So the other day I published a think-piece about why I think Star Wars films will continue to get canceled, or at the very least, stay in development hell for long periods of time. In that same article, I mentioned that I further believe this will be the case for other franchises, and Hollywood in general, as this is how things tended to go before Marvel’s “assembly-line model” came into play…
Towards the end of that post, I also provided an example of how, when it was announced a few months ago that The Batman: Part II was getting delayed to 2026, certain Internet personalities acted like the sky was falling… I would like to clarify now that I was alluding to John Campea.
Before I go any further, let me make one thing clear: I’m not bashing John Campea. Out of all the “movie news YouTubers” still around, he’s actually one of the more reasonable ones still. That said, I find myself agreeing with less and less stuff he says these days (he doesn’t seem too bothered about differing opinions, though). When he did his video covering the delay of The Batman: Part II, I couldn’t help but think the entire time “Dude, who cares about some Batman movie getting pushed back a year?” And I’m saying that as someone who considers 2022’s The Batman to be one of their favorite movies of all time…
But after writing my post the other day, I thought about Campea’s rant more, and came to the following conclusion: Delays like that of The Batman: Part II are another nail in the coffin of the “golden age” of blockbusters that we all got so used to in the 2010s. And for people like John, it’s another step towards the possible end of their very livelihood…
Think about it! Guys like Campea make an entire living off of movie news, and movie reviews. But if we go back to a pre-MCU age where franchise films take forever to make and don’t come out as often, people like him won’t be able to cover big movie news as often, nor would they be able to review big movies as often…
If you still don’t believe me, look at it this way: The early 2010s (mainly 2012) saw the rise of “bigger” franchises (MCU, DCEU, Disney buying Star Wars, etc.), as well as the rise of an entire internet culture built around discussing said franchises, and being excited for them. We had Campea leading AMC Movie Talk, which later became Collider Movie Talk, and introduced many of us to such personalities as Jeremy Jahns, Perri Nemiroff, Wendy Lee, Robert Burnett, John Rocha, Jon Schnepp (RIP), Tiffany Smith, Mark Ellis, Kristain Harloff, Marc Fernandez, Ken Napzok, Steve “Frosty” Weintraub, Dennis Tzeng, Mark Reilly, Roxy Striar… Maybe Collider had too many people…
Collider wasn’t the only game in town, either. There was also Screen Junkies. Most people know them for creating Honest Trailers, but during the peak of pop culture in the 2010s, they also had plenty of other film-related programs (Movie Fights, SJ News, etc.). In fact, at one point they even had their own STREAMING SERVICE, and funny enough, it was titled ScreenJunkies+, long before the likes of Disney+, AppleTV+, and Paramount+ all came into fruition. This service even had a program that involved Kevin Smith, of all people, unboxing toys. That’s how much money all these nerds used to have! And again, Screen Junkies allowed us all to get to know Dan Murrell, Roth Cornett, Danielle Radford, Joe Starr, Spencer Gilbert, Hal Rudnick, Nick Mundy, Andy Signore (more on him later), etc.
I like to refer to this whole culture that the likes of Collider and Screen Junkies pioneered as “Hollywood Jr.,” since it’s a culture that really only exists cause of Hollywood itself. So now the question is: What exactly happened to Hollywood Jr.? The first nail in the coffin came in 2017, which saw Campea having a falling out with Collider (leading to his departure), as well as movies becoming more divisive (The Last Jedi), franchises in general collapsing (Justice League), and the MeToo movement impacting Hollywood overall (and Screen Junkies directly).
Things limped on for another two years, and then 2019 saw the Infinity Saga, the Skywalker Saga, Game of Thrones, and Gotham all coming to an end, among other things. That same year also saw the launch of competitive streaming services (Disney+ and AppleTV+ mainly, with Max, Peacock, and Paramount+ all soon to follow). All of which have caused fatigue. Then at the start of 2020, Collider Movie Talk and its related programs were all dissolved, leading its staff to have to find their own individual voices on YouTube or elsewhere. Then Covid happened. Then the strikes. Recently, Screen Junkies was reduced down to nothing but Honest Trailers. And as I mentioned in my previous post, every major franchise is now struggling to get things off the ground as often as they used to, and I don’t see that ending any time soon (Blade just lost another director by the way).
So what does that mean now for people like John Campea? In all honesty, Campea himself will probably be fine, but that doesn’t mean everyone else in his position will. Marc Fernandez has already disappeared from YouTube entirely, whereas others like Andy Signore now sustain themselves by making clickbait videos of celebrity drama/gossip and outrage culture (Andy only has himself to blame for his own situation though, to be fair). Dan Murrell has made box office numbers his entire personality now, but I’m starting to worry that there won’t even be a box office for him to analyze in the near future…
If I had to guess, Campea specifically will probably keep coasting along on “smaller” movie news, in between the bigger events that will continue to become more and more rare (again)…
I’d like to close out by making the following point: If YouTube existed in the 1990s, back when Star Wars was in a coma and frequent superhero films were still a geek’s wet dream, none of the people mentioned in this post would’ve been able to sustain a living doing what they do. If we return to a time like that (which is starting to seem more and more likely), then all these folks should thank their lucky stars that they were able to build a following in the 2010s…
Peace!
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