Barry Diller Headed 2 Hollywood Studios. He
Now Says The Movie Business Is Dead
NPR,
by
David Gura
Original Article
Posted By: Dreadnought,
7/9/2021 1:06:49 AM
Barry Diller made his name in the film industry as the chairman and CEO of two Hollywood studios, Paramount Pictures and what was then 20th Century Fox. Now, he is declaring the industry dead.
"The movie business is over," Diller said in an exclusive interview with NPR on the sidelines of the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference, a media and technology conference in Idaho. "The movie business as before is finished and will never come back."
Yes, that has to do with a substantial decline in ticket sales and the closure of movie theaters during the coronavirus pandemic.
Reply 1 - Posted by:
Dreadnought 7/9/2021 1:08:10 AM (No. 839920)
When your business model is the rapid creation of a massive 'pay and forget' subscription platform dirt cheap 'woke' product works perfectly well for the resulting wasteland.
47 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
itsonlyme 7/9/2021 1:19:55 AM (No. 839923)
1. The majority of Hollywood "actors/actresses" are far-left swine.
2. It affects ticket sales
Class dismissed.
192 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
Aubreyesque 7/9/2021 1:24:32 AM (No. 839925)
Was just telling a good friend of mine whose passion has always been the cinema, especially in regards to silent film, that if Hollywood disappears altogether, we would all be JUST FINE, because we were all JUST FINE in the millennias before movies were invented. I said basically the same thing as Barry: it's OVER. Hollywood is DEAD. Burn Hollywood down.
86 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
GoodDeal 7/9/2021 1:35:56 AM (No. 839929)
Democrats are moonwalking and slapping high 5’s all around the Hall’s of congress. Mission accomplished banner going up in the House of Reps right behind Nasty Nancy. I’m sure the movie industry took all the stimulus money they could so I’m not concerned for their financial situation.
44 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
Bison65 7/9/2021 1:47:15 AM (No. 839932)
I have done all I could do to kill Hollywood. The last time I went to the movies was to see Dinesh D’Souza’s Hillarys’s America. I also have not watched any MSM TV in decades. No major league sports either. Canceled the left wing rag the Baltimore Sun 30 years ago. If they all die it will be a good thing fear the country. Lefties have done us a favor and not realized it.
92 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
jalo1951 7/9/2021 1:47:57 AM (No. 839934)
Yeah, yeah the virus killed Hollywood movies. The real reason is because the Hollywood types made such jackasses out of themselves that I believe at least half the country has no intention of giving them any of their hard earned money. If they hadn't believed that when ever they opened their mouths only wisdom spewed forth a lot of us would have happily gone back to the movies again. Ain't gonna happen. We always knew most were liberal but the virus stripped them of their ability to control their Hollywood elitism. They bit the hand that fed them.
110 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
web 7/9/2021 1:57:02 AM (No. 839938)
I haven't rented or bought a new movie for several years. There is nothing coming out I want to watch. Leftists and woke progressives ruin everything they touch. After reading most of all the Star Wars books, I know there is a long storyline that could be followed, but they had to make it "woke", with a female Jedi that I never heard of, killing off Han Solo, and other nonsense. Most of the world doesn't care about female, black, and gay heros. They lost most of their audience by pandering to their leftist fantasies.
100 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
kathleentexas 7/9/2021 2:19:43 AM (No. 839942)
In the ten years before covid, I went to see about 3 movies. I grew up going all the time. The quality and preachiness of the drivel coming from hollywood was a huge reason. The other reason I no longer enjoyed the movie theaters is because I didn't care much for having my ear drums blasted out.
86 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
hope27 7/9/2021 2:32:02 AM (No. 839944)
Awesome!! Haven't missed their "work" for years. Lack of work hasn't stopped them from running their big mouths.
Karma is a wonderful thing.
Finally, the self-righteous, hypocritical, Hollywood woke are going broke.
76 people like this.
Go woke. Go broke. Do they want a bailout ?
Not sure which I dislike the most- actors or the out of control people walking around in theaters and cell phones ringing. No thanks. I have hobbies.
36 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
PChristopher 7/9/2021 3:49:33 AM (No. 839964)
Gee, so the decline and fall of the movie business wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that you churn out garbage movies with thinly veiled and overt political propaganda? That wouldn't have anything to do with it?
