Nolte: Hollywood’s Last Gasp Is Through Desperate Streaming Mergers
Streaming mergers are Hollywood’s last hope. Thanks to lousy, hyper-political movies, the box office is cratering. Thanks to streaming, the cash cow racket of cable/satellite TV is dying. Thanks to lousy products, almost every standalone streaming service not named Netflix is losing billions.
All that’s left is for Hollywood to try and recreate the racket known as cable/satellite TV through streaming mergers.
In other words, the entertainment industry intends to use these mergers to try and con the American people into paying a ton of money for content they never watch.
As I’ve explained for over a decade, the cable/satellite TV model propped up a dying entertainment industry for decades. Over 100 million households paid something like $100 a month to their cable/satellite provider. Through those astronomical payments, those households subsidized dozens of channels they never watched — like CNN, MTV, and Comedy Central. But now, due to cord-cutting as people move to streaming, that 100 million number is closer to 60 million, which has cost Hollywood untold billions. And that household number keeps right on shrinking.
Streaming will not save Hollywood. Unlike cable/satellite TV, streaming is merit-based. We only subscribe if we want to watch the content. Since most of the content sucks, we don’t subscribe. So what’s Hollywood going to do…?
Well, it sure as hell isn’t going to produce better content. Hollywood hates normal people and has no desire to entertain us. What gets it off is insulting and offending us. And even if Hollywood did want to make better content, the talent is no longer there. Generations of in-breeding have produced an industry full of freaks, fetishists, and weirdos lacking anything close to the common touch.
So, we are going to get massive mergers…
Paramount is already talking to Comcast about a streaming merger between Paramount+ and Peacock. Currently, depending on your tolerance for commercials, you can subscribe to both for anywhere from $7 to $13 a month. If they merge, you will almost certainly lose those price points. In other words, if the only reason you subscribe to Paramount+ is for Star Trek, after this potential merger, instead of paying $7 to $13, you will have to pay $13 to $18. This merger will force Star Trek fans to pay for Peacock whether they watch Peacock or not. This is the cable model come to streaming — a rigged setup where if you want Fox News and Turner Classic Movies, you have no choice but to pay for CNN, MSNBC, Comedy Central, and ESPN.
Sports fans are about to get gouged big time when ESPN, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Fox create a single streaming sports juggernaut that corrals about 85 percent of sports programming. This is a terrible deal for sports fans. For example, if you only enjoy a single sport (like baseball), you will have no choice but to pay $50 a month to subsidize a whole bunch of sports programming you don’t watch.
What’s the answer?
There is none for sports fans other than to stop being sports fans.
For the rest of us, there is the past that offers higher quality programming and mostly comes free through free streaming services like Pluto and FreeVee. Most of you can purchase a $25 antenna and receive all kinds of free channels, including broadcast networks.
You gotta be a real sucker to pay for the crap Hollywood’s producing these days. The biggest suckers of all will accept the price gouging that comes with these mergers.
Get a FREE FREE FREE autographed bookplate if you purchase John Nolte’s debut novel, Borrowed Time (Bombardier Books).
I find myself reading less and less these days as all pop culture (books, movies, music) have degenerated into simplistic “content” that tries to beat you over the head with a message. That being said, I found … Borrowed Time to be refreshing and delightful with complex characters and a messy (re: authentic) world. Also, I have to commend you on your idea of what heaven looks like. Too many writers have a trite vision of heaven, but I found both versions of heaven that you came up with (Doreen’s version of heaven as a campground with the Arthurs and Mason version with Doreen and Hok’ee) to be true to those characters and sublime. — Reader email.
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Nolte: ‘Feminist’ Superhero ‘Madame Web’ Tanks at Box Office
The Sony/Marvel co-production of Madame Web grossed just $6.05 million on its opening day and $2.15 million on day two. This pretty much means it’s doomed. By Monday, this $120 to $150 million (including promotion costs) clunker might hit $20 million.
Worse still, moviegoers hit it with a C+ CinemaScore, which is the kiss of death for word of mouth.
