ESPN pay cuts?

The Marvel franchise peaked (financially) with Endgame. Most of the programming since has attracted decent critical reviews but diminishing financial returns.

When the market moves it moves. See the diminished interest in The Hobbit and Fantastic Beasts series. (Granted, they weren’t great.) 25 years ago, kids read a hell of a lot more than they do now watched a lot more DVDs.

Now it’s phones, YouTube, Tik Tok and video games at a level that makes 1998 cringe.

 

Maybe they could start taking chances with new ideas on a regular basis, instead of never ending franchise extensions. Even Pixar has been reduced to remaking the same psychology seminar disguised as a cartoon 18 ways from Sunday.

 

I wonder if with Oppenheimer and the Napoleon movie being highly touted if we'll see historical figures become a thing. Always thought Teddy Roosevelt's life could be a franchise based on the life he lead.

 

There's got to be another reason why they've gone from nine movies that made at least $100M in 2023 to three so far this year. That's too short a span to account for a seismic shift in how people consume things. Maybe 2019 was a generational output...the final films (at least for now) in the Star Wars, Avengers, Toy Story & Frozen series, plus Lion King & Aladdin reboots. Can't do that every year. Maybe people are going to the movies less during the pandemic. But my six-year-old and all her friends went to see the Disney movies for kids in 2019, and they're all going to see the Disney movie for kids as 10-year-olds in 2023. Kids have had an increasing amount of distractions forever and Disney's forever kept their teeth sunk into kids as they turn into teenagers and adults.

 

Agreed.

They are going less for sure. But they went for Spider-Man Far From Home and Top Gun.

 

Wait,,, Tessitore survived all of the layoffs?!?

 

Late seeing this, and I do think that 2019 was probably a high water mark that's probably going to be impossible for Disney or anyone else to rival soon. But - I kind of think their recent is just "Hollywood as usual," to be honest. Or, well, corporations / business as usual. Almost anything popular will inspire sequels, re-runs, re-dos and reboots until the concept is fucked into the ground, to be replaced with something else. Hell, look at the Batman series - it has had multiple rise-fall cycles already, three or four. Its hard to proactively pivot away from a formula that's working in any field.

It looks like Barbie is going to make $500m, easily, in the vein of past efforts like Straight Outta Compton and Crazy Rich Asians (i.e. an average to very good sort of film that's aimed at a demographic that doesn't get many tentpole features). People are still going out to see shit, but most of Disney's efforts as of late have had the vibe of "here you go, more of the same." If the movie is actually good (GotG3), it does fine. If its kind of mid or worse though, well, people have seen enough of C+ superhero movies lately, and they don't feel as compelled to go. (I'm using "superhero" somewhat loosely here - I think Indy and FxF count as superhero movies, even if they star human beings, in theory.)

 

And Elle Duncan.

 

I'm sure there's one out there, but struggling to remember someone gainfully employed who is as bad as he is at every job he's had. Except maybe for that stupid game show thing - that seems to be right up his alley, though I've never watched it.

Whoever decided he should be the next pxp guy for MNF needs serious drug tests.

 

He may be the only one left who has called any boxing. And he's not that good at that.

 

Tessitore-Booger led me to the Espanol feed on ESPN2 during that time. I don’t know Spanish. “Passo Incompleto”.

Booger didn’t work on that team but I think he’s very good in-studio as an analyst.