reality in broadcasting; so much so that many have speculated that Disney may be looking to offload their linear television channels in the future in order to focus on streaming instead.  The tolerance for ad breaks has been one of the biggest surprises to come from the streaming wars, largely due to the fact that YouTube’s ad support model is getting the most traction in the online space.  That’s probably why so many of the streaming platforms have created their own ad-supported tier as a more budget minded alternative; including Netflix.

But one thing that YouTube has decided is not in their wheelhouse is the idea of creating their own original content to compete with the likes of Netflix.  Not that they didn’t try.  Before YouTube Premium became an ad-free only option, YouTube had another paid service called YouTube Red.  YouTube Red was going to be ad-free like Premium ultimately ended up being, but it was also going to offer original shows and films made by YouTube’s own in house production company.  YouTube Originals would create a string of original shows and movies that not only would compete with the likes of Netflix, but would also be useful in spotlighting the brand of YouTube itself.  One thing that YouTube Originals did was tap into their own pool of content creators to develop shows and films that would be extensions of their own channel content, only with a more substantial budget.  Creators like gamer PewDiePie and others were among the people tapped to start up this new phase of YouTube’s programming, with a large emphasis on reality based content.  But, there were scripted programs made too, including a couple of buzz-worthy programs.  It may surprise many to know that a hit show like Cobra Kai, a spinoff series based on the Karate Kid films, started it’s life as a YouTube Original.  YouTube produced the first two seasons of the series, and for those seasons it became the driving force for YouTube Red’s subscriber growth.  But it clearly wasn’t enough.  In 2018, YouTube announced that they were phasing out YouTube Red in favor of growing their Premium service, and this included the shuttering of YouTube Originals.  The majority of the original shows that premiered on YouTube Red were quietly cancelled, but a couple were allowed to be shopped out to other interested parties.  In the case of Cobra Kai, it was picked up by Netflix, which kept the show running for an additional four seasons, all of which were wildly successful for the streamer.  In the end, YouTube saw their value as a platform for content creation rather than a production outfit themselves.

This has helped YouTube to stay ahead of so many other streamers in the race for attention from potential viewers.  So many of the studio run streamers cater to such a specific kind of audience, while YouTube is literally a place where you can find anything to watch.  Sure, YouTube can’t run movies and television shows from the major studios (and they have strict rules about uploading pirated movies onto their platform as well), but they are the place where everything else is available to see: how-to tutorials, video podcasts, highlight reels, and tons of videos about cute pets.  What YouTube has done in it’s 20 year existence is change the viewing habits of the average consumer.  One phenomenon that has come from consuming programming on YouTube is the “rabbit hole” binge watching habit that so many people have developed.  It comes from people choosing one video to watch on YouTube, and then clicking on one of the algorithmic selected suggestions that are attached to that video, and then repeating the same function after watching that.  Some people can spend hours just watching the random stream of videos that are suggested to them through YouTube’s algorithm, and that’s the thing that Hollywood is trying to compete against.  Of course all the streamers operate on some kind of algorithmic programming that caters to the subscriber’s viewing habits, but their suggestions are often confined to the niche selection that they have curated from their own libraries.  Meanwhile, YouTube literally contains billions of random types of videos on their platform, with countless more added each day, so those who go down the YouTube rabbit hole are far more likely to encounter something new they haven’t seen before when they are given suggestions from the platform’s algorithm.  This is why so many people are giving their time over to YouTube; the variety of options and the simple interface of YouTube’s platform that makes it easy for viewers to continue watching.

The streaming wars as a result has become less of a race to the top and more of a contest for third place.  Netflix had a ten year head start on all the other wannabe competitors, but even Netflix has to compete for time with what YouTube has to offer.  The bad news for Hollywood is that there doesn’t seem to be any alternative path to being able to do what YouTube is able to do.  It really is an entity without peers.  Disney or Universal is not going to suddenly launch a competitor to YouTube, where users can upload videos onto a site they run.  With YouTube, it’s better to find ways to work with it than compete against it, and all the major studios have their own channels on the platform where they launch movie trailers, as well as a couple YouTube exclusives of their own.  But just like everyone else, they are subjected to the ebb and flow of how YouTube’s algorithm works, so it’s not exactly the place where they can launch one of their multi-million dollar projects.  The problem Hollywood faces now is trying to figure out how to maximize their audience reach in a market that clearly has been shaken up by streaming.  With YouTube pulling in millions of views daily, and Netflix showing little signs of weakness, the studios are searching for new ways to drive engagement on their own platforms.  For the longest time, exclusive content was the thing to bring in subscribers, but that required an insane amount of capital to produce, especially in the early days of the streaming wars when these new platforms had so little to offer.  What we’ve seen happen is a lot of these traditionally powerful media giants face some hard financial pitfalls due to their ramp up of production to feed these streaming monsters.  But, because of the large amount of offerings out there (with every studio jumping in) the potential audience was splintered and the amount or revenue coming in was not countering the investment it took to put it all together.  That’s why so many mergers and acquisitions are happening, as the studios are trying to shore up their financial burdens due to the amount of money they burned through in such a short amount of time.  Meanwhile, YouTube and Netflix have continued to maintain their leads in the streaming race, with their already firmly established hold on their audiences allowing them to weather the stormy seas of the streaming wars.

