Has television truly become that much better than Hollywood films?

[karatattoo]

When you look at the high quality of some TV programs, the argument could certainly be made that we now have a new Golden Age of TV, rivaling or exceeding the programming of the late 1940s to late 1950s.

There are also shows tackling unique subject matter in innovative ways. Could shows such as Dexter, Breaking Bad, The Sopranos or Mad Men have even been made back in the 1950s?

[AJBopp]

But the ONLY movies that make a significant profit nowadays are CGI Monsters and Explosions movies, CGI animated movies, and the occasional star-studded rom-com. Anything else... if you want people to watch your product, make a TV/streaming show.

This is a couple of years out of date but still relevant. The 20 Most Profitable Movies Of All Time

https://www.thecinemaholic.com/most-...e-movies-time/

[Powerboy]

This is a couple of years out of date but still relevant. The 20 Most Profitable Movies Of All Time

https://www.thecinemaholic.com/most-...e-movies-time/

That's interesting that low budget straight to video movies most people never saw, heard of or care about are the most profitable of all-time if we define profit as making vastly more than their budget and counting a multiple of that budget. For instance, "God's Not Dead" cost 2 million and made 62 million which is a profit of 3000% of its budget or more than 30 times what it cost. Of course, Endgame supposedly cost 600 million so we could say it's made over 200% profit so far or twice it's budget. Of course, it has really made about a billion dollars profit so far or more. So saying the movies listed on that site are really the 20 most profitable of all-time is more P.R. than reality.

[AJBopp]

That's interesting that low budget straight to video movies most people never saw, heard of or care about are the most profitable of all-time if we define profit as making vastly more than their budget and counting a multiple of that budget. For instance, "God's Not Dead" cost 2 million and made 62 million which is a profit of 3000% of its budget or more than 30 times what it cost. Of course, Endgame supposedly cost 600 million so we could say it's made over 200% profit so far or twice it's budget. Of course, it has really made about a billion dollars profit so far or more. So saying the movies listed on that site are really the 20 most profitable of all-time is more P.R. than reality.

Profit is literally defined as total revenue less total expenses.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/profit.asp

[Powerboy]

Profit is literally defined as total revenue less total expenses.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/profit.asp

So 60 million dollars after expenses is more than a billion dollars after expenses. Got it.

From a risk/ investment point of view, before you know how much a movie will make, I get it. From a practical point of view, profit *after* expenses, a billion is vastly more than 60 million.

Incidentally, that article only defines the various measurements of profit. It even implies that total dollar for dollar profit after expenses is the number one measurement of profit.

[AJBopp]

So 60 million dollars after expenses is more than a billion dollars after expenses. Got it.

From a risk/ investment point of view, before you know how much a movie will make, I get it. From a practical point of view, profit *after* expenses, a billion is vastly more than 60 million.

Incidentally, that article only defines the various measurements of profit. It even implies that total dollar for dollar profit after expenses is the number one measurement of profit.

You're confusing earnings and profit. They mean different things.

[Powerboy]

You're confusing earnings and profit. They mean different things.

From what I read, earnings are the amount of money left over after production costs while profits are what is left over after all expenses including costs that are not considered production costs. But that article goes further than that to make some really low budget movies (and some big ones) seem to be "The most profitable movies ever". For instance, total expense of 2 million and making 60 million is a 30 times profit margin or 3000% profit while spending a billion overall on everything and making two billion is a x2 profit or 200% profit. But it can still be profits, not earnings, and one movie made a profit of 60 million while another made a profit of a billion, over sixteen times as much profit. Which is why I said that site about the 20 most profitable movies is more P.R. than reality.

[AJBopp]

From what I read, earnings are the amount of money left over after production costs while profits are what is left over after all expenses including costs that are not considered production costs. But that article goes further than that to make some really low budget movies (and some big ones) seem to be "The most profitable movies ever". For instance, total expense of 2 million and making 60 million is a 30 times profit margin or 3000% profit while spending a billion overall on everything and making two billion is a x2 profit or 200% profit. But it can still be profits, not earnings, and one movie made a profit of 60 million while another made a profit of a billion, over sixteen times as much profit. Which is why I said that site about the 20 most profitable movies is more P.R. than reality.

Product A costs $1 to make and earns $3000. That's 3000% profitability, even if you only make and sell 1 of them.
Product B costs $1 to make and earns $400. That's 400% profitability, even if you make and sell 10,000 of them.

The original point was "the ONLY movies that make a significant profit nowadays are CGI Monsters and Explosions movies"

That's clearly not true. In fact the opposite is true. That doesn't mean those sorts of movies don't earn more money. But they are significantly less profitable than less expensive movies.

Words matter. It's not P.R. to be true.

[Powerboy]

Product A costs $1 to make and earns $3000. That's 3000% profitability, even if you only make and sell 1 of them.
Product B costs $1 to make and earns $400. That's 400% profitability, even if you make and sell 10,000 of them.

The original point was "the ONLY movies that make a significant profit nowadays are CGI Monsters and Explosions movies"

That's clearly not true. In fact the opposite is true. That doesn't mean those sorts of movies don't earn more money. But they are significantly less profitable than less expensive movies.

