Hacker Cinema
Avengers: Infinity War
2018 · Film · 149 min
Part of The Avengers Collection
Directed by Anthony Russo, Joe Russo
AdventureActionScience Fiction
As the Avengers and their allies have continued to protect the world from threats too large for any one hero to handle, a new danger has emerged from the cosmic shadows: Thanos. A despot of intergalactic infamy, his goal is to collect all six Infinity Stones, artifacts of unimaginable power, and use them to inflict his twisted will on all of reality. Everything the Avengers have fought for has led up to this moment - the fate of Earth and existence itself has never been more uncertain.
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37 comments on Hacker News
> like in Infinity War
Referencing Marvel movies in one's description of proposed military hardware is not only immediately discrediting but also a good sign that self-reflection is in order.
Sure, no problem, never bothered by disagreement over art/entertainment. I appreciate the perspective. And sure, I’d not put many of these near the tier of, say, a Godfather or a Passion of Joan of Arc. Only a few anywhere near an Alien, for that matter.
> That’s why the snap at the end of Avengers: Infinity War was spectacle but didn’t have the emotional impact of a single deer being shot at the beginning of Bambi.
God, truth, and all the more effective a comparison for me because I happened to re-watch Bambi within the last week.
Marvel movies rarely achieve even that lesser connection, maybe a half-dozen times in the thirty-whatever movies.
Personally when I notice the acting the movie has already failed at something else. The Lighthouse’s acting stands out to me because the movie’s attempts at suspense fail. I quickly found it hard to avoid engaging with nuances of the films creation as an intellectual exercise rather than the film itself.
At the other end of the spectrum there’s a ton of movies with child actors where the kids are just vastly less talented, so the film simply demands less of them. It’s just as true of Let the Right One In a low budget foreign film as it is high budget films such as Harry Potter or classics like The Shinning. Characters come to life not through great acting but because all the elements line up so you forget you’re looking at puppets at the puppet show.
IMO, Great movies are all about understanding the limitations of the medium, the audience, characters, budget, script, etc. That’s why the snap at the end of Avengers: Infinity War was spectacle but didn’t have the emotional impact of a single deer being shot at the beginning of Bambi.
/soapbox
Again not that you’re wrong, but I was thinking about your response for a while.
Georgia has ranked #2 in US film production by some metrics, and it continues to steal hundreds of productions from California every year [1].
Last year Georgia was host to nearly 500 movies and TV shows [2], and has been extensively used for some of the biggest hits and blockbusters: Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Black Panther, Stranger Things, The Waking Dead, Ozark, Halt and Catch Fire, etc.
Disney, Marvel, and Netflix have major productions here. Winona Ryder was even my downstairs neighbor for a bit during the Stranger Things shoot.
Last year they built a fake White Castle a few blocks from me and then tore it down about a month later [3]. It was so disappointing as everyone was hoping for a real White Castle.
[1] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/canada-georgia-benefit-most-from-california-runaway-productions-1235115921/
[2] https://www.gpb.org/news/2022/08/01/georgia-film-industry-sets-another-economic-impact-record
[3] https://atlanta.urbanize.city/post/white-castle-edgewood-avenue-downtown-disney-filming
The studios milked the trend for what it was worth, all the way to audience exhaustion.
All the while putting out each movie crappier than the previous, towards the stupid buildup to Infinity War (the epitome of tedious formulaic crap), with very few exceptions (for example Logan which at least was a little more gritty or Thor Ragnarok which had camp humor).
They also never took any chances, or tried to put a real director in charge as opposed to some studio committee (again, with very few exceptions).
Same goes for the Star Wars franchise, once the stuff of nerd dreams, and now more like "what, another SW universe movie out, jesus...".
I suspect it has something to do with Feige pushing out the Russo brothers who seemed to make most of the better MCU films (Captain America 2, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers Infinity War and End Game). After that Feige started putting out movies like the Eternals that were terrible. Nearly all of the tv shows are bad... they lost any quality control. Only Loki and Guardians of the Galaxy have been as good as the films that came out prior to End Game.
