BW Media Spotlight

Big studios and publishers no longer seem interested in the smaller projects. Video games and movies seem to be the hardest hit by this, but you can’t have a new character that isn’t using an old character’s brand in some way. I can remember when in comics there were complaints about derivatives, but now it feels like that’s all you get. All the studios want to make AAA games, though the reasons those are failing are a whole other article. Movies have to be big, flashy blockbusters. None of the smaller stories seem to matter anymore, and while that’s killed innovation it has also ruined the smaller projects.

Smaller projects are very important to the future of media. This is where up-and-coming creators should be honing their skills to one day take over major project as the creators of old get too old and take retirement, with a few staying around because they still can or to train the next generation. It’s also a good place to test new techniques and IPs. If you can’t make a franchise, one good standalone may still stick with people. Does anybody even remember Gone With The Wind had a sequel, or that it was only made as a cash grab, failing because nobody heard of it? I don’t even think the book got a movie adaptation. Some of those smaller projects, like the Evil Dead franchise, gain a cult following but would never make it to being a big budget film, though Army Of Darkness tried. Not being a horror fan, that’s the limit of my knowledge of the franchise beyond bringing Bruce Campbell to his own cult status. The only big project I even know him being part of was cameos in parts of the Spider-Man movies because Sam Rami is one of those directors who loves to stick his favorite actors to work with into anything he works on.

There are a number of reasons why: impatience and ego certain play a part, but I want to focus on one particular reason: greed. One of the “seven deadly sins” of Roman Catholic theology. Not just financial greed, although we’ll be starting there, but other forms of greed. From Britannica:

Greed is defined as the immoderate love or desire for riches and earthly possessions. A person can also be greedy for fame, attention, power, or anything else that feeds one’s selfishness. As a deadly sin, greed is believed to spur other sins and further immoral behavior.

Or sometimes really stupid behavior like only trying to make the biggest thing ever in the believe you can own all the money and bring all the people to see it. Or your version of it. Or something completely unrecognizable. Instead we get proof that large may not necessarily be in charge.

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