Here are all the excuses you’ll hear from the sycophants in the entertainment media…
- Bad reviews killed Madame Web…
- Madame Web shouldn’t have opened mid-week…
- We’re still not over the pandemic…
- Bigoted America refuses to see movies that don’t star white men…
And yet…
Bob Marley: One Love received terrible reviews, is a biopic about a black man, opened on the exact same post-pandemic day as Madame Web and grossed a record … $14 million on opening day. It also earned an A CinemaScore and should land somewhere over $35 million by Monday.
But, but, but pandemic.
But, but, but bigots.
The ONLY thing that has changed at the box office is … Hollywood. It’s not the pandemic or bigotry or streaming or whatever other horse manure these apologists come up with. If the film industry produces something that appeals to us, we will show up in droves. The problem is not the customers; the problem is that Hollywood sucks. Hollywood is ruining everything with its obscene obsession with identity politics, smug lectures, and deviant sexuality. Movies made for normal people still make money.
Just yesterday, for the second time since it was originally released 26 years ago, I watched Rush Hour (1998) with Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker. At the time, I remember enjoying it and the sequel. Well-paced, good action, a few laughs, but nothing special…
Well, I gotta tell you, after seven years of woketardery, Rush Hour plays like a crowd-pleasing masterpiece. I had a great time watching a movie that 26 years ago felt usual-usual. All Rush Hour and its two stars cared about was putting on a great show — and they delivered. What had been the norm feels like a miracle today. Top Gun: Maverick feels like something that somehow snuck through the Woke Ministry of Killing All Your Fun.
All these failures —Star Wars, Marvel, Indiana Jones, Terminator, Men in Black, Wonder Woman, Harley Quinn, everything related to the Disney Grooming Syndicate — and the industry refuses a course correction to what everyone knows works: entertainment.
Hollywood is basically CNN now. It can either change or die. No one can force you to go to the movies or subscribe to a streaming service. And after seven years of this crap, Hollywood’s push to rewire human nature into something that will accept homosexuality, lectures, and virtue signaling in place of sensuality, complicated characters, and universal themes is a total failure.
What should I do tonight?
Should I watch Madame Web or Rush Hour 2?
I love watching movies flop. It’s a lot more entertaining than the movies.
Get a FREE FREE FREE autographed bookplate if you purchase John Nolte’s debut novel, Borrowed Time (Bombardier Books).
“This novel is a high-wire narrative that meditates on life and death and God’s eternal presence.… I read this book in one sitting and look forward to reading it again… This is, quite simply, a great American novel.” — Robert Avrech, Emmy-winning Screenwriter Body Double, A Stranger Among Us.
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HAS DISNEY GONE WOKE FASCIST???
Disney Hit with Federal Civil Rights Complaint over DEI — Alleges Discrimination Against White Men, Christians, and Jews
The Walt Disney Company has been hit with a federal civil rights complaint alleging the company’s DEI policies are unlawful and discriminate against white American men, Christians, and Jews.
America First Legal filed the complaint against Disney on Wednesday. The group cited publicly available documents published on Disney’s official sites as well as leaked internal documents showing how executives have made diversity, equity, and inclusion a central part of Disney’s hiring practices.
“It is sad and tragic that a company whose name was once synonymous with wholesome and charming childhood fantasies is now dedicated to spreading divisive bigotry. We urge Disney to cease and desist its unlawful and destructive conduct at once,” said Stephen Miller, president of America First Legal and former Trump administration official.
At the heart of America First Legal’s argument is that Disney has implemented de-facto quotas in its hiring, which violates employment law.
These quotas are often disguised as “diversity and inclusion policies” but in some cases, Disney has publicly listed actual percentages when it comes to hiring for its productions.
Among the published quotas is the goal that 50 percent of Disney’s TV series directors must come from “underrepresented groups.”
“It is patently unlawful to consider racial, ethnic, and sex-based characteristics in hiring, training, compensation, and promotion,” America First Legal said in its complaint. “Decades of case law have held that policies that impose racial balancing or quotas in employment, training, or recruitment, such as those presented on Disney’s websites, are prohibited.”
The complaint also cites a leaked internal Disney document that was published by Elon Musk on X.
