11 Comments
Dec 17, 2023Liked by David Chen

I’ll be honest, I got turned on to you by Brooey. Deschanel in her critics video. I started following you on Letterboxd and soon found your newsletter. I feel so lucky to have found. Your voice is one I very much enjoy and appreciate. These predictions I can get behind!

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Super interesting predictions! Thank you! I think I'll be returning to the movie theaters more in 2023 now that I learned some cinemas do half-off Tuesdays!

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Dec 17, 2023Liked by David Chen

This is one of your best newsletters, Dave!

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Superheroes dominated the box office during the 2010s and 2020s just as westerns once dominated network television in the 1950s and 1960s. In both cases, overproduction and outright rejection of the desires of the audience in favor of the desires of the management killed a golden goose.

I don't think superheroes are completely done, though. There are many independent authors and comic book writers (including myself) working under the radar in the genre, besides the established names. What's ended is merely the ability of the genre to completely payoff any studio's yearly bills.

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Thanks for nailing why TikTok has felt so weird the last couple months. Enshittification takes no prisoners. Not even aspiring soft-pants commenters.

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Great predictions! I’m holding out hope that the decline in tentpole superhero cinema and major theaters chains will lead to a concurrent rise in mid-budget movies and rep theaters. Maybe that’s blind naïveté, but I think people still want good movies--and I think they’ll find it more and more outside of the $200 million blockbuster economy!

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The AI prediction is pretty novel and interesting although I feel like the rest are shoe-ins

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Bleak!

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