YouTube may not be a powerful player in terms of production, it still is the place where most people go to for quick, easy to digest entertainment.  Hollywood is learning more and more that their goal should be to offer audiences entertainment that is special enough to get people to click of their computers and phones for an hour or two.  For a long time during the streaming wars, the studios were under the Field of Dreams belief that “if you build it, they will come,” but as we’ve seen building isn’t enough.  You need to make people want to actively go out and see something, whether it be in a theater or on a separate platform.  One of the biggest problems facing streaming right now is the rising cost of everything.  The low price points at launch were a big help in getting people to subscribe to these new streaming surfaces, but all the incremental price increases since then have caused a lot of budget conscious people to tune out.  Moving to streaming was a big part of the whole “cutting the cord” movement that drew people away from subscribing to cable, but now the costs have risen to the point where streaming is now on par with cable TV and possibly even more depending on how many services people have signed up for.  While streaming can be a good value overall depending on how robust their libraries are, people are becoming more picky about which ones they want.  And that audience churn has become the biggest problem facing the market today, especially for the studios that have seen their growth stagnate even after spending billions creating exclusive programming for it.  All the while, YouTube is free to use, easy to navigate, and offers a lucrative creator incentive structure that enables a higher quality of entertainment than just simple home videos.  At the same time, there is truth to there being too much of a good thing, and YouTube’s monopoly on people’s attention is not exactly healthy in the long term for the future of entertainment.  Hopefully Hollywood discovers a way to deal with the competition that they face with YouTube and manage to build something special that either competes strongly against the pull of YouTube, or manages to survive alongside it.  In the face of television and home video, Hollywood has always managed to find ways to bring audiences back to the movies and prestige entertainment.  In the meantime, enjoy the best that YouTube has to offer, but in good moderation.  There are plenty of good content creators on YouTube that are deserving of your attention.  But just remember to come out of that YouTube rabbit hole before it consumes too much of your day and support the arts in far more direct and personal ways beyond it.

It’s astounding, time is fleeting.  Madness takes its toll.  50 years ago, a little movie based on a small experimental play performed on the stage in London made it’s way to the big screen for the first time.  It’s initial release was met with plenty of indifference from audiences and critics at the time, but what came next took everyone by surprise, including the people who made the movie.  The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) became a cult hit with audiences who were made up of what society would consider outsiders.  People of the LGBTQ community, punk rockers, and just people who defy societal conformity of any kind were drawn to the unashamed and in your face campiness of the film, and it’s enduring message about living open and free.  But, Rocky Horror is more than just any cult film; it is “The Cult Film.”  The very idea of “cult movies” exists because of Rocky Horror, mainly because of how the movie set the standard for creating a subculture all on it’s own.  The audiences who go to see the movie are not just there to be viewers; they are active participants.  Screenings of Rocky Horror have turned into ritualistic events, where people dress up as their favorite characters, bring their own props to imitate what they see on the screen, as well as make call backs to the movie itself with what has evolved into a whole secondary script just for the audience.  Since it’s re-release in 1977, The Rocky Horror Picture Show has remained in continuous exhibition all over the world.  No matter what day it is, there is likely some theater out there playing The Rocky Horror Picture Show; most likely around the midnight hour.  Now, even after 50 years, Rocky Horror not only has maintained it’s subversive edge but it seems even more essential for our world today than ever before.  But why this movie?  What was it that made this movie the film that would launch a subculture of it’s own that makes this more than just a movie?  The strange journey that The Rocky Horror Picture Show has taken over this half century is certainly a peculiar story on it’s own.  So, let’s do the time warp again and see how this movie became the cult hit that it is today.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show began as an idea from a struggling actor in London named Richard O’Brien.  As a fan of science fiction and B-Movie horror, he drafted a concept where he combined all the elements he loved into a rock and roll musical.  While O’Brien was briefly appearing in a London staging of Jesus Christ Superstar, he shared his concept script with the show’s director Jim Sharman.  Sharman liked O’Brien’s play so much that he decided he would make it his next project.  They managed to secure space at an experimental theater stage above the Royal Court Theater.  The mish-mash of B-movie camp and rock and roll music proved to be a hit with the London counter culture scene and it quickly outgrew the tiny 60 seat venue.  It later expanded to larger venues and eventually it crossed over the pond to be staged in America.  While the show drew in audiences everywhere it went, it still remained a bit of an underground production.  But, it did reach the attention of one very key fan of the show.  The theatrical run of the show in Los Angeles played at the Roxy Theater in West Hollywood, which was owned by a very successful music producer named Lou Adler.  Adler was the man who produced the hit albums of the Mamas & the Papas and Carole King, and now he was looking towards producing for the big screen as well.  It was fortunate timing that Rocky Horror would fall into his lap at the Roxy.  Thanks to Adler’s connections, he was able to get financial backing for a big screen adaptation of the show from a major film studio; 20th Century Fox.  Though the production was going to be financed by a major American film studio, Adler still believed that it was important to still keep the English roots of the show intact, so Jim Sharman was hired to direct the film while Richard O’Brien would adapt the play into a film script.  The production would also operate out of England, with most of the production happening at the Elstree and Bray Studios.  For the stately manor house that serves as the main location for most of the movie, the gothic style Oakley Court was chosen, mainly due to it being a favorite shooting location for the fame B-movie horror studio Hammer Films.

Most of the actors from the original stage version were carried over, except for a couple of noteworthy replacements.  Perhaps to please the American studio backers, the parts of Brad and Janet were re-cast with American actors, and rock singer Meat Loaf was also added to the cast in a small role.  In the end, the casting change worked to the movie’s advantage, because Brad and Janet were meant to be send-ups of bland, clean cut American archetypes seen in the B-Movies of the 1950’s that the show was parodying.  The production managed to find the right duo for the parts, casting stage actor Barry Bostwick as Brad and Susan Sarandon (in her first film role) as Janet.  Their sweet natured innocent performances perfectly fit the tone that the movie need to set with the two, especially in how they clash with all the other characters we meet.  Though initially reluctant to appear in the film himself, Richard O’Brien eventually gave in and brought to life the hunchbacked caretaker of the spooky manor, Riff-Raff.  Two other key roles, Magenta and Columbia, were also filled with veterans of the original stage musical.  Veteran character actor, Charles Gray, was also cast to play the omniscient narrator role of the Criminologist, lending the movie it’s only air of stateliness.  But, when we think of Rock Horror, there is one person above all who comes to mind.  The role of the diabolical Dr. Frank-N-Furter, the mad, transvestite alien scientist, will be forever linked with the one and only Tim Curry.  Curry originated the role on the stage, and despite some rumors of rock singers like Mick Jagger being eyed for the role, there was no doubt that Curry would also play the role on film as well.  From the moment that Curry first makes his descent down that iron elevator and onward, he takes command of the film.  He is nothing but swagger and indomitable confidence.  And given that he presents himself as this pansexual dynamo dressed in the most flamboyant of outfits, he was really unlike anything we had ever seen in a movie before, or really ever since.  Curry’s unique voice also helps to make the character stand out, with his smooth drool combined with a refined way of speaking which Curry purposely took inspiration from Queen Elizabeth herself in creating.

