Gee, maybe spending $650 million on the most poorly-rated Star Wars TV show of all (while a $100 million D+ movie like Lilo & Stitch made that much at the box office in a single week) wasn't such a good idea...

I always assumed streaming was the more lucrative exhibition method because it bypassed the expensive manufacture and distribution of physical media.

But Doomcock points out an interesting fact -- a single series can't boost subscriptions as it is one series among many.

It will be interesting to see where this goes. I wonder if it will settle into downloaded purchases.

The other thing he points out is that there's no reason for one of these services, if a show IS successful, to necessarily keep it going and spend big money. It's why Netflix cuts bait on so many series after a single season.

To some degree, where they make money is selling it elsewhere: it's why Warner still licenses out movies to Netflix. They don't keep them all for HBO Max. Disney the same. Where there's still $$ to be made, they do it.

There was a huge rush to be THE FIRST to nab a huge streaming audience -- the audience was all trending that way and away from theaters, but it was artificially driven too because of COVID. So they all overspent their load and committed TOO MUCH too soon as it were.

Still, it is the future. Martin Scorsese says he's done going to the theater too, and it still feels like the theatrical marketplace is whistling past the graveyard at this stage -- with corps like Disney content to rehash their IP but offering little variety for adults especially in a boom-or-bust arena playing to diminishing returns.

Strange how the announcement for an upcoming sequel to an 80s film so savagely skewers Disney's endless beatings of a dead horse with remakes and sequels (although WB and Paramount get ribbed a bit as well)