Netflix started the 2010s by toppling Blockbuster and ended the last decade by upending the complete business
The 2010s have been chock stuffed with speedy, disruptive and turbulent change — arguably some of the explosive eras for the media and leisure business: the launch and domination of streaming, the ballooning of film franchises and the spark of the #MeToo period that introduced down a few of Hollywood’s strongest figures.
The decade was nothing wanting riveting.
These main shifts and some others have helped to outline the enterprise of Hollywood and the way shoppers work together with content material and tradition within the final 10 years. Let’s dig in.
1. Streaming is the way in which of the long run
Streaming started towards the tip of the prior decade when YouTube grew to become a staple in on-line video and Netflix started streaming its licensed content material and gaining in reputation. Hulu, together with Netflix, additionally launched in 2007. But round 2013, Netflix debuted its first authentic (extra like co-produced) sequence, “House of Cards,” and streaming as we all know it in the present day actually took off.
“House of Cards” proved two issues: The content material sport isn’t unique to legacy tv and seasons don’t have to roll out one episode at a time.
Viewers have been shocked when Netflix made all 13 episodes of “House of Cards” accessible on the identical day it launched, serving to to usher in a wave of viewers watching TV reveals when they wished to, not when the TV schedule mandated it.
Netflix has amassed greater than 100 million subscribers around the globe, and now legacy media corporations like Disney and WarnerMedia — together with just a few tech and retail giants — are following Netflix’s lead into the digital ecosystem.
Netflix started the last decade by toppling Blockbuster. It ended it by upending the complete business.
Also Read: TV within the 2010s: How the New Golden Age Turned Into the ‘Peak TV’ Era
2. Intellectual property is king
It’s onerous to reply the query of which got here first, however wanting on the domination of IP and franchises within the final 10 years does beg the query: Did IP grow to be foreign money due to the demand for content material within the streaming age? Was the demand for IP a results of dwindling field workplace exercise? Or did the give attention to protected IP consequence within the former?
Hollywood has all the time been risk-averse, so franchises and in any other case acquainted IP have all the time carried weight, however the previous decade has taken the idea to a completely new degree. At the tip of the earlier decade and the start of the 2010s, Marvel Studios laid the groundwork for a franchise — no, an interconnected universe the likes of which had by no means been seen and should by no means once more. The unparalleled success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has grow to be considerably of a template for any studio (together with Disney, with a few of its different properties) trying to capitalize on IP.
As streaming providers blossomed this decade, corporations wanted acquainted movies, TV reveals and tales to draw viewers and hold them watching, which gave approach to mad dashes and large checks for movie libraries and established reveals reminiscent of “Friends” and “The Simpsons.”
Also Read: 12 Best Superhero Movies of the Decade, From ‘Avengers’ to ‘Black Panther’ to ‘Joker’ (Photos)
3. The boys membership is over
It was thought-about Hollywood’s worst stored secret: Harvey Weinstein, casting couches, lodge rooms and a long time of sexual assault and predation. In 2017, three journalists, in addition to a number of ladies who’d been victimized, spoke up and shined a lightweight on the disgraced Hollywood producer’s decades-long practices and the programs that allowed them to persist.
The investigations by The Times and The New Yorker, which gained joint Pulitzer Prizes, helped gas a cultural shift in conversations across the dynamics of gender, energy and parity. The conversations gave approach to the #MeToo and #TimesUp actions.
In addition to Weinstein, different highly effective males together with Les Moonves, Bill O’Reilly, Roger Ailes, Matt Lauer, Bryan Singer, R. Kelly,…