What set The Rocky Horror Picture Show apart at the time was not because of the shocking, sexualized nature of the movie.  John Waters had been making a name for himself for years that continually pushed the envelope with regards to “bad taste” in his movies (which Rocky still feels pretty tame compared to).  No, what made Rocky Horror stand out was that this was a mainstream production made by a Hollywood studio.  20th Century Fox was really taking a chance by putting their logo on this film, and initially they may have regretted doing so.  Rocky Horror was a big financial flop when it first released.  Critics didn’t know what to make of it, and audiences stayed away, forcing many theaters to pull it quickly from release due to poor attendance.  After a couple years, Fox began tossing the movie aside, allowing it to be licensed for screenings at a steep bargain.  This led to it being put on the roster for midnight screenings across the country, as various art house theaters were looking for movies that fit the kind of cheap, B-movie thrills that midnight audiences desired to watch.  Over time, audiences at these midnight showings began to realize how much a hidden gem Rocky Horror was.  The showings began to fill up more and more and pretty soon, Rocky Horror became a small cult hit.  But it would evolve to be something even more than that.  It’s hard to say when the audience interaction part of the Rocky Horror experience began, as it seems to organically grow out of so many individual showings across the world with their own contributions.  Where it seemed to be first observed was at the Waverly Theater in New York around a year into the movie’s midnight screenings run, when people at one of the screenings overheard someone else in the theater react to Susan Sarandon placing a newspaper over her head in a rainstorm by yelling, “Buy an Umbrella, you cheap Bitch.”  Overtime, more and more “call outs” as they call them were being heard at the screenings, and over time, it became part of the reason to go see the movie.

Halloween midnight screenings offered their own contribution as people started coming to the theater dressed as their favorite characters from the movie.  Dr. Frank-N-Furter was an especially favorite costume for a lot of people, particularly those who really wanted to get in on the gender-bending thrill that the character represented.  All the while, the original Rocky Horror Show continued to be performed on the stage.  While the movie was still playing in theaters, the same cast could be seen on the Broadway stage, though sadly it too had a short life span and lasted only 45 performances.  But, somehow, the movie itself would give the live show an unexpected new life of it’s own.  As the midnight screenings began to attract more an more people who dressed up, a few of those audience members went even further and began to imitate what they were seeing on the screen itself, putting on their own performance.  This evolved from just a spontaneous interaction between people in the audience and the movie itself into a stage presentation in it’s own right.  This spawned what we know now as the “Shadow Cast” phenomenon, where a group of actors will literally reenact the entire movie in front of the screen while the movie is playing.  Many people who don’t know what they are getting into when they first see one of these Shadow Cast shows may find the gimmick distracting, but for long time fans of the movie, it’s become another fun addition to the overall experience.  It’s without a doubt one of the most unique things you’ll see in any movie theater, as you’ll feel like you’re getting both a play and a movie for the price of one ticket.  There are several theater troupes across the country whose main focus is just to perform as Shadow Casts at midnight showings of Rock Horror, which apparently is a high demand gig as there are so many of those happening all over the place.  This would eventually reflect back well on the original stage musical as well.  The Rocky Horror Show would have a much longer revival on Broadway in the year 2000, which itself would embrace the raucous interactive nature of the film with audience call backs being encouraged throughout the show.

Over the years, Rocky Horror  has gone on to have a major influence on both the movies and cinema culture at large since then.  In terms of style, it helped to mainstream the glam rock aesthetic, which artists like David Bowie would continue to lean into more over the coming decade.  And of course it popularized the very idea of cult movies in the pop culture lexicon.  Many films have tried to stir up the same kind of cult status that Rocky Horror enjoys, but few have ever come close.  The only movie that seems to have come any where near what Rocky Horror has become as an audience involved experience is Tommy Wiseau’s so bad it’s good cult hit The Room (2003).  Just like with Rocky Horror, The Room has become a classic due to it’s embrace of audience call backs shouted during screenings.  But, the call back participation itself has spawned it’s own long lasting legacy in the form of a little gimmick called riffing.  In the late 80’s, the show Mystery Science Theater 3000 launched, and it’s appeal was due to the hilarious comedy that would arise from it’s characters watching very bad movies and cracking jokes the whole time while commenting on what they are seeing.  Joel Hodgson, the co-creator of Mystery Science Theater has cited Rocky Horror and it’s audience “call backs” as one of the inspirations for the comedy on the show.  Beyond just Mystery Science Theater, riffing on media has become something of a comedy staple over time, and it stands to reason that we have the rowdy audience members of The Rocky Horror Picture Show to thank for taking out all of the politeness of media consumption.  Rocky Horror’s influence even extends into the Halloween season that it very much feels at home in.  Most Halloween parties are bound to have “Time Warp” on their playlists.  It’s also got a very strong influence on several horror films over the years, including Rob Zombie’s House of 1000 Corpses (2003), which the death metal performer turn filmmaker directly cited as a major influence.

