Will Barbie Save Hollywood? + Did ChatGPT Swipe from Fifty Shades of Grey?
Chainsaw Man porn parody outsells actual Chainsaw Man.
The Agenda:
Opinion/Links
Will Barbie save Hollywood? [Hollywood, IP, B2C, Toys]
“Movies just don't feel that special anymore.” [Hollywood]
The real costs of Across the Spider-Verse. [Hollywood]
Barney the Dinosaur returns for jaded thirty-somethings, Magic 8-ball, Hot Wheels and Uno movies. [Hollywood, IP, Toys]
Did ChatGPT swipe from Fifty Shades of Grey? [AI, IP]
Too much AI! [AI, B2C]
Chainsaw Man porn parody outsells actual Chainsaw Man. [Japan, IP]
Diablo debuts in the fashion world (I’m serious). [Gaming, Fashion/Luxury]
Amazon questions its streaming spending, but still spends. [Streaming]
Binance “unravels”. [Crypto]
Monday Motivation
“When you start walking, a road appears.” (Hamdi Ulukaya, founder, Chobani)
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Opinion/Links
Hollywood
Will Barbie save Hollywood? [Hollywood, IP, B2C, Toys]
The marketing blitz for the upcoming Barbie movie continues, this time targeting business and cultural elites. Both Bloomberg and The New Yorker have published deep dives on Barbie and parent company Mattel. Key things I want to highlight:
Mattel’s clearly-articulated “IP strategy”: Basically have the movie succeed to cross-sell existing and new products under the same brand. Rival Hasbro’s Transformers set the trend, but then again, Battleship the movie (guest-starring Rihanna) didn’t do so well. But now, audience behavior has changed, and IP is king. Not just Barbie, BTW, but also Mattel’s other IP, with 14 IP movies on the way (more on that below). The IP strategy is part of an overall corporate turnaround strategy (so far successful) in response to declining sales (and I would add overall attention competition), along with evolving the IP (more below).
Expanding the audience?: Barbie is directed by Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird, Little Women; who has now been tapped to direct a movie of the Narnia IP for Netflix), and has a PG-13 rating, despite the core toy buyers being 8-13 years old. The plot reportedly has a feminist slant. Why court a mature audience? One reason is because it worked with Transformers, which turned out to be a multi-generational hit (though not with the latest movie?). But Barbie has historically been a lightning rod for controversy, which brings me to my next point:
Social awareness: Based on the trailer, the plot has a very meta aspect to it (“If you love Barbie, this movie is for you. If you hate Barbie, this movie is for you.”). Mattel is clearly aware of what many people think about Barbie and, in this age of influencers and “authenticity”, looks to have an honest discussion with the public re: the Barbie IP, via the movie’s metacommentary. Which might be one reason why Barbie is trending on social media and is tracking for a good US box office opening. Of course, Mattel is walking a fine line and may risk damaging its #1 brand.
How does all this tie to the current state of Hollywood? In light of the string of flops so far this summer, if, in cases where traditional Hollywood can’t seem to sustain the IP, then maybe it should play the role of (co-)financier once a player from another industry decides to go into movies for its cross-platform IP, as in the case of Barbie, and maybe Super Mario before it.
[The bar is set higher, so the product must be better; Evolving the IP.]
“Movies just don't feel that special anymore.” [Hollywood]
More thoughts about the recent blockbuster flops. I agree with the Double Toasted podcast hosts. “Movies just don’t feel that special anymore”, and here are some reasons:
Too much supply.
High-quality alternatives (streaming, gaming, etc.).
Lookalikes: Many blockbusters are adhering to the same set of sensibilities…
Winners look unique: …which may be why the visually-dynamic Across the Spider-Verse was such a box office draw (more below), and may be why Barbie is trending. I’d add that The New Yorker deep dive on Barbie/Mattel also mentioned Barbie’s “pink-plastic aesthetic”.
Maybe it’s the mangaka/fine artist in me talking, but in a sea of near-infinite supply of “content” (I hate that word), the most visually-electrifying stuff will immediately stick out. But there may be a cost to that:
[The bar is set higher, so the product must be better.]
The real costs of Across the Spider-Verse. [Hollywood]
Across the Spider-Verse was undoubtedly an animated masterpiece. But at a cost. Reportedly, working conditions for the movie where unsustainable. Furthermore, per Dan Murrell, there are rumors that Spider-Verse’s production budget was actually higher than believed. I bring this up because the the estimated USD 100M is the same as that of Super Mario, despite Spider-Verse being about 45 min. longer and featuring multiple animation styles. Hmm…
[The bar is set higher, so the product must be better.]
Barney the Dinosaur returns for jaded thirty-somethings, Magic 8-ball, Hot Wheels and Uno movies. [Hollywood, IP, Toys]
Aside from Barbie, Mattel has 14 other movies planned. And the Barney movie, aimed at thirty-somethings, is an “A24-type” film…
[Evolving the IP.]
AI
Did ChatGPT swipe from Fifty Shades of Grey? [AI, IP]
Per Business Insider, it might be that a lot of fantasy and sci-fi IP - from Harry Potter to Dune to… Fifty Shades of Grey (oh, that’s a definitely a fantasy, all right) - form a significant part of GPT-4’s training data. This article came out end of May, and more recently, there’s been an IP lawsuit vs. OpenAI. Hmmmm…
[The importance of IP in the digital economy.]
Too much AI! [AI, B2C]
Reportedly, companies are overwhelmed by the “avalanche” gen AI offerings, and are trying to determine which ones are useful for them, and how they would integrate with each other.
Japan
Chainsaw Man porn parody outsells actual Chainsaw Man. [Japan, IP]
Chainsaw Man is a popular anime about a guy who has chainsaws for a head and hands. Now, there’s a porn parody, where, instead of chainsaws, dildos! Let your imagination run wild with that. ^_^
Apparently the parody blu-ray sold five times more than the original IP’s in their respective first week of release. Why the relatively poor sales of the original? The anime might not have been as faithful an adaptation of the original manga. Like I said last week, being on-brand is important.
[Evolving the IP.]
Gaming
Diablo debuts in the fashion world (I’m serious). [Gaming, Fashion/Luxury]
Hell was a guest at Milan Fashion Week!
[Everything is moving toward entertainment.]
Streaming
Amazon questions its streaming spending, but still spends. [Streaming]
Amazon’s CEO is taking a closer look at its streaming spending. It’s also worth noting that there have been some highly-publicized misses. There’s also some talk in Hollywood that Amazon has no idea how Hollywood works. But Amazon is still continuing to invest.
In my biased POV, people are writing off the importance of entertainment to Amazon. After all, it looks like competition is heating up in e-commerce, and, although AWS is profitable, Google is willing to lose money in the cloud business. IP is a way to differentiate.
[The importance of IP in the digital economy.]
Crypto
Binance “unravels”. [Crypto]
Monday Motivation
“When you start walking, a road appears.” (Hamdi Ulukaya, founder, Chobani)
Take it from an immigrant who took out a loan to buy a whole factory, despite the protestations of people around him. Five years later, a massive success.
GO FOR IT! REACH YOUR GOAL!