The milestones (from the source code):
//<10 seconds 'A single frame of a film': 100ms, 'It would take light to go around the Earth': 133ms, 'A blink of an eye': 400ms, 'The time it takes light to reach Earth from the moon': 1255ms, 'The fastest Formula 1 pit stop': 1820ms, 'The fastest 1/4 mile drag race time': 3580ms, 'The fastest Rubik\'s cube solve': 4221ms, 'The fastest 40-yard time at the NFL Combine': 4240ms, 'The fastest 1 liter beer chug': 4370ms, 'A skippable Youtube ad': 5000ms, 'A full bull ride': 8000ms, 'The fastest 100m sprint': 9580ms, //10 Seconds 'The Wright Brothers first flight': 12000ms, 'The fastest 200m sprint': 19190ms, 'The fastest 50m freestyle swim lap': 21300ms, 'The Westminster Kennel Club dog agility record': 28440ms, 'A typical television ad': 30000ms, 'The fastest NASCAR lap at Daytona': 40364ms, 'The fastest 400m sprint': 43030ms, 'The fastest NASCAR lap at Talladega': 44270ms, 'The fastest 100m freestyle swim lap': 47050ms, //1 Minute '"Just a minute"': 60000ms, 'The fastest Formula 1 lap at Monaco': 74260ms, 'The fastest Formula 1 lap at Monza': 81046ms, 'The fastest 800m sprint': 100910ms, 'The fastest 200m freestyle swim lap': 102960ms, 'The fastest Kentucky Derby time': 119400ms, 'An NHL penalty box time for slashing, tripping, or holding': 120000ms, 'How long it takes to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge (without traffic)': 135000ms, 'The duration of the "Millenium Force" roller coaster': 140000ms, 'The longest Super Bowl national anthem': 156000ms, 'One round of a boxing match': 180000ms, 'The average song length on Spotify': 183000ms, 'The fastest 1,500m run': 206000ms, 'The song "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley': 215000ms, 'The fastest 400m freestyle swim lap': 220140ms, 'The fastest 1 mile run': 223130ms, 'The duration of the "Steel Dragon" roller coaster': 240000ms, 'The duration of "The Beast" roller coaster': 250000ms, 'The song "4:33" by John Cage': 273000ms, 'The longest sky diving freefall': 276000ms, 'The Any% speedrun of Super Mario Bros for NES': 294948ms, //5 Minutes 'An NHL penalty box time for fighting': 300000ms, 'The average duration of a typical sky dive': 330000ms, 'The average time for a drive-thru order': 356800ms, 'The time it takes Jeff Bezos to make $1 million': 402000ms, 'The fastest race car lap around the Nurburgring': 403300ms, 'The time it takes light to reach Earth from the sun': 500000ms, 'The time it takes a rocket ship to reach outer space': 510000ms, 'A typical marching band show': 515000ms, //10 Minutes 'The length of the first space walk': 600000ms, 'The longest a human has held their breath (non-oxygen assisted)': 695000ms, 'The average duration of popular Youtube videos': 702000ms, 'The time it takes an average human to walk 1km': 710000ms, 'The fastest 5K run': 757350ms, 'The average time to bake a pizza': 810000ms, '1% of the entire day': 864000ms, //15 Minutes 'A typical commute in the United States': 960000ms, 'The fastest superbike lap of the Isle of Man TT': 1002778ms, "MLK's \"I Have A Dream\" Speech": 1020000ms, 'An average baseball inning': 1200000ms, 'The song "2112" by Rush': 1233000ms, 'The first angels to appear in the movie "Angels in the Outfield" (1994)': 1275000ms, 'An episode of The Office, Seinfeld, or Rick & Morty': 1320000ms, 'The time it takes to drive the entire Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel': 1380000ms, 'The song "Octavarium" by Dream Theater': 1440000ms, 'A typical Super Bowl halftime show': 1500000ms, 'The fastest 10K run': 1584000ms, 'It takes for Bobby Boucher to get his first game snap in the movie "The Waterboy" (1998)': 1719000ms, //30 Minutes 'The average time to bake a cake': 1950000ms, 'The time it takes until the launch in the movie Apollo 13 (1995)': 2081000ms, 'It takes WALL-E to arrive at the Axiom in the movie "WALL-E" (2008)': 2164000ms, 'The shortest war in history (Anglo-Zanzibar War)': 2280000ms, 'It takes Harry Potter to arrive at Hogwarts in "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer\'s Stone" (2001)': 2381000ms, 'The album "Thriller" by 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Alanis Morissette': 3443000ms, 'The fastest half-marathon': 3451000ms, //1 Hour 'An episode of Top Gear': 3600000ms, 'The inception of Robert Fischer begins in the movie "Inception" (2010)': 3847000ms, 'Riding the longest subway line in NYC from Queens to Inwood': 