But, perhaps the most profound influence that this film has had is the effect that it had on the LGBTQ community.  The Rocky Horror Picture Show is an unapologetic queer movie and that’s probably what has helped it to retain it’s relevance over so many years.  It’s a movie all about sexual liberation and more importantly about finding yourself in a community that embraces you for who you are.  Frank-N-Furter even has a song in the film called “Don’t Dream It, Be It,” which itself has become something of an anthem in the queer community.  The movie became a lifeline for many queer people particularly during the ultra-conservative Reagan/Thatcher administrations in America and Britain.  As society began to ostracize people for their differences in sexual orientation, especially during the scourge that was the AIDS epidemic, the midnight screenings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show became something of a safe haven for outcasts.  There, being queer was not just normal but also celebrated, and it was a great place to meet other people in the queer community who also weren’t afraid to let their flame burn brightly.  The Rocky Horror Picture Show may not have been the thing that helped to make camp entertainment such a key part of queer culture, but it definitely helped to give it some mainstream credibility.  And given the state of the world we are in now, where the transgender community in particular has been under attack, Rocky Horror’s message of inclusiveness and liberation feels like it’s need now more than ever.  Richard O’Brien, who himself identifies as non-binary, always intended for Rocky Horror to have this deeper meaning about letting go and being yourself regardless of what everyone else thinks.  The transgender community especially holds Rocky Horror and Dr. Frank-N-Furter in particular in high regard.  It’s almost a certainty to see any drag performance include a performance of the song “Sweet Transvestite” at some point; even from cisgender straight performers who just want to indulge a little bit in some gender-bending.  The fact that Rocky Horror has been safe harbor for a queer community that has gone through some very hard times over the years has been probably the most fulfilling legacy this movie has enjoyed in it’s 50 years.

It’s strange to think about where Rocky Horror stands now.  In 2019, 20th Century Fox was merged into the Walt Disney Company, meaning that the family audience centered “House of Mouse” is now the current steward of this film.  Though there were some worries about how this movie was going to be treated by it’s new owners, Disney has thankfully treated Rocky Horror respectfully enough.  It refrained from putting the film into the Disney Vault like it has with so many other Fox properties and has kept the record-breaking streak of the movie’s 50 year limited theatrical run still going.  For it’s 50th anniversary, Disney has even given the movie a 4K restoration, helping to preserve the movie for the next 50 years and beyond.  And now that it’s reached that milestone, people are reflecting on just how meaningful and important the film has been.  It’s been singled out for preservation by the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress for “cultural and historical significance.”  It’s impact on the LGBTQ community alone is something that certainly is worth celebrating.  In that regard, it was way ahead of it’s time, and we are only now starting to recognize how influential it has been.  For the cast and crew of the movie the film is something that everyone involved looks back on fondly.  Tim Curry went on to have a prosperous career both on screen and as a voice actor, and even continued to be a beloved presence on stage, including in musicals like Spamalot.  Unfortunately he suffered a major stroke in 2012 that left him partially paralyzed, which hindered his abilities as a performer, though he still maintains work as a voice actor.  Richard O’Brien attempted to make a sequel to Rocky Horror in 1981 with the movie Shock Treatment, and while it too has a small cult following, it still pales compared to the legacy of the former.  Still, Rocky Horror has helped to keep him in the spotlight over the last 50 years and given him consistent work as an actor in both film and on the stage.  As an experience, The Rocky Horror Picture Show is really a one of a kind.  From personal experience, I actually came to this pretty late, only getting my first true Rocky Horror midnight experience this very year at the TCM Film Festival of all places.  And it was the first time where I truly got what all the hype was about.  It’s more than any movie; it’s an experience.  For anyone interested, find yourself a midnight showing with a shadow cast performance because you really haven’t seen the movie until you’ve watched it in that way.  The Rocky Horror Picture Show is everything a movie can be rolled into a one-of-a-kind experience, so take the plunge and let the movie fill you with ANTICI…PATION.

Las Vegas has done a lot to define itself as the Entertainment Capital of the World.  Started of as a hub for legalized gambling in a dry arid region with nothing else around, the city revolutionized casino operations and on top of that became a resort destination onto itself.  Beyond the slot machines and blackjack tables, Vegas catered to it’s clientele by attracting big name entertainers to come to their city and perform.  Frank Sinatra and his “Rat Pack” associates Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. became almost synonymous with the city after their long time residency.  Later on, Elvis Presley would come to Sin City and many others would follow in the decades to come, including Celine Dion and Adele.  It was also the place where illusionists like Penn & Teller and Siegfried and Roy would become international celebrities.  Vegas was definitely the place to go for live entertainment on the grandest scale.  And there were so many options too, with every Casino Resort on the Strip being home to at least one marquee theater.  But, as big as the live acts were on the strip, there was one form of entertainment that had failed to catch on in Las Vegas; the Movies.  Sure, like any city Las Vegas has it’s fair share of multiplexes scattered around, but there wasn’t a movie theater anywhere in town that fit with the larger than life character of the City.  The closest thing that Vegas could do to create a bigger than average destination for the movies in their town was an IMAX theater housed in the cavernous atrium of the Luxor Hotel; which has since closed and been replaced with a museum.  It just seemed like Vegas was going to just be a beacon for live entertainment and not be a destination for the grandest of movie experiences.  That was until 2023 when the Madison Square Garden Company (MSG) opened up a theater venue unlike anything the world had ever seen near the Las Vegas Strip.  Called “The Sphere,” this new venue was not just going to turn the live entertainment world on it’s head, but also the movie going experience as well.

The MSG Sphere is a true engineering marvel.  The $2.3 billion spherical structure is 366 ft. high and 516 ft. wide and includes enough interior seating for 20,000 spectators.  But, what sets the venue apart from everything else is it’s colossal 160,000 square foot LED screen.  The screen projects at 16K resolution, making it not just the largest LED screen in the world, but also the sharpest as well.  And if the screen inside wasn’t impressive enough, the exosphere of the building is also it’s own LED screen, lighting up the Vegas skyline with a free show for all to see.  The venue is primarily designed for live shows, with the floor in front of the screen set apart from the grandstand in order to provide room for the stage.  But concerts in the Sphere are unlike anything ever seen before.  The MSG company spends months preparing a video package for the bands that perform at the venue to play on the massive screen.  The screen allows for the sensation of being transported away as a part of the show.  For the Sphere’s opening, the band U2 was given a residency and their best hits show had the giant screen display background settings as incredible as a desert landscape, a kaleidoscope of Vegas style icons, the datascape of a computer, and an angelic like dome that envelopes the entire audience.  The concert could pretty much feel like it could be set anywhere, with only what we can imagine being the limit.  After U2, other famous rock bands have come to the Sphere to perform, such as The Eagles and the Backstreet Boys.  And each of their shows includes those custom made video packages that deliver an experience like no other.  But, a year after blowing the concert world away with the capabilities of the Sphere’s screen feature, the MSG company looked towards doing something even more state of the art.  There was always a plan to incorporate film experiences as a part of the Sphere’s rotation of acts.  While U2 had it’s concert program going, the Sphere also had an hour long nature documentary from director Darren Aronofsky called Postcards from Earth (2023).  But, MSG was looking beyond, seeking a movie going experience that already had a built in audience that at the same time would also take advantage of the capabilities of the venue.