102 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
mifla 7/9/2021 4:42:55 AM (No. 839969)
Rule Number 1: Don't alienate your customers.
109 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
anniebc 7/9/2021 5:14:11 AM (No. 839983)
Leftists are destroying all of our vices (TV, movies, sports, music), one could say, but they could actually be doing US a favor. We can return to the simple things in life such as spending more time with God and family, growing our own fruits, veggies, herbs, reading, self-educating, etc. Let's just keep them from taking US completely back to the dark ages. Leftists are insane, though; they're like rabid dogs.
73 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
doctorfixit 7/9/2021 5:21:39 AM (No. 839987)
Good riddance. Hollywood produces filth. Our sewage treatment plants are already overloaded.
63 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
Kitty Myers 7/9/2021 6:24:45 AM (No. 839999)
Hollywood committed suicide. It just doesn't know it yet.
79 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
Ida Lou Pino 7/9/2021 6:47:15 AM (No. 840005)
ZZZZZzzzzzz - -zzzzzzzz - -ZZZZZZzzzzzzzZZZZZZ - - chklogggg - - brfffgggg - - zzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZ - - - - - - -
23 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
Blue-Z-Anna 7/9/2021 6:53:46 AM (No. 840011)
Universities are next and for much the same reason.
Covert leftist propagandizing while neglecting job # 1.
91 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
envirodude 7/9/2021 6:57:46 AM (No. 840012)
How will all the deviants get their sex conquests? It’s easy when you have men and women willing to do anything on the casting couch. No wonder the kids turn out to be brain damaged liberals, they had to do unmentionable horrors or had unmentionable horrors done to them.
Every time I hear an idiot rant, these are the question I ask, ‘how badly were you injured because of the casting couch’? Is this why you are so angry? Because you let some gross fat man have his way with you? So you could land that part?
26 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
Lazyman 7/9/2021 7:19:42 AM (No. 840027)
Predictable agendas and mind controlling plots with the black man the hero and the white man a dumb guy, may turn some off. I'm with #5 and there are enough black and white movies out there that make logical sense.
25 people like this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
LaVallette 7/9/2021 7:30:11 AM (No. 840039)
Film making has morphed on from being the producers of escapist entertainment into a tool for the production of 'woke" social and political propaganda. Herr Reichminister Josef Goebbels would be pleased!!!!.
43 people like this.
They have been dead to me for decades!
24 people like this.
This is more good news. Hollywood has been nothing but garbage and propaganda for years.
Twenty years ago I went to see the movie "The Sum of All Fears," which was based on a great book (Tom Clancy) about Palestinian terrorists obtaining a small nuclear weapon and planning to place it outside The Super Bowl game. At the beginning of the movie, I realized the Palestinian characters had been changed to Austrian Neo-Nazis who wanted to create a fascist superstate. In other words, they changed the bad guys from Muslim terrorists to angry white males. I walked out 10 minutes into the movie.
49 people like this.
Reply 23 - Posted by:
Strike3 7/9/2021 7:55:45 AM (No. 840063)
Yes! This is the official confirmation for which we have been waiting. It's dead, Jim, and we have known it for several years. Don't even try to blame it on the coronavirus when your own activist, air-headed performers brought you down. Those idiots, combined with pure garbage and regurgitated vomit versions of older and better movies are my diagnosis. Enjoy the obscurity!
30 people like this.
Reply 24 - Posted by:
3XALADY 7/9/2021 8:00:16 AM (No. 840068)
My last movie was Fried Green Tomatoes or Throw Mama From The Train. They haven't gotten rich with my dollars.
17 people like this.
Reply 25 - Posted by:
Dodge Boy 7/9/2021 8:13:02 AM (No. 840082)
Gura, people are also pretty sick of a self-absorbed, zombie-like, and woke hollywood crowd. However, the last quality movie we saw where the cast consisted of real genuine people was The Trump Card and the movie house was almost full.
How can the movie industry survive? Hint: try starting with "The Trump Card: The Second Term".
16 people like this.
Reply 26 - Posted by:
udanja99 7/9/2021 8:15:49 AM (No. 840086)
The last movie I saw in a theater was American Sniper. And then I was hugely disappointed that Bradley Cooper played that role so well and then went on to hold a fund raiser for Hillary. You’d think he would have learned something from playing a real life major American hero.