3900000ms, 'The time it takes Jeff Bezos to make $10 million': 4017600ms, 'It takes before Sean Connery says "Welcome to the Rock" in the movie "The Rock" (1996)': 4022000ms, 'A flight from Syracuse to New York City': 4140000ms, '5% of the entire day': 4320000ms, 'The album "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" by Elton John': 4580000ms, 'The album "Scenes From A Memory" by Dream Theater': 4626000ms, 'The movie "Primer" (2004)': 4740000ms, 'It takes to fully charge a Tesla (at 440V)': 4788000ms, 'The ferry duration from Long Island, NY to New London, CT': 4800000ms, 'The movie "Toy Story" (1995)': 4860000ms, 'A drive from Syracuse, NY to Rochester, NY (87.5 miles)': 4920000ms, 'The movie "The Lion King" (1994)': 5280000ms, 'The longest State of the Union address': 5280000, //Duplicate time... //1.5 Hours 'The movie "Mony Python and the Holy Grail" (1975)': 5460000ms, 'The movie "Monsters, Inc." (2001)': 5520000ms, 'An average duration of a soccer game': 5700000ms, 'The movie "Reservoir Dogs" (1992)': 5940000ms, 'The longest Innaugural address': 6300000ms, 'A drive from Orlando, FL to Tampa, FL (84.6 miles)': 6660000ms, 'An SR-71 flight from New York City to London': 6896400ms, 'The movie "Alien" (1979)': 7020000ms, //2 Hours //'25% of a typical work day in the United States': 7200000ms, 'The average duration of an NCAA basketball game': 7200000ms, 'The movie "Star Wars: A New Hope" (1977)': 7260000ms, 'The fastest marathon time ever ran': 7299000ms, 'The time it takes to listen to every studio album by Nirvana': 7667000ms, 'The movie "Dogma" (1999)': 7680000ms, 'The average duration of an NBA basketball game': 7860000ms, 'The movie "The Matrix" (1999)': 8160000ms, 'The movie "Fight Club" (1999)': 8340000ms, 'The movie "The Shawshank Redemption" (1994)': 8520000ms, 'The movie "Forrest Gump" (1994)': 8520000ms, 'A drive from New York City to Philadelphia (94.6 miles)': 8520000ms, '10% of the entire day': 8640000ms, 'The movie "Inception" (2010)': 8880000ms, 'The movie "Avengers: Infinity War" (2018)': 8940000ms, 'The movie "Pulp Fiction" (1994)': 9240000ms, 'It takes Voyager 1 to travel 100,000 miles': 9360000ms, 'The movie "Avatar" (2009)': 9720000ms, 'The average duration of an NHL hockey game': 9750000ms, 'The movie "Saving Private Ryan" (1998)': 10140000ms, 'The movie "The Godfather" (1972)': 10500000ms, 'The movie "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" (2001)': 10680000ms, //3 Hours 'The average duration of an NFL football game': 10800000ms, 'The total time limit of the SATs': 10800000ms, 'The movie "Avengers: Endgame" (2019)': 10860000ms, 'The average duration of an MLB baseball game': 11280000ms, 'The time it takes for a standard ice cube to freeze in a freezer': 11700000ms, 'The movie "Titanic" (1997)': 12600000ms, 'A drive from Boston to New York City (215.9 miles)': 13560000ms, 'Alex Honnold\'s free solo climb of El Capitan': 14160000ms, //4 Hours 'Half of a typical work day in the United States': 14400000ms, 'The flight time from New York City to Los Angeles': 19800000ms, 'The time limit of one session of the Bar exam': 21600000ms, 'It takes Voyager 1 to travel 250,000 miles': 23400000ms, 'The fastest swimmer to cross the English Channel': 24900000ms, //>8 Hours 'A full typical work day in the United States': 28800000ms, '0.1% of an entire year': 31536000ms, 'The time it takes Jeff Bezos to make $100 million': 40173000ms, 'The time it takes to assemble a car': 57600000ms, '1% of an entire year': 315360000ms, 'It takes for the Lōʻihi volcano to rise above the surface of the ocean becoming a new Hawaiian island': Number.MAX_SAFE_INTEGER //285,616 years
Some kinds of film are just better with a big crowd. Comedies, often. Many horror movies. I'd say just about any Troma film is much better that way, as are many B-movies and cult classics. Even a few of the Marvel films have had a lot added to them by the theater experience, and hearing/seeing audience reactions (I'm thinking especially of Infinity War and Endgame).
Because those do have quality to them. Actors and directors people have heard of, no money held back on production budget, and people actually think they are good movies. Avengers infinity war has a 91% fan rating on rotten tomatoes and an 85% critic rating. These marvel movies aren't one offs, they are a constant cash cow of seemingly consistent quality in the eyes of their fans who fill these theaters.