The document is a Frequently Asked Questions (“FAQ”) on Disney’s “Inclusion Standards,” which describes the company’s intention “to increase training and development opportunities for members of underrepresented groups.”
“Based on its own public admissions, it appears that Disney is knowingly and intentionally violating federal civil rights laws,” the complaint states.
Follow David Ng on Twitter @HeyItsDavidNg. Have a tip? Contact me at dng@breitbart.
ISN'T AMERICA GETTING SICK OF HOLLYWEIRD????
2024 is just getting started - it falls apart over funding and diversity.
I never thought I’d see
There are days when I wake up in an America I hardly recognize. Some of that is my age, but much of it is astonishment. A part of me is thankful that my grandparents are not alive to witness what we all are. They would not have tolerated what we now take for granted.
I never thought I’d see….
- America in another Cold War with Russia.
- Cities ignore the law under the label of "Sanctuary Cities," then complain when illegal immigrants are sent there.
- Government officials conspiring with Big Tech to censor millions of Americans online.
- The Federal government human trafficking over a million illegal and undocumented people a year.
- A President who took deliberate actions to make the southern border weaker.
- Congress and the media labeling a protest as an “insurrection” while calling actual riots, “peaceful protests.”
- The American people turning a blind eye to a President who clearly is suffering from dementia and pretending that everything is all right.
- The intentional weaponization of the Federal Government against a vast swath of the American people.
- The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs stating that he would inform China if we opted to take military action against them.
- Our public schools being turned into indoctrination centers by one political party.
- Being told there are more than two sexes and that we had to agree to that or be ostracized.
- Extremists threatening the lives of Supreme Court justices.
- The FBI actively creating and taking part in crimes in order to make arrests.
- Schools arguing to make offensive material available to minors in their libraries.
- The government and a single political party attempt to take out an opposition candidate by charging him with trumped up crimes and civil action.
- The Labor Department fudging the numbers about unemployment claims and jobs on a monthly basis, only to quietly fix them later.
- Parents wanting to ensure their children’s education being targeted as, “domestic terrorists.”
- Men competing as women in sports as something that is acceptable.
- Governments trying to ban gas stoves, regulate air conditioners, and ban wood-fired ovens.
- Students taking out loans then demanding that they not have to pay the money back.
- Our military spending hours not training for war, but training on diversity and rooting out extremists.
- Mobs robbing stores because they know they won’t be arrested; and stores having to lock up items they sell out of fear of being robbed.
- Disney turning its back on family-centric content in favor of material that offends its largest customer base.
- Where one party can question election results with no ramifications, but anyone else is labeled a conspiracy theorist.
- Government officials picking and choosing what laws they will follow and which ones they will ignore.
- Americans still afraid of a virus four years after its outbreak.
- The President of the U.S. making citizens choose between being forced to take a shot of vaccine or losing their careers.
- Our government monitoring words used in the banking system to spy on us.
- An unarmed protester shot in the Capitol and the officer involved is promoted rather than brought to trial.
- The President declaring that the Constitution is fluid and subject to political interpretation.
- The ships of the U.S. Navy rusting.
- Chinese spy balloons flying across the U.S. and the government trying to hide that from us.
- Cocaine discovered in the White House and no one is charged.
- The President of the United States clearly having sold his position to profit his son and other members of the family.
- People getting worthless college degrees and blaming everyone else that they can’t find a job.
- Illegal immigrants being treated better than veterans.
- A government official in charge of nuclear material being arrested for stealing luggage and women’s dresses.
- Terrorists attack a staunch ally and members of Congress openly side with the terrorists.
- The most patriotic leader in the country coming from South Africa… Elon Musk.
- The Department of Justice state that the President willfully took and distributed classified material but won’t be charged because he is elderly and has poor memory.
If this is Build Back Better I’d like a refund and a recount.
Blaine Pardoe is a New York Times Bestselling and award-winning author cancelled by one of his publishers in 2022. He is a regular contributor to a number of conservative sites. His conservative political thriller series, Blue Dawn, includes A Most Uncivil War, Confederacy of Fear, and No Greater Tyranny. This series tells the story of the violent overthrow of the government by radical progressives. He also authors the bestselling military science fiction series, Land&Sea.
