What's the Most Profitable Movie of the Year? (No, I Won't Watch It.)

I share updates on ten recent articles

Below is a mixture of tricks and treats for Halloween. I offer updates on ten recent articles—covering a wide range of topics.

We’ll start and finish with some good news. But get ready for scary stuff in-between—hey, you should expect no less on the last day of October.

---

If you want to support my work, please take out a premium subscription (just $6 per month).

---

The young grandson of jazz pianist Bill Evans achieves a milestone.

I recently shared a happy story about the grandson of jazz piano legend Bill Evans (1929-1980). This 15 year old was traveling to New York to compete in a high school jazz contest, but already showed great promise at that young age.

As it turned out, his band took top honors in this elite competition. And Jaden Evans is getting better all the time. Earlier this week, his grandmother Nenette Evans alerted me that the youngster, now age 16, has released his first album.

Jaden is still developing, but he already demonstrates great poise, a rich harmonic palette, and a singing tone at the keyboard that will remind you of (no surprise) Bill Evans.

I have no reservations about calling this teenager a prodigy, and I expect much from him in the future. For those who know the life story of his grandfather—in which both sublimity and tragedy are inseparably intermixed—this is a heartwarming development.

---

Bob Dylan takes control of his Twitter feed—and treats it like an eccentric diary.

Last Halloween, I shared my ultimate horror fiction reading list. And now—quite unexpectedly—Bob Dylan endorses one of the more obscure titles on my list, The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen.

Source

I plan to write more about this bizarre and disturbing book in the near future. It anticipates current-day developments and, for all its strangeness, has lessons to teach us now.

By the way, Bob Dylan’s Twitter feed is a refreshing departure from the norm, allowing us to hear from the artist himself, who has apparently wrested control away from his publicists. He now posts quirky diary-ish tweets—and is one of the last celebrities using this platform the way it was originally intended.

I note that he rarely posts about music. He has other concerns.

Source

---

What’s the most profitable movie of the year?

Let’s stick with horror for a moment—after all, it is Halloween.

Last month I asked: “How Did Pop Culture Get So Gloomy?” I pointed out that horror is a pervasive theme in our culture now—and not just in the days leading up to an election.

Just consider the surprise hit movies of 2024. Two gruesome horror films are generating blood money for Hollywood in copious spurts—unexpectedly giving the big studios an autumn boost to their bottom line.

Terrifier 3 only cost $2 million to make, but has already brought in more than $50 million at the box office. Those are staggering return-on-investment numbers—2,400%. I doubt any other studio film this year can match that profit margin.

I haven’t seen it, but the film is described as a “gory slasher movie” featuring a creepy killer clown.

Such larks!

But this sanguinary story has a strong competitor in Smile 2, which is causing actual smiles at Paramount this month. This movie has already generated $83 million at the box office. It had a higher budget than Terrifier 3—costing $28 million—but is already insanely profitable.

I could go see these tonight, but I think I’ll hand out candy to kids instead

I haven’t seen the film, but (spoiler alert!) according to Wikipedia, this is the closing scene:

Skye finds herself on stage at her tour's opening night at Madison Square Garden….The entity appears and reveals its true form; a large, skinless humanoid with multiple smiling mouths nestled into one another. The entity possesses Skye by breaking apart her mouth and crawling inside….The now-possessed Skye stands up, revealing a menacing smile, and fatally stabs herself in the eye with her microphone in front of thousands of horrified spectators.

Hollywood has become so reliant on horror, that some observers fear consumers might lose their taste for blood.

We can only hope.

Source

Meanwhile, romantic comedies are out of fashion—who wants to see a date movie when they can watch dismemberment and mutilation instead?

Draw your own conclusions.

---

Hollywood still has friends in high places.

But here’s some good news for Hollywood. California politicians have finally awakened to the many predators attacking the state’s most glamorous industry.

Preliminary budget numbers include a plan to give out a stunning $3.75 billion in tax credits to Hollywood over a five year period.

The ruling elites really have no choice. If they don’t act, movie production will inevitably move to Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas (among other ambitious adversaries).

But even this generous infusion may not be enough to avoid an exodus.

---

Prediction: Coffee will taste better next year.

Not long ago, I poked fun at Starbucks in a semi-humorous rant, entitled “Coffee Has Become a Joke.”

I had many complaints about the chain, but offered an especially harsh verdict on its olive oil coffee. I griped that….