Meanwhile with the halo series you just don't have that. No one has heard of the actors or directors. It's been widely panned by critics and fans. It probably will be cancelled before long once paramount can no longer ride off the success of the first episode which if it doesn't continue means people were baited into watching it with the Halo IP more than anything.
General population has terrible taste, movie studios are now buying fake audience reviews to pump the ratings, they also buy critics but I assume they've always done that. Pretty hard to argue that critics are out of touch when the general population votes Avengers: Infinity War a top 10 movie of all time when it's released.
I think marvel has actually gotten fairly good at fights and making them interesting to watch as a function of why the hero is unique tbh.
Throwing huge punches is bad. Firing arbitrary laser blasts is even worse. Especially when the consequences of being hit seem so trivial. But it can be done well. I think Thor Ragnarok is a good example of this.
This is the first movie in which both Thor and Hulk were actually shown as extremely strong with little more than just physical blows. What’s noteworthy is that most of the fights they’re in are very easy for them, and frankly it’s much more fun to watch them stylishly stomp 100 goons and look strong rather than incomprehensibly struggle to fend off 10 nobodies. Filmmakers tend to be afraid of having a fight scene without tension.
Avengers infinity war fight v. Thanos also comes to mind as a quick little highlight reel of each of a dozen characters special contributions. It comes across as competent and unique.
Off the top of my head, black panther, iron man 1,2,3, guardians of the galaxy 1,2, Shang chi, wandavision, earlier avengers, all felt particularly bad at this.
For perspective depending on how you count Disney+ is Disney’s 4th streaming service. Their all about making people pay as much as possible at the cost of convenience.
Avengers infinity war isn’t an exclusive on any of their streaming services making it’s cost to produce meaningless. Disney is all about milking content with ultra cheap sequels / derivatives and old content, that’s what’s going to be included on Disney+ not a new 100+M dollar film. Remember they have had several Cable channels for years they know how to make cheap content.
That said, they could easily pay for several big budget movies per year as Disney+ exclusives without upping it’s initial price. Instead they have zero interest in being good value for money rather than maximizing profits and minimizing risks.
Shang-Chi cost $150-200 million. Avengers: Infinity War cost double that. That’s just two of the many films they’ve produced over the past few years. Look at their upcoming schedule for Phase 4 [1]. It’s extremely aggressive! And that’s just Marvel cinematic universe films. It doesn’t include Star Wars or Pixar or any mainline Disney films, nor does it include any TV series.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Cinematic_Universe:_Phase_Four
I would comment as follows.
Iron Man - sort novel for setting marvel tone but mostly banal action movie
Iron Man 2 - banal action movie
Thor - banal action movie
Captain America: The First Avenger - particularly banal action movie
Marvel's The Avengers - banal action movie
Iron Man 3 - banal action movie, sort of interesting to see protagonist suffering PTSD anxiety from being a superhero
Thor: The Dark World - banal action movie
Captain America: The Winter Soldier - first interesting take. Patriotism is not the same as government obedience. Real fight choreography approaching a soft john wick.
Guardians of the Galaxy - Early rock and roll aesthetic pretty interesting
Avengers: Age of Ultron - banal action movie, perhaps mcu lowpoint
Ant-Man - superhero heist movie, literally deconstructs larger than life superhero tropes. I think thumbs up
Captain America: Civil War - by this point doing the mcu's own thing, which is novel, but probably not interesting outside
Doctor Strange - banal action movie
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 - aesthetic still feels mostly fresh.
Spider-Man: Homecoming - super down to earth high school drama, frustrated working class villains suffering the fallout of superheroes, seems interesting to me
Thor: Ragnarok - great film, very genre savvy. Rare achievement to make godly strength brutes feel really engaging to watch. Taika Waititi is a genius.
Black Panther - pretty good. interesting aesthetic. directly addressing racial tensions.
Avengers: Infinity War & Endgame - Mostly fan service and not too surprising but honestly still novel.
Ant-Man and the Wasp - Ehhh I really don't remember
Captain Marvel - Beginning had some great hard sci fi imo. Thought the ending message of newly apotheosizied female not needing to prove herself to her evil male mentor was a solid take, whereas a classic "mano a mano" kind of showdown would be so typical of the genre
Spider-Man: Far From Home - Villain emphasizing themes of the power of deceptive media? heck yeah.
Wandavision - Really bizarre and interesting start. Unfortunately non-self-aware conclusion
Falcon and Winter Soldier - Active discussions of race and the problematic nature of superheroes being supremacists? Very good.
Loki - kind of a super cliche topic (time cops) that is also somehow really rare? eh.
honorable mentions for Logan and Deadpool for being just great; and the Amazing Spiderman for its excellent aesthetics despite terrible writing.
