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<title>The Industry That Ate Itself - Samantha Vero Friis</title>
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<a href="/" class="back">← back</a>
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<p class="tag">// opinion</p>
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<h1>The Industry<br />That Ate<br /><span>Itself</span></h1>
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<div class="byline">
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<span>Samantha Vero Friis</span>
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<span>—</span>
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<span>Film & Media</span>
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</div>
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</header>
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<article>
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<p class="lead">
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Cinema is not dying because audiences stopped caring about
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film. It is dying because the people running it stopped
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making decisions that could produce anything worth caring
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about. That is a business problem, not a cultural one - and
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it has a clear and traceable cause.
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</p>
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<h2>How You Optimize a Creative Industry to Death</h2>
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<p>
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Every major studio is ultimately answerable to capital. That
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is not unusual - most industries are. What is unusual about
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film is that capital and creative quality are in unusually
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direct tension. A film that takes a genuine risk might return
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ten times its budget or nothing. A sequel to an established
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property will almost certainly return two or three times its
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budget, reliably, with predictable variance. For a public
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company managing quarterly earnings, the choice is not
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difficult. You make the sequel.
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</p>
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<p>
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The problem is that this logic, applied consistently across
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an entire industry over twenty years, does not produce a
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stable business. It produces a slow erosion of the thing
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that made the business worth having in the first place.
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Audiences do not go to cinemas to see sequels to sequels.
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They go because occasionally something extraordinary happens
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on a screen and they want to be in the room when it does.
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Strip out the extraordinary, and you have stripped out the
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reason to show up.
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</p>
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<h2>The Franchise as a Business Model</h2>
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<p>
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The Matrix is a precise case study because the original
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trilogy was, by design, a complete thing. Three films with
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a beginning, a middle, and an ending. The story resolved.
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The characters finished where they were going. Whatever
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criticisms one might make of Reloaded or Revolutions, the
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trilogy had the structural integrity of something that knew
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it was going to end. That is increasingly rare, and it
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matters - because an ending is what separates a story from
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a content pipeline.
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</p>
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<p>
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The correct response to owning the Matrix IP after the
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trilogy was either to leave it alone or to build something
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genuinely new inside the same universe. The world the
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Wachowskis constructed is large enough. New characters, a
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different era, a different corner of the machine war, a
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different question about the nature of the simulation - any
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of these could have been the basis for something that
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respected the original while standing on its own. A current
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audience does not need Neo. It needs a new conflict with
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real stakes and a story it has not already seen.
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</p>
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<p>
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What Warner Bros. produced instead was The Matrix
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Resurrections in 2021 - eighteen years after the trilogy
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ended - with the same lead actors, the same Agent Smith,
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and a plot that literally resurrects the characters the
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previous films had concluded. The decision to bring back
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the same faces was not a creative one. It was a calculation
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that name recognition and nostalgia would lower the
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perceived risk of the investment. The studio did not believe
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in the universe. It believed in the brand. The audience
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noticed. The film failed - not because the Matrix concept
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is exhausted, but because the film offered nothing except
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proof that the people making it were not willing to find
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out whether it could work without a safety net.
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</p>
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<p>
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Star Wars industrialised this dynamic at a scale that was
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previously unimaginable. The acquisition of Lucasfilm was
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not a creative decision - it was a content library acquisition.
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What followed was the systematic conversion of a mythology
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that had genuine cultural weight into a production pipeline.
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Films, series, spin-offs, prequels, sequels, all released
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on a cadence driven by release windows and subscriber targets
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rather than by whether anyone had something worth saying.
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The audience eventually signalled, clearly, that it was
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exhausted. The response was not to slow down - it was to
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try different combinations of the same components.
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</p>
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<blockquote>
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A franchise is not a creative decision.<br />
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It is a <span>risk management strategy</span> dressed as one.
