Culture is Boring: Part 2
Big Box Emphasizes Dependability
Last time we talked about culture’s obsession with over-optimization. Today we’re looking at the media landscape from the top down — how big box offices and streaming giants are homogenizing the content we consume.
Let’s get into it :)
As younger audiences devote more time to social media and short-form content — many of whom are doing so while simultaneously watching TV — and the streaming wars heat up, Hollywood studios are struggling to compete. What’s to be done to recapture and retain attention?
Rather than risk it with new creative endeavors, Hollywood has been putting its time and energy into world-building, with each of the top ten highest-grossing opening days in 2022 secured by sequels, spin-offs, or reboots. And it’s not just the usual superhero suspects from DC and Marvel. In 2022, the 10 highest grossing films by domestic box office included three Marvel sequels, three animated-film sequels, a reboot of a ’90s blockbuster, and a Batman spin-off. Top Gun: Maverick was the highest-grossing movie for the majority of 2022, only to be usurped in November by yet another sequel — Avatar: The Way of Water. Fans of the 2009 film need not wait another 14 years for the next release — plans are already in place for an Avatar 3, 4 and 5 in the coming years.
The familiar content has proved to be resonant with audiences, and most importantly profitable for increasingly risk-averse studios. But it’s reaching a point of uninspired exhaustion. Chartr calls it sequelitis. Day One Agency calls it fratigue:
when the constant and inevitable churn of franchise spinoffs fuels exhaustion instead of hype
“Blockbusters are kinda boring now, not because Hollywood is stupid, but because it got so smart,” writes Derek Thompson for the Atlantic. The intense focus on profitability amidst a crowded content space may have sapped the creativity from the industry.
On the flip side, award winning films — despite being categorically considered of a higher caliber — are struggling to capture audience attention (all the while award shows themselves struggle to retain relevance). The majority of adult consumers had only heard of 2 of the Oscars’ 10 best picture nominees in 2021. “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” by comparison, was known by nearly 78% of consumers and was watched by 31% — roughly 10 points higher than the 22% who saw “Don’t Look Up,” the most-watched title of all the nominees.
Unfortunately quality does not seem to translate to profitability, even if it is garnering significant attention and critical acclaim. Despite having won a Tony Award and Pultizer Prize, Broadway Show “A Strange Loop” closed after a shockingly short run due to issues with profitability. CNBC recently reported on how the typical Oscars box office bump has been steadily shrinking in the past few years. After the nomination announcements at the end of January, the 10 best picture nominees added just $82 million in domestic box office sales, $71 million of which came from “Avatar: The Way of Water.” — a sequel. For comparison, 2020 nominees generated around $201 million at the domestic box office after receiving nominations in January.
"It’s become riskier and riskier for studios to produce big-budget films," says Bob Woolsey, administrative and production manager at Vancouver Film School. "There’s too much competition from streaming services. Now that folks know they can watch something at home, they’re less compelled to go out and see something if it doesn’t really hook them.” And studios are also having to compete with social media. Oftentimes, young people are just watching the most attention-grabbing clips on platforms like TikTok — usually consumed piece-meal and out of order in a haphazard way that would likely make the creators of such films lose their sh*t.
More than just pure profit, it seems our cultural obsession with nostalgia is reaching a fever pitch. I spoke with Marketing Brew about this recently in their article “Have We Hit Peak Nostalgia?”. The rose-colored glasses of the past can be soothing amidst an anxiety-inducing few years, and as we stare down the barrel of a potential recession, it can be easier to just focus on what’s familiar by way of predictable content. But it seems that we are quickly approaching a point of “nostalgia burnout”. For every Squid Games or Everything Everywhere All At Once, it seems like there’s ten times the amount of content rooted in upcycled IP and pre-existing fandoms. While there is a time and place for comforting content, there’s still an appetite for diverse and dynamic storytelling. Right?
Wired’s aptly titled “Why We Hate Streaming” series documents the trials and tribulations of a repetitive media landscape and the all-but-inevitable law of diminishing returns when it comes to the constant iteration of beloved cinematic universes. Peter Rubin writes in his piece Exhaustion: A Star Wars Story:
“One thing I do know, after a lifetime of Trek and Potter and Who and Terminator and Batman and hearing that there are FIVE MORE AVATAR MOVIES COMING, is that every universe has a fulcrum. An inflection point at which enjoyment curdles into obligation. The longer that universe lasts, the more attenuated its stories become, and the harder it is to prevent that curdling.”
Content consumption — that of legacy franchises, reboots, revivals — seems to have gotten to a place of obligation rather than enjoyment. Despite having an unlimited diversity of content available, cultural obligations seem to hold us to keeping up with the lowest common denominator — the choice is either stay plugged in and up to date on the latest cinematic iterations or get ridiculed in the group chat.
Next up — the emphasis that social media places on virality over originality
Stay tuned :)