> The incentives don't line up.
this is again "it takes one to tango" - the people create the incentives the studios follow. movies largely make money with sales volume. this is important; tickets arent more expensive for different movies, its strictly a numbers game (ignoring uncommon deals like toys and video games, etc). according to the first link i clicked, marvel's last movie infinity war grossed two BILLION dollars. you are simply wrong if you think some novel, avant-garde sundance indie is going to interest that many people.
the world is the way people want it to be. this is the tyranny of the majority. if we want non-incentivized things to exist, we're gonna have to invent new socioeconomic theories in this movie thread : )
Video games are the #1 entertainment choice for young people (born 1997-2007). TV and Movies are #5 on their list.[1] Avengers Infinity War is the most profitable movie and opened with a box office of $2B. So, $5B/yr for Fortnite doesn't seem wildly out of range to me for an ongoing entertainment property.
[1] https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2021-04-18/what-entertainment-does-gen-z-prefer-the-answer-isnt-good-for-hollywood
> No one has found the "page rank of movies/series" yet, so I think HBO has a better chance here.
I'm not so sure -- I think the problem is no one has deployed it.
As a consumer, what I want is: based on my viewing history and/or shows I've said I like, show me more shows/movies I'll like.
What I currently get is: shows/movies that are in a similar style and genre to what I've watched or liked. The algorithm doesn't seem to take into account "good" vs "bad" movies.
The result is if I just randomly pick some movie from Netflix's "Because you watched.." recommendation, there's a very high chance I'm going to end up watching something I don't like because it isn't good.
As a concrete example, I just went to Netflix movies. "Because you watched Avengers: Infinity War...". There are 6 movies on the first page, 2 of which I've seen and have high Rotten Tomato scores (they are both Indiana Jones movies, with 88% and 85%). The other 4 have RT scores of 31%, 27%, 12%, and 3%. (Don't get me wrong, there are movies I do like that have low RT scores, and there are movies with high RT scores that I don't like, but generally a bad movie is a bad movie and more often than not there's a correlation with RT scores.)
Even if I could filter by "RT score > 60%" that would cut down on a lot of garbage, even if it means I might miss a couple movies/shows I'd actually like. This would change my personal perception from "The vast majority of content on Netflix isn't really worth watching" to something more positive. Note I still subscribe despite this -- there's still ample worthwhile content. I just don't watch things based on Netflix's recommendations alone.
Certainly it is possible to come up with something better than that blunt filter. So the question is: why don't they?
SIGGRAPH is the ACM's special interest group on computer graphics, held annually. This SIGGRAPH course talks about how path-tracing / raytracing is used in production movies, including examples from some pretty big blockbusters (Avengers Infinity War, Endgame, Capt. Marvel, Spiderman: Homecoming, Alita: Battle Angel...)
I agree with your overall point, but your analogy doesn’t work that well for me. The Marvel movies (particularly the biggest of them) are insanely intricate and detailed and could only be created by both a huge team of talented performers, craftspeople, and technical experts, and a (probably smaller) executive team executing on a vision.
I still agree that there’s a difference in genre between, say, Avengers: Infinity War and Goodfellas, and I don’t know how to articulate precisely the difference, but I’m certain that the difference is not that the latter requires more talent or contains more details that reward multiple viewings.
Do we benefit from drawing lines between "cinema" and... whatever you might call a Marvel film? What do we call a Marvel film, if not "cinema"?
Further, why isn't anything at risk? Infinity War got about as close to real risk as any MCU film has so far, and I think if Mr. Scorsese watched that film he'd realize it's actually possible to create emotional drama within the context of a "Marvel Movie".
Also, are we really drawing the line arbitrarily at Marvel specifically? Where does "Joker" fit? Watchmen, The Dark Knight, Wonderwoman, 300, Scott Pilgrim, V for Vendetta? What about undeniably "Marvel" films like Logan, and Into the Spiderverse? Do we dismiss all media sourced from the pages of comics, or just the MCU specifically?
I ask both to make a rhetorical point, and because I genuinely don't understand. Mr. Scorsese writes this opinion piece like there's a shared understanding of what a "Marvel movie" is, but I don't know that there is such an understanding.
It's like Avengers: Infinity War, which is like Star Trek episode 13: The Conscience of the King. In reality it is a less hokey of a problem. It wouldn't be the people deciding to not put up the sunshade that would be the mass murderers, it would be the system in place that made such a conventionally attractive option off the table since it would cost more lives than it saved.
> But in the end, it would just be a translation app. It wouldn’t want to take over the world. It wouldn’t even “want” to become better at translating than it was already. It would just translate stuff really well.
