At this point I’m going to Ladbrokes and betting against everything Kotaku promotes. They are like Jim Cramer of the gaming industry.

    • bigmclargehuge@lemmy.worldEnglish
      24·
      3 months ago

      I had a conversation with my sister about that recently.

      The amount of shows and movies that have $100,000,000+ budgets is rising, yet more and more of them feature very limited sets, small casts of mostly mid range talent, and a dozen executive producers all putting up their own money (this is all especially prominent with big shows on streaming networks, cough Star Trek cough The Acolyte)

      Here’s my comparison: a group of 10 investors come out and announce they’re spending a billion dollars to develop a new luxury car. They drum it up as being the next big thing. Then, when it comes out, it’s about as nice and luxurious as a base model Toyota Camry. Fine, but not “a billion dollars” fine. Immediately, everyone would be wondering where the hell that money went? There’s definitely a chance it was just squandered, but you have to wonder. When you have a group of private investors with executive power over the project, what goes on behind closed doors?

      For all we know, they’re literally just passing massive checks in a circle to one another to say “yes, it says right here in our bank records that we spent a combined $100,000,000”, meanwhile only 25% actually goes into the production, and they pocket the rest. Then, when the flock of people have to come and check out the new megaproject, all they need to recoup is a few million more than they spent (far less than the perceived budget), and they can run for the hills.

      Anywho, crackpot theory time over. But think about it, if my simple brain can think this stuff up, why can’t the hollywood bigwigs, who actually have the capital to make it happen?

      • BallsandBayonets@lemmings.worldEnglish
        11·
        3 months ago

        It gets better, because all the money they “lost” on a movie they can also write off. Oops, we didn’t make any money this year because we put out 10 billion dollar movies and only made 10 million at the box office. Tax break please!

      • theneverfox@pawb.socialEnglish
        0·
        3 months ago

        For all we know, they’re literally just passing massive checks in a circle to one another to say “yes, it says right here in our bank records that we spent a combined $100,000,000”, meanwhile only 25% actually goes into the production, and they pocket the rest.

        That would be illegal and easily discovered

        But you could pay $10M to hire another company to do the sound mixing. They might spend $500k to do the work. You might also be the owner of that company, and the money ends up back in your pocket…And that’s not embezzlement or a kickback, because that’s what it’s called when poor people do it