Pro Tip for Hollywood: We're Customers, Not 'Fans'

8:40 PM · June 07, 2024

Excerpt Ace of Spades HQ acecomments.mu.nu

ComicsGate had a good point about the word fans: Don't call them "fans."

Call them what they are: Customers, or potential customers.

"Fans" suggests that people love you so much they will show up for whatever crap you churn out. "Customers" suggests you have to woo them and provide them with good value for money.

Hollywood would do well to correct its mindset. No one needs what they're selling. It's not fuel or food. It's a diversion.

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Author Commentary

Ed Morrissey Jun 7, 2024 8:40 PM ET

Clearly they need to do something different. The problem is more complicated, I think, because they think that fan service is the same as customer service, and at least for a segment of the market, that's correct. The numbers are terrible at the box office this year, but consider what it means to get $32 million in ticket sales in a four-day period (roughly Furiosa's take). It means you sold around 200,000 tickets, and that's not small potatoes. It's a decent niche market for a film in its opening bracket. If they had spent $32 million to make the film, everyone would be impressed.

But they spent ten times that amount, at least, when you factor in distribution and advertising -- so they're losing their shirts. They are spending absurd amounts of money on films that do service fans, but these are niche markets and they have been saturated with mediocre comic-book action films with no real emotional stakes. And they're not doing anything to expand the appeal, other than to "put a chick in it, make it gay, make it lame."