What the Death of Mid-Sized Projects Means for the Entertainment Industry
By Movieguide® Contributor
The production of midsized video games is on the decline, leading to less ambition and creativity across the industry.
The video game industry currently sits at two extremes. The vast majority of projects are either $100 million titles built by massive teams that play it safe or are games built with no budget by teams of two or three. Both find success with consumers but have phased out the development of mid-sized games.
Under this model, the industry has become largely stagnant as larger studios refuse to take risks due to the cost of failure, leading to sequels and iterations of established IP that offer little change from previous games.
Meanwhile, indie game developers work on their projects for years without any guarantee of success. While the most popular indie games can generate incredible returns, only a handful of games a year from the indie scene break out to a mainstream audience.
Both avenues carry large downfalls that weigh heavily on game developers. The best thing for the industry’s health would be for a middle space where developers can test new ideas and mechanics while receiving support from larger studios who would reap the rewards of the success but also cover the losses on a failure. While this has existed in the past, it has been nearly completely phased out of the industry.
The same evolution has occurred across every sphere of entertainment, from music to TV to movies. Larger corporations have become too risk-averse and no longer fund unestablished projects, leaving smaller artists with little to no budget to move the industry forward creatively.
The death of the mid-size project has left a creativity wasteland, providing less and less variation for consumers to enjoy. This is, for example, largely the reason why numerous superhero movies are released every year, even though moviegoers are extremely weary of them.
While video games seem to be just entering into this unhealthy period of the industry’s cycle, movies and TV may be coming out of it thanks to streaming. In recent years, streaming services have been guilty of overspending on projects. However, within the past year, they have begun to focus on their bottom line and work to cut costs. A major avenue to do this is to work on mid-sized projects that are unlikely to find blockbuster success but can still turn a healthy profit.
This is especially the case with streaming services creating movies that are planned for a short run in theaters, further boosting their popularity. Apple’s AIR, for example, broke even at the box office, collecting $90 million on a $90 million budget. With its release on Apple TV+ shortly after its in-theater premiere, the project easily turned a profit as a whole.
With streaming services opening up to mid-sized movies, the health of the industry looks bright as up-and-coming cast and crew are given opportunities while creatives are given a chance to try out riskier ideas. Other entertainment spheres, such as music and video games, would do well to follow suit.
Movieguide® previously reported on the industry’s future:
While the entertainment industry still fights to recover from last year’s writers’ and actors’ strikes, Cineplex CEO Ellis Jacob believes 2024 will be a good year for theaters and theatergoers.
2024’s box office has had a bleak start. The most popular movie released so far this year is the MEAN GIRLS remake, which grossed just under $70 million domestically. However, as multiple movies later in the year have blockbuster potential, Jacob believes 2024 will be a good year for theaters.
“We are starting to see product coming back,” Jacob told The Hollywood Reporter. “Those are positive that point me in the right direction.”
He was encouraged by the announcement of two more major movies coming to theaters this year: MOANA 2 and MONKEY MAN. MOANA 2’s story was originally set to be a TV show before Disney turned it into a movie. MONKEY MAN was originally slated to release on Netflix before Universal acquired it to release in theaters.
- Content: +3Share:
- Content: +1