Edit: Here’s the exact same clip on the standard YouTube Watch page.
courtesy of zagorath
Brandon Sanderson the fantasy author
For those uninterested in watching a youtube short (sorry), the theory is pretty simple:
COVID and the death of theatres broke the film industry’s controlled, simple and effective marketing pipeline (watch movie in theatres -> watch trailer before hand -> watch that tailer’s movie in theatres …) and so now films have the same problems books have always had which is that of finding a way to break through in a saturated market, grab people’s attention and find an audience. Not being experienced with this, the film industry is floundering.
In just this clip he doesn’t mention streaming and TV (perhaps he does in the full podcast), but that basically contributes to the same dynamic of saturation and noise.
Do note that Sanderson openly admits its a mostly unfounded theory.
For me personally, I’m not sure how effective the theatrical trailers have been in governing my movie watching choices for a long time. Certainly there was a time that they did. But since trailers went online (anyone remember Apple Trailers!?) it’s been through YouTube and online spaces like this.
Perhaps that’s relatively uncommon? Or perhaps COVID was just the straw that broke the camel’s back? Or maybe there’s a generational factor where now, compared to 10 years ago, the post X-Gen and “more online” demographic is relatively decisive of TV/Film sales?
I think it’s always been a fight by producers to reign in the power. Right now there’s a huge shakeup to the industry and almost no one has figured it out so the industry falls back on “safe” money tied up in producers and companies. If anything this shift should be better for independent creators as the Internet allows for more of a democratization of resources so it will probably swing back.
Also, I think this is probably a classic problem of confirmation bias, cause we have plenty of studios producing cheaper movies, A24 comes to mind. A lot of great directors and writers are taking risks on high-budget streaming series, people like Apple, Amazon, and HBO are throwing wads of cash at 1/2 season flops that are cool ideas, some of which hit big.
On top of that, we look back with rose-tinted glasses at the “glory days” of film when directors had more power than studios etc, but I would bet a lot that pound for pound the industry wasn’t nearly as proportionately experimental as it is today. Maybe we’re in a lull compared to recent years (maybe) but overall the trajectory is pretty steadily upwards.