Why You Can’t Find Anything to Watch

You’re Not “The Audience” Anymore

Photo by Matthew Christopher, from “Abandoned America” (Logos added)

There are now more films and TV series immediately available to the viewer than any other time in history. And yet, there have never been more complaints that “there’s nothing to watch.”

The complaint is squarely placed on new films and series. With some exceptions, there are no truly new films or series. Reboots, sequels, and remakes continue to dominate, and fatigue the audience. So instead, many people will reach back to some old series they once loved and rewatch from the first season. Or they’ll finally get around to watching THE WIRE, like everyone told them they should. Or they’ll get a Criterion Channel subscription and watch all the great films of the past. But they’re not getting the new films they want.

This mainly because individual viewers, for the first time since film began, are no longer the audience.

STREAMING EXECUTIVES, NOT VIEWERS

Film and series in the past had always taken the audience into consideration. Some gave them “what they wanted.” While others, more magically, gave them what they were missing. After all, that audience was the financial end-game. Those individual audience members were each going to drive to the theater and purchase a ticket, or turn on the TV and elevate the ratings, allowing that network to demand more ad dollars. Your films or series were for those viewers. You were appealing to them, and they were the reason you continued to have money to shoot more films and series.

When the focus on box office sales and TV ratings shifted to a focus on subscription volume and user scaling, “the audience” changed from individual viewers to streaming company executives. The film and series producers were on longer dependent on whether or not the individual viewers liked the projects, but rather whether or not the streaming platform felt the project suited their purposes. The individual viewers no longer mattered, financially speaking.

Those streaming platform purposes are keeping people on the site, and scaling internationally.

Keeping people on the site is largely focused on something I mentioned a couple of years ago. At the time, TV series showrunner friends of mine were getting notes from streaming executives that their episodes weren’t “second screen enough.” They didn’t want the shows to be too interesting or plot-heavy (aka “normal”) that it distracted the viewer from their “primary screen” of their phone. The streamers wanted to ensure that the viewer kept the streaming service on for as long as possible, something simply playing in the background and not intruding on their social media scrolling. Something the “user" could have on while they cook dinner, answer emails, and repost pictures of sunsets. Something during which they can run to the bathroom, and have missed nothing when they return. “Stuff,” “Content,” or as a friend once remarked, “Visual Muzak.” Elevator music for the eyes.

Scaling internationally means making sure your projects are easily understood by people who don’t know the language used in the project. The simple or startling genres: Good Guys vs Bad Guys, violence, action, thrillers, horror. Comedy is more difficult because humor is often culture-specific. Rom-Coms are also often culture-specific. And dramas are usually nuanced, and necessitate following the dialogue.

The focus on those simple or startling genres was the foundation for the straight-to-DVD (or straight-to-video) market of the 1980’s and 1990’s. To maximize the DVD sales for films that did not participate in any box office revenue, you had to appeal to the international market. You were dependent on selling as many DVDs as possible worldwide. So, one would see a lot of these simple or startling genres in the discount bins at Blockbuster. There was no prestige to these films, and they were mainly dismissed as cash-grab projects.

The combination of these two efforts, Visual Muzak and Straight-To-DVD, results in much of the bland, non-sensical, soul-crushing “content” you see today.

GENERATIVE AI CEOS AS THE NEW “AUDIENCE”

And coming down the pike is a new “audience” for former filmmakers to satisfy. A new financial end-game, a new audience to please for the sake of financial rewards: Generative AI companies. The GAI films you’ll see coming out of the whisper of what the film business once was will not have you the viewer in mind at all. The new “paying audience” doesn’t want what you want. They want to see their software showcased. (Software that is completely comprised of illegally ingesting 100 years of films and series, chopping it up and regurgitating spoonfuls. But you can read about that in other essays.)

So unfortunately, you the individual viewer are not “the audience.” Because you are no longer the financial end-game.

The good news is that there is a New Film Business emerging, powered by real filmmakers who are called to filmmaking. Myself and others are committed not only to the art of filmmaking, but moving that art to the next level. In doing that, we give individual viewers, the real audience, what they’re missing.

The tricky part is finding those projects. When you find a real filmmaker, watch their films and see which films they are recommending and championing. There’s a tunnel through this Content/GAI inferno. Just find the people who are already in the tunnel.

Art of Filmmaking Tunnel Starter kit:

• Film Club on my RACE TRACK site. If you want new and different films, watch my new avant-garde films, LOOK and FEEL there.

• CREDO 23. An organics stamp for films that do not use AI. Look for it on films and series to know you’re watching the real deal.

• CREDO 23 Film Festival. Every March. Bold, fresh films moving the artistic football down the field. No AI allowed, and all the proceeds after costs go to the filmmakers.

• Reed Morano, director and cinematographer. A fellow CREDO 23 council member, Reed is a raw filmmaker, dedicated to the art form. Her films here.

• Matthew Weiner, showrunner, writer, director. Another fellow CREDO 23 council member. Always pushing the edges of the revelation of human behavior, his new play JOHN WILKES BOOTH just premiered in Baltimore.

• Sean Baker, writer and director. The original the-hell-with-it-I’ll-make-a-film-with-an-iPhone filmmaker with TANGERINE. Other films include STARLET, THE FLORIDA PROJECT, RED ROCKET, and the 2025 Oscar winner ANORA.

• Justin Kurzel, director. I recently saw his film THE ORDER, with Jude Law. What stood out to me was that it was far better than it needed to be. And that counts for a lot in this “content era.”

• Jonathan Glazer, writer and director. Glazer’s film, ZONE OF INTEREST, was one of the creative stand-outs of the last 10 years. Again, it is much harder to do a highly creative film in a climate of artistic indifference.

• Giovanni Ribisi, cinematographer and actor. Ribisi recently took on the herculean challenge of becoming not only a cinematographer, but a major contributor to the restoration of film cameras. He is a champion of the medium of physical film. His latest cinematography work can be seen in STRANGE DARLING.

There are more, but this should get you started, if you want to be in the tunnel to The New.