The most recent idiocy is the Oleato, a drink that mixes coffee and olive oil. Hey, I love both of those things separately, but putting them together is like mixing oil and….well, like mixing oil and coffee.

It gets worse. They want you to drink this dubious hybrid with enhancements. Starbucks recommends that you enjoy your Starbucks^® Blonde^® virgin olive oil coffee with Golden Foam®, infused with “notes of warm toffeenut and creamy oatmilk.”

To which I respond: Gag® Me® with a (trademarked) Spoon®!

The coffee gods must have been listening to my lamentations, because the new CEO at Starbucks announced yesterday that Oleato will sleep with the fishes. If you want olive oil in your coffee you will need to add it yourself.

The world is healing—at least at the coffee bar.

---

Who makes the most money from music? (Hint: It’s not Taylor Swift.)

I have repeatedly warned that streaming economics are broken—and predicted (starting back in 2017) that the big platforms will impose huge price increases on subscribers.

This is now happening everywhere.

But the numbers are even uglier than I anticipated. For example, here’s what Disney is doing to its loyal customers.

Source

I note that streaming TV platforms have also cut back sharply on the amount of new programming they are funding. So even as they jack up prices, they give you less in return.

Who benefits? That’s easy to answer—the CEO of Spotify makes more money than Taylor Swift. The CEO of Netflix doesn’t do quite so well, but he’s still earning roughly the same amount as Tom Cruise.

This is the new normal—and not just for streaming services. Almost every tech platform is following the same game plan. You’re the user, and will get used.

---

Gift subscriptions to The Honest Broker are now available.

---

What will the Idiot Nephew do next?

This is why so many industry outsiders are now entering the streaming business. I warned last week that Hollywood will soon face 2,000 new competitors.

These new entrants are coming from every direction.

Just yesterday, Nintendo launched its own music streaming app. I expect other companies to do the same.

The only businesses that have shown no ability whatsoever to launch a streaming music platform are traditional music companies—who prefer to sit in their high rent offices waiting for publishing royalty payments to arrive. They will let everybody else control the relationship with the actual consumer.

In time, this will be seen as the biggest mistake in the history of the music industry. (That’s saying quite a bit.)

And why are they so foolish? This is where I just shake my head in dismay, and point to my “idiot nephew theory”:

THE IDIOT NEPHEW THEORY: Whenever a record label makes a strategic decision, it picks the option that the boss’s idiot nephew thinks is best.

---

TikTok puts the squeeze on indie labels.

Here’s one example of what happens when the music industry abandons direct distribution with the consumer.

This assault comes from TikTok, a company sharply criticized here in the past.

According to Variety:

Apparently with no advance notice, TikTok announced that it is ending its deal with Merlin—the 500-plus member nonprofit independent-label trade group that was created to place indies on more-equal footing with the majors—and instead will negotiate with each label individually.

TikTok already went to war against Universal Music—and probably won (although I can’t prove that). In this latest move, TikTok is pursuing a divide-and-conquer strategy against smaller labels—it’s effectively refusing the right to collective bargaining in the indie music business.

That should be illegal.

---

Is AI slop coming here?

I’m deeply concerned about AI slop polluting the culture. I’ve already done a lot of hand-wringing here at The Honest Broker. And I’ll do more in the future, if I can find any part of my hand still unwrung.

There are so many alarming developments to share now. For example:

1. Somebody recently set up a completely new Facebook profile as a test—and 95% of the news feed was taken over by AI-generated articles. This seems to confirm (as anticipated here) that large web platforms are deliberately replacing actual writing by real authors with AI slop.

2. AI slop is flooding Medium. That’s especially alarming because Medium is (somewhat) similar to Substack, and this suggests that bots could attack us even here in our comfy enclave.

3. AI is now creating fake music from the past. Recordings are showing up online with phony claims that they were released in the 1970s or 1980s or whenever. But it’s all deception.

---

Most people hate AI—and the numbers are overwhelming.

I take some consolation in the growing public awareness of the harm done by generative AI. A new study makes clear how much people dislike this technology.

This survey of more than 2,000 Americans reveals:

• 83% believe AI will reduce trust in journalism.

• 76% believe AI will make users lazier.

• 65% believe AI will make it harder to trust other people.

• 62% believe AI will make people less intelligent.

• Only 18% of respondents want less government regulation of AI.

In all of human history, there has never been so much money invested in innovation that the public rejects with such intense antipathy.

The supply chain CEOs want to force this on us. But they will feel a backlash from the public far beyond anything Silicon Valley has experienced before.

It’s already starting.