> It could have media services that can write books or generate movies to fit your personal tastes.
I'm not an expert in this topic, but wouldn't you say that the ability to create compelling narratives (even more so than 'mechanical' translation between languages), pretty much relies on your ability to empathise at some level with people who want to take over the world or the people who want to stop them?
How would AI come up with the plot for one of the most profitable franchises in recent history - "Avengers: Infinity War" movies? It would have to be programmed with an understanding for Thanos' perspective, and the fundamental will of most everyone around him to be terrified of that and disagree - and even then it's not a good movie franchise without the romance and familial dynamics between so many characters.
If an AI can already understand all that (and know that it has to understand all that) - well you've created a pretty smart human already - and the OP's argument about differentiating these powers doesn't seem to hold...
It's not mass media who's paying for it, it's investors who are expecting a return on their monetary investment. Or, put another way, the people paying to have these movies and books made today have zero interest in the books and movies themselves, only the money to be made from their sale.
A patron, in comparison, is a single entity who is interested in the book, and who is capable of shelling out the $50,000 (a nice round number representing the salary for a good, but not great, writer and editor for the duration of getting the book produced) to have that book made. I'm not capable of doing that; I am guessing most people are not.
> it bears consideration whether the corporations who make things for profit are as good at creating such works
That's up to each person to decide. Is GRRM's Game of Thrones such a work? The Dark Tower series? Avengers Infinity War and Endgame?
Honestly, I think that yes, in many ways they are on par with or superior to books such as the Illiad and the Odyssey. They are absolutely better than Moby Dick.
For video there's Lightworks (https://www.lwks.com/), which was used for cutting Pulp Fiction and Wolf of Wall Street for example.
Da Vinci Resolve (https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/) is another professional video editor used for popular movies (Avengers: Infinity War, Deadpool 2 for example).
Both work on Linux.
> a world where it only costs $5 to instantly stream almost any movie ever created directly to your TV
Wait, where is this world you speak of?
I have a Netflix streaming subscription and it's way inferior in terms of selection to when I used their DVD mailing service ten years ago.
But it sounds like you're renting individual titles. I am a bit of a movie buff into old and slightly obscure titles so I went to Google Play and tried three of my old favorites from the 1990s off the top of my head. None of them were available. (I didn't even try the truly obscure stuff.)
On the other side of the market, Avengers: Infinity War is $10 to rent on Google Play!
Where is this place I can go where they have everything and it's all $5?
This made me think on a tangent, on whether divulging spoilers for an interactive experience have a heavier "stigma" than for books or movies. Five or 10 years from now, or even a month from now, I can't imagine being offended if someone were to spoil who dies in "Avengers: Infinity War", or the 3rd season of GoT. Whereas a video game is much more inherently about the "journey" -- e.g. you have to do some work to get to the end. I think I'd be annoyed if people were just spoiling "The Last of Us" 10 years after its release (which is likely to be after its sequel is released).
That said, I don't think I'll ever find time to play the original Shenmue. But hearing more details about why it has cultivated such a fond following makes me very interested in playing its Kickstarted sequel.
A large number (possibly all, but I didn't check) of those companies are global. Here are a few examples of how revenue breaks down for some (randomly chosen big) movies from some of the firms on the list.
AT&T owns Warner Bros, and makes things like Harry Potter. Picking one of the movies, I see that the US box office is only about 1/4 of the worldwide gross. [0]. Not to mention that AT&T is itself a global firm for upwards of a century.
Disney owns Marvel, which made Avengers Infinity War. A whopping 2/3 of that revenue came from outside the US [1].
Comcast owns Universal, which made Jurassic World. That movie had 61% of its revenue from outside the US [2].
CBS owns Paramount, which made Titanic. More than 2/3 of that revenue came from outside the US [3]. Of course, that was a massive movie - what about something like Shrek the 3rd? Interestingly, roughly 60% of that revenue came from outside the use as well [4]. Take a look at What Women Want, almost 20 years ago, and 1/2 of that revenue came from overseas [5].
Netflix is in over 190 countries, with more than 70 million subscribers outside the US. This is even more impressive when you realize that Netflix was US-only as recently as 2010 [6].
Obviously I could go on, but I think I made my point - US media companies dominate the globe for movies. I could also nitpick and note that they left off video games entirely, even though they are bigger than some of the companies on this list. But no matter how I slice it, it is not a local market, and hasn't been for years. Hence my strong disagreement with your position.