Fast forward to this year where the Sphere debuted a new presentation of a beloved cinematic classic, The Wizard of Oz (1939).  One of the most watched movies of all time, Oz is a universally known film that has managed to remain a draw for audiences for over 80 years.  But, presenting it as is on a screen the size of the one in the Sphere is not so easy.  For one thing, as good as the restorations have been over the years to keep Oz looking pristine and sharp, the resolution of the movie maxes out at 4K resolution.  It’s limited by the fidelity of the film stock that was used at the time.  It also was made long before widescreen had gone mainstream, utilizing the standard Academy Ratio of 1.37:1. Blown up to play on a screen the size of the one inside the Sphere would also amplify all the imperfections built in to the original film stock.  The film’s grain, which helps to give it a healthy texture when played on a standard sized screen, would look very blocky on the Sphere’s screen.  So, here is where we get to the controversial side of the Sphere’s presentation.  In order to get the movie to match the 16K resolution of the screen, the movie was upscaled using AI programs to create extra detail in the image.  This is not unusual, as AI has been a tool used before in film restoration, though always with great care to retain the fidelity of the original image.  But, The Sphere team went a step further.  They used AI to not only upscale the movie, but to also add more image beyond the original dimensions of the film.  This was so they could conform the film’s image to the dimensions of the screen, which is much wider and taller than even the average IMAX screen, and also built with a curve to envelope the audience.  So, now audiences are not only watching The Wizard of Oz in a way they haven’t seen before, but in many ways also watching a version of the movie that’s never existed before.

It raises a lot of concerns about how AI should be used in the movie making process.  What is at issue with many people is that there is no one left alive from the making of the 85 year old movie, so none of them have consented to the alteration of their work with this version of the film.  Some of the demos of the making of this Sphere presentation show how AI has been used to add on to the original movie, and some of it is indeed borderline questionable.  One particular demonstration showed how they altered a scene where Dorothy is speaking with her Auntie Em and Uncle Henry inside the farm house.  In the original film, we see the actor who played Uncle Henry walk off screen for a few seconds and return.  We don’t see what he was doing off screen in that time.  In the Sphere experience, the scene from the film, which included a lot of panning around to capture the action has instead been turned into a fixed shot.  In order to keep it fixed, as lot of the shots that panned across the room were stitched together to keep the image fixed in one place using AI.  And this includes the moment when Uncle Henry is out of frame for a moment.  We don’t know what he was doing offscreen, but the AI constructed movement that never existed before of the actor pacing around the room to fill those missing moments.  This is beyond just restoring an old film; it’s putting things in that never existed before at all. You can see why so many actors are concerned about how AI will use their images in the future, because here we have a clear example of new imagery being created using a long deceased actors image out of nothing.  Now, the MSG company’s explanation is that this version of the movie is not in any way intended to replace the original.  More than anything else, they are using The Wizard of Oz as more of a test subject for presenting older films on their record breaking screen, and using it as more of an experience than a true film presentation.

The question is; will what they are doing at the Sphere be the start of a new trend in filmmaking?  Are we looking at the future of cinema with the Sphere’s Wizard of Oz experience?  The one thing we do know for sure is that this presentation in particular has been an enormous success.  With ticket prices that range in the same ballpark of concert tickets (usually higher that $100 per seat on the low end), the presentation is selling out shows and with only one screen, the movie has amassed over $50 million in grosses so far.  People are turning out to see this one of a kind experience and it’s making Hollywood take notice.  It’s been reported that MSG is already starting talks with Disney and Warner Brothers over the possible use of their own catalog titles for this Sphere experience.  It probably won’t be long before we see movies from the Star Wars and Harry Potter franchises getting the Sphere treatment.  At least with those films you still have the original filmmakers still around to approve and maybe even oversee the alterations to these films to conform them to the Sphere’s screen dimensions.  But, a large question arises about if this is where Hollywood sees film going in the years ahead.  Are we going to see more venues like the Sphere popping up across the country, and are audiences willing to pay extra for ticket prices to see films in this way?  Part of the reason why the Sphere in Vegas is doing as well as it is is because of the novelty of it all.  No other venue in the world has created an audio/visual experience on this scale before.  And that largely is why people are paying up to experience The Wizard of Oz in this format, even if it’s a movie that most people have likely seen many times before.  If you build one of these kinds of venues in every city, it will rob the original of some of that novelty, which is something that the MSG company probably is hesitant to do.  As the saying goes, what happens in Vegas is best left in Vegas.

But, we are at a time when movie attendance is down from where it was pre-pandemic.  This is largely due to economic uncertainty coupled with the ever rising cost of a movie ticket and also the dwindling number of movies making it to the big screen these days.  It’s not the first time that cinema has fallen into the doldrums.  Just as streaming is currently threatening the theatrical business there was a time when movie theaters also had to contend with the rise of television.  Theaters needed something more to draw in audiences beyond just a good movie.  They needed to create something that you just couldn’t do with television at home.  Thus came an era in the 50’s and 60’s when cinema tried to liven their movies up with gimmicks that enhanced the film experience.  One of the most famous filmmakers who revolutionized the use of gimmicks in movie presentations was a man named William Castle.  Castle worked primarily with B-movie thrillers and horror, but what he’s most famous for was the wacky gimmicks he would employ in the promotions of his films.  He famously gave out life insurance certificates to audience members in the case any of them would die of fright at one of his films.  He also implanted buzzers inside theater seats to jolt audiences members during the presentation of his horror film, The Tingler (1959).  Despite the mad science of all of Castle’s ideas, these gimmicks were still effective, as it helped to make the movie going experience more of a multi-sensory experience.  You can see the influence of Castle’s gimmicks today in the 4DX film presentations at select theaters across the country.  There were other like-minded gimmicks that also came out of that era as well, like the short-lived Smell-O-Rama.  But there were other gimmicks that managed to last much longer, like 3D, which improved over the years as the technology got better.  You could even say that Widescreen was a gimmick at first before it caught on and became a mainstream tool in filmmaking.  What movie gimmicks do more than anything is allow for innovation and experimentation with the artform of cinema, even if they sometime can come off as crude and distracting.  But, for an artform over a century old as cinema is, it’s also got to go through periods of renewal in order to survive changing times.  And using gimmicks is sometimes the best way to draw people back in after they’ve grown tired of the artform after a while.

