The death of oldpub and the implosion of Hollywood are two subjects that get a lot of play in the new counterculture. Newpub authors and anti-woke film critics alike have come to resemble End Times preachers interpreting the Book of Revelations to mean the eschaton is right around the corner.
Now, as some doomsday sect sooner or later will be, commentators who’ve predicted the end of the entertainment industry are being proven right.
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While the film industry has been dying of the same heart attck for 20 years now, the New York publishing cartel appears to be the first domino to fall. Decade-old predictions of the Big 5 devolving into a vanity press for celebrities have indeed come to pass, according to recent court testimony. Deadpub no longer has the pull to take a new author from obscurity to the A list.
How will the old publishing paradigm’s collapse affect Hollywood? Both obsolete institutions are losing their audiences fast, and they hae an incestuous relationship. Hollywood relies on best selling books to adapt into blockbusters, and the Big 5 pay what are essentially kickbacks to name actors by giving them sweetheart book deals.
Cartonnist Howard Tayler once told me that a property needs six million fans to justify a film adaptation. Sure, you get movies based on less popular IPs, but studio execs’ job is to come up with reasons not to make movies. If your novel series has a fan base of six million, a film adaptation of the first book is pretty much guaranteed to turn a profit, so they almost have to option the rights. Their problem now is finding new authors with audiences anywhere near that size.
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It’s reasonable to expect that in the near future, a successful author will have a readership numbering in the tens, or possibly hundreds of thousands. His sales may even rival the A list authors’. However, he’s unlikely to be a household name. We already have newpub authors anonymously making seven figures a year on Amazon.
Hollywood’s problem is that newpub authors making six figures despite selling 1/5 as many copies don’t make attractive fodder for their propaganda machine. This development may explain why the darlings of deadpub cozied up to booming Chinese studios to the tune of $1B at World Con, cementing the WSFS as a Chinese front company.
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The dire straits Hollywood now finds itself in gives the lie to both anti-Woke streamers who can’t see past a profit motive and Death Cultists who claim the studios are trying to expand their appeal. If diversity was good for business, China wouldn’t be eating Hollywood’s lunch.
But contra cockeyed optimist Conservatives, getting woke will not make Hollywood go broke. Like oldpub, the film industry will reduce itself to a zombie spreading the Wokeness plague. The studios’ ownership of Big Brand X IPs means they can get all the loans they want forever. So the fanatics in charge will keep desecrating the cultural icons of Christendom and replacing them with idols cast in their twisted image.
The silver lining is that, while Hollywood and deadpub will keep churning out Death Cult agitprop for the foreseeable future, audiences willing to pay to be insulted with keep dwindling. Remember that these woke institutions have been altogether repurposed to serve the cynical ruling regime. In the long run, the final fate of these legacy media organs is either getting bought out by foreign interests with no stake in the Western cult, or being dismantled by the confessional Christian state that rises from the ashes of the US.
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Amen. From your blog to God’s ear’s on the statement.
Six million?
You sure 270,000 wouldn’t do?