12/16/2025
I took a step back from public posting for a while.
Not because I stopped thinking about the industry — but because I wanted to actually watch what was happening.
2025 was supposed to be the rebound year. Many of us even called it .
The question now is uncomfortable but unavoidable:
Did we survive… or did the business fundamentally change?
I wrote the piece below after watching the year play out in real time — box office wins, painful losses, vertical content outpacing expectations, and an industry still pretending this is all temporary.
The Entertainment Industry Isn’t “Back.” And Pretending Otherwise Is the Real Risk.
There’s no gentle way to say this: the film and television business is still in trouble.
Not collapsing overnight—but fundamentally destabilized in ways we’re only beginning to admit out loud.
And before anyone accuses me of nostalgia or pessimism, let me be clear: this isn’t about taste. Many of the films I’ll mention here are not “my kind of movie,” and clearly I wasn’t alone. Taste is irrelevant. Market signals are not.
For years, many of us rallied around the mantra —the belief that once the strikes, the bottlenecks, the pandemic aftershocks, and the streaming recalibration passed, the industry would rebound to something resembling its former self.
So here we are.
Has it?
The Wins Are Real — And So Is the Problem
Let’s acknowledge the obvious first.
There were major wins this year:
Zootopia 2
The Minecraft Movie
Lilo & Stitch
Jurassic Park: Rebirth
And the mildly successful Fantastic Four: First Steps
What do they all have in common?
Established IP.
Major studios.
Recognizable stars.
Massive budgets.
Global marketing machines.
And yet—even with those advantages—the year felt… fragile.
Not disastrous.
But far from healthy.
Because alongside those wins, we saw spectacular underperformance and outright failures that would have been unthinkable a decade ago.
Films like The Running Man (starring Glen Powell) and After the Hunt (with Julia Roberts) didn’t fail because audiences don’t like stars. They failed because stars alone are no longer a reason to leave the house.
I’ve seen both films. I can’t honestly say either was objectively “good.” They were competently made, professionally packaged—and forgettable.
And that distinction matters now more than ever.
When Even Inventive Films Struggle, We Have to Ask Why
What worries me more than the obvious flops are the films that should have worked creatively.
Take Predator: Badlands—a spectacularly inventive entry in a beloved franchise. Bold. Visually striking. Willing to take risks.
And yet, it underperformed.
Which raises a question we keep avoiding:
At what point does box office underperformance stop being a creative failure—and become a structural one?
Because the industry’s quiet shrug has become:
“Well, it was really for the streamer anyway.”
And that’s the tell.
Streaming Didn’t Just Change Distribution — It Changed Psychology
We are still in the streaming wars, but it’s fair to ask whether this was ever a war that could be “won.”
Netflix, the first real player, didn’t just disrupt the system—it trained audiences to expect the entire history of cinema at their fingertips, instantly, cheaply, and without friction.
That wasn’t piracy.
It was convenience.
And once that psychological shift happened, there was no going back.
Which brings us to the real battlefield.
The Only War Left Is the War for Attention
There is nothing more valuable in the modern economy than human attention.
Not IP.
Not stars.
Not budgets.
Attention shapes how we see the world, ourselves, and what we believe matters. That’s not a small thing. Not at all.
So when we ask why audiences hesitate to drive to a theater—pay for gas, parking, tickets, popcorn, snacks—and easily spend $150 for a family only to leave thinking, “Couldn’t we have just watched this at home?”—the answer isn’t mysterious.
We’ve all been there.
How many times have you been halfway through a movie and thought, “Where’s the remote?”
Guilty as charged.
The Elephant in the Room No One Wants to Talk About: Verticals
Now we get to the part that still makes people uncomfortable.
Vertical content.
Four years ago, at speaking engagement after speaking engagement—acting schools, industry panels, online lives—I said the same thing: vertical content wasn’t a fad. It was inevitable.
To the audience’s credit, I wasn’t laughed off stage.
But I did leave people stunned.
Because what I was predicting wasn’t growth—it was replacement.
Today, vertical content has outpaced the box office in attention, engagement, and cultural pe*******on.
What more proof do we need?
And in a world flooded with stunning AI-generated imagery, we have to ask an uncomfortable question:
Does the spectacle of something like Avatar still feel fantastical to the casual viewer?
Not because the human artistry isn’t there—it absolutely is—but because the audience can no longer tell the difference, or doesn’t feel the difference justifies the effort.
This week’s performance of Avatar: Fire and Ash will be revealing.
Comedy Might Be the Way Back — If We Let It Be
One of the films I’m most excited to see is Anaconda, starring Jack Black, Paul Rudd, and Thandiwe Newton.
Why?
Because it understands something crucial: that re-approaching IP through tone—especially comedy—might be the release valve this industry desperately needs.
Anaconda was always campy. Embracing that feels honest.
James Gunn has done something similar with superheroes, most notably this year’s Superman. And yes, despite being one of the highest-grossing films of the year, it’s technically still in the red once you factor in distribution fees, P&A, and backend costs.
That alone should tell us how broken the math has become.
So What Now?
We’re watching consolidation accelerate in real time.
The Netflix–Warner Bros. merger would have sounded unthinkable not long ago. Now it feels… logical.
And Paramount’s hostile takeover bid?
It just might succeed.
Not because anyone wants this outcome—but because scale has become survival.
The Question No One Is Asking (But Should Be)
If television went from “the vast wasteland” to the height of prestige storytelling…
Why are we so certain vertical content can’t follow the same path?
If you’re old enough to remember Quibi, you might dismiss the idea outright.
But maybe Jeffrey Katzenberg wasn’t wrong—just early.
The pandemic didn’t kill that idea.
It delayed its inevitability.
To me, that’s the most compelling question facing our industry right now.
Not how we go back—but how we move forward without pretending the ground beneath us hasn’t already shifted.
And whether we’re brave enough to meet audiences where they are… instead of demanding they come back to where we used to be.
I’m genuinely curious how others inside the business are processing this moment.
Are we still fighting the old war — or have we misunderstood the battlefield entirely?