There’s no doubt that what the Sphere is doing is another in the tradition of using gimmicks to draw people in to watch a movie.  And there are nods to the in theater gimmicks that William Castle was famous for.  In The Wizard of Oz presentation, the famous tornado scene is accompanied with in theater effects a well.  When the tornado glides across the screen, massive fans built into the auditorium will recreate the forceful winds of the twister, making it feel like a real tornado is blowing through the venue itself.  Not only that, but artificial leaves and smoke will also be blowing through the auditorium, further reinforcing the illusion.  It’s clear that MSG doesn’t merely just want to play the movie on their screen; they also want to make it come alive as well.  It could be something that supplants the theatrical experience as we know it now, or it could become something else entirely separate.  It’s an experience that uses the movie we already know and making it into an experience that we’ve never seen done before.  But, is it something that we should be doing with older movies.  If anything, what the Sphere has created is a new type of film experience that would be better suited for newer films.  The documentary made by Darren Aronofsky doesn’t have the controversy surrounding it as the Oz experience does, mainly because it was made from scratch for the venue and not enhanced with AI.  There are many filmmakers out there who might look at the Sphere and see a creative challenge that could lead them towards creating a whole new era of innovation in filmmaking.  There are also a lot of rising talent who may find the dimensions of the Sphere’s screen perfect for their revolutionary visions that they would like to immerse their audiences in.  Because of how new the Sphere is we don’t quite know how much of a lasting impact it will have on the future of cinema as a whole.  But what we know from history is that filmmaking thrives when the tools break new ground and change the way we look at the movies in general.

Speaking for myself, I have yet to actually see what the Sphere experience looks like with my own eyes.  I can only judge from a distance, and while the scale of the venue is awe-inspiring in of itself, the way they are using it could be disruptive for the art of filmmaking in general, and not all in a good way.  Taking a classic film like The Wizard of Oz, and “enhancing” it with AI as a lot of ethical red flags behind it.  If you are presenting it with a good chunk of the image added on artificially, it robs the original film of its artistic merit.  The brilliance of Oz is the unbelievable craft behind it, and a lot of the artistic intent was determined by the limitations of the film stock that was available to them.  You change things like adding on to backgrounds, removing edits, and crafting additional performances from offscreen actors that never existed before through AI technology, you have to wonder if it’s still the movie you grew up loving anymore.  The best thing for this presentation to do is to stay one of a kind, and be treated as nothing more than a gimmick.  The last thing that should happen is for Hollywood to take the wrong message and believe that the best way to re-release their films is to use AI to add on more movie.  It’s like those awful AI generated expansions of famous artworks that people began circulating on social media about a year ago.  Sure, AI is capable of filling in what could exist beyond the frames of these famous works of art, but without the original artists input to say so the artwork loses impact because their original limited frame of view was as the artists intended.  Filling in what’s not there misses the point of the composition. The same seems true for this Wizard of Oz experience.  It’s impressive looking, but it’s also not Oz.  Even still, there is potential for the Sphere to have a positive influence on filmmaking.  Imagine if other big scale filmmakers like Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve look at the Sphere’s massive screen and see it as a challenge that fits with their visions.  For now, it stands as a true achievement for the city of Las Vegas.  Finally, they have managed to gain the attention of the cinematic world and created a venue that could indeed change the theatrical experience for good.  We’ll see what the future of the MSG Sphere holds, but there is no doubt that it is one massive leap in innovation when it comes to the presentation of movies.  True to the city of Vegas, it’s a gamble of a project, and as is the case with their presentation of The Wizard of Oz, they seem to have hit the jackpot.

It’s difficult to believe that a movie released quietly in the month of June on Netflix would by the end of August that same year the biggest movie in the world, even to the point of reaching the top of the weekend box office in a short 2 day run.  That is the reality we have seen happen with the sudden phenomenon that is KPOP Demon Hunters.  The film made it to the streaming platform after it was abandoned by its original creators, Sony Animation, and right now Sony is probably kicking themselves over relinquishing this film to Netflix.  But success on streaming has come to mean many different things, and a lot of it isn’t exactly clear to most people outside of the business,  To be regarded as a success, a film needs to be measured with different kinds of barometers that assess it’s value.  For most of cinematic history, films have been judged by their box office sales.  The measure of a successful film traditionally has been based on if it can turn a profit in ticket sales, and this is weighed against the cost of making that film.  If the movie makes more than it’s cost, than it has justified it’s existence, and the goal thereafter is to maximize that profit even further.  But, the passage of time can also swing certain film’s fortunes from disappointing to successful, and this is based on ancillary factors like home video sales and tie-in merchandising.  But, streaming is a whole different kind of market that has changed the ways we judge a film’s success.  With streaming, you can calculate the value of a film based on individual sales, because there is no pay to watch factor.  With Netflix, entry is a monthly subscription fee and that opens the viewer up to watching anything they want when they want that’s available on their platform.  And the actual viewership numbers for each program is not independently measured but is instead reported by Netflix itself.  So, in that kind of market of on demand content for one nominal monthly fee, how exactly do we know what is a hit and what is not?