Report: Disney Outsourcing Some Animation to Canada amid Drastic Cost Cutting
In a blow to its reputation as an animation powerhouse, the Walt Disney Company is reportedly outsourcing some of its animation to Canada amid drastic budget cuts and layoffs as the once-formidable studio attempts to reverse its financial decline.
Disney Animation Studios is farming out animation work on Iwájú, a six-part series that debuts on Disney+ on February 28, according to a report from The Hollywood Reporter. The project reportedly marks the first time in its storied 100-year history that Disney Animation has outsourced to an independent studio rather than performing the work in-house.
The Canadian firm Cinesite is working on Iwájú at its Montreal offices.
Disney Animation is behind the movies Frozen, Zootopia, Big Hero Six, Moana, Strange World and last year’s Wish. The studio, which is separate from the Disney-owned Pixar, also produces animated series for the Disney+ streaming service, including Baymax.
Since its founding by Walt and Roy O. Disney in 1923, Disney Animation has prided itself as Hollywood’s premiere animation studio, pioneering the genre with such notable characters as Steamboat Willie, Snow White, Dumbo, and Bambi.
The studio was also behind four of Disney’s most treasured animated movies — The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King.
But the past couple of years have been tough for Disney Animation. Strange World was a major box office flop, and Wish also tanked with audiences.
Last year, Disney CEO Bob Iger enacted 7,000 layoffs worldwide as the company faced dire financial prospects. He also slashed spending by $7.5 billion, with another $2 billion in cuts in the works.
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Hollywood’s finances are collapsing, and it brought this on itself
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Hollywood is experiencing a disastrous winter. People aren’t going to the movies, opting instead to stay home. Obviously, part of the issue is streaming, which has upended the old business model. However, one cannot ignore the fact that today’s movies are awful, whether because they’re mechanical, recycled garbage, or because they’re preachy, painfully woke garbage. Watching a couple of movies from 51 and 50 years ago, respectively, will help you appreciate just how bad most modern movies really are.
Here’s the news from The Hollywood Reporter:
Domestic box office revenue year-to-date of $581.2 million is running 43 percent behind the average haul during the same time period in 2016-19, when movie ticket sales clocked in as high as $1.08 billion, according to data provided by Comscore for Jan. 1-Feb. 4.
Of that, January clocked in at $513.6 million, compared to $599 million in 2023 (a breakout hit last year was M3GAN, with more than $83 million in ticket sales domestically, while Avatar: The Way of Water contributed more than $210 million). Outside of the COVID-era years, $513.6 million is the lowest showing for January in more than 25 years.
These are not happy figures for Tinsel Town.
As noted, one of the obvious problems is competition from people’s own homes. They’ve already prepaid for Max (the old HBO), Paramount, Disney+, or any other streaming service to which they subscribe. Those are sunk costs, so staying home and watching movies on TV is much better than to shlep out to the theater. Add in the fact that two tickets are the same price as a one-month streaming subscription and that you don’t have to pay the babysitter, and going to the movies seems like an almost foolish thing to do.
Image made the Hollywood sign by Thomas Wolf, www.foto-tw.de (CC BY-SA 3.0) and an arrow by freepik.
And yet I went to the movies just two weeks ago because there’s a movie playing that I knew would be better on the big screen: Godzilla Minus One. This Japanese production, which cost only $10-15 million to make, has already raked in almost $110 million. That’s because it’s an absolute gem of a movie. Instead of focusing on ever wilder and more clinical special effects, this monster movie has actual character development. It’s no wonder that both critics and viewers on Rotten Tomatoes have given it a 98% rating. It’s the kind of movie that deserves to be seen in a big way and, obviously, people will pay for the pleasure.
The same was true a few years ago for Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick, which garnered a 96% Rotten Tomatoes rating from critics and a 99% rating from viewers. The movie had a huge budget compared to Godzilla Minus One ($170-177 million versus $10-15 million) but brought in almost $1.5 billion dollars!