[0] - https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=harrypotter72.htm
[1] - https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=marvel0518.htm
[2] - https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=jurassicpark4.htm
[3] - https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=titanic.htm
[4] - https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=shrek3.htm
[5] - https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=whatwomenwant.htm
[6] - https://hbr.org/2018/10/how-netflix-expanded-to-190-countries-in-7-years
I currently work with a largely European dev team and started getting up and 5am to have more work day overlap. The hardest thing for me was getting to sleep at 9pm because I’ve always struggled to get to sleep. Usually I have too much on my mind.
Turns out that necessity actually forced me to figure it out. I discovered that I can get to sleep if I turn on a movie that I’ve seen many times before because it basically keeps my mind from wandering.
Not kidding at all, for the last 4 months I’ve turned on Avengers Infinity War every night + the sleep timer on the TV. I’m usually out cold before “Launch 17-A” and I never make it past the Guardians scene that comes right after. Also have to sleep on my side.
I’m sure it sounds crazy but it’s the only thing I’ve found that consistently works.
No? Honestly kind of surprised Avengers: Infinity War didn't cross your radar. That movie was huge.
In all the documentaries I've seen (e.g. Robin Hood, Avengers Infinity War, etc.) blacksmiths are for spouting exposition and building the hero's super weapon montages.
Which is why Avengers: Infinity War (Thanos) was the only Marvel movie I ever liked.
First of all, the statistic you used is outdated.
https://www.billboard.com/files/media/01-GMR-graph-billboard-embed.jpg
You may not be aware, but on digital, they charge less for an album than LP and compact disc. So given the decline in sales of physical media, and the rise in streaming, (which they get paid next-to-nothing for, I might add,) along with the overall increase of non-streamed digital sales, they've absolutely gotten millions of new consumers. It's just cheaper now, because physical media has huge markups.
> People treat piracy as a victimless crime because the marginal cost of each item is zero. Imagine extending similar logic to a handbag. If you steal an LV purse you can’t afford, how do you measure damages? The $1,000 marginal cost to physically replicate the purse, or the $10,000 retail price? That basic logic doesn’t change as the marginal cost goes to zero.
It absolutely does; they aren't taking it from the publisher of the music, or an outlet for music, they're having it shared with them from the second-hand market. This allows no loss on the part of the publisher (and more importantly artist), no inefficiency in having to restock an item, and doesn't involve the publisher in any way.
It's not stealing, it's copying. If you steal something on physical media, you'll be making them lose something, and they'll have to replace it. If you copy something on digital media, they don't have to spend man-hours replacing something.
> The moral rationalizations don't really hold water. It's not like the music industry is out there lobbying to prevent competing content. Their whole business model is creating content that's so desirable that they are non-fungible--people won't settle for a slightly different clone. Advances in digital technology have made it so the cost to create content is lower than ever. But people don't want just any superhero movie, want to see Wonder Woman or the Avengers: Infinity War.
There aren't live shows in the case of movies, and at those live shows the actors wouldn't be receiving the largest amount of currency for acting in them.
In the case of music?
The venue is far more generous with the split than the label is.
With music piracy, it has a very strong chance of increasing an artist's revenue from live sales, which is better for them than purchases of albums, anyway.
Also, it's worth noting that the EU ran a study on the effects of digital piracy just a few years ago; and their results were...
https://gizmodo.com/the-eu-suppressed-a-300-page-study-that-found-piracy-do-1818629537
...that in the case of games, piracy improved sales, in the case of movies, piracy decreased sales, and in the case of everything else, piracy had no effect on sales at all.
*
And I'm saying this as a person who buys LP and digital all the time.
Yeah, the Atlanta area is home to a lot of movies and TV shows at this point. There's even a huge movie studio built south of Atlanta (Pinewood, opened in 2014).
Most of the recent Marvell movies were shot here.
Recent films shot in Georgia include: Godzilla: King of Monsters, the Ant Man movies, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, Black Panther, Pitch Perfect 3, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House and Spider-Man: Homecoming.
Some television shows shot here: Stranger Things, Ozark, The Walking Dead, MacGuyver and Atlanta.
There's definitely a booming production industry in the Atlanta area.
I'm honestly surprised at the reactions here about the MCU. Are they pop movies that mostly adhere to a formula and tend to go for mass appeal over daring auteurship? Absolutely. These are big-budget tentpole films from Disney, they serve a corporate purpose, too.
