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0 pointsdanso9y ago0 comments

True. And in the movie industry, it's not unheard of for nobodies to become superstars (JLaw was apparently spotted by a talent scout during a NYC family vacation). But I think film has inherently bigger barriers to entry, from top to bottom. At the blockbuster level, which is where some disruptive action would have to happen before the mass media starts declaring the disruption of film, I don't see any films while skimming over Boxofficemojo [0] that aren't either part of a franchise, anchored by an A-list actor, or based on a property like Marvel or a popular book/toy.

Let's imagine that a group of immensely talented and attractive folks have a brilliant video series idea, manage to attract the technical resources and funding to bootstrap it, and it becomes a hit on YouTube. Granted, that's a fantasy scenario, because as much as YouTube has democratized video-making, it is absolutely dominated by corporate content [1].

What's more likely, that this plucky group remains on the independent path while continuing to remain popular? Or that they choose to join the club and follow the rules so that their revenue and exposure can increase by several orders of magnitude? It's not just the movie-making part of film that is entrenched, it's the distribution networks that have longstanding ways of doing business, things that occasionally piss people off here (region-locked content).

On the other side of things, there isn't much motion like there is in tech, e.g. Facebook and its open source projects. The only thing that comes to mind in entertainment (besides actors doing stints at Shakespeare in the Park) is Louis C.K. setting up his own production and distribution channel. The work is great, but it is definitely not scalable in any forseeable way [2]

[0] http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?view2=worldwide&y...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_viewed_YouTube_vi...

[2] http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/4/10918924/louis-ck-horace-an...

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ghaff9y ago

>At the blockbuster level, which is where some disruptive action would have to happen before the mass media starts declaring the disruption of film, I don't see any films while skimming over Boxofficemojo [0] that aren't either part of a franchise, anchored by an A-list actor, or based on a property like Marvel or a popular book/toy.

There are some exceptions. Avatar, whatever you think of it as a film, was a blockbuster film with a blockbuster budget. Though, in that case, it was the director who was the A list so maybe that's just an addition to your list.

But, to your basic point, with the amount of money that a blockbuster-type film takes to create, the finance guys are definitely looking for factors that will help bring people into the theaters.

ollifi9y ago

Blumhouse[1] is interesting. Lots of small productions with incredible ROIs and no ambitions to make bigger films.

[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blumhouse_Productions

thaumasiotes9y ago

> the distribution networks that have longstanding ways of doing business, things that occasionally piss people off here (region-locked content)

"Longstanding ways of doing business"? Region-locked content dates all the way back to... DVDs.

Swizec9y ago

Here's a counter example: Casey Neistat.

He might not be a blockbuster movie superstar, but he does have the most subscribed YouTube channel (5mio subs) and he won GQ man of the year. For doing 10min vlogs.

rtkwe9y ago

He kind of moved from the inside to the outside. Before he was on youtube he was shooting movies and had his HBO series. Even now he's still shooting commercials and appearing in them. Youtube brought him a lot of recognition but he wasn't doing too bad before it either.

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