It’s dinner time and I finally have a moment to jot down a few thoughts about the year in pop culture.
This was the year where Woke was supposedly closing up shop and the entertainment business was getting back to entertaining people. Not to be Negative Nancy but I regard this assessment as positively Doomcockian in its evidence-free optimism. DEI has fallen out of fashion and will have to have a completely, completely different name but beyond that acknowledgment, I’ve seen very little sign of a rollback. The companies are still as committed to their goals as they ever were, and the support systems are far from dismantled.
However, Hollywood has reeled it in a bit. The girl-boss theatrical releases appear to have sunsetted this year. There were a few girl boss flicks that were too far down the pipeline like Madam Webb and War of the Rohirrim but they were released with the minimum of publicity and marketing that was contractually required. If it was possible to excise the girl-bosses it was done as in Deadpool and Wolverine. We wouldn’t have heard about it at all except Tatiana Maslany screamed her head off about her scenes being cut out completely to include the Blu-Ray. Captain Marvel and She-Hulk were originally supposed to humiliate Deadpool and Wolverine in their own movie.
Disney Studios did better this year than last year. Granted they couldn’t have done worse than 2023 without going out of business. Inside Out 2 was a major hit, as was Deadpool, and Moana 2. Although, Moana 2 has ran out of steam given price increases across the board it’s $900 million would probably have been closer to $700 million a few years ago, which was about what the original did in 2016.
What saved Mickey’s bacon this year was Fox Studios. With some moderate performers like Alien Romulus, Fox has carried Disney Studios over the line into profit this year. Although, it does nothing to fill in the hole that was dug last year.
Warner Brothers has had a less-than-stellar year. Dune, Godzilla X Kong, and Beetlejuice 2 did all right, but there were a bunch of films like Joker 2 and Furiosa that lost money big time. This is probably why Zaslav has chosen to split the company thus dividing the absurd debt that was racked up during its purchase by AT&T between the two. The TV division will do fine but if DC doesn’t knock it out of the park, Warner Brothers could be in serious trouble by 2026.
Sony could have had a decent year if wasn’t for their Spider-Man spinoffs. All three bombed hugely. Sony is now out of the superhero business except for Spider-Man himself.
Despite ending the year on a positive note with Sonic 3 and Gladiator 2, Paramount had a very weak year. One that justifies the firing of its last CEO. I’ve got doubts about its new course but since it’s now just a hobby business for a billionaire’s kid I suppose it doesn’t matter.
Streaming
While the movies dialed the Woke back a bit, TV plowed ahead full steam. The Acolyte, Damsel, and Lord of the Rings: the Rings of Power were expensive failures whose only success at all was controversy. While the old fans didn’t care enough about the Acolyte to lift an eyelid, the new fans championed it with tears in their eyes. They howled in despair when Disney proved itself smarter than Amazon and outright canceled their public embarrassment.
The Olympics
If you wanted to see that Clownworld hasn’t given up on Woke yet you only had to look at the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. Although the games did provide some unintended comedy with the first and last Olympic break dancing competition. Pride goeth before a destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. Also, Ray Gunn was dumb. I mean look at what Hawk Tuah Girl did with her fifteen minutes, if she hadn’t made the huge mistake of getting into crypto when everyone else was getting out she’d still be riding high. Ray Gunn was the most famous woman on the planet and did nothing with it except wrap herself in the warm blanket of victimhood.
Gaming
If Vanguard and Black Rock sink money into something, that thing is doomed. First, it was movies, then streaming, and this year it was AAA gaming’s turn to Stuka itself into the ground. And this year was just a warm-up, next year is when the Bombing run really begins. This is the first year I didn’t bother with a single AAA release.
There was literally nothing that interested me.
That’s not to say that AA Gaming didn’t have a great year. The Koreans moved in big-time Stellar Blade and First Descendent were roasted for doing the unthinkable marketed attractive women. FFVII’s remaster also did much better than it was supposed to for some inexplicable reason.
The Concord disaster would normally have had the Gaming media bemoaning the death of live service gaming, because if such an amazing game like Concord couldn’t make it then the whole thing was doomed. But they couldn’t go with their spinal reflex of “if our Woke crap failed the entire market is dead,” because, glory for Super Earth, the Helldivers rescued the entire genre. Not that Helldivers 2 didn’t have an amazing and brutal year. Helldivers 1, had a peak player count of about 20,000, Arrowhead was hoping that with luck they could triple that number.
Helldivers 2 sold 12 million copies in the first three months. Then Sony sabotaged the game, then they kind of, sort of half-reversed it. It had died down to about 20,000 players but then came roaring back when the Illuminate attacked.
As for the indie gaming scene, it’s never been better. In some ways it’s back to the early days of the 1980s when just bros over brews could make something that knocked everyone’s socks off. Example, Iron Lung by Dusk creator David Symanski has (according to the internet) sold 69 million copies. It’s currently being made into indy film by YouTuber, Markiplier.
2024 proved to be a year when there was no point in getting wrapped around the axel about an old franchise. There’s something new ready to pop up in its place if you just go look for it.
Happy New Year
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