Dear Hollywood,
I recently learned that many of the biggest names in film and television have penned an open letter to film studios. They hope that Hollywood, as a whole, will pick up the mantle left by Participant Films after it shut down operations following two decades of making movies, most of which no one has ever heard of.
They want you, the film and television industry, to keep making these “important” movies.
I even get why they say that. I’d imagine that there’s a certain satisfaction in working on a movie that has a message you agree with.
Yet, as a member of the filmgoing public, and on behalf of countless other members of that filmgoing public, I’m asking you to ignore that.
Recent headlines about the film industry haven’t been all puppies and daisies. Projects are losing massive amounts of money. Studios like Marvel, which was once a license to print money, are rolling back how many movies they make because they can’t take losses like they did with The Marvels, among others.
The answer to this is not to cater to the demands of the people who make movies, but to listen to the public that goes to movies.
Writing about the open letter, Breitbart’s John Nolte wrote:
No one asked me to sign, but I would have signed and done so gladly. Watching Hollywood piss money away on their echo chamber porn puts a real smile on my face. Watching these movies crash and burn puts true joy in my heart.
Hey, where’s the open letter for a return to movies that don’t suck?
Where’s the open letter demanding Hollywood stop the woketardery and deliver movies for the masses like it used to… Movies for normal people without gay sex, scolding, and lectures. Movies with complicated characters, great stories, and universal themes?
How about an open letter demanding an end to the propaganda, so art can return to movie-making?
Well, this is that open letter.
The filmgoing public does not necessarily share your politics. They don’t want to be lectured either, especially on what is moral, by an industry that allowed predators to not just exist but to thrive and achieve amazing levels of power with which they can abuse others.
It’s hypocritical to think that your industry is in a position to lecture anyone on anything.
No, you probably don’t like hearing this, especially as there’s a chance that most people in the industry aren’t monsters looking to prey upon the vulnerable. Yet as someone who has always loved movies, I feel obligated to tell you what you don’t want to hear.
Participant Films was beloved by the Hollywood elite, but a look at the movies they put out includes mostly titles no one has heard of, followed by a handful of “important” movies that few people actually enjoyed and none that packed theaters.
Following that is a recipe for disaster, and it’s a recipe that your industry has been following closely enough for far too long.
What the filmgoing public wants is pretty simple, and you’re still equipped to provide it.
We want entertainment. We want stories. Sure, spectacle is great and we want that as well from time to time, but we want to have tales that stir the imagination or that make us thankful to be alive. We want to feel alive.
In short, we want to walk out of the theater happy.
While there will always be a market for movies that have some kind of a moral message—and I know better than to expect you to never make one of those movies again—making movies designed to entertain is what will put butts back in theater seats.
Honestly, we miss the days when we’re at the ticket booth trying to decide which movie we want to see more because we want to see so many of them. We miss the days of waiting impatiently for a favorite to be available for home viewing because we loved it in the theater so much.
That’s not what you’ve given us for years now.
Instead, we get actors and directors saying that their films aren’t for men, who then get upset when men don’t want to see their movies. We get actors who seek to lecture us who then don’t understand why we no longer care to watch their work.
Well, that and reboots and remakes of beloved properties that suck the very soul out of them, often in service to the same narrative that is keeping so many people away from the cinema in the first place.
You’ve followed enough of Participant’s playbook that you’re already struggling when you should be thriving. Don’t compound this mistake by doubling down on it.
Oh, Hollywood, it would be nice if you just tried to find ways to keep me entertained, keep my family entertained, and simply stop thinking you were in a position to lecture anyone on anything.
Sincerely,
Tom Knighton
I don’t have a way for other people to sign this, but I suppose you can share it, link to it with your thoughts, or do anything else you can to potentially make it so the powers that be in Hollywood might potentially see it and if miracles do exist and can happen on something like this, listen.
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Funny how for rich leftists it's always "you should pay for what we consider important", not "we will pay for what we consider important".
(See also rich people calling for others to pay more taxes, but themselves not making use of the options to give more than the minimum required from THEIR wealth.)