But where they are not necessarily daring, they are at least challenging the genres they take on. Kevin Feige and co. have found a way in the 2010's to make blockbuster movies that have real heart, story, and messages. They don't hire the Michael Bays of the industry, but the James Gunns, Ryan Cooglers, and Taikas (and whoever is directing Captain Marvel, they're so under the radar that I don't remember their names). Infinity War was truly a spectacle; a roller coaster from beginning to end that gave its fans a new experience and a real punch to the gut. That takes guts. There has never been a movie of that scope & scale, with such a collection of actors, with such an enormous budget -- and it almost entirely focused on the story and character development, and let the big action grow from those two things.
Marvel's made the biggest movie franchise ever, and it's not from tricking audiences. This is what puts people in theater seats. Those of us who like "film" are staying at home to watch, more and more. What they've done sounds really hard to me. It's not apples-to-apples, but would anyone argue that, although strictly pop and mass appeal, the likes of Elvis, MJ, Madonna, and even Lady Gaga don't have their moments of real musicianship?
> When the company changed those rules to limit subscribers so they could only see a given movie once, no matter how long it runs in theaters, a support ticket stated, “we hope this will encourage you to see new movies and enjoy something different!” It turns out that was a blatant effort to cut costs, with today’s filing explaining that the move “enabled us to reduce our cash deficit during the first week of May 2018 by more than 35 [percent].”
> There are a lot of ways to read that percentage, and in MoviePass’ defense, the company has also said that the goal was to prevent people from using MoviePass to buy tickets for friends who aren’t subscribers. But either way, a savings of more than a third represents a radical shift. Couple that with the fact that the most popular movie the first week of May was Avengers: Infinity War, whose astounding box-office performance is driven by repeat visits, and the connection seems clearer — MoviePass is openly trying to save money by limiting features its customers actively use. It isn’t a “test” or an “experiment,” as the company has claimed in the past; it’s intentionally making the subscriptions people have already paid for less useful because its business model is unsustainable.
Getting rid of repeats saving 35% seems to point to some pretty widespread abuse. Who are these people seeing the same movie multiple times during its initial theater run?
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Method Studios is an award-winning international visual effects group with facilities in Los Angeles, Vancouver, New York, Sydney, Melbourne and Pune. We service high-end feature film, commercial, television, games and motion graphics to clients in the global marketplace. Some of our latest projects include Avengers: Infinity War,Black Panther, Thor: Ragnarok, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Okja.
We are hiring for the Core Developer position in the pipeline. As a core developer you will work in the backend dealing with asset management systems, render farms, disk management and a lot of other fun stuff. There are plenty of challenging problems to solve!
Our stack includes:
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If you have experience with some of the above and want to work in an amazing company drop me a line at raphael.silva [at] methodstudios [dot] com and I will make sure it gets in the right hands.
I think one of the big issues with the film industry today, and one thing Netflix addresses tangentially, is that all films should not be the same price. It's strange to me that a movie like 'Avengers Infinity War' is the same price as 'Super Troopers 2' or 'A Quiet Place'.
I consider myself a movie buff and I remember in the 90's, friends and I would go to movies as something to do. We wouldn't necessarily plan to go, but movies were a reasonable price < $10, we were bored, and you'd just go, see what piqued our interest, and give it a try. Now-a-days, movies are so expensive that it's almost an event and something you have to save for like concert tickets or sports tickets. Why would you take a risk on movie X, with middling reviews, when it costs so much? That's why so many middle of the road films seem to crash and burn so much more starkly these days, because people can't afford to take a chance on a potential stinker.
I think movies should have a scale for pricing, Infinity War costs $20 to see, but Super Troopers 2 costs $10 to see. Maybe they both start at $20, but over time, the price slowly declines until it leaves theaters based on how it's performing. After all, the goal for theaters is get butts in seats so they can sell concession food anyway.
Where Netflix really stands out is their incentive is entirely different. They have one goal, to keep subscribers from unsubscribing for another month. As a result, they hope that when you're bored and you turn on Netflix, something in their library catches your eye. Netflix has replaced the 'randomly going to a theater' experience and as a result, many movies that perform poorly in the theaters can thrive on the platform. Who cares if a movie is a 30% Rotten Tomatoes candidate, when it cost you nothing at the moment to watch it, and you have nothing better going on anyway. It's not an event, it's a way to pass some time. It's the new channel surfing...
All the film makers who end up being snobby about Netflix are missing the point entirely. Not all movies are suited for the $20, monster screen experience, and you can clearly see that with many experimental films crashing and burning hard in recent years. The cinema price is so prohibitive these days that a family doesn't take any risks, they save their money for huge tent poles where the rating is virtually guaranteed. That's a losing formula for experimental films who were never going to have broad appeal and it's a shame that a segment of the film industry seems hell-bent on standing in the way of that alternative outlet. They should embrace it with open arms.