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</blockquote>
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<h2>Marvel and the Pipeline Fallacy</h2>
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<p>
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The Marvel Cinematic Universe is the most important case
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study in modern film economics because it succeeded
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spectacularly for long enough that the people running it
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drew the wrong conclusion from their own success. From Iron
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Man in 2008 through to Endgame in 2019, the MCU produced
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something genuinely unusual: a connected series of films
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that were, individually, mostly good, and collectively
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something audiences had never experienced before. The
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shared universe worked. Characters crossed over. Threads
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built across years. When it paid off, it paid off at a
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scale that reshaped the entire industry's assumptions about
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what a film could be.
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</p>
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<p>
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The mistake was in identifying why it worked. The shared
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universe was not the product. It was the reward for the
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product. Audiences invested in the connections between
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films because the films themselves had earned that
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investment. Iron Man was a good film. The Winter Soldier
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was a good film. Guardians of the Galaxy was a good film.
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Each one worked as a standalone experience, which meant
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that when they intersected, the intersection meant
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something. The connective tissue had weight because the
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individual pieces had weight.
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</p>
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<p>
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What Marvel - and Disney, which had acquired it - took
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from this was a different lesson: that the pipeline itself
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was the asset. That releasing four films and multiple
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Disney+ series per year, all tagged as MCU content, would
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sustain audience engagement indefinitely because the brand
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had accumulated enough goodwill to carry anything attached
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to it. This is a category error. Goodwill is not a
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renewable resource. It is the residue of past quality,
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and it depletes every time it is spent on something that
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does not deserve it.
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</p>
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<p>
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The post-Endgame MCU inherited an audience that had spent
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eleven years being rewarded for paying attention. What it
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offered in return was volume. Films that were
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competently assembled but existed primarily to move pieces
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into position for the next film. Disney+ series that were
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mandatory viewing if you wanted to understand the cinema
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releases, effectively converting a leisure choice into
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homework. Characters introduced and abandoned. Storylines
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launched and quietly dropped. The shared universe, which
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had once been the payoff for engagement, became the reason
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engagement was required just to follow along. The audience
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began to disengage - not because superhero films stopped
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being possible, but because the implicit contract had been
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broken. The pipeline had forgotten that it was dependent
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on the films being good, not merely connected.
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</p>
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<p>
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Streaming did not fix this dynamic. It accelerated it and
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added a new and more corrosive incentive on top: subscriber
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acquisition. A studio making theatrical films needs a film
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to be good enough that people will pay to see it. A streaming
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platform needs content to exist in sufficient volume and
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variety that enough different people will start a subscription
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and not cancel it. These are genuinely different problems,
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and the second one does not require quality - it requires
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surface area.
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</p>
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<p>
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Altered Carbon is a personal example of what this looks
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like from the other side. The first season was genuinely
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good - ambitious production design, a coherent adaptation
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of its source material, the kind of science fiction that
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takes its own premise seriously. I liked it. I kept
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watching. I was exactly the subscriber Netflix should want
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to retain. The show was cancelled after two seasons
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regardless, and I eventually cancelled the subscription.
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Those two facts are more connected than they might appear.
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</p>
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<p>
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The issue is not that Netflix made a bad decision by its
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own logic. The issue is what its logic measures. A
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subscriber who genuinely loves three or four ambitious
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series and watches them carefully registers identically to
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a subscriber who half-watches twenty shows and never
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finishes any of them - as long as both keep paying. The
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metric that matters is new sign-ups, because that is what
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the market rewards. Retention of engaged viewers who care
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about specific content is a secondary concern at best.
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Cancelling Altered Carbon did not cost Netflix the number
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it was optimizing for. It cost them me - eventually - and
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I was never the unit being counted.
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</p>
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<p>
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What this produces is a library optimized not for quality
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or loyalty but for the minimum threshold of good enough to
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keep someone paying while the next acquisition drives new
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sign-ups. The service does not need you to love it. It
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needs you to not quite hate it enough to cancel. That is a
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meaningful distinction. A library built around that
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incentive looks very different from one built around making
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things worth watching - and over time, the difference
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becomes visible.