And I haven’t watched television for about 20 years, though my husband keeps Turner Classic Movies on almost all day, every day. I hear it when I’m in the kitchen and catch glimpses as I walk through the room, but never sit down to watch anything. I’ll take a good book any day.
20 people like this.
Reply 27 - Posted by:
planetgeo 7/9/2021 8:19:42 AM (No. 840090)
They're woke, Jim...
Thanks, Bones...set your scanner to "Mulch".
16 people like this.
Reply 28 - Posted by:
Strike3 7/9/2021 8:22:59 AM (No. 840094)
Many people are going to miss paying thirty bucks for a terrible "woke" movie and a coke because they lack an imagination to find something better to do for two hours. A good walk with the dog provides me with more entertainment than hollywood does.
21 people like this.
Reply 29 - Posted by:
Speedypetey 7/9/2021 8:33:49 AM (No. 840103)
The last exciting fantasy was Avengers End Game and the last scifi was The Martian. Can you name the last action movie? Furious 9 is regurgitated theme. Drama or story based on true events there is nothing memorable. And look at what movies and actors won Oscars? Again nothing most of us paid money to see? The positive in all this is virus creators investors own AMC and Cinemark.
9 people like this.
Reply 30 - Posted by:
Rumblehog 7/9/2021 8:35:19 AM (No. 840104)
Murderer
9 people like this.
Remember some of the really great movies you saw growing up?
They don't make those anymore.
They make movies to please Maxine Waters, Brian Stelter and The Squad nowadays.
Good luck with that, chumps!
27 people like this.
Reply 32 - Posted by:
AltaD 7/9/2021 8:43:38 AM (No. 840113)
FTA: "These streaming services have been making something that they call 'movies,' " he said. "They ain't movies. They are some weird algorithmic process that has created things that last 100 minutes or so."
He's right. The movies that now premiere on streaming services rather than theaters are this era's "Movie of the Week".
15 people like this.
Reply 33 - Posted by:
red1066 7/9/2021 8:45:25 AM (No. 840119)
The movie business killed itself. The endless number of superhero movies turns off more than half of the movie going audience. Add in the price of tickets for this crap, and one has a recipe for failure. Plus, too many people just don't know how to act in a movie theater. They think they're at home. I just watched the movie "The Music Man". I remember my mother taking me and my sisters to see this movie when it first came out. It was an event, and I commented to my wife that they couldn't make this movie today. The amount of time it would take to produce this kind of film would be too expensive, that is if they could even find the amount of talent in Hollywood that would be required to make it. Today's movie audience wouldn't appreciate the time it took to produce it, or the level of talent in that kind of movie today.
20 people like this.
Reply 34 - Posted by:
LadyHen 7/9/2021 8:51:33 AM (No. 840124)
I am an old Hollywood fan, The 30's and 40's were that golden time and I know it will never come again. But I also know Hollywood has been a leftist bastion for close to 100 years. Difference is actors and actresses did not feel emboldened to spout their communist garbage to anyone and everyone 24/7 for most of that time and if they did, they were no longer actors and actresses.
Plus, QUALITY movies with real plots, good scripts, and honest to goodness ACTING were still being made up until even the 1990's and a few in the 2000's. But that just isn't anymore. Even today if someone was able to create a movie with an original story, heart, character, and good acting, the people would embrace it. People love a good story. Hollywood forgot that when they got "woke."
20 people like this.
Reply 35 - Posted by:
Zigrid 7/9/2021 8:52:04 AM (No. 840125)
I have invested in a very extensive private file library at my residence... I have all the "good/ole" films and favorite stars lined up for my viewing pleasure... so the commie left so called stars of today can kiss my grits...no netflexs and "controlled" viewing selections... I CHOOSE what I watch.. when I watch it... I'm ready to cancel cable... except for newsman and OAN and Breitbart...so I pay $80 bucks a month for a very few channels...thinking it over...
16 people like this.
Reply 36 - Posted by:
Laotzu 7/9/2021 8:57:41 AM (No. 840135)
Cinema is a mirror on Nation's soul. Who want's to look in the mirror when you're dying of cancer?
15 people like this.
Reply 37 - Posted by:
bighambone 7/9/2021 9:05:01 AM (No. 840145)
Not soon enough!
