It’s worth pointing out that in today’s studio budgets, Oppenheimer ($100M) kind of IS a mid-budget picture.

But I certainly hope that you’re right, and we’re close to a turning point in the industry that allows for smaller, more creative movies to get made and get some attention.  Cinema is an art form and an…

It did strike me as strange when this site loaded that these two movies are like half the articles on whatever counts as front page here. I mean, right now there are more shows and films being released every day than ever before in history, and all the coverage still has to be about these two films? No wonder the…

At least the troll posts appear to be proofread.

And here’s the other thing— all the people you listed are most star in movies. But there’s something more ephemeral to the idea of a “movie star”, and it’s mostly been disappeared from the culture. I don’t know if it’s Twitter accessibility for our public figures, or the way popular culture has been divided into…

There’s definitely something to the idea that Cruise has become very particular about the projects he picks— he isn’t jumping onto stuff like Magnolia, Born on the Fourth of July, and Eyes Wide Shut any more. He had that phase for sure, but now he’s very much making “Tom Cruise” movies.

Even the Rock doesn’t really do it. Black Adam was a pretty serious disappointment, and that’s with it being part of the main DC universe.  He’s probably the next closest thing, though, and similar to Cruise in how he cultivates his projects pretty carefully to his range.

“David”? Gotta admit, that one went over my head.

Literally none of them will dependably open a movie that isn’t part of some other cinematic universe. Brad Pitt or Keanu Reeves are about the closest, and even they’ve had some big misses. Except for The Mummy, Cruise has had a pretty amazing track record the last ten years.

It’s a legit take. If you want to define a movie star as someone who can dependably open a movie solely by starring in a film, Tom Cruise is about it right now.

It’s also useful to compare it to the “old” model. In a network TV model, the same role and number of views would have led to probably thousands of dollars a year.

Fair enough

Even Disney doesn’t have the library unless you have kids to entertain.

Ironically, they’re the only streaming company making a profit at the moment.

Not the same thing, because of the underlying tech. Cable was literally a physical connection into your house. Netflix is a website, accessible from anywhere in the world.

This has been an absolute PR clusterfuck for them from the get-go, even setting aside the fact that they quite literally encouraged sharing…

Fucking Kinja.

They explicitly encouraged it:

This site can’t be bothered to spend 30 seconds proofreading articles they post, and you expect them to have a consistent style guide?

Mostly because Netflix actively, literally encouraged sharing passwords at one point:

Of which the film will probably have less to do with than the musical does.