What is the Future of Sony Motion Pictures?

You know how Fox is selling off it's entertainment production division? Lots of us thought Sony was going to do that first. So what IS the future of Sony looking like?
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[@casualcraftman1599]

Sony should just focus on making video games because they have a shit ton of third party support in that department.

[@thewatcherofawesomecontent]

Yep sell it off and stick to Playstation/Technology.

[@aliyaist]

A Jumanji anthology would actually be pretty neat. It would be the equivalent of Final Fantasy, only in movies. (But I, too, say this as somebody who hasn't seen the latest one - I was very interested, but with four kids I need to severely prioritize my outings.)

[@8LiterallyJustTheNumber8]

Daniel Sterman That would be pretty cool. I saw the latest one, its a decent self aware comedy that I thoroughly enjoyed. I really find your Final Fantasy idea pretty fascinating. Both films were heavily inspired by the book, but in different ways. I'd be interested in seeing more like that.

[@BramBalk]

I have ZERO bad feelings about Sony Motion Pictures doing bad. Ghostbusters and Robocop were outright insulting. What Sony needs to do is let their creatives be creatives. Make something original and honest. Not something that executives want because someone said something stupid in a focus group.

[@maurinetritch4901]

I like the numbers and the research. I didn't feel like it was superfluous or dominated your video, it just backed up your point like it was supposed to. I came out of it much more informed than I went in.

[@CouncilofGeeks]

For how rarely I do this kind of research, it's nice to know it helped.

[@benw4409]

Disney, Universal and Warner Bros are all fairly stable I would say. Paramount and Sony are on their way out.

[@dude_1983]

The only franchise I really care about that Sony has is Spider-Man. If Sony wants to get out of the film business, selling the Spider-Man film rights back to Marvel is my geek dream.

[@MrRjhyt]

It doesn't matter who owns the studios, if the films are terrible. If the logic is 'tentpole' or nothing, then there will be flops, and mega-flops. The history is clear on this with 'Waterworld', 'The Postman', and before Kevin Costner. One big budget failure can and has sunk studios. While I suspect the importance of box-office will not alter, the bottom line is becoming more complicated. With product placement, rampant in Adam Sandler films, and the rising influence of Netflix being felt too. Perhaps the changing market will drive the studios to try harder with smaller budgets, and a more diverse range. But I suspect that film making is too much of a lottery for many companies.

[@seanhenderson5996]

Some day, probably not many years from now, we will wake up in a world where there is only one studio that makes blockbusters. Hopefully there will also be a few other studios similar to Blumhouse (at least in terms of budgeting).

[@gabrielarredondo3825]

Besides their Spider-Man franchise, you can tell Sony is desperate for franchises. To the point of green lighting a movie about emojis and a Dark Tower movie that sums up the entire book series in 90 minutes with absolutely no build-up or development.

[@user-sh3vz3ol3j]

Sony has never been a successful movie studio, never. It's as simple as that. Having said that, lesser studios is not good for the industry or for us, the movie-goers so I hope they manage to stay afloat. Unfortunately, as evident with what they're STILL trying to do with their Spiderverse, they don't have a clue as to how to course correct so as you said, the likelihood that their movie division will be sold to another company is a matter of time.

[@Kasino80]

I don't get why they don't make movies out of their video games. Do what Marvel does with their comics, make the stories fit cinematic storytelling. There are so many games that can be made into movies...IF they do it right and set up a propper universe.

[@cable78]

Next: Disney buys BBC...

[@kaichen04]

Universal in a similar boat to Sony? Universal often is the only studio that rivals Disney in revenues and profits and the only one to have beaten them in recent years, as recently as 2015.

[@Lycosyncer]

Yeah, I think it's actually Paramount that is struggling right now and not Universal.

[@GuanoLad]

I think the answer is to reduce budgets and cut the Hollywood overpaid chaff*. The huge studios like Disney and Universal can afford the mega-budgets, lots of smaller studios cannot, so I think the answer for Sony is to become one of those smaller studios. There aren't any mid-budget movies anymore (that's where Netflix is thriving), so maybe that's where Sony should go to fill that gap. *Movie stars are not a guarantee for opening a movie anymore, and lesser knowns are just as good as anyone for a mid-level comedy or romance, so why not save some money there.

