For years people have said in my presence that despite the leftist leanings of Hollywood, the people running it were there to make money.\u00a0 But despite that I watched as Hollywood produced bomb after bomb that preached the leftist creed above all other ingredients in the film.\u00a0 They sacrificed entertainment, artistry and certainly profitability on the altar of woke propaganda.\u00a0 Probably the most egregious of these studios was Disney that sacrificed the virtually unlimited money-making machines of such franchises as Star Wars, Marvel Comics and even the classic Disney princess movies to bang away at woke agenda elements like LGBTQ identity, anti-white racism and feminist dogma.<\/p>\n
Well, maybe, just maybe, the tide has turned.\u00a0 I think this week we received two data points that signal a definite reversal.\u00a0 The first is the news today that Sky Dance has cancelled the third season of \u201cStar Trek \u2013 Starfleet Academy.\u201d\u00a0 This was a two-season installment that has been estimated to have cost somewhere between two hundred and four hundred million dollars.\u00a0 Now that is an enormous amount of money but what makes it astonishing is that when this show ran it wasn\u2019t one of the top ten shows on Paramount Plus.\u00a0 It was regularly beaten out by reruns of \u201cEveryone Loves Raymond\u201d and \u201cSponge Bob Square Pants.\u201d\u00a0 In fact, it was even worse than this.\u00a0 In order to build up buzz for the first episode, it was put on YouTube for free and less than a thousand people watched it the first day.\u00a0 Think about that.<\/p>\n
Paramount was bought by Skydance last year so they didn\u2019t order this show.\u00a0 And the production company (Alex Kurtzman\u2019s Secret Hideout) is finishing its contract with Paramount in April and it\u2019s looking like they won\u2019t be doing anymore Star Trek for Skydance.\u00a0 And Skydance is probably going to purchase Warner Brothers this year and that may have a very great impact on how the DC Universe movies look going forward.\u00a0 So, there is an example of changing sensibilities going forward in Hollywood.\u00a0 Enormous costs for productions that no one wants to watch are ending.\u00a0 So that\u2019s the negative case, what won\u2019t be happening anymore.<\/p>\n
As for what is happening on the positive side let\u2019s look at what Amazon\/MGM have released this week.\u00a0 Andy Weir (the author of the book turned movie \u201cThe Martian\u201d) wrote the book \u201cProject Hail Mary\u201d in 2021.\u00a0 It cost two hundred million to make.\u00a0 It made $141 million on its first weekend.\u00a0 This is one of the biggest openings in the last four years.\u00a0 And it is predicted to be a big hit.\u00a0 It\u2019s a movie whose only human character is a white male.\u00a0 The only diversity casting is an alien creature that looks like a pile of small rocks.\u00a0 There\u2019s no woke elements at all.\u00a0 Just an adventure story about a man light years from Earth cooperating with an unearthly creature to save both of their planets.\u00a0 From all of the reviews I\u2019ve read it\u2019s a solid movie that the whole family can and probably will enjoy and it doesn\u2019t say anything about the LGBTQ or how white people stole America from the Indians or enslaved black people.\u00a0 And the fact that the astronaut is not a girl boss but a young white man I take to be aspirational for every white American boy who has been told for the last couple of decades that they shouldn\u2019t get a turn at being the good guy.\u00a0 So that\u2019s the positive side.\u00a0 Hollywood can make good movies and people will come to the theaters to see them.\u00a0 And they can make money doing it.<\/p>\n
Maybe the tide has turned.<\/p>\n