For KPOP Demon Hunters success was not immediate.  It released on June 20th without much in the way of fanfare.  Internally, Netflix was pleased with the viewership numbers that they were seeing, but it was not exceeding what they had gotten from other original animated films on their platform.  Films like Klaus (2019) The Sea Beast (2022) and Orion and the Dark (2024) were just modest successes for Netflix as an original animation producer.  More often, they were more successful being the refuge for small independent studios when their movies were in limbo after the studio either closed down like Blue Sky, which Netflix got the film Nimona (2023) out of, or were the place for more experimental fare, like Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022).  During the pandemic, a big studio like Sony looked to Netflix as the place where they could get their newest film released so they could avoid disaster with the theatrical market shut down at the time.  The film, The Mitchell’s vs. The Machines (2021), made it to the platform in this circumstance, and this likely helped Sony down the line determine where to send their other film that they seemed to have little faith in recovering their investment in.  KPOP Demon Hunters certainly had a built in audience with the rapid pop music fandom that would’ve certainly given it a chance, but Sony seemed more concerned with the direction that their more successful Spider-Verse was heading in.  Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse (2023) was a massive success, but completing it’s follow-up sequel was becoming an issue and that’s where Sony Animations’ focus was being directed.  KPOP Demon Hunters would’ve been too much of a creative risk for Sony which was trying hard to compete with the top dogs like Disney, Dreamworks and Pixar, and they didn’t want a financial disappointment to derail that.  So, giving it to Netflix would help to shield them in case it didn’t work out.  Maybe there it would find it’s audience.  Little did they know just how much of an audience Netflix would help this little movie find.

It wasn’t immediate.  It premiered modestly at first, bolstered no doubt by KPOP super fans.  But the premiere numbers were not exceptional.  It’s first week viewership, based on Netflix’s numbers, paled in comparison to those of the Disney+ premiere of Moana 2 (2024), a movie that was also a huge success in theaters.  But, what Netflix started to notice that took everyone by surprise was that the viewership numbers for the film weren’t going down; they kept going up, week after week.  After a month, KPOP Demon Hunters had reached the top ten movies of all time on Netflix’s streaming charts and was still climbing.  But, there was another phenomenon that proved that the movie was more than just a streaming success.  The film’s soundtrack was rising up the chart in record sales.  One of the songs from the film, titled “Golden,” had even reached number one on the pop charts.  The last song to do that was Disney’s Encanto’s (2021) “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” and it was the first movie soundtrack to chart at #1 since Encanto too.  The success of a movie soundtrack is a pretty good indicator that your film is becoming a success outside of it’s streaming boundaries.  But, it also seems that even Netflix underestimated how big this would be as well.  When you know your movie will have broad cinematic appeal, you would want to maximize profit off of it with a lot of tie-in promotions.  But, Netflix didn’t think that far ahead.  There are no tie-in merchandise or cross promotions going on with this movie, and Netflix is having to play catch-up quick so that they don’t miss the opportunity while this movie is still on a hot streak.  But, one thing they could do was break their longstanding rule about not giving their movies a wide release in theaters.  As KPOP Demon Hunters fever was at it’s highest point, the streaming giant relented and put out a Sing-Along version of the film into 1,700 screens across North America for just two days.  And even though it was brief, the end result still gave Netflix their first ever #1 film at the weekend box office.

It wasn’t the first time Netflix had charted in the box office top 10.  Two and a half years prior, Netflix had put out Rian Johnson’s Glass Onion (2022) into theaters for a one week run; likely due to an obligation in their contract with the director.  The film was a modest success in that one week, and many wondered if it would’ve continued to perform well if given a lengthier run over the holidays.  The problem is that Netflix has never allowed themselves to pursue that question even further.  They have been, since the beginning, a streaming centered business model.  They have spent billions on production costs to build up their library of films and shows, but the only revenue that is generated for them is based on their monthly subscription revenue.  Their investment in quality shows and movies has seemed to pay off in the long run, as they are undisputed the kings of streaming, beating out even the competition from the major studios that all launched their own streaming platforms in the last couple years.  But, they at the same time seem to leaving a lot of money on the table by not putting their films out in theaters.  The movie theater owners are not against accepting their movies, even though Netflix has done a lot to drive down their business over the years.  Netflix seems determined to stick with their own business model, which is to make the movie industry conform to them and have their streaming first form of distribution be the new norm of Hollywood.  But, as we have seen play out in the last couple of weeks, there is still an appetite for watching movies in theaters when it’s the right kind of movie.  A movie like KPOP Demon Hunters certainly got it’s start on streaming, but it’s grown far bigger than that and perhaps Netflix is handicapping themselves by still sticking with their own business model.  They put the movie out on their own terms, just for two days, but all it has led to is more questions about their choices.  How much bigger would it have been had they kept it playing in theaters longer than they had?

Part of Netflix’s rationalization for releasing movies they way they have is that they believe that movie theaters are a dying business and that streaming is the future of entertainment.  There is some validity to Netflix’s claim in this sense, as movie theaters have been struggling in the last few years.  Of course Covid was a major factor in the downturn of the theatrical business, but there have been underlying issues that were present long before the pandemic.  The rising cost of tickets has been a particular sticking point with customers.  For many people, they feel like they are being priced out of the movie theater experience, with tickets on the low end costing upwards of $15 dollars in most places now.  This has become especially expensive for for families, with a day out to the movies possibly costing around $100 after tickets and concessions.  Paying Netflix or any of the other streamers a flat monthly fee between $10 and $15 just seems more economical by comparison.  But, there are still movies that are able to draw people to the theater.  The number of them are fewer than it has been before, but they’ve managed to keep theaters afloat in these difficult times.  Netflix makes the case that their platform allows for better visibility for movies that normally wouldn’t have a chance in competition at the movie theaters.  It’s probably why you see a lot fewer mid-budget movies in the theaters, because putting them on streaming has been viewed as a safer bet.  Previous box office titans like Adam Sandler and Eddie Murphy almost exclusively premiere their films on streaming now.  But there’s also the argument that the reason movie theaters are struggling is because they don’t have enough in the way of movies that could boost box office, such as the ones that go to places like Netflix.  The slate of films playing in theaters are either low risk indie films like the ones from A24 and Neon, or big studio tent-poles.  What movie theaters need is more variety, particularly with the movies that have since left them for streaming.  Netflix may argue that people who go out to the movies are not the same as the ones that consume movies on their platform, but KPOP Demon Hunters just proved very definitively that there is definitely a lot of crossover that they have been ignoring.

