The Triple Crisis That’s Breaking Hollywood—and Changing the Future of Movies
4/24/20261 hr 11 min
Hollywood is in the middle of a triple crisis. You can measure it in tickets, jobs, and ideas. Start with tickets. The best year for the movie business this century was 2002, when Americans and Canadians bought 1.6 billion tickets, or about five per person. Last year, Americans bought half that number. Eighty years ago, the typical American went to the movies twice a month. Now they go about twice a year. Then there are the jobs. Studios are making fewer movies and shows than they did just a few years ago, and the projects they green-light are increasingly shot overseas, where governments hand out generous subsidies. According to The Wall Street Journal, employment in Hollywood has fallen 30 percent since 2022 across the hundreds of trades—actors, carpenters—that make film and television possible. And then there's the creativity problem. It's not just that studios keep reheating 20th-century IP. The stars are getting older, too. Among the 14 most important movie stars of this decade, the average age is 57. Half are over 60. None is under 45. Even many of Gen Z's favorite movie stars—the Rock, Ryan Reynolds, Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Denzel Washington—had hit films before Gen Z was born. Today's guest is Sean Fennessey, host of The Ringer's The Big Picture and author of the new Substack Projections. In an essay published this week, Sean argues that all the gloom is missing something real: Attendance is perking up, young stars are breaking through, and the auteurs we've followed for 20 years are ascending to the center of the culture. Today, Sean and Derek talk about the new rules of Hollywood and what they tell us about the changing winds of American culture. Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@PlainEnglishwithDerekThompson If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Sean Fennessey Producer: Devon Baroldi Additional Production Support: Ben Glicksman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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First 90 secondsSpeaker 00:00
[upbeat music] A rich life isn't a straight line to a destination on the horizon. Sometimes it takes an unexpected turn with detours, new possibilities- Cheers. And even another passenger- [baby cooing] Or three. And with one hundred years of navigating ups and downs, you can count on Edward Jones to help guide you through it all, because life is a winding path made rich by the people you walk it with. Let's find your rich together. Edward Jones, member SIPC.
Derek Thompson· Host0:34
This episode is brought to you by ServiceNow. Look, I have my dream job. I get to explain complicated ideas to folks who have better things to do than read white papers. But even dream jobs have not so dreamy parts, the stuff that gets in the way of the actual work. That's where ServiceNow's AI specialists come in. They don't just tell you what you should do about your busy work, they actually do it, start to finish. Cases closed, requests handled, no extra work for you. That way you and your team can spend more time on what matters, which for me is finding that one elusive stat that just makes everything click. To learn how to put AI to work for people, visit servicenow.com. Today, the new rules of American culture. There is a triple crisis facing Hollywood today. You can see it