What ties these two movies together is that their plots aren’t shoddy. The writers didn’t just dig into the recycling bin. Instead, they came up with fresh ideas, which the directors then presented in fresh, fun ways. And importantly, neither movie had a goal other than pure entertainment. They weren’t trying to shame or indoctrinate the audience. They weren’t posturing as important, “high brow” fare. Instead, they were clever, fun, and visually exciting films that benefitted from everything a movie theater can offer.
That’s really rare nowadays. The DC, Star Wars, and Marvel universes, like some giant fungi, have taken over Hollywood and sucked the life out of it. Big-budget movies have interchangeable actors, interchangeable plots, loud noises, and way too many computer-generated special effects. They are what artificial intelligence would do if artificial intelligence were making “blockbusters” (and that’s assuming, of course, that AI isn’t already doing the job). And the less said about the woke movies (whether comedies, dramas, or children’s fare), the better.
Hollywood was always about making money, but it once understood that it made money by offering a quality product that truly entertained people. I was reminded of that last night because The Sting is playing on TCM. It is a wonderful movie: the plot is remarkably clever, the actors are confident and without modern anguish, and the production values are just lovely.
Marvin Hamlisch’s score makes the movie, too. Nowadays, soundtracks are just mash-ups of pop songs, rap, screeching ballads, and really loud orchestral noises to bolster computer-generated action. Hamlisch, however, took Scott Joplin’s lovely (and, by then, forgotten) ragtime melodies and orchestrated them in unforgettable ways that tenderly or humorously support every scene.
The Sting entertains.
And then there’s Blazing Saddles, which celebrated its 50th Anniversary on February 7. That movie, more than any other artsy, intellectual, “meaningful” film, shattered the stupidity of racial prejudice. Mel Brooks had no fear about mocking everything, so there were no sacred cows. Within that context, he could freely ridicule the patently wrong idea that a person’s skin color is a value by which he or she should be judged.
The left, unsurprisingly, wishes Blazing Saddles would go away.
Incidentally, there will never be a “transgender” Blazing Saddles. Good comedy works because it exposes the truth behind our myths and prejudices. It’s what’s left once the sacred cows have been exposed as mere plastic idols.
Because “transgenderism” is itself a very fake cow (or bull), anyone who believes in it cannot mock it. That’s why, if you want to see a funny movie poking holes through that risible belief system, you need to check out The Daily Wire’s Lady Ballers. It’s not as good as Blazing Saddles (it’s a little too earnest), but for a first effort from a studio that’s ramping up, it’s pretty damn good.
New York’s $700 Million Annual Giveaway to Hollywood Is a Flop, Says State Report
New York taxpayers are getting the shaft yet again — this time in the form of the state’s annual $700 million giveaway to Hollywood in the form of tax incentives for TV and movie shoots.
A new report commissioned by the state found that the program is turning out to be a major flop. For every dollar the state gave in Hollywood tax breaks from 2018 through 2022, the program generated a paltry 15 cents in direct tax revenue.
Even when accounting for indirect and induced jobs — such as local vendors and suppliers who benefit from Hollywood productions — the return only rises to 31 cents on the dollar.
Gothamist was the first to discover the report, which the state posted without fanfare in late January.
The state’s report also found that most of the TV and movie productions taking advantage of the taxpayer-funded giveaway would have chosen New York even without the incentives.
Among the beneficiaries of New York taxpayer largesse is NBC’s Saturday Night Live, which has always broadcast from New York.e email you provide. You may unsubscribe at any time.
The report was commissioned by New York’s Department of Taxation and Finance, and was authored by the consulting firm PFM Group.
Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) and other Democrat state lawmakers have vigorously championed the Hollywood incentives, even increasing the amount by $280 million annually last year.
While they are intended to create jobs and juice local economies, state tax incentives for Hollywood productions are facing broadening skepticism about their efficacy.
One USC study found that despite nearly $10 billion in spending since 2002, the incentives have had “no statistically significant effects” on employment.
Democrats have tended to be in favor of Hollywood incentives, while Republicans see them as a waste of taxpayer money.
In addition to New York, states that offer significant tax breaks to Hollywood include Georgia, California, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Louisiana, and New Mexico.
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