One thing that has been changing recently is the mindset of the major studios regarding where they are choosing to premiere their films.  Disney in particular made a different judgment call with two projects that they initially planned for streaming on Disney+, and it led to some much needed financial success.  Moana 2  started off in development as a six part animated series, continuing the adventures of the characters from the popular 2016 original as an exclusive for Disney+.  But after a string of disappointments for the Disney Animation studios with Strange World (2022) and Wish (2023) falling hard at the box office, Disney needed something with a built in audience to help boost the ailing studio’s image as a box office contender.  The series was whittled down into a 100 minute film and was released in theaters in November 2024, and the result was a billion dollar grossing film.  Some complained that the film was uneven because of it being reworked in the eleventh hour and that it was not as good as the original, but that didn’t matter.  The film was a financial success because it was a movie that people wanted to see in theaters, including a lot of families.  A similar switch in release strategy also happened with the Lilo and Stitch (2025) remake, as that film was also originally developed as a Disney+ exclusive.  The lesson learned by Disney is that they should strategize which movies would have the best chance of bringing families to the theater, rather than trying to bank on just their brand giving them the boost they need.  The downside would be that studios like Disney would bank more on safer bets rather than big risks, but as well as Lilo and Stitch and Moana 2 have done, it’s counterbalanced with failures like Snow White (2025) and Wish.  What these successes have done is show that theatrical grosses are the most effective barometer for signalling how your brand is doing and it’s something that Disney and other studios are returning more often to now for deciding their future directions.  Had they gone all in on the streaming route, they would’ve missed out on $2 billion worth of revenue on those two films alone.  And premiering in theaters first has not cut into their appeal on streaming either, because Moana 2 has been one of the most streamed movies of the year; even in KPOP Demon Hunters territory.

Netflix can certainly think that monthly subscriptions alone can sustain their company.  It’s been a benefit to them so far, as they are one of the most valued brands right now in the entertainment business.  But, as KPOP Demon Hunters record-breaking weekend grosses have shown, they can make even more money if they wanted to.  The theatrical experience, given the right movie, can help a film endure far beyond it’s original release.  A lot of films benefit from audiences reactions, and that’s something that you can’t replicate just in your living room by yourself or with a couple friends and family.  KPOP Demon Hunters‘ brief but explosive run in theaters was a big deal because audiences finally had an opportunity to see this movie with a crowd of fans, all singing along with them.  It was like a concert experience for them.  Keep in mind, many of the people who sold those screenings out had already seen the movie over the two months that it had been playing on Netflix.  They already loved the movie, but they hadn’t experienced it in a way like this, and that was something worth leaving the house and paying a ticket price for.  KPOP Demon Hunters will undoubtedly be remembered far longer in pop culture because of that.  Most other Netflix films, even the ones deemed a success, have short life spans in the public conscious.  This is largely due to way that Netflix’s algorithm works.  Some movies are pushed to the top of the home page, especially the ones that Netflix wants you to see right away, but there are so many films that quickly disappear into the background if there is low interest in them.  Most people probably aren’t even aware that Netflix has had many other original animated movies on their platform, including another one from the same Sony Animation team that made Demon Hunters; The Mitchell’s vs. The Machines (which, personal opinion, I actually like a lot more).  Netflix honestly has nothing to lose and more to gain if they put their movies into theaters first before putting them on streaming; and I mean in wide release.  Something like KPOP Demon Hunters should have been playing on twice as many screens as it had and it would probably been hitting 9 digit figures in grosses by now.  It’s hard to make the argument that it’s the biggest animation success story of the year when the only thing you have to show for it is a single weekend gross and a chart topping soundtrack.

Netflix will almost certainly fall back on what has worked for them before, but I feel like KPOP Demon Hunters has challenged their business model the most out of all the other movies they have made.  There has to be some talk around the studio about what they’ll do when they inevitably make a sequel to the film.  It would be foolish not to give a sequel a wide release in theaters.  They’ll reap the benefits of a huge box office payday and see that same audience follow the film to their streaming platform.  In general, movie studios across Hollywood are definitely looking at theatrical first release strategies as a net benefit for their brands.  Some movies take more time to find an audience, but at least with a theatrical release you get that upfront monetary value to gauge the movie’s initial appeal.  You make a profit in theaters, then the rest is all an added bonus.  And we’ve seen that movies don’t lose their value by the time they make it to streaming.  If you place the movie on streaming first, there is a good chance that the film may get lost in the shuffle and buried in the algorithm.  At least when it’s put out in theaters it has a chance to generate some individual value.  Let’s not forget, Netflix has their controversial money losers too, including this year’s The Electric State (2025), which for some reason the studio poured over $300 million into.  Did Electric State drive any more traffic to Netflix? Unlikely, and after about a couple of weeks it was out of their top streaming chart and buried deep in the algorithm.  Even Netflix’s accounting couldn’t hide the wasteful spending that that movie clearly showed.  Would theatrical exhibition have helped?  Probably not, but at least you would have a clear dollar value on how audiences received the film rather than the internal number of viewership that they keep track of.  As the streaming wars have died down, the movie studios are looking at streaming as an extension of a movie’s life span more and more and not as the thing that’s going to take over the business.  They are diversifying, and Netflix should consider that as well.  They have a great many films that are sadly overlooked by most audiences, and a lot of those films would have generated more buzz if they were properly presented on a big screen from the start.  KPOP Demon Hunter’s phenomenal success could be the thing that shifts the way Netflix looks at exhibition, and hopefully we’ll see that bright red “N” logo on many more big screens in the future.