8 people like this.
Reply 38 - Posted by:
edgar 7/9/2021 9:09:40 AM (No. 840150)
Bad product will kill any industry. Know your marketplace.
20 people like this.
Reply 39 - Posted by:
Lawsy0 7/9/2021 9:11:15 AM (No. 840152)
Thanks for the great reference, #6. ''Bereft of life. He rests in peace. This is an Ex-parrot.'' May Hollywood sink into the La Brea Tar Pits and take the so-called talent with it.
14 people like this.
Reply 40 - Posted by:
lftrn97 7/9/2021 9:45:44 AM (No. 840196)
They still make movies?
7 people like this.
Reply 41 - Posted by:
rabblerouser 7/9/2021 9:46:07 AM (No. 840198)
The movies of the last 20-25 years (with a few exceptions) do not interest me. I have bought all of my favorite classic movies on DVD (to hell with "the cloud") and those are what I watch when I am in the mood for a movie.
7 people like this.
Reply 42 - Posted by:
WV.Hillbilly 7/9/2021 10:01:11 AM (No. 840214)
It's self inflicted.
Hollywood hasn't had an original idea in decades. Every movie is either a sequel, prequel, remake or reboot. Everything else is a comic book superhero movie made for grown, male nerd children. And now with woke politics being pushed in every film.
16 people like this.
Reply 43 - Posted by:
TJ54 7/9/2021 10:07:01 AM (No. 840223)
Leftwing loonism killed Hollyweird
17 people like this.
Reply 44 - Posted by:
MickTurn 7/9/2021 10:08:24 AM (No. 840227)
It's been dead from the neck up for many years...
9 people like this.
Reply 45 - Posted by:
little guy 7/9/2021 10:22:28 AM (No. 840246)
Movies that we grew up with have been "dead" now for decades. Where's this 79 year-old has-been been? Just like great musicals on Broadway have been replaced by techno junk and stories about misery and other dreck. Honestly, we have been in our local movie theater less times than the fingers on one hand since 2000.
What the under 40 crowd wants is video game speed because their attention span is now about 10 seconds and they can't follow a story line like "Ben Hur" or "My Fair Lady". The non-working class just cares about explosions and violence.
9 people like this.
Reply 46 - Posted by:
hope27 7/9/2021 10:26:10 AM (No. 840250)
I'm with you #34. Haven't been to a movie in over 10 years. Tried Netflix until they bought the kenyan and his "wife".
Rediscovered TCM and been introduced to the film noire genre. So fun and enjoyable. The industry may have been equally political as now, but they had the common sense to refrain from shoving it down my throat. Which is what elites refuse to embrace, common sense. I'd say RIP hollywood, but I wouldn't mean it. Instead, I'm dancing on their grave!
8 people like this.
Reply 47 - Posted by:
mc squared 7/9/2021 10:51:12 AM (No. 840281)
Last time Wifey & I went to the picture show was to see 'The Darkest Hour' about Churchill. Had to go out of town to see it in a small theater. I don't think it was a Hollywood production, either.
8 people like this.
Reply 48 - Posted by:
clayusmcret 7/9/2021 10:55:04 AM (No. 840286)
I think it has as much to do with so many of the hollywood elites going socialist. Americans don't want to pay to see communist jackalopes who increasingly (and openly) identify their audiences as willing idiots.
8 people like this.
Reply 49 - Posted by:
OK state mom 7/9/2021 11:14:54 AM (No. 840309)
The pendulum of life swings back and forth. Movies may have outlived their lifespan. If my mother were alive she'd be over 100. She use to tell me how she and her brothers would go to the movies in the very small rural town where they lived. It was all so new and compelling. Movie theaters just got bigger and bigger and disproportionately more expensive to make and watch. No longer could small towns financially support theaters. I live 30 miles from the closest one. Instead, I watch all the movies I care to watch in the comfort of my home.
It is sad because my mother's grandson is a movie junky. He loves the entire process: deciding what to see, going to the theater, buying the popcorn and watching it. He even bought stock in ACM Entertainment during the pandemic just to support them.
Movie making is moving out of Hollywood. Georgia is now a big movie making state. Oklahoma has made a growing share with "Killers of the Flower Moon" being made now (with APPLE making the "movie")Major A+ movie stars can live anywhere in the world and no longer locked into LA. California is not a business friendly state even for the movie industry.