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</p>
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<div class="table-wrap">
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<table class="attack-table">
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<thead>
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<tr>
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<th>Model</th>
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<th>Primary incentive</th>
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<th>What it produces</th>
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</tr>
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</thead>
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<tbody>
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<tr>
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<td>Theatrical studio</td>
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<td>
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Maximise opening weekend and franchise
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extension potential
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</td>
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<td class="counter">
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IP acquisitions, sequels, safe casting,
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risk-averse greenlight decisions
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</td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<td>Streaming platform</td>
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<td>
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Subscriber acquisition and retention
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across the broadest possible audience
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</td>
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<td class="counter">
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High volume, uneven quality, early
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cancellations, content churn
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</td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<td>Franchise extension</td>
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<td>
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Extract value from an established
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property at minimal creative cost
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</td>
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<td class="counter">
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Diminishing quality per instalment,
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audience fatigue, brand erosion
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</td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<td>AI-assisted production</td>
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<td>
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Reduce per-unit content cost to near
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zero while maintaining surface coverage
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</td>
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<td class="counter">
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Structural collapse of the floor —
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unlimited slop at no marginal cost
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</td>
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</tr>
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</tbody>
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</table>
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</div>
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<h2>AI Is Where This Was Always Going</h2>
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<p>
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The question AI puts to the industry is not a technical
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one. It is a choice: do we hire a writer, or don't we?
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Do we commission a director with a specific vision, or do
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we generate the output that vision would have produced?
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That choice is now explicit in a way it was not before.
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And given everything the industry has already demonstrated
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about its priorities - the franchise logic, the subscriber
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metrics, the systematic elimination of creative risk —
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there is not much reason to expect most studios and
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platforms to choose the human when the alternative is
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cheaper and more controllable.
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</p>
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<p>
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This is what artists have been worried about, and they are
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right - but not quite for the reason usually given. The
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concern is often framed as AI producing bad films. The more
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accurate concern is that AI produces films optimised for
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the same thing the industry already optimises for: volume,
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familiarity, minimum acceptable quality. AI does not
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introduce a new set of values into the pipeline. It
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enforces the existing ones more efficiently. A model
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trained on what has performed before will reliably produce
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more of what has performed before. For an industry that has
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spent two decades treating proven formula as the safest
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bet, that is not a warning. It is a feature.
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</p>
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<p>
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What gets lost is not quality in the narrow sense - an
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AI can produce something watchable, and watchable is
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already the threshold most of the industry is aiming for.
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What gets lost is the possibility of something genuinely
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unexpected. A writer or director brings a specific
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perspective that did not exist before, that cannot be
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interpolated from what came before, and that occasionally
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produces something the market did not know it wanted until
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it arrived. The first Matrix was that. The early MCU was
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that. The pipeline, fully enforced by AI, eliminates the
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conditions under which that becomes possible. Every film
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becomes a variation on the centroid of everything that
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already worked. The ceiling does not disappear - it just
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gets permanent.
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</p>
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<h2>What Would Fix It</h2>
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<p>
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The honest answer is that the incentive structure would
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need to change, and there is no obvious mechanism by which
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that happens from inside the industry. The studios that
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consistently produce the best work are either small enough
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to be insulated from franchise logic, backed by individuals
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with enough capital and conviction to override short-term
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return calculations, or operating in markets where the
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economics of Hollywood do not apply in the same way.
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</p>
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<p>
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Audiences have some leverage. Theatrical attendance is a
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direct signal. Not watching a streaming series past its
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first episode is a direct signal. The platforms and studios
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read these signals carefully - they just tend to read them
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as evidence that they need better marketing rather than
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better films. That misreading is itself a symptom of an
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industry that has fully internalised the idea that the
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product is secondary to the pipeline.
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</p>
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<hr />
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<p>
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Cinema at its best is one of the few experiences that cannot
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be fully replicated on a phone screen with half your
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attention elsewhere. The industry has spent twenty years
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making content that can be. That is not an accident. It is
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what you get when every structural incentive points toward
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volume, safety, and extraction - and nobody in a position
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to change it has a strong enough reason to try.
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</p>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<a href="mailto:me@samantha42.xyz">me@samantha42.xyz</a>
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<p>© 2026 — All rights reserved</p>
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