[@kaichen04]

Mid-level is where you need stars, especially internationally.

[@elizabeths50]

pretty soon it will be just a few studios and that is where you will get 100% of your information and entertainment. Does 1984 even sound creepy?

[@VeNate13]

Really what Sony needs to do is stop trying to reboot old franchises and stop trying to complete with Disney and Universal and start to make their own completely new franchise or a franchise based off a popular underused property. Basically they should focus more on PlayStation and less on films. Also they need to sell Spider-Man back to Disney.

[@KerstinMamma]

I did enjoy the research and I also liked the green mountain cabaret shout-out. I do agree that Sony will eventually get out of the bizz but I think that they are going to set that house on fire before handing it over to someone else.

[@mmilller452]

U should do 1 on the disaster that is paramount

[@CouncilofGeeks]

Possibly. The reason I favored Sony in this conversation is because they could theoretically follow Fox's lead and sell off entertainment assets. Paramount (or rather the parent company Viacom) is similar to Universal in that it's just an entertainment company and there wouldn't be much left if they started selling those assets. I suppose it's possible they could unload their movie division to focus exclusively on television, but I don't see that as being as likely as Sony.

[@madelinechamberlain7212]

Love him trying to be Grace

[@homoguy563]

Great video...informative.I feel like I learned a bit more about the movie business and how it's changing.I know these conglomerates often own both movie studios and TV networks, but I hope you do one on TV networks specifically.

[@CouncilofGeeks]

The thing is I don't have as sound a grasp at how TV works as a business model. In a broad sense I get movies, and I really just had to look up the numbers. I could stare at network figures all day and not be entirely sure how to interpret them.

[@crancko1]

Very good video I enjoyed it. I hate to see another company heading south and being acquired though.

[@PuertoGeekan]

My business acumen is pretty bad, so pardon my ignorance. Is it ever favorable for a company like Sony to have one of their branches operating at a loss, to help offset profits in other branches? For tax purposes and such?

[@CouncilofGeeks]

Short answer... not really. There are plenty of things that businesses do to minimize their tax burden, but at this point having a deliberately unprofitable wing of the company would be one of the clunkier and less lucrative ways to do it. It's way easier just to move your money and/or operations around to places that will tax you less. There's also the issue of stockholders who are not going to be thrilled about the financial dead weight.

[@Coolcoolcooldude]

Doesn't Universal own Blumhouse? Those films have small budgets and they make decent money.

[@CouncilofGeeks]

Their current distribution deal with Universal but it doesn’t own them.

[@nightowl8477]

I'm pretty sure James Corden is stuck in a contract with Sony.

[@theshadowdirector]

Big companies nit investing in mid-tier projects? Sadly that's been a destructive practice for most of the big third party game publisher have ben employing. Which is why so man of hem put out so few titles per year now and really lack diversity. We'l, if it happens, Marvel gets full control over Spider-Man back and I can get Venom in an actual Spider-Man film. :)

[@Lycosyncer]

Universal? They don't seem to be struggling at all because they are the only studio that seems capable of rivaling Disney in terms of having popular sustainable franchises. The only other major film studio that is struggling right now besides Sony is Paramount because looking at their film slate in the last few years, it also seems rather pitiful too because with Transformers now taking a major hit because people are now finally catching onto the bad quality of the films as the last one is the worst performing one to date and their always profitable Mission Impossible and Star Trek film franchises always taking way too long to get out, it wouldn't surprise me that it would either be Sony or Paramount are the next major film studios to kick the bucket.

[@meganrobinson9867]

Paramount are also in a bit of a mess

[@TheNinamut]

Many crapy Spider-man games weren't even published by Sony. I believe, Marvel has more power over games about their characters, and only now they understand that games are important too. And now one of Sony's studios is making the exclusive Spider-man PS4 game, so... I don't know, it's just my thoughts on the last bit of the video.

[@simonshurville612]

Nice !!!

[@r3n3gad33]

Answer: Dead

[@epm1012]

1:56 Actually, it’s just PlayStation. Every other division has been consistently failing.