In the end, Hollywood committed suicide. Covid just pulled the trigger.
8 people like this.
Reply 50 - Posted by:
mobyclik 7/9/2021 11:17:10 AM (No. 840314)
Just ask yourself a simple question: ''Will my life go on without Hollywood?'' You know the answer.
7 people like this.
Reply 51 - Posted by:
msts 7/9/2021 11:27:21 AM (No. 840330)
To explain how Hollywood was so mentally lazy and just a platfrm for movies no one watched or idiotic live cartoons, I took my kids to Karate Kid (2010). I showed them how Hollywood was being taken over by China. I showed them how the movie had to have a black single mother and one offspring who she "really really loved" The movie was no improvement over the original and aftre we left I asked them how they could see how mentally lazy Hollywood was. They gave a bunch of examples and I said no, no, no. Finally they asked what was the pinnacle lazy moment. The answer was that the movie was called Karate Kid. The kid learned Kung Fu.
10 people like this.
Reply 52 - Posted by:
cold porridge 7/9/2021 11:46:07 AM (No. 840346)
"Companies are trying to figure out what viewers want and how they want it. " To anyone with a brain, what viewers want is entertainers and entertainment. Not political know nothings with no acting skills. All Hollywood had to do was to tell their employees to keep their politics to themselves, but they couldn't do that. Dead to me too.
9 people like this.
Reply 53 - Posted by:
formerNYer 7/9/2021 12:03:04 PM (No. 840365)
It started with the traitor Hanoi Jane, all of sudden people started to realize that 'actors' weren't on the same page as us mere mortals, then came all the rest of the left wing slime-balls and people that couldn't think their way out of a paper bag telling us how stupid we were and not only that we're all racists!
Well they can keep their movies, I'll never step foot in a movie theater again.
11 people like this.
Reply 54 - Posted by:
Gazela 7/9/2021 1:23:27 PM (No. 840437)
Hollywood talks about having a profit motive, but almost all of its output is made to conform to “woke” pieties. Libs are bored by it, and conservatives are offended by it. I don’t know anyone who is particularly entertained by it.
8 people like this.
Reply 55 - Posted by:
stablemoney 7/9/2021 2:18:22 PM (No. 840486)
The left has destroyed the movie business, the retail business, the airline industry, the medical profession, the schools, the churches, the workplaces, and all society, as they have now achieved their goal of everyone hating everyone else.
7 people like this.
Reply 56 - Posted by:
Tomas57 7/9/2021 2:28:36 PM (No. 840494)
I love movies. Since I was a child. I made movies in high school. I was a film major. I've studied many great films.
For my entire life, great movies have thrilled me. But, these films were a very small percentage of Hollywood's output, and in fact the majority of them weren't made by Hollywood at all. Kubrick is at the top of my list.
Movies will always be made. As long as there are people who want to watch them, regardless of how stupid they are. When Barry Diller says, "Hollywood is dead," he is speaking of the location and it's content, not filmmaking.
Hollywood as an ideology is more than likely dead, but I'm suspicious of things being called "dead" before the leaves have turned brown on the headstone. I'm not seeing that.
If he's talking about the ideology and the pervasively progressive culture, I hope he's right. If he's talking about the movie-making industry as a creative and technical institution, I hope he's wrong.
6 people like this.
Reply 57 - Posted by:
Island Life 7/9/2021 6:06:57 PM (No. 840752)
Thank You Number 22. Well said. They were scared of the Arab Terrorists coming after them. And what is worse, they got the author, Tom Clancy, to go along with it. Therefore not only will I not recommend the movie, I will not recommend the book. Cowards all.
4 people like this.
Reply 58 - Posted by:
LazloHaride 7/9/2021 6:42:53 PM (No. 840783)
My wife and I have only watched Korean drama shows for the past few years. They are smart, sophisticated, complex and often funny. No politics! No BLM! No CRT! No Demorat screeching! And we don’t have a Korean gene between us. Oh—they also have a favorable view of the US, unlike the Hollywood liberals.
1 person likes this.
Reply 59 - Posted by:
Rather Read 7/9/2021 6:43:15 PM (No. 840784)
I have over 200 classic DVDs. So much better than modern crap
2 people like this.