Words matter. It's not P.R. to be true.

My basic point is that every site I have read tells me that profit is how much a movie made after ALL expenses while earnings are how much a movie made after only production costs but not ALL expenses.

Product A costs one dollar to make and earns three thousand. Yes that's 3000% profit AND an actual profit of 2,999 dollars.

Product B costs a hundred dollars to make and earns a hundred thousand. That's one thousand times profit. But it's an actual profit of 99,900 dollars.

Or, playing math games in another way, Product B made a hundred times what Product A made after expenses.

That site would only be relevant if, say, "God's Not Dead" cost two million and made 62 million while Endgame cost 600 million and made 650 million. Then the real profit after ALL costs (which site after site tells me is the real definition of profit while the definition of earnings is amount made after only production costs but not all the costs) would be more for God's Not Dead than for Endgame.

It seems this is only of any relevance when someone simply does not want to do a big budget CGI movie but a "smaller" story and the only concern is will it make enough more than we spend on it to justify making it to the financial backers.

[kingaliencracker]

I don't watch a lot of television anymore. The problem I feel with television is that the longer you watch a television show, the higher the chances the writers will do something that will royally p*ss you off.

While you may see a bad movie, that experience will stay with you far less than the experience of a once beloved television show screwing something up.

[Powerboy]

I don't watch a lot of television anymore. The problem I feel with television is that the longer you watch a television show, the higher the chances the writers will do something that will royally p*ss you off.

While you may see a bad movie, that experience will stay with you far less than the experience of a once beloved television show screwing something up.

Back in the days of episodic television, that was less likely to happen. Nowadays, I think there is a greater need to shape things up or someone in charge just wants to.

Someone made a point earlier that it was streaming and other resources that made non-episodic shows more viable. I can remember the early days of non-episodic television when the complaint would be that if you miss one episode, you might as well just stop watching or that they preferred the concise story telling of the old days to the prime time soap opera craze. I know people now who wait for a season to be over or even an entire series if they have cliff hangar season finales. I know people who watched the first couple of episodes of the Flash, Arrow, Agents and so on to see if they were interested and will not watch beyond that until the series' are over.

But indeed, the current means of watching makes non-episodic shows viable. However, they also tend to drifty in a direction very different than how they started.

[Ptrvc]

The term I think your looking for is ROI (Return on Investment)

(Return-Cost)/Cost

I agree that Series have a lot of advantages over movies especially for adaptations of longer properties.

However there is a collorary were certain stories benefit from a bigger budget and smaller screentime. A television series can sometimes have way to much filler.

[Flash Gordon]

People look at Game of Thrones and think HBO is huge because GoT gets a 5.0 rating. But the next highest rated show is Westworld, with a 0.6. If you look at the ratings for the other HBO shows
they don't really do any better than the CW shows, some a lot worse. Total viewers are also similar to CW shows. So its not like a lot of people are going to watch something on HBO as compared
to how many people go out to see a movie. Consider Westworld has an average of 1.6 million viewers. Even Justice League had 25 million tickets sold. So if you want a lot of people to watch your
product, make a movie.

That's not true.

You might personally enjoy the CW, but they're in no way shape of form as successful as HBO. Nor do they reach the same audience or make the same money. HBO is a catalogue of content. You're subscribing to a service and enjoying premium content.

The CW are network soaps- made really cheap, and really fast. Different audiences.

[ChrisIII]

When you look at the high quality of some TV programs, the argument could certainly be made that we now have a new Golden Age of TV, rivaling or exceeding the programming of the late 1940s to late 1950s.

There are also shows tackling unique subject matter in innovative ways. Could shows such as Dexter, Breaking Bad, The Sopranos or Mad Men have even been made back in the 1950s?

Mad Men's pretty much a show largely about the sixties itself and some of the turmoil of that decade so outside of that context it doesn't really work. As for the others, there were a fair amount of crime dramas on TV even then, although probably much lighter on gore (attitudes on censorship in films and TV seemed to come and go at times, for example the Hayes Code on movies and the Wertham drama with comics; even in the early twentieth century there was a Thomas edison film that was controversial because two people *kissed*. On the flip side, there's stuff in the Bond films of the past that some would find uncomfortable today, for example).

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

That's not true.

You might personally enjoy the CW, but they're in no way shape of form as successful as HBO. Nor do they reach the same audience or make the same money. HBO is a catalogue of content. You're subscribing to a service and enjoying premium content.

The CW are network soaps- made really cheap, and really fast. Different audiences.

True, but there is an argument to be made that the floor for television (IE the CW) is significantly raised nowadays to a level that it never would have reached years ago and the ceiling has been pushed for platforms like HBO.

I think more than anything else, people are finally stretching their muscles with longform film storytelling. It used to be that you pitched on concept and even at it's best you'd get shows like X-Files where it had an overarching story, but plenty of standalone things. Shows like Buffy imo really pushed that mix of standalone and overaching, and progressively got to a point where each season was built to have a beginning, middle, and end. That pushed it.